The cost of motor insurance has fallen sharply over the past year but the overall cost of running a family car has risen slightly, according to a study carried out by AA Ireland.
The motoring lobby group's annual survey of costs shows that premiums fell an average of 13 per cent across all engine sizes in the past year.
The average cost of insuring a car with an engine of 1,000cc or under was €844 over the past 12 months, compared to €970 over the previous year. To insure a family car - the 1,251 to 1,500cc category - it costs an average of €1,160, compared to €1,334 in the previous 12 months.
The cost of insuring a vehicle with an engine size of between 1,751 and 2,000cc is now running at €1,446, a fall of €216.
Despite the continued drop in insurance costs, however, the overall cost of running a family car rose by 1.4 per cent in the same period.
It now costs €10,515.68 to run a small family car for a year, up €148 on the 2004 figure, according to the survey. This includes operating costs such as petrol, oil, tyres, servicing and repairs as well as standing charges such as insurance, depreciation and parking.
This translates as 55.305 cent per kilometre to run a car with an engine capacity of less than 1,000cc, representing a slight increase of 0.265 cent. At the other end of the scale, however, the total cost per kilometre of running a vehicle up to 4,000 cc is 115.798 cent, a drop of 5.872 cent.
Running a small family car now costs 65.723 cent, including standing and operating costs, for every kilometre driven. This represents an increase of 0.833 cent from 64.89 cent per kilometre when the survey was published this time last year.
The AA's cost-per-kilometre form the basis of mileage allowances paid by many companies to their employees.
AA public affairs manager Conor Faughnan says the drop in insurance costs had "certainly helped the motorist, but other costs - notably petrol - have risen and look like rising further." The price of petrol has swung wildly over the past 12 months but overall has risen by 1.5 per cent since last June.
"A small family car in the 1,251 to 1,500cc category, doing an average of 16,000 kilometres a year will use 1,500 litres of fuel a year," he adds. "So every cent that petrol goes up costs the average motorist an extra €15 per year.
"With more price rises forecast for petrol and diesel, motoring is set to get more expensive."
The purchase price of new cars has not increased significantly, but other costs such as servicing, spare parts and parking have gone up in line with inflation, which has averaged 2.4 per cent in the past 12 months.
As usual the rate of depreciation of cars makes depressing reading, particularly at the top end of the market where vehicles lose re-sale value at a rate of knots.
A car with an engine size of 1,000cc or less will depreciate in value by an average of €1,592 every year, according to the survey, while a car up to 1,250cc in engine size loses €1,857 every 12 months.
The average family car depreciates by €2,122 every year compared to €2,321, €2,523, and €2,785 for cars with engine sizes up to 1,750cc, 2,000cc, and 2,500cc respectively.
Vehicles with engine sizes of between 2,500 and 3,000cc depreciate by an average of €3,515 a year, the survey says, compared to a whopping €4,244 for vehicles with engines between 3,000 and 4,000cc.
The cost of parking has also increased across the board. It now costs an average €3,620 a year to park a vehicle, compared to €3,536 when the AA survey was published in 2004.
