People are always buying new vehicles. Are you one of them? If price matters to you, what numbers do you look at? Do you observe the price tag? How about the price it would cost at the gas station? Are you a minority that shops for the cheapest insurance rate or resell value five years down the road?

Below, I chose five vehicles: two compact trucks, a compact car, a subcompact car, and an entry-level luxury car. The price tags can be acquired from the manufacturer website. The annual insurance rate is provided here. The gas expense is calculated assuming an average of 12,000 miles driven each year and an average gas price of $2 per gallon. The blue book value is an estimation from here.

While these numbers are realistic ballpark figures, they are not a guarantee. If the price of gasoline were to increase to $2.50 a gallon then the trucks would lose more value than the compact and subcompact cars. If the price of gasoline were to decrease to $1.50 the Colorado would cut its fuel costs by 25%, or $226. The Fiesta would also cut its costs by 25%, or $162. While both vehicles cut the same percentage the dollar amount saved is greater for vehicles with worse mileage. This allows the trucks to lower the expense gab.

According to Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds.com, some vehicles do not depreciate as fast as others. One of the surprising vehicles with a slow depreciation was the Ford Fiesta. The Honda Civic has a new price tag $4,550 higher than the Fiesta; however, because of the slower depreciation, after five years the used price for the same Civic is only $243 higher. That is a loss of $4,307. This is also a large reason why the Fiesta recorded the lowest Total Expense above.