How much would it cost to keep a car in the greater Taipei area.
we are trying to find out if its worth it to buy a second hand car.
how much are the costs for insurance, maintenance, any other fees, fuel (average fuel consumption) etc.
it will be helpful if people could share how much they spend so we could have an estimate if we can afford it.
thanks
[quote=“izzy”]How much would it cost to keep a car in the greater Taipei area.
we are trying to find out if its worth it to buy a second hand car.
how much are the costs for insurance, maintenance, any other fees, fuel (average fuel consumption) etc.
it will be helpful if people could share how much they spend so we could have an estimate if we can afford it.
thanks[/quote]
As a very rough guide…
You will need at least (bare minimum) 150,000NT to purchase a car that works properly.
At least 11,000NT plus for tax and fuel charge fees.
Another 6,000NT plus for additional insurance, plus around 3,000NT basic insurance.
A budget of at least 30,000NT per year for basic repairs and servicing.
A budget of anywhere between 3,000NT to 6,000NT per month for a decent parking space.
Also see: actaiwan.com/typical_motoring_costs.php
In december my car overheated and i worked out to get it repaired and run for a year would cost nt10,000a month on average. I decided to give up the car as one can rent 6 or 7 days a month for that price. In general if you aren’t in need of a car most days then occasionally renting may be a better option.
Thanks all.
@sulavaca: the prices you mentioned are annual, right?
from what you wrote i guess its 4000 NT amonth (not including purchasing) and to that add the cost of fuel.
what will be a good estimate of the monthly fuel costs?
thanks
[quote=“izzy”]Thanks all.
@sulavaca: the prices you mentioned are annual, right?
from what you wrote i guess its 4000 NT amonth (not including purchasing) and to that add the cost of fuel.
what will be a good estimate of the monthly fuel costs?
thanks[/quote]
Fuel depends entirely on how much you drive of course. It’s around NT32 a litre at the moment. I used to get around 600 to 700km on a tank which cost 1500 to 1800 to fill up. NT3 a km is a good rough estimate of how much it will cost to drive.
Other suggestions to keep the cost as low as possible:
Get a small car with a small engine. Besides the obvious savings on gas, the annual registration and tax are based on the engine size. My annual fees are over double the NT$11K sulavaca mentions.
To keep maintenance costs low, don’t get an import. The import tax on parts for my car doubles the cost of the part, compared to the same part in the US. When possible, I get the parts on one of my trips home and bring it back. Just ballpark, the cost for an A/C compressor for my car bought in the US was about US$700. The same part here was US$1500.
Parking is expensive. We get one spot included with our home in Xindian, but since we have two cars, we rent a second spot for NT$2000/month. Parking around town seems to average NT$30-40/hour. Office workers I know pay NT$3000 - NT$6000/month for spots in their office buildings.
[quote=“izzy”]Thanks all.
@sulavaca: the prices you mentioned are annual, right?[/quote]
Insurance, tax, fuel charge are payments made yearly, so yes.
Let me be straight though. If at any moment you find yourself looking at twenty thousand dollars here and there in your cost calculation and wondering whether you can afford your car, then you can’t!
A car is a luxury you can do without. There are few instances in Taiwan where a car is cheaper to run than public transport.
A rule of thumb is that you should always know you have enough money to at least replace the most expensive component on any car you are interested in. In the case of a cheap car, suitable to Taiwan then that’s around 50,000NT. You should always have that kind of money easily at hand should you need expensive repairs made urgently.
Izzy,
Maybe the better question to ask is what do you want a car for?
I own a car, though the only time I really use it is maybe on the weekends if I head out of town or if I’m out around town and know I’ll have lots of packages or something.
In my case, it is definitely a luxury: I could get by without it, but like the freedom of being able to hop in it and go wherever I want.
If you have family or small children, that could be a consideration, too.
But after paying close to a million nt for underground parking in my building plus the cost of the vehicle, tax, maintenance and other costs, it’s definitely a luxury. Strongly agree with sulavaca that, if you are trying to run your budget for it down to the penny, you may be advised to hold off a while: A second hand car can throw you a curveball at any time that may require towing or great expense to repair.
Or you can gamble. That’s OK if the stakes are low enough. I paid 15KNT for my car which was probably about 5K too much.
A disposable car cannot “throw you a curveball at any time that may require… great expense to repair”, because you can just dispose of it. (I wouldn’t have thought “towing” involved a huge outlay, though I’ve never had it done here, or anywhere.)
Of course this only works if the car is a “luxury” you can do without (as they usually are).
Safety is also an issue that you’d need to be assured of, especially with a family car.
Edit: I park for free where I pretend to teach, and the car is in the lowest tax bracket, so my fixed costs are low. This means I can tolerate some unreliability, though (apart from a broken exhaust) its been OK so far.
Thank you all for your answers.
we are a family of 3 (parents +1 YR old) moving to Taiwan in a few months for my masters degree. The car idea came up as we started discussing housing options. we thought of living outside of the city and it seemed that would require a car for commuting.
