Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Is it expensive to have a car as a foreign student in Sweden, Norway, or in Finland?
Is it expensive to have a car as a foreign student in Sweden, Norway, or in Finland?
I'm currently residing in New York, and I know it is expensive to own a car as a foreign student. I pay $148 for the car insurance. The mechanic part is very expensive too; labor fees for an hour is about $ 90 or so. The oil is cheap: regular gas is 4.6 liters = $ 2.05 So the total is like $ 400 monthly to own a car in a place that is 50 miles away from Manhattan in the state of New York. Note: my car is Nissan Altima 2000 GXE
Other - Europe - 1 Answers
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1 :
It's very expensive to have a car, especially for a student. No student I know uses a car during the school year, due to the costs. Public transportation is great in the Nordic countries, and often everything needed is within walking distance. The costs are high to discourage driving, especially in large cities. It's really only viable if you have a decent job or live in rural areas where it's more of a necessity. In order to check insurance costs online, you need a personal and registration number. The cost can differ greatly, depending on the car, your details, expected yearly mileage and exact location. But generally, a newer economy car is cheaper to insure than an older/nicer car. Norway tends to be the most expensive country (but salaries are much higher as well), but Sweden and Finland aren't much cheaper. A quick average of my car-owning friends came out to about 400kr/$60 month. Motor oil averages about 50kr/L ($7.33) if you buy it in 10L bottles. Petrol/gasoline in Norway is currently about 11kr/L, which is $6.09/gallon. Major cities usually have congestion tolls, meaning if you enter the main city, you must pay a fee each time (30kr/$4.40 where I live). The final monthly cost depends on so many factors, but my estimate is that it's at least as expensive as what you pay now. When I owned a car previously (2000 VW Golf), I paid an average of about 2500kr/$370 per month. The only time the car was used was to commute to and from work, a 15 minute drive. You also have to consider shipping, import charges, testing, conversions if necessary and getting a local driver's license (which can be very expensive).
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