2018 Camry.. What do you think?

Hellcat is RWD only

Good point. I need it to be #known

 

The Corolla has done decent in the snow. I take the truck during most weekends or I want to go play in the snow, and find stuck cars that can use some help...maxtrax FTW

 

So I'm about to be in the exact same shoes as you. Truck that gets ~18-20 empty, expensive AF and don't want to replace for quite some time. Wife has a 14 Tacoma, and you know they get 19 mpg on a good day. I drive a lot. I also have a 2016 used for work mostly and have 14K+ miles on it already. My commuter car also had 16K miles put on it this year.

So there are some factors to add in:
-Replacement costs of Tundra. You have a 16' Tundra and could in fact have this truck for a long time. When do you buy new vehicles? 150K miles or when you see issues with long term maintenance? Let's be honest, trucks now days are very expensive, no matter what make or rating.
So lets just say you keep your 16' Tundra and DD the crap out of it.

Since you said 80+ miles a day, and I am just assuming you do the 25 work days per month with weekends off. So I averaged 85 miles per day x 25 days per month=25500 per year.

Now lets just add in what is done on vacations, weekends, and all the other BS for day to day life, and add a small amount of 6500 more miles, for a grand total average of 32000 miles driven per year. Now looking at Fuelly.com, the average 2016 Tundra owner is getting 14.4 mgp. So you will most likely use 2222.22 gallons per year, and that changes with towing/off highway use of course. I don't know where you are located in TX, so I chose Houston, and mid grade is 2.61 (not sure if your low grade is 87 octane or not). So your fuel cost is averaged at around 5800.00 per year.

Tires. Well you can average that one set of tires will be needed per year now. 850.00, give or take a few.
Oil changes, you will be at 6-7 of those per year. It cost me around 55.00 per oil change using Toyota filters (cheapest out there by far) and Mobil 1 0W20 from Wally World in bulk. So around 385.00 per year on oil changes, and I used the 7 number to cover chassis lube, doing it yourself once again.
Transmission service 299.00 for every 60K miles, so half that cost per year...150.00
Differential, transfer case service, doing it yourself is 120.00 per year at that mileage.

I'm not going to factor in brakes, windshields, paint chips, chassis parts that are wearing out either. This is a lot, in my opinion. I need to replace the windshield in my Truck, I had to in my Lexus, and my Tacoma could use one. All in the same year, and that is not cheap.

So we have:
5800+850+385+150+120= $7305.00 per year to drive your kick ass Tundra. This is a "known" cost. We can just average that up to 7300.00 per year.

Now lets get down to the Truck. Now as kick ass as Tundras are, they are still a mechanical piece of equipment that will break over time. In 5 years you will have ~160K miles on your truck, and at that point, it might be best to pick up something new. Not saying the Tundra will not go double or triple that mileage, but I am going off industry standards of every 3-5 years vehicle ownership. I'm not sure what you paid for your Tundra, but lets just say 35000.00 for a CM, SR5 truck. 35000/5 years=7000.00 per year cost, and with the killer resale value on Toyotas, you can probably get some of your investment back. So I am going to say it will cost you 3500.00 per year after selling outright. This is assuming the truck is paid in full in 5 years or right away.

7300.00 "known" costs + cost of vehicle divided by 5 years 3500.00 (assuming you get 50% back on the cost)= 10800.00 per year to drive this truck.

In reality, this truck will cost you $54000.00 if paid in full at purchase, no finance fees or insurance...etc for 5 years of DD.


Now would I go out and buy a new Camry? No. I would go a different route. Now I really can't talk a bunch of crap, I went an purchased a Lexus IS350 "commuter car", but it was reasonable and I like nice things. Car had 61000 or so miles, 07', sports sedan (so it is fun to drive), expensive gas and tires, but oh well. It cost me 16000.00, plus 700.00 tires and 300.00 windshield, 88.00 for transmission service.

This is what I would be looking for:

https://cosprings.craigslist.org/cto/d/2005-toyota-corolla-low/6310121223.html

Now this Corolla is overpriced by 2500.00, and you might want to pay a little over book because it has such low miles...so lets say 6500.00 (it booked for 6000.00).

So now lets plug in this car, and remove the Tundra from the DD duties.

Corolla cost 6500.00/ 5 years= 1300.00 per year of ownership
25500/38 mpg=671 gallons x 2.05 low grade fuel=1375.00 per year fuel costs
Tires per every other year= 225.00
Oil and filter x 5 (cost of 30.00 at most)=150.00
Trans service every other year= 150.00

1300+1375+225+150+150=3200.00 per year total cost or 16000.00 over 5 years.

Now lets redo the Tundra.

6500 miles per year (for fun or work)/14.4=1177.00 fuel costs
Tires are probably every 4 years now. 850/4=212.00 per year tire cost
Two oil changes (rounded up)= 110.00 per year
Now you wouldn't even get to a transmission service in 5 years, so cost is erased. This would be 9 years out.
It would take you 4 years to even get up to a diff/transfer case service, 120/4=30.00
Known costs are now 1529.00 per year.

Now it would take you 24.5 years to get up to 160,000 miles, but lets be real about this. 5 years people start looking. These is a huge difference in 32500 miles vs 160,000 miles in resale and reliability costs. However, you really could go for 10 years. This is hard to calculate with resale, but we have to put a number to it. The number I got on the resale hit was 7500.00 on NADA.
35000/5=7000.00 per year-50% of resale=3500.00. Now take the mileage resale hit away and subtract that from 3500.00 per year. 3500-1500=2000.00

Known costs 1529.00 + 2000.00= 3529.00 per year.

Now add up Tundra and Corolla together:
Tundra 3529.00+3200.00=6729.00 per year or 6729 x 5=33645.00

That is a huge decrease in overall costs per year, and that is also assuming that we get nothing for the Corolla in 5 years and just give it away to your favorite charity.

Insurance is a wash. If you honestly tell your insurance company you drive an expensive vehicle 32K miles per year vs 6500 miles per year, the cost is significant. Only added cost is registration.

Now if you get into the diesel world, having a commuter is even more critical since everything is more expensive.