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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Project: Total Cost of Ownership


There are many fellow motorists who may have bought a car without fully understanding the total cost of car ownership over its lifecycle. This project aims to develop a spreadsheet tool for buyers to get a clear illustration of total cost of ownership after entering parameters of the desired car and also having answered questions about the expected usage pattern.


The primary goal is to educate the buyer of the initial cash outlay and the running cost on a monthly basis over the ten years of the car's life span. The issue of affordability should be tackled confidently before one commits to such a big ticket item especially if the car is going to be financed with a stretched motor loan. Failure to keep up with the monthly loan instalments may lead to a painful repossession of the car by the finance company and also residual financial woes.


I want to apply good and fair methods to estimate the cost of fuel consumption, parking, maintenance, ERP charges, etc. I believe that many of you can provide good ideas and opinion on suggested methods to make the tool a comprehensive and creditable one. I am targetting to complete it by end 2007. Click here to the WordPress project site - the end product should look somewhat like this, with an instruction page and also an input page:

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