How much does it cost to operate a scooter?

[earlwb]

Last Saturday my scooter passed the 6,000 mile mark and it hadn't quite made it to its one year anniversary of being road legal on January 19.

Here is a HTML version of the Spreadsheet that I am using to track how much I spent on the scooter. I did not include taxes, title, license or insurance into the mix though.
home.roadrunner.com/~earlwbollinger/scooters/Scooter_gas_mileage.htm

So for the last year:
Average Gasoline Mileage per gallon: 79.7 mpg
Consumed gallons of gasoline: 72.72 gallons
Gasoline expenses: $211.86
Expenses other than gasoline: $353.36
Total Expenses: $565.22
Overall Cost per Mile: $000.11 (a little less than eleven cents per mile)

If one wants to add things like cost of the scooter, it cost about $1.099.00 US with free shipping to my home.
Insurance is around $87.00 a year.
Two state inspections costs $14.50 each.
Tax, title and license for the first year was something like $160.00
The second year it cost $41.60 to renew the license plate.
So that would be about $1940.22 total cost of ownership for one year. Which results in a per mile cost of about $0.32 per mile (32 cents a mile).

Of course some people are only interested in selling, or like my wife "How much can you sell it for?" kind of thing. So depreciation on a Chinese scooter is probably more like 100% unless you get lucky and find a buyer who wants to really buy it. I have noticed some dealers parting out perfectly good scooters as they can get more money for the parts than to sell the scooter complete and running OK.

I know some guys with big pickup trucks that can burn through 75 gallons of gasoline in two weeks or less.

If I use my Chevy Tracker SUV truck, it uses about 15 gallons a week to go to and from work, so in five weeks it would burn 75 gallons of gasoline too. The Chevy had its radiator replaced and new tires installed last year, so the cost per mile is closer to $1.00 a mile on it for 2007. Insurance costs more too.

[leo]

earlwb said:

Insurance is around $87.00 a year.

that's between 7 and 8 bucks a month.
i pay between 23 and 24 a month, a tad shy of 4 times your amount.
i wonder why there is so much difference.
hmmm . . .
i'm 52
the last DWI i had was about 25 or so years ago.
i've been busted for speeding more than once AND 15mph over the limit.

[Dennis D]

Leo... I live in IN also, and my insurance on the Helix is $68 a year for 50/100 liability, uninsured motorist, medical, and comprehensive($100 deductible). No collision though. I get a seatbelt ticket every couple of years. And I had one accident chargeable to me a couple years ago when I was parked in a service station lot for awhile chatting to a passenger(my wife) on a dark rainy night and a black SUV parked at a 90 degree angle to me, 3 feet behind my bumper. Looked in my mirror, didn't see a THING and backed right into him. Guess I should have been able to see something!

Anyway it didn't seem to affect my insurance. Most of my traffic offenses are years behind me, though I was close to losing my license(for 10 years) under Indianas repeat offender law while in my 20s.

[leo]

dennisdh said:

And I had one accident chargeable to me a couple years ago when I was parked in a service station lot . . .

maybe that's the reason.
i've had a couple of accidents, one involving a chain reaction of 4 cars plus mine. that accident cost me my license because i was uninsured. as a matter of fact i had to file for bankruptcy because of it.

Most of my traffic offenses are years behind me, . . .

so are mine.
except for a speeding ticket all of mine are greater than 10 years ago.

[oldog1984]

earl thanks for keeping a running total if nothing major happens to scooter by next year your total per mile will end up dropping a lot the longer it last the more you will save.. and run it till it drops i don't worry about trade in or resale keep it and keep driving it..

[earlwb]

I have little to no intention of selling it or something.
My plan is to ride it till it falls apart or melts in the rain or something.
I am sort of curious as to how long it holds up.

I think my insurance rate mentioned above is off though. I paid $166 for a year for two bikes, a Harley Sportster and the scooter, which gets me the multiple vehicle discount too. So probably $60 or so would me more accurate as to the insurance rate.

[YellowScooter]

Tires $102
Gas $5x52=$260
Carb $51 fr. Ebay
New helmet visor $25
2pc hooded pvc rainsuit $38
Grand Total for 1 full yr. = $ 476.00
Cannot complain at all.

This summer I plan to take a trip 2states over if I can find a moped-friendly route to do it on.
If you know how to get a route like that out of mapquest or someone similar, plz post the url! Thanx!

[blackc]

Do you figure in the cost of your protective gear?
Helmet, riding armour, boots. gloves?.............Can be significant

[earlwb]

I bought all of my protective gear over the years riding my Harley. So I didn't need to buy anything with the scooter.


But I am thinking it is getting about time to get a new helmet though.

[Dennis D]

earlwb said:

I bought all of my protective gear over the years riding my Harley. So I didn't need to buy anything with the scooter.

I thought you had to dress like a dirt bag to ride a Harley... and wear a do-rag. Around here it seems like the uniforms come with the bike. Have you ever gotten looks or dissed by the posers all trying to look like "real" Harley riders?

[earlwb]

I have a bunch of different riding outfits, several jackets, chaps, and all that stuff. I think I still have my first leather jacket from 30 years ago in my closet someplace still too.
Lately I took to riding with sport bike apparel and the body pads or armor that comes in the outfits.
I ride a Harley Sportster, so the regular big twin riders would constantly dis me all the time for being on a "paper boy bike" or "girly bike". I don't ride with them at all. All they do is ride from bar to bar getting drunk. None of them could ride far anyway, as they are too busy being idiots. But for the past 12 years about all the riding I do is commuting anyway so I don't deal with the Harley riders much.

