We Have Two Vehicles, Here's Why

(Avon Park, FL)  Hi 82 Low 63 -- Yesterday Dee gave a good general recap of our travels during 2011, along with some of our thoughts on the full time lifestyle. Today she turned the blog over to me to tell a little about our decision to use two vehicles in our travels, and the financial ramifications of that decision. When we travel Dee follows behind me in her 1998 Toyota RAV4, and when we get set up at our destination we park my 2007 GMC Sierra Classic 3500 dually diesel truck and use her car for daily transportation. For some reason this has been a controversial issue with a lot of our RV’ing friends ever since we started on the road. Some have been very strong in their opinions, and have tried to “convince” us that we’re mis-guided. But I won’t get into that. I did some addin’, subtractin’, and guzzinta’s based on the records we’ve kept during the past year. Here’s what I came up with for 2011 (through Dec 1):

Total miles towing (traveling from park to park):  6,730 (both vehicles)

Total daily miles in car while truck is parked:  10,751

Here are the assumptions I used: 

Avg MPG Truck = 15.5 unloaded

Avg MPG Car = 25.5 city/hwy combined

Avg cost of Diesel:  $3.96/gal

Avg cost of gasoline:  $3.70/gal

The cost of fuel for Dee following me for 6,730 miles while towing was $977

(6,730 miles/25.5 MPG = 264 gals x $3.70/gal)

The cost of fuel for using the car as our daily driver for 10,751 “in place” miles was $1,561

(10,751 miles/25.5 MPG = 422 gals x $3.70/gal)

The cost of fuel if we’d used the truck as our daily driver for 10,751 “in place” miles would’ve been $2,748

(10,751 miles/15.5 MPG = 694 gals x $3.96/gal)

Now let’s compute the fuel costs of of using two vehicles instead of just the truck.

-        We paid $977 extra for fuel by following behind in the car while traveling.

-        However, we saved $1,187 in fuel costs by using the car as our daily driver rather than the truck ($2,748 for truck minus $1,561 for car)

In total it cost us $210 LESS in fuel costs by using the two vehicles ($1,187 minus $977).

This savings is a result of the difference in gas mileage between the little Toyota and the diesel-guzzling truck (not to mention the higher price of diesel vs gasoline). So in our situation, it’s a little more economical to use the car as our daily driver, even with the extra cost of fuel when using both vehicles while traveling.

However, there are other costs in owning the Toyota that wipe out that rather small savings in fuel costs. The main one is insurance, which on the Toyota is $520 per year. That changes our saving of $210 to a COST of $310. There’s also maintenance costs on the Toyota. It’s going on 14 years old, and we’ve spent a few hundred dollars this past year on both routine maintenance and to fix some minor things that basically wore out. And these maintenance costs will increase over time.

However, these maintenance costs are somewhat mitigated by saving wear and tear (and maintenance costs) on the truck, because it’s accumulating less than half the miles it would if it was our only vehicle. And maintenance costs are higher (a LOT higher) for the truck than for the car.

So looking at all this, it looks like owning, maintaining, and driving two vehicles costs us somewhere between $500 and $1,000 more than if we only used the truck.

So is it worth it? To us, the answer is YES, based on the following intangible benefits:

-        It’s more comfortable driving the car every day than the truck, easier to maneuver and easier to park.

-        It FEELS like we’re saving money by driving the car, only $30+ when we fill up, vs $75+ to fill the truck, for the same number of miles driven. (The car holds 12 gals of gasoline, the truck holds 36 gals of diesel.)

-        The truck is very important to our lifestyle. We transport our home with it. If it breaks, we’re stranded. It’s nice to be able to park it and save wear and tear.

-        Having Dee follow me while towing has many benefits, including “blocking” traffic for lane changes, running ahead to check out entrances to RV parks, and scouting RV parks for the best site.

-        We’re both amateur (ham) radio operators, so we’re able to communicate via our 2-way radios we have installed in each vehicle. So we can still share the wonder of the sights along the way.

-        Dee doesn’t have to suffer the rough ride in the truck.

-        We consider traveling time as 4-5 hours of “me” time. She listens to her music, I listen to my talk radio... nuff said. J

We’ve also been asked about towing our car behind the fifth wheel. That’s just something I don’t want to do, and besides double-towing isn’t legal in all states. And if we did that, some of the benefits listed above would disappear.

So as long as we can afford it (and the car keeps running), we’re happy with two vehicles. It may not work for everyone, but it works for us. When the Toyota finally gives up the ghost we’ll have a decision to make as to whether or not we’ll want to invest several thousand dollars in a new (to us) car. But I’m betting the answer to that will also be YES.

I hope this will be beneficial to our fellow fiver owners, and owners-to-be as you do your research and make your plans. Tomorrow we’ll get you caught up on our activities the last couple of days. Don’t get too excited though, we haven’t done much.  J  Cheers! Jim