The Cost of Car Ownership in Singapore

In my last article I estimated the cost of car ownership in Singapore to be about $2,000 per month based on my personal experience of owning a Nissan Sunny.  My guess is not too far off from the more detailed computation reported in this blog article, which estimates car ownership to cost about $1,855 per month. 
http://blog.moneysmart.sg/car-ownership/ride-or-drive-the-cost-of-car-ownership-vs-public-transport-in-singapore/

The article was published on 20 September 2011 with the assumption that  a Toyota Corolla Altis 1.6 Classic (A) costs $105,988, inclusive of COE, ARF, OMV and GST.  A similar car cost about $126,888 today, as quoted by Toyota Singapore under the classic price with no-guarantee COE.  The difference works out to be $20,900 or $174 per month when dividend by 120 months (10 years x 12 months per year). Adding that difference to $1,855 per month yields $2,029 per month, which is very close to my estimate of $2,000 per month.

Hence, I would advise my children to delay buying a car until they have attained a high net worth of more than $5.0m of investible fund.