True Cost Calculator
| Purchase price | £51,000 |
| Fuel (5 yrs) | £5,414 |
| Insurance (5 yrs) | £4,040 |
| Maintenance (5 yrs) | £2,770 |
| Road tax (5 yrs) | £950 |
| Minus estimated resale value | −£18,870 |
Why the sticker price is only half the story
The price on the windscreen is the most misleading number in motoring. A £27,995 hatchback does not cost £27,995 — it costs that plus five years of petrol, insurance, servicing, repairs and road tax, minus whatever it is still worth when you sell it. Most buyers never add those figures up, which is exactly how a “cheap” car becomes an expensive one. The DrivePedia True Cost Calculator does the adding up for you, turning the sticker price into the only number that matters: what the car will really cost you to own.
For UK drivers this is especially revealing. Vehicle Excise Duty, insurance group ratings that punish the unwary, servicing costs that vary wildly by brand, and fuel bills driven by some of Europe’s highest pump prices all pile on top of the purchase price. The calculator combines all of it — price, fuel at your mileage, insurance, maintenance and tax, less estimated depreciation — into a single five-year net figure and a simple monthly equivalent. When two cars differ by £1,000 on the forecourt but £3,000 over five years, you deserve to know before you buy, not after.
How the True Cost Calculator works
Choose any car from the DrivePedia database and the calculator pulls its real figures automatically: on-the-road price, WLTP fuel economy, typical annual insurance, maintenance and road tax. Tell it how many miles you drive a year — the default is 8,000, the UK average for a private motorist — and it scales the fuel bill to match. It then builds the full five-year picture: purchase price plus five years of fuel, insurance, maintenance and tax, minus what the car should still be worth at the end. The result is shown two ways: the five-year net total for the big-picture thinkers, and the monthly equivalent for anyone comparing against a finance quote or a monthly budget. High-mileage drivers will notice fuel dominating the total, while low-mileage owners will see depreciation doing most of the damage — the calculator shows you which kind of owner you are.
Worked example
Take the Volkswagen Golf 2024, priced at £27,995 with 47.9 mpg combined economy. The calculator starts with the purchase price, then adds five years of running costs at 8,000 miles a year: fuel, insurance at around £624 a year, maintenance near £462 a year, and £190 a year in road tax. Then it subtracts the car’s estimated residual value after five years — because money you get back at resale was never truly spent. The final five-year net cost is £29,522, which works out at £492 a month. Notice what that tells you: the Golf’s true monthly cost of ownership is a figure you can hold directly against a PCP or lease quote. If a dealer offers you the same car for £550 a month on finance, you now know exactly how much convenience is costing you.