# Running a Car



## Bobndebs1959 (Jan 13, 2013)

More Qusetions I am afraid!!

What is the average cost of running a car in The Costa Del Sol?
My current car costs me £225 a year in Insurance, £215 a year to Tax, does around 35 mpg and I do around 10,000 miles a year at around £1.35 a litre.
Tyres are about £125 a corner, and servicing around £250 per year.

How would this compare in Spain? 
I realise I would have to buy a car with LHD when I get there and would be looking for a 4WD with a soft top or similar.

Thank in advance


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Like most queries about 'average' costs of things in Spain, it's hard to give a definitive answer as there are so many variables such as:

type and cc of vehicle
where you live - distance to shops etc.
type of terrain - I use more diesel going up and down the track that leads to our perrera in the foothills of the sierra than I would do in a week of just pootering around the village
renewal of parts/repairs: again, I replace my LandRover tyres more frequently than I would for a small saloon car.

Overall I'd say the costs would be roughly equivalent to those of a similar lifestyle in the UK.
I noted yesterday when filling with diesel that costs had risen since the last time I filled up....now 1.44 euros a litre


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

We don-t need a 4 x 4 where we live so we opted for a Ford Fiesta (sports version apparently, and it is quite quick). New tyres are €63 per corner, it's diesel so around €1.40 a litre here, insurance is around €300 a year and servicing is about once every 3 years. We pay no tax as the emissions are below the threshold for paying road tax!!


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## Bobndebs1959 (Jan 13, 2013)

mrypg9 said:


> Like most queries about 'average' costs of things in Spain, it's hard to give a definitive answer as there are so many variables such as:
> 
> type and cc of vehicle
> where you live - distance to shops etc.
> ...


It is around £1.42 per Litre here now, thats what my good lady pays for her diesel, I run on Petrol I am afraid at around £1.32/£1.34 per litre.

I would be looking for a small 4x4, around 2 litre, (Vitara, Rav4 type of thing) and would expect to be running at about 8 or 10 thousand miles a year.
So by my reckoning roughly 1600 L @ eu 1.44 therefore about eu 2,300 per year, or about eu190 per month. How does insurance compare? and what is the annual Road Tax? is it on a sliding scale as here in The UK?
Thansk again:clap2:


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Road tax is dependant on the vehicle's emissions and it is a sliding scale though I think cheaper than UK.


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## Bobndebs1959 (Jan 13, 2013)

thrax said:


> We don-t need a 4 x 4 where we live so we opted for a Ford Fiesta (sports version apparently, and it is quite quick). New tyres are €63 per corner, it's diesel so around €1.40 a litre here, insurance is around €300 a year and servicing is about once every 3 years. We pay no tax as the emissions are below the threshold for paying road tax!!


Sorry Thrax, I was typing when you replied and have just caught up witrh you, thanks for the above info, sounds about %10 cheaper by my reckoning, tyres and fuel being the cheaper end!! My wife runs the Fiesta at the moment, a 1600 TDi Zetec and its a little beauty!! may have to sell mine and bring hers for a while till we buy LHD!!
Although I love my car it is not practical at all, and some may argue, indicative of my Mid Life Crisis

Thanks again


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Diesel and petrol vary in price dependent upon location. Here, yesterday diesel was €1.37 (BP - not the cheapest) and petrol €1.43.

Road tax depends on where you live since it is collected by the town hall.

You will need to do a rethink since, here, everthing is different. A RHD car can be a real pain: not only for overtaking but for car parks etc. It is also likley to have little value if you try to sell and would have to be rematriculated if it is here for more than three months. As a resident you are not allowed to drive around in a car that is on other than Spanish plates.

