Vehicle Maintenance

My total bill for vehicle maintenance on a 7 year old Civic was about
$1700 this week.

It's a great business idea from the dealer's point of view. First, sell
someone a car where there is tons of competition including even other
dealerships that sell the same brand, lowering the price. Buyers often
think they got a deal.

But once you have the sale, say a $30000 car which is pretty normal
these days, you then have regular maintenance every 8000km (3 times per
year for the average driver) that can cost hundreds each time. Then you
tell people that their warranty will be made invalid if they don't come
in for that maintenance. Then, every time they come in, you find
additional items that just HAVE to be fixed right away, and the car is
already in, so they might as well do it today to save themselves the
hassle. Brilliant.

It likely doubles the cost of the car over its lifetime if I had to
guess.

When you start adding in gas at $1.35 a liter, driving starts to seem
like it really should be the luxury it used to be.