About Total Car Cost
Total Car Cost exists because car buying advice in the UK is overwhelmingly focused on the monthly finance payment — which is one of the least useful numbers for working out what a car will actually cost you.
The monthly payment ignores depreciation (often the biggest cost), hides the total interest paid, and makes expensive cars look affordable. We think you deserve the full picture before you sign anything.
What we do
We build free, no-signup calculators that give you the honest total cost of owning a car — depreciation, fuel or energy, insurance, road tax, servicing and MOT, all in one number.
We also provide plain-language guides to help you understand the numbers, compare fuel types, and make better decisions.
How the data works
Our calculators use your inputs combined with:
- UK MPG (Imperial gallons — 1 UK gallon = 4.546 litres, not the US gallon)
- Current UK fuel and electricity prices as defaults, updated periodically
- DVLA VED rates for road tax
- Typical depreciation curves sourced from used car market data
- DVSA MOT fee (£54.85, rounded to £55)
All default values can be overridden. We encourage you to enter your own insurance quote, actual fuel economy and local fuel prices.
Affiliates and independence
TotalCarCost earns commissions from some of the comparison and product links on the site. This does not influence the calculator results, which are entirely based on your inputs and published rates. We never accept payment to rank a product higher or skew a calculation.
Affiliate partners include car insurance comparison sites, Octopus Energy, Hypervolt home chargers, and ALA GAP insurance. Links are clearly labelled as partner links.
About the author
Andrew Finney is a UK-based writer and developer with a long-standing interest in the actual economics of car ownership — not the marketing version. He’s owned both EVs and petrol cars, has experienced the pain of new-car depreciation firsthand, and built this site to fill a gap he couldn’t find elsewhere.
This site does not provide financial advice. All figures are estimates for illustrative purposes.