Those extra costs I didn’t think about when I bought a car
Last December I bought a new car, well new to me then. It was 3 years old and had less than 30.000 on the odometer. After fifteen years of faithful service, my Daihatsu was finished and since I cycle a lot, but really need a car in this town, I looked for a new one.
Call me naive, but I didn’t think beyond the cost of the car at that time. Still, I quickly found out that a car really does add some extra costs.
No driver’s license for years
If you consider that I only got my driver’s license when I was twenty-three, I have already worn out quite a few cars. Actually I always thought a driver’s license was nonsense, after all I did everything by train. When I left for Australia for a year in 1997, I decided to get my driver’s license for this, for ‘you never know’. In Australia I bought a Toyota Hiace Van the first week of my backpacking trip.
I had met a girl here and together with her and later my sister we traveled all over Australia for almost a year. Understandably, we had many bad luck moments with this van, but what fun we also had with it. Afterwards we sold the car for a good price thanks to the sales techniques of my sister.
And on the road again
On returning home, however, I had no need for a car. This changed when in 2001 I went travelling through America with my sister for six months. We bought a Ford from a rental company near New York. We drove all over America with this car and after six months we sold it back to the same car company. Upon returning home, we decided to buy a car.
After all, we were spoiled now!
My little red monster
My sister thought it was all fine what was to come and so I went hunting with my father. After a few test drives we bought two Daithautsu Cuore’s. A yellow and a red.
My sister sold her car when she went to emigrate but I drove my little red monster all the way down the road.
A new car
And when it turned out that it could only just pass the MOT, the search for a new one began. I had a few wishes. In any case not too big, but 5 doors.
Not too expensive and driving economically. Petrol and otherwise the brand didn’t matter much to me. One day we just went to a number of dealers, talked a little and I ended up at a Toyota dealer. I saw a car here, completely to my liking and then it turned out to be a hybrid too. After being informed what this entailed I totally thought, this is my car.
I don’t drive very much, maybe 8000-10.If I drive more than 5000 kilometers a year, often small distances, a hybrid is ideal. After a test drive, I was actually immediately sold and decided to buy it right away.
Extra costs
Well I thought I was there with this one, but of course that is not everything. There are always extra costs involved. I needed insurance, which was much more expensive than what I normally paid for the old one. The tax I had to pay went up because this car was bigger and therefore heavier, so the road tax went up considerably. Breakdown assistance, but also a service every year.
It all costs money and I honestly hadn’t really thought about that.
