What a used car actually costs to run for a year

Ask someone what their car costs and most will quote the monthly instalment. That figure is usually less than half of what actually leaves the account each year.

Here is the rest of it, itemised, with the arithmetic shown so you can run it on whatever you are looking at.

Road tax

This one is fixed, published, and easy to work out exactly. LTA charges petrol and petrol-hybrid cars on engine capacity in cubic centimetres, using bands.

The published rates are six-monthly and carry a 0.782 rebate factor, so you double the result for the year.

For a 1,500cc car, that is $250 plus 37.5 cents for every cc above 1,000, giving $437.50. Multiply by 0.782 for $342.13 per six months, then double it for roughly $684 a year.

Notice the jump between 1,600cc and 1,800cc. The band changes at 1,600cc and the rate per cc doubles above it. This is exactly why so many engines are sized at 1,598cc rather than 1,610cc.

Past ten years there is a surcharge. It adds 10% in year eleven and climbs 10 points a year to a cap of 50%. On a COE car this is a real cost that people forget when comparing against a newer equivalent.

Electric cars work differently. Road tax is based on motor power in kilowatts rather than capacity, and there is an additional flat component on top. Worth checking specifically rather than assuming it is cheaper.

Insurance

The widest variable of the lot, and the one nobody can quote you accurately without your details. It moves on your age, licence length, claims history, the car itself, and how many years of no-claim discount you have built.

As a planning range, most private car policies land somewhere between $1,000 and $2,500 a year. A young driver with no NCD on a continental car can exceed that comfortably. An experienced driver with 50% NCD on a small Japanese car can come in under it.

Get an actual quote before you commit to a car rather than assuming. On a performance model or a continental with expensive parts, the premium can shift your whole calculation.

Servicing

Independent workshops in Singapore currently charge roughly $120 to $200 a visit for a routine service on a Japanese or Korean car, and about $200 to $350 for a continental equivalent.

Most owners service twice a year at the usual interval of every 10,000km or six months, whichever arrives first.

There is also a major service, typically every 40,000km or two years, which costs more and is the one people forget to budget for.

Add wear items across a year and realistic annual totals look like this.

Electric cars are cheaper here because there is no oil, no filters, no spark plugs and far less brake wear thanks to regenerative braking.

The things that arrive on their own schedule

These do not come every year, which is exactly why they catch people out.

Tyres last roughly 40,000 to 60,000km. A set runs a few hundred dollars for a small Japanese car and considerably more for larger wheels on a continental.

Battery lasts about three to five years and is a couple of hundred dollars.

Brake pads go every 30,000 to 50,000km depending on how you drive, with discs lasting two to three sets of pads.

Spread across ownership, budget a few hundred a year for a small car and more for something larger or continental.

Fuel

Work it out from your actual mileage rather than a headline economy figure.

Take the kilometres you drive in a year, divide by the car's realistic litres per 100km, then multiply by the pump price. A car doing 15,000km a year at 7L/100km uses roughly 1,050 litres.

Manufacturer economy figures are optimistic. Add 15 to 20% for real world Singapore driving, which is mostly short trips and traffic, the conditions that hurt consumption most.

Parking and ERP

Easy to underestimate because it leaves your account in small amounts.

Season parking at an HDB block runs about $110 a month for a car, so around $1,300 a year. Private and city parking costs considerably more. Add whatever you spend on hourly parking and ERP on your commute.

For many owners this is the second or third largest line on the whole list, ahead of road tax and sometimes ahead of servicing.

Putting it together

Two examples, excluding depreciation and loan interest, to show the shape of it.

Neither figure includes depreciation, which is usually the largest cost of all, or loan interest.

Why this matters when comparing cars

A continental car that costs $8,000 less to buy can cost more over five years once running costs are counted. That does not make it a bad choice. Plenty of people happily pay for the way a car drives and how it feels to own, and that is a legitimate reason.

What is not legitimate is being surprised by it. Run these numbers on any two cars you are choosing between before you decide, and the comparison becomes a real one rather than a guess based on the sticker.

Servicing and insurance figures here are current market ranges and will vary by workshop, by insurer and by your own profile. Road tax is fixed and you can calculate it exactly from the engine capacity on the log card.