WealthR · Free tools · Car Cost Calculator UK
🚗 UK 2026 · True cost of ownership

What does that car really cost you?

The sticker price is the smallest part of the story. The real cost of a car is depreciation + finance interest + running costs — and most of that money you never get back. This free UK calculator shows your true cost of ownership across PCP, HP, a bank loan or cash, plus what that money could have grown to invested instead. No signup.

Your car

£
£
How would you pay?
%
mo
£
Depreciation
15% / yr
5%15%25%35%
Years you'll keep it
4 years
14812
Running costs
£
£
Servicing & repairs rise with age
10% / yr
0%10%18%25%
If you invested the money instead — assumed return
True cost to own
—
Depreciation + interest + running, over the years you keep it
All-in monthly
—
Finance + running, while you're paying it off
Growth foregone
—
If the true cost were invested instead
Where the money goes
Depreciation
—
Finance interest
—
Running costs
—
Resale value left
—
Cash paid vs what the car's worth
Cash paid (cumulative) Car's resale value
In the app · Pro

See this car against your own money

This page gives you the true cost in the abstract. WealthR's in-app Scenarios simulator runs the same decision against your real financial picture — so it stops being a generic number and becomes a choice you can actually weigh.

Try WealthR free →

Free to start · no bank linking · the car decision is a Pro Scenario (£4.99/mo or £39.99/yr).

⚖️ Information only, not financial advice. Figures are estimates based on the numbers you enter and a constant depreciation and growth assumption. Real depreciation, interest and running costs vary by car, deal and driver. For decisions that matter, talk to a regulated adviser.

One honest place for the whole picture

A car is one decision. WealthR tracks your net worth, pensions, ISAs, property and FIRE date in one clean view — and lets you stress-test the big calls before you make them. Free to start, no bank linking.

Try WealthR free →

How the maths works

The headline true cost is the economic cost of ownership — the money you don't get back — built from three transparent parts:

1. Depreciation

resale = price × (1 − depreciation%)^years · depreciation = price − resale

The value the car loses while you own it. For most new cars this is the single biggest cost — and you pay it whether you bought with cash or on finance.

2. Finance interest

interest = total paid for the car − price

Cash pays no interest. A bank loan or HP is a standard amortising loan on the price minus deposit. PCP finances the depreciation (price − deposit − balloon) plus interest on the balance, with the balloon added back if you choose to own the car. Only the interest is a true cost — the principal converts into the car, which you can resell.

3. Running costs

running = Σ over each year ( insurance/tax/fuel × 12 + servicing/repairs × (1 + rise)^year )

Insurance, road tax and fuel are treated as steady, while servicing and repairs rise with the car's age — older cars cost more to keep on the road, so the slider compounds the year-1 figure by your chosen rate each year. This matches the in-app Scenario engine, so identical inputs give an identical number.

True cost & opportunity cost

true cost = depreciation + interest + running · growth foregone = true cost × ((1 + rate)^years − 1)

The growth-foregone figure is the compounding that the same money could have earned if invested at the chosen rate over the same period. It's a generic illustration — the in-app version runs it against your real portfolio and FIRE date.

What the in-app version adds

This free tool gives you the true cost and a generic opportunity cost. The in-app Scenario adds one-off big bills (a £1,500 clutch in year 5), part-exchange chains, the comparison against keeping or downsizing your current car or going car-free, and the opportunity cost run against your real portfolio and FIRE date rather than a flat assumed rate.

Why depreciation is the cost nobody counts

Ask most people what a car costs and they'll quote the monthly payment. But the payment is just how the cost is spread — it isn't the cost itself. The real bill is the value the car quietly sheds while it sits on your drive.

A £35,000 car kept four years at 15% a year loses around £17,000 to depreciation. Even on a typical finance deal, the interest might be £2,000–£4,000 — real, but a fraction of the depreciation. Add a few thousand a year of running costs and the true cost of "a £35,000 car" is often £25,000–£30,000 over four years, most of which has nothing to do with the headline price or the APR everyone fixates on.

This is also why buying a 2–3 year old car is one of the highest-impact money moves available to most UK households: you let the first owner absorb the steepest part of the curve while the car still has most of its life left. Drop the price in the calculator to a used equivalent and watch the true cost fall.

Common questions

The true cost of ownership is depreciation (the value the car loses while you own it) plus finance interest (if you didn't pay cash) plus running costs (insurance, tax, fuel, servicing and repairs). The sticker price is misleading because most of it converts into a resaleable asset — the real cost is what you never get back. For a typical new car kept four years, depreciation is usually the single biggest line, often far larger than the finance interest people worry about.
A new car typically loses 15-20% of its value each year, with the steepest drop in year one (often 20-30% the moment it's driven away). On a £35,000 car kept four years at 15% a year, that's roughly £17,000 of depreciation — money gone whether you paid cash or financed it. Finance interest is real but usually a fraction of this. Buying a 2-3 year old car lets someone else absorb the worst of the depreciation curve.
PCP usually means lower monthly payments because you're only financing the depreciation plus interest, not the whole car — but you don't own it at the end unless you pay the balloon. A bank loan or HP costs more per month but you own the car outright. Cash avoids all interest but ties up money that could be invested. This calculator shows the total cost of each route so you can compare like for like rather than just comparing monthly payments.
The balloon (or 'guaranteed minimum future value') is a large final payment on a PCP deal. Pay it and you own the car; don't and you hand the car back or roll into a new deal. PCP monthly payments are low precisely because the balloon defers a big chunk of the cost to the end. The calculator includes the balloon in the total cost when you choose PCP, so the headline isn't artificially flattered by the low monthlies.
15-20% a year is a reasonable default for a typical petrol or diesel car. Fast-depreciating models (luxury, large executive, some EVs) can lose more; in-demand models and well-kept older cars less. The first year is always the steepest. If you know the car's likely resale value you can back into the rate, or just try a range to see how sensitive the true cost is to it — it usually is, a lot.
Opportunity cost is the growth your money would have produced if it had been invested instead of spent on the car. If a car genuinely costs you £25,000 over four years, that same money invested at 5% a year would have grown by roughly £5,400 over those four years — and far more over a full investing lifetime. It doesn't mean don't buy the car; it just makes the trade-off visible so it's a choice, not an accident.
Buying a 2-3 year old car is one of the highest-impact money decisions available to most UK households, because you skip the steepest part of the depreciation curve while the car still has most of its useful life. The calculator makes this concrete: drop the price to a used equivalent and watch the true cost fall. The trade-off is warranty, finance rates and personal preference — but the depreciation maths is hard to argue with.
WealthR's in-app Scenarios feature (Pro) runs the car decision against your actual net worth, savings rate and projected FIRE date — so the opportunity cost lands as a real impact on YOUR plan, and you can compare buying against keeping your current car, downsizing to something cheaper, or going car-free. It also models one-off big bills and part-exchange, and lets you save the scenario and compare options side by side.
No. This is an information tool that estimates the cost of car ownership from the figures you enter. WealthR doesn't give financial advice. For decisions that matter, talk to a regulated adviser.

More free UK money tools