AAA: It Costs $9,122 A Year To Own A Car

The price tag fixed to a car is only part of what you'll spend for the vehicle, with the sale being followed shortly by licensing fees and taxes. Beyond that, there's the cost associated with properly maintaining the vehicle and fixing the occassional problem that arises, and then there's the daily cost, primarily in the form of filling the tank up. Most of these costs were used in AAA's "Your Driving Costs" report, which pegs the yearly price of owning a car at $9,122.

The study analyzed the costs associated with tires, insurance, fuel, maintenance, and depreciation to make its determination, with maintenance being the largest culprit this time around for sedan owners, having increased to 4.97 cents per mile over 2012. Obviously, smaller cars are said to have lower costs across the board, while bigger vehicles have higher costs in all categories.

Insurance saw the next highest increase, with costs rising 2.76-percent yearly over 2012. Fuel was third at a 1.93-percent increase, and depreciation was a close fourth at .78-percent. The costs associated with tires, meanwhile, didn't change, with costs at only about a penny per mile, making them pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things.

The yearly cost is based on driving 15,000 miles per year, which means it could be too high for some drivers and not high enough for others. The average cost of driving those miles, when factoring in all the categories, is 60.8 cents/mile, which represents a cost increase over 2012 of about 2-percent. Not monumental, but still a relevant increase.

[via USA Today]