When your old car is on its last legs and it’s time to buy some new wheels, there are a lot of things that you need to think about.

You need to find something that drives beautifully, looks great and reflects your personality. But you’ve also got to think about the boring stuff as well. It’d be great if money wasn’t an option and you could just pick whatever car you like, but in the real world, you have to make sure that you’re buying a car that you can actually afford.

The cost of the car itself is obviously the first thing to look at, but a lot of people forget about the rest of the costs involved with owning a car. You need to consider that stuff before you buy, otherwise, you might end up taking home a car that you can’t afford to run. You can sell it on again and buy something more affordable but then you’re just losing money. If you’re about to go out and buy a new set of wheels, these are the extra costs that you need to think about.

Fuel

This is one that you hopefully have thought about. The fuel costs vary massively from car to car so you’ve got to keep that in mind when you’re making your decision. It would be great if you could get something powerful with amazing acceleration, but can you really afford to run it? If you buy a gas guzzler, you’re going to end up spending so much money on fuel every month. There’s no point having a great car if it spends all day sitting in the garage because you can’t afford to keep putting fuel in it, you’re much better off looking at something with good fuel consumption instead.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get a decent car that goes fast, just don’t go overboard. Always check out the fuel consumption on the car before you buy it and find something that strikes a good balance between power and fuel costs.

Repairs

It’s likely that your car will need repairs at some point, regardless of how well you look after it. You could always get in an accident and that means paying for repairs. If the accident isn’t your fault and you can prove it, the NBA Law Firm’s car accident lawyers could get you some compensation that will cover the repairs. You may also get it covered by insurance (we’ll come to that later) but otherwise, it’s up to you to pay for it. Some cars are simple to repair and the parts are readily available so it isn’t too much of an issue. But other cars are notoriously tricky to fix and the parts are quite rare, so the mechanic will charge you a premium to order them in.

If you’re buying an older car, it’s worth thinking about this and maybe speaking to a few local mechanics to see how easily the car would be repaired if you had any problems with it in the future. If they tell you that it’s going to be a pain, you should think about a different car.

You might have trouble with brand new models as well because some of them have very complex computer systems on board and you can’t just diagnose problems by opening the hood. They need to be plugged in at a specific manufacturer owned mechanic and dealt with there and a lot of new cars are way more expensive to fix than older models. In a lot of cases, it might be better going for something slightly older that any mechanic can easily open up and repair.

Customization

Car dealerships can be a bit sneaky about the price because the number advertised isn’t always the final figure. That price is usually for the basic car but there are a lot of added extras that you can pay for on top. With some cars, the added extras are things that you don’t actually need anyway like parking cameras, but sometimes it’ll be things like power steering or electric windows, which you assume would come as standard. Once you add the cost of those extras on, the car isn’t actually as cheap as it first seems.

If you’re a car enthusiast, you probably won’t leave the car as it is once you drive it out of the showroom either, you’ll want to make some modifications to it. Some cars are pretty simple to customize so it won’t cost you that much money, but other models are more difficult and you might have to spend a lot more to get the look and performance that you want. There are ways to save money on customization, of course, but it’s still worth checking out what kind of money you’re likely to spend pimping your car out before you pick one.

Insurance

Insurance is a big expense, especially if you’re younger. Young drivers tend to have very high insurance bills until they’ve got a few years of driving experience under their belt. The type of car that you buy also has a big impact, so you should consider something a little more reserved. If you buy a car that is very powerful, the likelihood of you having an accident is a lot higher and your insurance is going to be a lot higher as a result. You don’t have to buy a boring slow car, just don’t go for the fastest thing you can find because your insurance will be ridiculously high if you do.

The way that you store the car and where you live makes a big difference as well. If you live in a neighborhood with a high crime rate and the car is left out on the street overnight, that will push your insurance up. If possible you want to leave the car in a garage and use things like a steering wheel lock to keep it safe and your insurance will go down a bit.

The details that you put on the paperwork, especially your job description, can have an impact as well. If you play around a bit, you might be able to get the price down even more.

If you don’t think about all of these different costs associated with owning a car and you just rush into it, you’ll end up buying a new set of wheels that you can’t really afford to drive.