The Dirty Truth About “Green” Cars Nobody Wants to Admit - Let's Look at NUMBERS!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Welcome back. This channel is all about helping you stretch your dollars to go further than you ever imagined they could so that you can accomplish your classic car dreams. Today we're back on the subject of the big green hoax. We're going to talk about daily drivers. Stick around. It's a talk about it Tuesday.

[00:00:22]It's another one in my unpopular opinion videos. I'm Mike. This is my car shop.

[00:00:30]Sometimes I think people see the thumbnail and the title for a video and they don't even bother watching the video. They just come in with some ashtray comments about this, that, or the other thing and why I'm wrong. Well, you know what? I could be wrong, but I just don't talk to talk. I walk the walk and I demonstrate for you every single episode on this channel how you can save money and how if you want to make stuff instead of buy it. Well, today we're talking about daily drivers. And I recently did an episode about driving old cars as your dailies instead of buying new ones. And I promised you I was going to talk about the numbers.

[00:01:08]Well, today we're going to talk about the numbers. Again, I'm not just talking the talk. I'm driving a 1973 Dodge Dart right now. It's my summer daily driver.

[00:01:19]I'm going to make the caveat right out of the gate. If you're all about driving along in your recliner with your entertainment center in front of you, this ain't for you. I'm talking about driving a classic car. So, yes, there are downsides. But, as one commenter, I'll say recently said, "Yeah, it's fine if you want to drive crap that breaks down all the time and rusty pieces of junk that get terrible gas mileage."

[00:01:42]Buddy, your experience is nothing like mine. I promise you. And I don't think you watched the video to even understand one thing that I was talking about. But that's okay. It's okay. Everybody's entitled to their opinion, and I'm going to give you mine, and it should be yours.

[00:01:58]I'm going to admit also that, you know, having a little bit of hands-on ability does help when you're driving older cars. But if you're one of those people that the cautions in the modern uh owner's manual for a car applies to when it says, "Don't drink the battery acid," then this probably isn't for you. I'm sure you've seen the meme that says, you know, owner's manual in a car 50 years ago told you how to adjust the valves.

[00:02:24]Modern cars tell you not to drink the battery acid. Well, that's not totally probably true on either end. The point is kind of valid and, you know, we got to think about that. But it's all about your goals because we I think we need to kind of like back up and just reassess what exactly is the point of a car. No, we want something that's reliable and dependable and is going to get us to point A to point B and not cost us an arm and a leg and not break down every other day and all of that stuff. And I get that and we're going to go through the numbers here real soon. But the fact that I'm driving a 53y old car and the it tends to wander a little bit because of the design of the technology back in the day. Uh and it does it does give me you know little stuff I have to mess with. This morning, one of the floats was stuck on the carburetor and I had to tap that. I need to replace the needle valve in the carburetor. There's little stuff like that. But when you compare that to a modern vehicle, yes, you don't have any of that stuff. I get it. Um, but you have something else. I'll use our 2018 Countryman as an example. We sold that car recently uh because the warranty ran out and we're just not in a financial position. Normally, it wouldn't have bothered me. And years ago, I blew an engine in my Cadillac and we paid 8 grand to put a new one in. Um, couple thousand bucks for a transmission here. You know, that kind of stuff in in more modern cars didn't bother me when I had pretty significant income. I haven't had any income for almost 5 years or very very minimal. And so I've just been rethinking and re-evaluating and deciding that driving older cars that cost me significantly less and are much easier to repair and I can do the work on most of them is the great way to go for me. So we're going to talk about numbers.

[00:04:20]I'm going to introduce this by saying do the math yourself. Okay? Do the math yourself. I'm just using numbers that have been in my realm of experience.

[00:04:32]Okay? So, I bought a brand new car and the payment was $600 plus dollars a month. I bought a couple of used ones that were older and the payment was $400 a month. Uh that kind of stuff. So, I'm going to pick a number in the middle.

[00:04:50]500 bucks a month for a car payment.

[00:04:52]That's $6,000 a year. And if you're in the state of Michigan, license plates are based upon the uh I guess yes I did. Are based upon the value of the car. So uh if your car is worth $25,000, chances are your plate's going to be $250.

[00:05:11]I'm picking middle of the road again and just using 100 bucks.

[00:05:15]Um insurance. If you're going to carry full coverage insurance, which I carry on everything to various capacities, uh I always do agreed value policies whenever possible. On a more modern car, you're probably looking at $1,500 to $2500 a year on one of these newer cars.

