Car Maintenance Costs

Why car maintenance costs so much.

Easily my two biggest random expenses are car maintenance and health care. Discover a car problem or injure myself and I know I'm looking at a minimum bill of $1000 these days. As a non-rich adult, these costs can sting, especially because I'm hit with them multiple times per year. Or at least have been the last two years.

The popular mechanics article makes clear the increased car costs are basically all related to emission standards. Which makes sense because I just paid $1300 for a new carburetor. So for all this talk of carbon taxes and other forms of environmental taxes, the fact is, we're already paying for it.

It is pretty obvious to me, as a working single dude, that an ideology that demands healthcare for everyone and the most strict of environmental standards is not affordable. If, for instance, they wanted to maximize healthcare availability and maximize emissions standards, they would need to charge people like me more for healthcare (to pay for others) AND increase the cost of driving either via fuel or car complexity.

These, in turn, would diminish my saving and if taken far enough, bankrupt me. And I'm a person with low expenses. When this happens, I'd end up a dependent in one way or another of a wealthier relative or government subsidies and therefore would be taking money out of the pocket of someone else. How many deep pockets do we have?