I did a estimate on my truck a Chevy Tracker wih a small V6.
It uses about 15 gallons of gas to cummute to and from work for a week.
6,000 miles is 24 tanks of gas. That is 360 gallons of gasoline. Which costs about $1,065.60 US at a average of $2.96 a gallon.
Then one can add in two oil changes at $29.00 each.
Car insurance is around $695.00 every six months (hard to split out as my son's car is on the plan too, he is 18yoa)
Maintenance, last year it cost about $1600 as I had to replace a bunch of parts, like the radiator of course. New tires was $500 bucks too.

So including all the costs, it would have probably come out at around $1.53 per mile operating expenses to run the truck for 6,000 miles. Oh yeah I forgot the license plate renewall expenses too. Along with the original purchase price, depreciation if and when it gets sold or traded, taxes, and title fees.
Adding in the purchase price adjusted for a number of years would boost the cost per mile significantly too.

My truck consumes about 780 gallons of gas if I only drive it everywhere in a year. Which is $2308 US a year in gasoline costs at $2.96 a gallon.
it costs about $7.50 a day for gasoline to drive my truck to and from work.

[blackc]

There's another cost that no one puts in........imputed interest.
How much would the money we use earn in interest at prevailing rates if it were invested instead of spent on whatever.

This is a particularly interesting calculation when it comes to "paid for" houses. Many times it's a big case for renting over buying, especially in a time of lowering house values.

[zippadeedudah]

That was a good statistical presentation Earlwb. Please have a Karma on me! I do believe owning and operating a scoot is probably a good decision in more aspects than just the reduced cost of operating them vs. cages. For those of you who remember the long gas lines of the 1970's and the fights people actually got into over the aquisition of gas back then, you will know what I am talking about. Our relations with the middle east and with Chavez down in Venezuela are now tenuous at best. Our economy is in a shambles and getting worse daily, and our dollar is at an all time low. I remember back in the 1970's the waiting list to purchase a Volkswagen diesel motor vehicle was about 8 months long. Everyone wanted to get their mitts on one. Most of the extremely essential trips I would take on a scooter during a gas shortage would be to points less than 10 miles from my home. I keep both scoots close to full of gas as a rule and in addition I have safely stored 15 gallons of Premium 93 gasoline on my premises. At an average of 65 miles per gallon on the scooter, with both tanks full, and my stored gas reserve, I figure I could travel about 1300 miles before I would absolutely have a need for more gasoline. I also make it a practice to keep both cages full of gasoline most of the time. You can call me overly cautious if you wish, but when I need transportation I need transportation and at my age (67) I will do anything to have it. Besides all that, I, like most of you Dawgs, just love to scoot when the weather is nice and gasoline is plentiful, So I enjoy the sport when conditions are good and I have additional transportation when things head south. It does not cost me any extra money to be vigilant! And, can you imagine the amount of money a reliable scooter would bring if there was a sustained meltdown on the availability of gas in this country? Joe

[gymbeau]

the cost of wind in my face, the feeling of freedom, and the attention I get....
priceless!

[littlered50]

Gee, I wish we had the gas prices you guys see in the States... Here in Sweden a liter of 95 octane is about 12 SEK, at the current rate thats $1.85 per liter. Which equals $7/gallon...

No wonder scoots are so popular around here.

[earlwb]

Don't worry, we are rapidly catching up to your gas prices. In another couple of years, we will be there too.
if we have a bad hurricane season this year and it shuts down a lot of oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, we will be there a lot sooner.

One other factor is your country has a lot higher gasoline tax rate than we do here in the USA. But already some polititians and congressmen want to raise the gas taxes to pay for more highways and bridges. A 40 cent tax increase probably translates into a $1.00 increase at the pumps.

[cathouse]

sort of like asking how long is a piece of string.

[scooterlizard]

clonetrooper150 said:

Tires $102
Gas $5x52=$260
Carb $51 fr. Ebay
New helmet visor $25
2pc hooded pvc rainsuit $38
Grand Total for 1 full yr. = $ 476.00
Cannot complain at all.

This summer I plan to take a trip 2states over if I can find a moped-friendly route to do it on.
If you know how to get a route like that out of mapquest or someone similar, plz post the url! Thanx!

Down load earth.google.com/ you will get better results and can see ahead of what is on the road as well, you can create your routes as well.

or you can use this one as will without the download.
maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

[lewtwo]

earlwb said:

Don't worry, we are rapidly catching up to your gas prices.

I figure when it hits $5/gallon that we will start see a lot more scooters on the road ... might even be some classics brought out the basements and dusted off. It is less than $1.50 away now. Tonight I put my weekly $5.00 in and did get a full tank, but I think I came out better than SUV on the other side of the pump

[earlwb]

Yellowscooter, what works pretty good is to check out www.adventurecycling.org/landing_tours.cfm?gclid=CMKNze3V_5ACFUtyOAodXGKJGA
and see if any of the bicycle routes would work. If you are on a small engine displacement scooter most of the bicycle route plans would work very well.
Although, you can also use google maps, mapquest, and some others too. But the maps tend to be a few years old, as newer roads and highways may or may not be on them. Even Adventure Cycling maps can run afoul of this rapid road building that goes on.

[leo]

leo said:

i pay between 23 and 24 a month, a tad shy of 4 times your amount.

the above amount was to get insurance.
i just got my premium in the mail yesterday, and for the entire year it's $142 something, this averages to about $11 a month.

[YellowScooter]

Thanks guys for the links.