Car owning and all related costs question

[mike_romeo]

Hello,

I know these have been asked probably before and I did google and search and read some other threads, but there are some questions I haven't found answers to.

I am thinking about buying a used car in Finland, but before I commit, I want to know all the costs and so on. I've never owned a car before so I want to know all the related costs and what I need to know and pay attention to.

So as far as I understand I will need 2 kinds of insurance:
- liability
- kasko

Taxes: there are 2 or 3 different kinds? I read the trafi website but I didn't quite get it. How much that is typically for a year?

Parking fee and fuel is pretty self explanatory.

Service fees: car owners, how much do you pay on average for a medium sized car per year? I know there are some regular things, like oil filter, break checks...

Inspection: is that required yearly? How much does it cost?

Am I forgetting anything?

Thank you for the answers for a hopefully soon-to-be car owner

[riku2]

for the tax there is the tax on buying a new car and the annual tax due from all those who own a car. The annual tax varies depending on the emissions and you can check online what it will be for different vehicles: http://www.trafi.fi/en/road/taxation/vehicle_tax

insurance - I think the liability insurance is mandatory (damage you cause to other people/vehicles) but the kasko (coverage of your own car) is optional although without it if you crash the car you pay all the repairs/replacement cost yourself. You normally get both from the same company and they will offer different levels of kasko coverage. The prices are quite outrageous in finland (about 3x the price for a same car in the UK) no doubt caused by the careless nature of finnish drivers, half of who are on the phone and the other half don't seem to know how to use a motorway or roundabout.

inspection is annual but only for cars older than three years. it's quite a low price (under 60e) so long as everything is ok with your car.

service fees will vary a lot depending on the make and also the servicing intervals can vary a lot. The last car I bought new (BMW 520d) received one service in the 4 years I owned it since the intervals are so great. That was it - one trip to the dealer in 4 years.

Tires are another expense. the cheapest is to order them online and have them delivered to a local dealer http://www.rengas-online.com/ although since everyone has at least two sets (summer and winter) then you don't replace them very often (perhaps every 4 years if each set is on the car for six months of the year).

[priki]

Tyres indeed. It depends on how much you drive. We buy a new set of summer tyres every second year (sometimes every year) and winter tyres about every third or fourth year. If you order them online, check that they are meant for Scandinavian weather. E.g. Mid-European winter tyres are not usually suitable for Finnish winters. Then you need a storage for the second tyre set.

About service fees, it can be anything from 400€ a year to 4000€ - depends on what gets broken that year.
I checked my payments from last year, we had two services and one additional fixing, and cost of those was about 1600€ altogether.

One thing that could be worth it is the membership fee of Autoliitto.