Vehicle Running Cost Calculator

Owning a car costs far more than what you pay at the pump, and this calculator adds up the real annual price of keeping a vehicle on New Zealand roads. You enter your distance driven per year, your car's fuel use in litres per 100 km, the price you pay per litre, and your yearly costs for registration, warrant of fitness, insurance, servicing and tyres, and depreciation, the value your car loses each year. The calculator works out your annual fuel bill from your distance and fuel use, then adds every other cost you enter to return a total cost to own and run the vehicle for the year. Alongside that headline figure, you get the same cost broken down per week, a cost per kilometre for comparing vehicles or judging whether a trip is worth driving, and the fuel share of your total spend. Depreciation is often the single largest cost and the easiest to underestimate, so use a realistic figure for how much value your car loses in a year. If you drive a diesel or electric vehicle, add road user charges into your servicing or fuel figure so they are captured too. Because fuel prices, insurance premiums and servicing costs change, use current figures for the most accurate result, and treat the output as an indicative estimate for budgeting and comparison rather than financial advice.

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Depreciation is often the largest cost and the easiest to overlook; estimate it as the value your car loses in a year. Road user charges apply to diesel and electric vehicles, which you can include in servicing or fuel. Prices change, so use current figures. Estimate only, not financial advice.