$1,086. That was the Enterprise quote for a minivan: 11 days, unlimited miles, taxes and fees included, out the morning of June 14 and back the evening of June 25. I wrote it on the back of an envelope and stuck it to the fridge next to the Elkmont sticky note, and for about a week it looked at us every time we got the milk out.
The case for the minivan
Dana made it first, and it was a good one. Sliding doors, so nobody flings a door into the car next to us at a rest area. More room behind the last row, so the cooler doesn't have to play Tetris with the tent. Better gas mileage. And 2,400 miles that wouldn't land on our own car, a 2019 Pilot that's sitting at about 78,900 miles right now.
It's a fair point. Our Pilot is roomy, but with two kids, a tent, four sleeping bags and two weeks of food, it fills up fast. We already know the third row will be folded flat for the whole trip. In our house, the third row is cargo.
The camp math on our own car
To compare honestly, I needed to know what a mile in the Pilot really costs us beyond gas. I'm a PE teacher, not an accountant, so this is rough, but here's how I got there:
- Tires: about $800 a set, lasting around 50,000 miles, so roughly 1.6 cents a mile.
- Oil changes: about $75 every 5,000 miles, roughly 1.5 cents a mile.
- Brakes, wipers and filters: call it a penny a mile.
- Resale: the big guess. Every mile knocks a little off what the car is worth someday. I landed on about 8 cents.
That's about 12 cents a mile. Times 2,400 miles, it's $288 of wear we'd be spending without seeing it.
Then gas. The Pilot gets about 22 miles per gallon on the highway. The minivans I looked at are rated a few miles per gallon better. Over 2,400 miles that's roughly 17 extra gallons for the Pilot, about $53 at the $3.10 or so we've been paying lately. We'd buy gas either way, so only the difference counts.
So the Pilot's real extra cost is about $288 plus $53, or $341. The minivan costs $1,086 before we put a drop of gas in it. Driving our own car comes out about $745 ahead.
What the numbers didn't cover
A few things cut the other way, and I didn't want to pretend they didn't.
The strongest case for the rental is breakdowns. If a rental quits in Tennessee, it's the rental company's problem. If our Pilot quits, it's ours. I took that one seriously. The Pilot is going in for its pre-trip service anyway (oil change, tire rotation and a cabin filter, $89), and I asked the shop to look over the belts, brakes and hoses while it's up on the lift, and to check the AC, which matters more to me than anything else on that list.
There's also insurance on a rental. I'm not going to pretend I understand exactly what our auto policy covers on a rented car, and the answer is different for everyone, so that's a question for your own agent, not for me.
And there are the small things in favor of the Pilot. It has roof rails, and the soft roof bag we're borrowing from Dana's brother Javi fits them. We know how it drives loaded. The NOCO jump starter has lived in its glove box since our dead battery at Long Pine Key in January, right next to the green notebook I use as the trip log. And I know where the tailgate light switch is now, which is a lesson I paid for once already.
What we decided
We're driving the Pilot. $745 is more than our cabin near Townsend costs, and that settled it for both of us. Dana's request for sliding doors has been noted for our next car, whenever that is.
If my math is right, the Pilot will roll past 80,000 miles somewhere in Georgia on the way up. Nico has asked to be awake for it. He won't be. Nico falls asleep within 20 minutes of any car ride, and I've never once seen him make it to the Turnpike.
