About

About the The Auto, Car, Vehicle Calculators section

Whether you want to buy a car, shop for a car loan, refinance an auto loan, compare buying vs. leasing, estimate an auto loan payoff, or calculate and compare fuel mileage, the calculators in this auto calculator section will cover all your automotive and transportation calculating needs.

Unlike other websites that offer auto finance calculators and mileage calculators, I have no vested interest in which car you buy or which financing company you choose. This means that I am free to create auto calculators that hold your best interests at heart, not the best interests of banks, car dealers, or automobile manufacturers.

Are You an Over-Under Informed Consumer?

One of My
Top 10 Auto Tips

Either buy a new vehicle every 10 or more years, or buy a 2-year-old used vehicle every 2 or more years. This will save you thousands of dollars in what I call, Warp-Speed Depreciation

If you want to throw the next 12-months worth of paychecks (along with all of the interest that income could have earned) into your garbage disposal, then, by all means, buy a brand new vehicle every year or two.

P.S. I bought a new Chevy Avalanche in 2001 with cash and short-term financing and I'm still driving it today (2019). I haven't had a car payment in 16 years!

The key to getting the most out of your automobile budget is to become a completely informed car buyer.

Unfortunately, if you are like most people, you are over informed as to the benefits of buying and owning a car, and woefully under informed as to the drawbacks and hidden costs.

This is because automobile marketing experts are continually emphasizing and exaggerating the benefits of buying and owning a vehicle while ignoring and downplaying the drawbacks and opportunity costs.

Consequently, most consumers end up acting in the best interests of the automotive and finance companies instead of acting in their own best interests.

Therefore, in order to help you to become a completely informed consumer -- one that acts in your own best interests instead of in the best interest of auto and finance companies -- my goal is to expose the exaggerated benefits for what they are, and expose the drawbacks and hidden costs the automobile and finance companies are leaving out of their advertising.

In other words, I have to do the opposite of what automobile merchants are doing in their ads ...

I have to ignore and downplay the benefits of buying and owning a car while emphasizing and exaggerating the drawbacks and hidden costs.

To do that, each auto calculator page in this section will include a brief lesson that will expose an exaggerated benefit or an ignored drawback, and then provide an interactive tool to prove the lesson's point.

Here are a few of the exaggerated benefits that I will attempt to refute:

  • Attraction
  • Comfort
  • New
  • Features
  • Safety
  • Status

And here are a few of the ignored drawbacks (opportunity costs) that I will attempt to expose:

  • Foregone Earnings
  • Reduced Freedom of Choice
  • Reduced Free Time
  • Hidden Costs of Ownership
  • Warp Speed Depreciation

Hopefully, after studying the lessons and using the auto calculators in this section, you will have all the information you need to make smart, self-supporting car buying, financing, and owning decisions.

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