Keep or Switch
Compare the forward-looking cost of the car you own against a replacement. Pick the replacement yourself, or let the tool rank options by body type and powertrain. Model years 2000 and newer.
Compare against
Cars priced within 25% of your max price, ranked by how much each saves over your time frame, after all switching costs. Rankings use estimated prices.
"Other" covers bike share, delivery fees or gas for a borrowed car. You sell your current car and stop paying for ownership.
Replacement details
Have a quote? Adjust price, rebates and fees
Everything starts as an estimate for the model and year. Enter the numbers from a listing or quote to see your actual deal. Sales or title tax is set under Assumptions and applies to the price you pay.
How you'll pay
More scenarios
Business use applies a simple tax-savings estimate to the operating costs of both cars. It ignores deduction caps and vehicle-weight rules, so check it with a tax professional.
Cumulative cost, year by year
Side by side
Where the money goes
How this works
- Only future costs count. What you already spent on your car is ignored. Each car is charged for the value it loses, loan interest, the earnings lost on cash tied up in it, insurance, energy, maintenance, repairs and registration.
- Switching adds one-time costs: the discount you take selling your car, sales or title tax and fees on the replacement, any home charger, and any gap between what you pay (after rebates) and the car's estimated market value.
- Repair costs are nudged up or down by as much as about a third for models with more or fewer repair-heavy owner complaints (engine, power train, electrical, fuel) in NHTSA's complaint data. It is a weak signal: complaints are voluntary and busier models draw more of them.
- Switching later keeps your current car, and its loan, until the switch date. Keeping it as a second car splits your driving between the two cars. Going without a car replaces ownership with the yearly cost you enter.
- Makes, models, model years and fuel economy come from the US EPA's FuelEconomy.gov data. Prices, depreciation, insurance and repair costs are our own estimates: approximate US base-trim prices adjusted for age and mileage, not licensed market data. Premium-fuel cars are charged a higher fuel price. No tax incentives are assumed beyond what you enter, and electric cars include an estimated annual registration fee but no time-of-use electricity rates.
- Not modeled: safety features, comfort, reliability beyond the repair estimate, tolls, parking and leasing. The plausible range reruns the math with repair costs from 0.6x to 1.6x and values 10% above and below your setting.