Showing an example: a $35,000 mainstream car at 28 mpg in Virginia. Change anything below and the numbers follow.
The APR field opens on 7.14%, the most recent commercial-bank rate on a 60-month new-car loan published by the Federal Reserve. A used car will be higher.
All in, every month
$1,118
$1,028 to $1,258 depending on how the sourced ranges land
Where it goes
| Line | A month | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Loan payment | $655 | fixed by your terms |
| Insurance | $214 | $169 to $286 |
| Fuel | $131 | $116 to $168 |
| Maintenance | $99 | $75 to $124 |
| Registration | $19 | $14 to $25 |
| All in | $1,118 | $1,028 to $1,258 |
What it takes to get in
| Down payment | $3,500 |
|---|---|
| Sales tax | $1,453 |
| Cash due at signing | $3,500 |
| Amount financed | $32,953 |
| Interest over 60 months | $6,328 |
Virginia
The full price is taxed here
Virginia does not confirm a trade-in credit, so this prices sales tax on the whole purchase price. If your dealer says otherwise, the tax line above is a ceiling.
Where every number came from
Nothing on this page is a round number we chose. Each line below is a row of reference data with the source that published it and the day we last pulled it.
- Tax · Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, Motor Vehicle Sales and Use Tax, VA, checked 2026-09-02. DMV states 'Virginia is required to collect a 4.15% Sales and Use Tax (SUT) at the time of titling', that is 4.15 percent, on 'the vehicle's gross sales price, or $75, whichever is greater'. The $75 floor is far below any vehicle in this catalog. BASIS: gross sales price, which DMV states 'does not include any other price reductions, such as credit for trade-ins', and it works the example of a $40,000 car with a $5,000 trade-in still being taxed on $40,000. TRADE-IN: this engine does not apply a credit for Virginia, taxing the full price the same way DMV does. This engine used to subtract a trade-in in every state regardless of what the state actually allowed, which overstated a Virginia member's trade-in break by exactly the trade-in times this rate; that defect is fixed. LOCAL: SUT is a single statewide rate collected by DMV at titling.
- Insurance · MoneyGeek model-year-matched car insurance rates, mainstream models in this catalog, US, checked 2026-09-02. Full-coverage premium for the mainstream class, MODEL-YEAR MATCHED. Full coverage is MoneyGeek's own definition: 100/300/100 liability plus comprehensive and collision at a $1,000 deductible, quoted for a 40-year-old driver with a clean record, good credit and no prior claim. Rule, applied without exception: for each mainstream car in this catalog, take MoneyGeek's published national average full-coverage premium for that car's own model year, read from that car's own model page or, failing that, from the model-year table in its make page's section for that model; a car with no published figure for its own model year in either place is excluded and named. Values retrieved 2026-09-02, monthly: Subaru Outback 2025 $199; Toyota Camry 2025 $206; Mazda 3 2025 $211; Honda Accord 2025 $217; Honda Civic 2025 $236; Toyota Corolla 2025 $249. Expected = the median of those six, (211 + 217) / 2 = $214.00. Low = the cheapest, $199.00. High = the costliest, $249.00. EXCLUDED: none; every mainstream car in this catalog is an input above. MILEAGE BASIS, disclosed because one all-in figure rests on two of them: MoneyGeek's quoted driver 'Puts about 12,000 miles on the odometer yearly', while the fuel and maintenance lines beside this one run on the sourced FHWA figure of 10,812 miles/year (the DrivingAssumption row). Premiums are not proportional to mileage, so the two cannot be reconciled by scaling. No benchmark on file for this state and vehicle class, so this is the national benchmark for the vehicle class; range widened 15 percent.
- Registration · AAA Your Driving Costs 2025 (License, Registration & Taxes) net of Tax Foundation purchase tax, US, checked 2026-09-02. RECURRING REGISTRATION ONLY. This figure deliberately EXCLUDES the one-time taxes and fees payable when the vehicle is bought, because this app already charges those separately as purchase.sales_tax. Derivation: AAA's 'License, Registration & Taxes' category averages $813/year over the study's stated five-year, 75,000-mile ownership period, i.e. $4,065 over five years, and AAA describes that category as covering 'all government taxes & fees payable at time of purchase, as well as annual fees to keep the vehicle licensed & registered (national average).' The same fact sheet gives the study's average sales-weighted new-vehicle MSRP as $38,938. Purchase-time sales tax on that vehicle at the nationwide population-weighted average combined state and local rate of 7.53 percent (the StateSalesTax:US row) is $2,932.03; removing it leaves $1,132.97 over five years, i.e. $226.59/year of recurring cost. Low and high are this app's own +/-15 percent band around that derived value (192.60 / 260.58), not a published range. THE ERROR IN THIS FIGURE DOES NOT RUN ONE WAY, and its direction depends on the state and on the car. Against AAA's average $38,938 vehicle in a flat-fee state it errs slightly HIGH, because AAA's category also bundles non-tax purchase-time government fees (title, plate, documentation) that this subtraction does not remove. In a state whose registration scales with vehicle value it errs very LOW, and worst for exactly the cars this catalog is built around: California's Vehicle License Fee is 0.65 percent of the purchase price or value of the vehicle (California DMV, https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-registration/registration-fees/), which on this catalog's $249,865 Lamborghini Huracan is $1,624.12/year, about seven times what this row models. National average fallback; range widened 15 percent.