[00:05:38]For insurance, I just picked 1,500 bucks a year as a number.

[00:05:43]uh fuel. If you're getting, say, 35 miles to the gallon and you're driving 20,000 miles a year, you're going to spend $2,000 a year on fuel.

[00:05:54]Repairs. This is very conservative because a lot of these newer cars can be extremely expensive to repair. Uh but let's just say repairs and maintenance is going to run uh anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 a year. And that could be conservative. I picked a middle of the road number of $1,800 a year. So, what's the grand total to drive a newerish car with all of those factors? $11,400 a year. You can buy a pretty nice classic car for that kind of money.

[00:06:30]Now, I picked a number. I just say we pick a 1990 Dodge Caravan. Okay, I don't know, whatever. Um, it has some electronics are not terribly hard to repair. Yes, if you blow a transmission in one of those, it can be a couple grand. That usually only happens 1707 75,000 mi. So, one transmission in most of those and you're good in the one time that you own it. I'm just going to pick an average here. Uh, I'm going to say that I paid cash for my vehicle. I picked it up for a couple grand. I was able to pay cash for it and it didn't cost me a ton of money.

[00:07:05]insurance. I'm being a little bit on the high side just for argument's sake. Um, say a h 100red bucks a month, which I think is really high for a vehicle that old. Most of the stuff I have is 50 to 75 a month. Um, with full coverage because of its age and being agreed value. Uh, but let's say that the insurance is $1,200 a year. So that's 100 bucks a month. That's again, I'm I'm purposely being a little conservative on the new stuff and a little aggressive on the old stuff to prove a point. Uh fuel figuring 15 miles to the gallon. I promise you, if you got a Dodge Caravan, you're going to get more. I get 20 m to the gallon in this with a built 318.

[00:07:43]Okay. Uh but just say 15 m per gallon for arguments sake. That puts your fuel cost at 20,000 mi a year. Uh and 350 a gallon. I forgot to mention that. I know gas is a little more than that. I just bought gas. It was 376. Guesses it coming down again, but let's just say 350. Again, that puts my annual fuel cost at $4,666 a year.

[00:08:11]So, little under 400 bucks a month for fuel. That ain't bad.

[00:08:17]Repairs. Again, it could be a lot more than this, but most of the stuff on these older cars is pretty inexpensive, especially if you can do it yourself.

[00:08:24]But a lot of the local mechanics that I know, they love working on this older stuff cuz it's easy and the parts aren't expensive. Let's figure for maintenance and repair a,000 bucks a year. That may be more some years less some years, but again, I promise you I'm not putting anywhere near $1,000 a year in this car.

[00:08:40]Okay? And license plates for an older car generally about 60 bucks. And that's probably a little aggressive. It might be less than I think the one on this car was 50. And I'm not running antique plates, so I have to do plates every year. That puts my total for driving a classic car. And this car doesn't cost me that much. My numbers are lower, but again, I'm trying to be like, okay, not everybody can do what I do. Okay, just under seven grand a year. 69.26 was the number I came up with. So, driving a classic is about 4,500 bucks a year less than driving a new car.

[00:09:22]Pretty significant. Now, car payments, yes, car payments are they can be a real problem when you're driving something you have to make payments on and then you have to start making expensive repairs. It can break the bank and you can end up so far upside down in one of these newerish cars because you had to put five grand into it because you needed a fuel pump and a fuel pump control module and a couple of other sensors and and and before long you got three, four, 5,000 bucks at just one repair bill.

[00:09:56]Ouch. That hurts. Here's the point. If you can pay cash for a car, you're way better ahead. No matter what it is, getting into a classic car or a less expensive used car, doesn't have to be classic. I prefer to drive the classics cuz they're just simple and they're fun.

[00:10:19]I don't mind the wind noises. I don't mind a few rattles. I love a loud exhaust. And this is not terribly loud, but it's noisier than a new car. If you don't have to have the armchair TV experience while you're traveling down the road with a vehicle that drives for you and you don't mind paying a little more for fuel, it's way cheaper.

[00:10:42]Way cheaper to drive an old car.

[00:10:48]So, even with worse fuel mileage, and again, I do better than 15 in this.

[00:10:53]I I mean, Wanda, our 88x4 gets 10 to 12 on a good day. Yeah, I hate putting gas in the thing. It's expensive. I got to drop 20 bucks in it every time I take it somewhere. On the other hand, I even had to put a dime into that thing for repairs all winter.