There are other threads about RHD cars (search RHD)


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Bobndebs1959 said:


> It is around £1.42 per Litre here now, thats what my good lady pays for her diesel, I run on Petrol I am afraid at around £1.32/£1.34 per litre.
> 
> I would be looking for a small 4x4, around 2 litre, (Vitara, Rav4 type of thing) and would expect to be running at about 8 or 10 thousand miles a year.
> So by my reckoning roughly 1600 L @ eu 1.44 therefore about eu 2,300 per year, or about eu190 per month. How does insurance compare? and what is the annual Road Tax? is it on a sliding scale as here in The UK?
> Thansk again:clap2:


I pay 100 euros tax annually for my LandRover Discovery. Don't forget though that there are many toll roads in Spain....there are other ways of getting money off the motorist....

When we moved here from Prague we had a Mercedes CLK and a BMW M3 as well as the Disco, both convertibles. We very soon realised that neither vehicle was suitable for the kind of driving we do here. To give one example: to change direction on an A road here you go off on a 'cambio de sentido'. Sometimes it involves driving a few km the 'wrong' way but it's a safe way of turning. Near our village is a bridge which takes traffic over the river. In summer and in winter when it hasn't rained hard you can drive through under one of the bridge arches. That saves about 5km driving to the next cambio de sentido.
You can also drive across the river to get to the garden centre on the other side, saving a journey of a couple of km. Of course you can't do this after heavy rain - I've seen several vehicles stuck under the bridge. Driving the Disco through and over the stony river bed is a doddle but no way would I risk the Merc or BMW. So the LR is useful in many ways.
The other factor that made me decide to sell the cars was the fact that it's difficult to maintain your car dent and scratch-free. A look round any carpark here bears witness to that.
Then there was the fact that both cars were on UK plates although the Mercedes from Mercedes Nuremburg was LHD. It would have been prohibitively expensive to change the Merc plates as required by law and in any case I felt like a brothel madame driving it around the Marbella/Puerto Banus area - it was metallic black, tinted windows, leather, chrome....the works - my female mid-life crisis. THe BMW needed an MOT certificate and no way could I get it back to the UK so we sold it and used part of the money we got to purchase an expensive Saeco espresso machine!


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## anles (Feb 11, 2009)

thrax said:


> We pay no tax as the emissions are below the threshold for paying road tax!!


Are you sure about this? Even mopeds pay road tax, the only vehicles here exempt from paying road tax are tractors used for agricultural puposes, urban buses, offical vehicles such as police cars and ambulances, although disbled people can apply for exemption too, as long as they are the only people to drive the vehicle.


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

It varies from area to area, our tax for the car €50, insurance €207 any driver over 25, diesel €1.10 a litre, test 40€ every two years, and here in the Canaries we do not have any road tolls. The car is a Kangoo.


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

As Hepa has said, the individual costs can all come down to the CA or town hall. 

To be fair to the OP he has stated that CdS is the intended destination, so quoting petrol prices in Islas Canarias with a lower tax regime is a bit irrelevant.

That said, here in Madrid (and I understand that in most of mainland Spain) fuel is cheaper on a Monday. This is because the EU statistics are gathered from data collected on Mondays, so in order to "massage" the figures the prices are artificially lowered on Mondays and either go back to the previous price on Tuesday, or creep back up over the course of the week, depending on the petrol company.

Tax can vary wildly also, if I were to live in Madrid centre my 26 year old, gas guzzling, 6 litre car would cost me nearly 200€ to tax every year, but as it happens, the suburb specific town hall actually gives the car 100% exemption for being over 25 years old.....

In general though, I would say that motoring in Spain is cheaper than in the UK with the exception of the purchase of parts (especially consumibles) and the second hand market.


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

Bobndebs1959 said:


> More Qusetions I am afraid!!
> 
> What is the average cost of running a car in The Costa Del Sol?
> My current car costs me £225 a year in Insurance, £215 a year to Tax, does around 35 mpg and I do around 10,000 miles a year at around £1.35 a litre.
> ...


About the same here (more or less) but spare parts are a lot more expensive.
Still in the scale of things its an irrelevance IMO.


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