Vehicle EconomicsSell Now vs Keep
Before you decide what to drive instead, is your current car worth more to you as cash today or as an asset you keep holding?
Why this comes up
Selling a car you still like feels like giving something up, but the asset sitting in your driveway has a cash value today that shrinks the longer you hold it. This engine separates that disposition question, sell for cash now, or keep, from what you would drive instead: it deliberately does not assume a replacement, so the answer here is about your current car's own economics, not a full replacement decision.
How we calculated this
Net proceeds now is your sale value minus loan payoff and sale costs, cash in hand immediately. Net position if kept is your estimated equity value at the end of the holding horizon (already net of any remaining loan balance) minus everything it costs to run the car for that period: financing interest, depreciation, fuel or energy, insurance, maintenance, and repairs.
Worked example, using this page's own defaults: selling now nets $9,700. Keeping for 2 years costs $14,700 to run and leaves an estimated $9,500 in equity, a net position of -$5,200. Selling now wins by about $14,900 under these assumptions.
What this means
- This engine intentionally never resolves what you would drive instead; if keeping loses here but you would otherwise pay to rent or replace transportation, that cost belongs in a full replacement comparison, not this one.
- A large loan payoff eating into your sale proceeds can make keeping look better on paper even when running costs are high, since selling nets so little today.
- Run this before, not after, shopping for a replacement: it tells you what your current car's own economics are worth, independent of what comes next.
Limitations
Selling is not economically comparable to keeping without naming the transportation consequence, per this engine's own design; treat "sell" as a signal about your current car's asset economics, not a standalone life decision. See Methodology.
Methodology
This engine combines Vehicle Economics' ownership total cost model for the keep branch with a plain net-proceeds calculation for the sell branch. See Methodology for the full detail.