Buying a used car involves one large visible number and one large invisible one. The visible number gets negotiated over for a week. The invisible one arrives forty dollars at a time at a pump and never gets added up.
We added it up. Purchase prices come from our listings, annual fuel costs from EPA certification records for the same model years.
| Model | Average price | Fuel per year | Five years of fuel | As % of price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Explorer | $9,549 | $2,932 | $14,660 | 154% |
| Chevrolet Suburban | $14,434 | $3,471 | $17,355 | 120% |
| Chevrolet Tahoe | $15,865 | $3,356 | $16,780 | 106% |
| Ford F-150 | $16,217 | $3,307 | $16,535 | 102% |
| Jeep Wrangler | $17,030 | $3,375 | $16,875 | 99% |
| Toyota Corolla | $10,017 | $1,936 | $9,680 | 97% |
| Toyota Camry | $11,100 | $2,060 | $10,300 | 93% |
| Toyota Prius | $10,517 | $1,227 | $6,135 | 58% |
The Explorer is the case worth staring at
A used Explorer is cheap. At $9,549 it undercuts a Corolla of the same years, and it is a far larger vehicle for the money — which is exactly why it sells.
Then it burns $14,660 in five years. The fuel bill is more than half again what the car cost, and it does not appear anywhere in the purchase decision because it has not happened yet.
Compare it against the Corolla properly. The Corolla costs $468 more to buy and $4,980 less to run over five years. The cheaper car is the more expensive one before the second year is out.
Why this is worse on used cars than new ones
Fuel economy is a fixed property of the vehicle and depreciation is not. That asymmetry does all the damage.
A new Suburban costs sixty thousand dollars and burns $3,471 a year — fuel is a rounding error against the purchase. The same Suburban at twelve years old costs $14,434 and burns exactly the same $3,471, because the engine did not get more efficient while the price collapsed.
So the older the car, the larger fuel looms in the total. The number that felt trivial when the vehicle was new becomes the dominant cost of owning it.
The range at the extremes
Across the EPA records the spread between the thirstiest and the most frugal is wider than most people would guess.
| Model | Combined MPG | Fuel per year |
|---|---|---|
| Lamborghini Aventador | 12.2 | $6,375 |
| Mercedes G-Class | 13.3 | $5,800 |
| Toyota Prius | 54.7 | $1,133 |
| Kia Niro | 50.0 | $1,250 |
| Hyundai Ioniq | 58.0 | $1,050 |
Six times, top to bottom. The Aventador is a joke entry — nobody drives one twelve thousand miles a year — but the G-Class at $5,800 is a school-run vehicle in parts of the country, and that number is real.
The hybrid maths inverted
When these cars were new, a Prius cost several thousand more than a Camry and the fuel saving had to earn that back. That was the whole argument, and it took years.
On the used market the premium has already depreciated away. A Prius averages $10,517 against a Camry's $11,100 — it is the cheaper car to buy — while saving $833 a year in fuel.
There is no payback period left to wait through. It was paid by the first owner.
How to run the number yourself
Take the annual fuel figure for each car you are weighing, multiply by how long you honestly expect to keep it, and add it to the asking price. Compare those totals instead of the prices.
Most purchase-price differences under three thousand dollars do not survive that arithmetic if the economy gap is more than about ten mpg. That is a smaller gap than the one between an Explorer and a Corolla.
Fuel is only one of the running costs, and the other big one is what the car has been through before you got it. A free VIN check covers that side.
Frequently asked questions
How much does fuel cost per year for a used car?
It depends almost entirely on economy, and the range is enormous. A Hyundai Ioniq runs $1,050 a year at 58 mpg; a Chevrolet Suburban runs $3,471 at 18 mpg. Across the whole EPA record the average for recent model years is about $3,100.
Is a cheap used SUV actually cheap?
Frequently not, once fuel is counted. A 2012-2018 Ford Explorer averages $9,549 to buy and $14,660 in fuel over five years — the running cost exceeds the purchase price by more than half. A Corolla at almost the same purchase price burns $9,680 in the same period.
How do I compare two used cars on total cost?
Multiply the annual fuel figure by how long you plan to keep the car and add it to the asking price. A $3,000 difference in purchase price disappears in under two years between a 20 mpg vehicle and a 32 mpg one. The gap only widens after that.
Does a hybrid pay for itself on the used market?
Usually faster than when new, because the hybrid premium has already depreciated away. A used Prius averages $10,517 against a Camry's $11,100 — slightly cheaper to buy — while costing $833 less per year to run. There is no payback period to wait out; it starts immediately.
Denis Kataev is a serial solopreneur and the founder of ForCar. With 15+ years in software engineering and 10 years in SEO, he builds data-driven products end to end — backed by a sharp eye for design. At ForCar he mines proprietary vehicle datasets, turning raw numbers into buying advice you can actually trust.
Keep reading
All articles →
A Tesla Costs More to Repair Than a BMW. A Fiat Costs a Third.
The cost of putting a car back together after a crash varies by a factor of five between badges, and the ordering has surprises in it. One mass-market brand sits above every German luxury marque.
Fixing Your Own Car Got 26% Dearer. Fixing Theirs Didn't.
Two insurance indexes track the cost of the same accidents from opposite ends. One has climbed steadily for two decades and the other has not moved at all, and the difference is sitting in your front bumper.
The Honda S2000 Gets Stolen Twice as Often as It Gets Crashed
Insurance splits your premium into two very different bets. One is about how you drive; the other is about who wants your car when you are not in it. Comparing them exposes which vehicles are targets.
Mark ForCar as a preferred source and our data shows up first in your Google results. One click, no account.