I agree with the saying that if you are considering too much you cant afford it, right now we are trying to understand how much we need to afford 
thanks for the help and i will be happy to return and ask more questions
It’s cheaper to run a car outside Taipei. Taipei gets expensive fast with parking costs and speed cameras. Suvlaca is the car expert here, if you want to get a decent safe car you can follow his advice on costs etc.
Note about small cars, some small cars are not as efficient as other small cars or even larger engine cars (but the vehicle tax is of course lower for the smaller engines). Japanese cars seem to have the best fuel efficiency and reliability and costs wise parts are reasonable compared to imports as many parts are produced in Taiwan. They tend to cost more as a result though as Taiwanese know this…I agree with Suvlacas figure of 150k and in many cases it would be 200k-300k for a good second hand Toyota saloon for instance.
Also don’t forget tolls depending on where you will be commuting to/from.
izzy:
If you haven’t been to Taiwan before, I would seriously recommend that you spend some time here before you decide on transport options. Public transportation is usually more convenient and much cheaper. Parking is a PITA no matter where you are in Taipei or Taoyuan counties. It’s faster to get where you want to go in a car, but you can often spend a great deal of time (and/or money) trying to find a place to park it.
If you’re a starving grad student, I’d definitely put off your decision, at least until you see how the locals manipulate their vehicles.
Renting a house close to where you’re going to school and walking or riding a bus/MRT might be a better use of your time and resources.
Where will you be going to school, izzy? Parking can be easier around some of the campuses in the suburbs
[quote=“Ducked”]Or you can gamble. That’s OK if the stakes are low enough. I paid 15KNT for my car which was probably about 5K too much.
A disposable car cannot “throw you a curveball at any time that may require… great expense to repair”, because you can just dispose of it. (I wouldn’t have thought “towing” involved a huge outlay, though I’ve never had it done here, or anywhere.)[/quote]
For $15k and depending on where you live, you’d probably just push it into a rice field, steal some poor farmer’s bicycle to get home and forget about it, I suppose… :neutral:
[quote=“citizen k”]Where will you be going to school, izzy? Parking can be easier around some of the campuses in the suburbs
[quote=“Ducked”]Or you can gamble. That’s OK if the stakes are low enough. I paid 15KNT for my car which was probably about 5K too much.
A disposable car cannot “throw you a curveball at any time that may require… great expense to repair”, because you can just dispose of it. (I wouldn’t have thought “towing” involved a huge outlay, though I’ve never had it done here, or anywhere.)[/quote]
For $15k and depending on where you live, you’d probably just push it into a rice field, steal some poor farmer’s bicycle to get home and forget about it, I suppose… :neutral:[/quote]
Don’t do that. The government is buying back clunkers ( 4k$ if my memory serves) That would make it a 11k$ car
If you plan to live in the city, don’t bother with a car. I’ve done the math. Even if I took a cab all the time, it would still be cheaper than owning a vehicle. I now do Costco runs using a cab, very efficient. And if you combine buses, cabs and the MRT, it’ll be even more economical and time efficient. Parking in the city can be a real pain.
Another issue is safety. There seems to be more ruffian drivers these days. Sometimes if you so much as honk at someone for cutting you off, the goon may just stop dead in front of you and come at you with a baseball bat. Saw this and several similar stories on the news recently.
My wife and I have been to Taiwan before, but we left 4 years ago in 2007, many things have changed since…
I will be attending Tai Da (or Zheng Da, still waiting for their reply) and we were thinking of renting in the xindian or xizhi areas.
My car is 17 years old and I bought it for 88K 3 years ago and I will not be getting rid of it any time soon. It has a 2.5 litre engine, but it is more efficient than my old 1.3. Tax is a bummer, but it is used often. It has 300k on the clock. I reconditioned the engine recently for 30k. Did the gearbox for 30k recently too. No other problems. I put about 1000k on the clock every 2 weeks.
It’s a workhorse, and runs like a dream. If I put a new car through what my current car goes through, I would be looking at a new one by now, or would have spent a ton repairing it.
You have to look at your personal situation carefully and weigh up your options. Although I respect Sulavaca’s advice, sometimes a cheaper used car may fit your circumstances more than a more expensive car.
I must admit that I bought my vehicle with a good general knowledge of how to maintain cars, so was able to make a wise choice initially with my purchase.
Having a car really opens up Taiwan, without a car It’s hard to explore outside the cities. I had an el cheapo car before, it cost me plenty to fix bits as they broke though, the radiator kept overheating in the summer heat. However parts and labour are cheap here so it can be a better option than the west. When you have a small child a car is also very useful to get around.
How to minimise the cost of running a car in Taiwan.
petrol: buy a car with a small engine
registration: ditto
servicing and repairs: don’t buy an import
parking: live in a house, and the space in front is “yours” (that’s the rule in my street in Kaohsiung, but I can’t speak for Taipei)
depreciation: buy a car that’s 10 y.o. or older