[00:11:09]It does need a U-jint now. We haul firewood with it all winter. I drove it to work all winter and the only cost I had into it was one oil change and the gas. That's it. Didn't cost me anything else. So, you know what? Even when gas was $4 a gallon.

[00:11:28]Yeah. Yeah. It sucks when I'm spending 100 bucks a week on fuel.

[00:11:33]But you know what? It's still cheaper than a car payment. A lot cheaper.

[00:11:38]Unpopular opinion. It's not the cost of gas that breaks your budget. It's not. You can endone all you want about the cost of gas. That's not the kill. Yes, it's a lot more than it used to be. I get it.

[00:11:55]Believe me, I grew up I can remember when gas was I think 25 cents a gallon in the early '7s. I definitely remember paying 79 cents a gallon or less for gas in the 80s.

[00:12:10]It we thought it was terribly expensive when it got up to a buck and a quarter.

[00:12:14]Ooh.

[00:12:16]And now it was 420 the other day.

[00:12:20]379 today. So, it's on 369 today. 379, something like that. So, it's on its way back down. But the reality is, it's not the freaking gas prices. It's every other associated expense. The car payment, the insurance, the repairs.

[00:12:33]That's what makes transportation so expensive. Now, there's one more thing I got to talk about, and that is yes, chances are a classic car is going to end up on the side of the road more often than a new one. Although, I'm questioning that anymore. Also, uh I have not had to have an old car towed in years and years and years. I have had to have newer cars towed, uh unfortunately more regularly than I want to admit. Every car that I've had towed in the last 10 years has been 2013, no 24, sorry, 2020 2004 or newer. And that was once when I puked the engine in my Cadillac. Other than that, it's been 2013 and newer. Yeah.

[00:13:17]Also, let me clarify that was years past. So, it's not in 2026. We had the 18 towed in 25 because it blew the fuel pump where the fuel pump went out. Uh, we had several of 13 or 14 were towed the last time previous to 2020. So, they were like 6, seven years old. Okay. So, they weren't that old. And when they blew the engine in the Cadillac, it was 2014. So that car was only seven, eight years old. 2015. Yeah. So I know I'm an old fart. I get it. I get people yelling at me all the time. Okay, boomer. First of all, I'm not a boomer.

[00:13:58]Close. Second of all, it's it's we have gotten so soft in this world.

[00:14:08]Vehicle breakdowns were just a part of life.

[00:14:12]You dealt with it. Did it happen all the time? No, it didn't. Matter of fact, I think it's happened more often with my new cars than it has over my lifetime with my old ones. I mean, think about it. There's a lot of things you can ham and egg together on an old car to get you home. How do you ham and egg a computer?

[00:14:34]Even if you have to pay to get these cars fixed, I still think you're going to be money ahead. Now, again, you have to make the decisions. I get it. Some people drive uh 200 plus 300 miles a day. They're driving 2 or 3 hours to work or 2 and 3 hours round trip to work. And yeah, at that point maybe the cost of a newer car makes sense and not having to pay for repairs and getting something that's in warranty or looking at a lease option or okay, you got to do the math. You can't be stupid and say, "Well, Mike said it would be cheaper to drive an old car."

[00:15:10]Okay, not every context does that matter, but let's let's be real. How many people are are actually driving their cars that much every single day?

[00:15:19]Probably not as many as we think. Most of them are driving is convenience. I mean, I put a bloody lot of miles on my car every week because I'm all over our regional area doing service calls at my customers and I've been driving older stuff. Sometimes I swap with my wife and drive her 2014.

[00:15:40]But the reality is we make it work for us and we save bucketloads of money because it's not necessary to spend it in our circumstance. So I want you to look at your circumstance.

[00:15:55]Take a long hard look at the numbers.

[00:15:57]And yes, if you have a vehicle that's breaking down every other week, then that's not working for you. Okay? But that's not what I have. And I think for a lot of people that's not what they have. We've done episodes where we've talked about having a classic car in reserve as a daily driver backup. Just think about it because most people don't. They just blindly go along and pay the bills and just [ __ ] about how expensive everything is when it doesn't necessarily have to be. That's it for this one. It's been a talk about it Tuesday. It's definitely an unpopular opinion, but that's what I'm here for, to present you with outside the box ideas. We'll catch you on the next one.

[00:16:36]And don't forget, because it is important, [music] [music] [music] [music] Heat.

[00:17:06][music] Heat.