Long-Term Maintenance Costs

[ChE Outback XT]

I recently started a new job that will allow me to put money away for the future. In addition to saving for a return to grad school, family, and other "what-ifs", I want to make a car payment to myself (paid cash for the car) to be ready for maintenance costs.

 

I have an '05 OBXT (non-limited) 5MT with 19k miles and I'm on pace for 30-40k per year. What do you think would be a good overall cost for maintenance to take me to 200k (where I sold my last Subie)? I was thinking about saving $150/month, which would be about $9,000 to get to 200k miles. I would rather estimate high as any excess could be used toward my next Subie.

 

I was considering saving for mods as well, but right now I'm going to go conservative and only mod out of my "spend-as-I-feel-like-it" budget.

 

Note: The realization that 35k per year at 22mpg and $2.20/gal costs almost $300/month for gas only is a bit hard to swallow... oh well. They'll be fun miles.

[deneb]

How much of the maintenance are you going to do yourself? That would certainly dictate how much $ to put away each month. 150 sounds like a good amount to give yourself some padding though. You'll potentially have a 30k service every year, plus oil changes, etc. which can add up. Say you drive 35k/year, my dealer charges 525 for a 30k service (it was on a board in the service office, dunno if that applies to 05's or not), plus say 30 bucks per oil change, assuming every 5k that's 7 oil changes, so you're at about 800 bucks per year right there.