- Maintenance · AAA Your Driving Costs 2025, Maintenance, Repair & Tires category, US, checked 2026-09-02. AAA's 2025 national average for the Maintenance, Repair & Tires category is 11.04 cents/mile, which AAA describes as covering 'retail parts & labor for routine maintenance specified by the vehicle manufacturer, a comprehensive extended warranty, repairs to wear-and-tear items that require service during 5 years of operation & one set of replacement tires.' Expected = 11.04 cents/mile * 10,812 miles/year / 12 months = $99.47/month, the annual mileage being the DrivingAssumption 'miles_per_year' row. Low and high are a documented -25 percent / +25 percent band around that value ($74.60 / $124.34).
- Fuel · EIA, Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices; EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A, US, checked 2026-09-01. Gasoline: EIA's national average regular gasoline price for the week of August 31, 2026 was $4.071/gallon (expected). Low and high are the lowest and highest PADD regional averages for that same week: Gulf Coast (PADD3) $3.618/gallon and West Coast (PADD5) $5.206/gallon. Electricity: EIA's Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_5_06_a), data for June 2026, residential sector: the U.S. total is 18.34 cents/kWh (expected), and low and high are the lowest and highest individual state prices in that same table, Nevada 13.11 cents/kWh and Hawaii 52.72 cents/kWh. GRADE CAVEAT, QUANTIFIED: this is the REGULAR grade, and 10 of the 17 gasoline cars this catalog offers are EPA-rated on PREMIUM (Chevrolet Corvette, Nissan GT-R, Toyota GR Supra, BMW M3, Mercedes-AMG GT 43, Acura NSX, Lamborghini Huracan, Subaru WRX, Porsche 911, Mazda MX-5 Miata). In EIA's weekly retail price table by grade (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_w.htm), for that same week of August 31, 2026, premium averaged $5.070/gallon against regular's $4.071, a gap of $0.999/gallon. At this app's sourced 10,812 miles/year that understates those cars' fuel line by $31.04/month (MX-5 Miata, 29 combined) to $60.01/month (Huracan, 15 combined). Distance driven: 10,812 miles per year, from FHWA Highway Statistics 2024, Table VM-1, average miles traveled per vehicle (retrieved 2026-09-02); see assumptions.driving for its full provenance.
- Charging · EIA, Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices; EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A, US, checked 2026-09-01. Gasoline: EIA's national average regular gasoline price for the week of August 31, 2026 was $4.071/gallon (expected). Low and high are the lowest and highest PADD regional averages for that same week: Gulf Coast (PADD3) $3.618/gallon and West Coast (PADD5) $5.206/gallon. Electricity: EIA's Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_5_06_a), data for June 2026, residential sector: the U.S. total is 18.34 cents/kWh (expected), and low and high are the lowest and highest individual state prices in that same table, Nevada 13.11 cents/kWh and Hawaii 52.72 cents/kWh. GRADE CAVEAT, QUANTIFIED: this is the REGULAR grade, and 10 of the 17 gasoline cars this catalog offers are EPA-rated on PREMIUM (Chevrolet Corvette, Nissan GT-R, Toyota GR Supra, BMW M3, Mercedes-AMG GT 43, Acura NSX, Lamborghini Huracan, Subaru WRX, Porsche 911, Mazda MX-5 Miata). In EIA's weekly retail price table by grade (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_w.htm), for that same week of August 31, 2026, premium averaged $5.070/gallon against regular's $4.071, a gap of $0.999/gallon. At this app's sourced 10,812 miles/year that understates those cars' fuel line by $31.04/month (MX-5 Miata, 29 combined) to $60.01/month (Huracan, 15 combined). Distance driven: 10,812 miles per year, from FHWA Highway Statistics 2024, Table VM-1, average miles traveled per vehicle (retrieved 2026-09-02); see assumptions.driving for its full provenance.
- Driving · FHWA Highway Statistics 2024, Table VM-1, average miles traveled per vehicle, US, checked 2026-09-02. Annual mileage, the multiplier on every fuel and charging figure and on the per-mile derivation behind the mainstream maintenance benchmark. Table VM-1 reports 10,812 average miles traveled per vehicle in 2024 for LIGHT DUTY VEHICLES SHORT WB, which the table's own footnote defines as 'passenger cars, light trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles with a wheelbase (WB) less than or equal to 121 inches', the category every car in this catalog falls in. This is a national average across all drivers and says nothing about any individual member's mileage.
Engine 1.0.0. Ranges are not error bars on one true answer: insurance and maintenance genuinely differ between two people buying the same car, and this shows the spread rather than picking a point inside it.