We love our cars, Americans do. What we don’t love so much is all the money we spend to own and drive them. There’s gasoline, obviously — we grumble when it gets above $3.50 or $4 or even $5 a gallon, depending on where we live.

There are prices, which soared early in the pandemic when automakers couldn’t get parts, including the computer chips that provide the brains for electric vehicles. The supply of vehicles was so tight that anything used that could still drive flew off dealer lots. 

Lately, even as overall inflation’s been falling, auto insurance and maintenance costs have gone through the roof. (If it’s a fancy car, the sunroof.)

Navy Federal Credit Union puts out a quarterly Cost of Car Ownership index, crunching together 11 expenses — from new and used vehicle prices to gas and regular upkeep. 

Navy Federal economist Robert Frick said that since 2020, the overall cost is up 38%, while the consumer price index is up only 21%. “It’s kind of like we can’t catch a break with cars,” he said.

Four years ago, messed up supply chains and empty dealer lots drove vehicle prices up, but now, said analyst Karl Brauer at iSeeCars.com, prices have leveled off, though they’re still much higher than they were pre-COVID.

“There’re still enough people out there who are ready to buy a new car that you’re not really getting a deal,” he said.

For automakers, there’s little incentive to lower prices, said Garrett Nelson at CFRA Research.

“They entered into a new labor contract with the union, UAW, last November. And so they’re being pinched by much higher labor costs,” he said.

Also, drivers are getting dinged by soaring insurance rates, said Frick — up more than 11% last year. How come?  

“A lot of cars were wrecked from flooding and fires. Cars are more expensive to repair because of electronics. The people who work fixing cars, they got a big pay raise,” he said.

All this is causing consumers to pull back, said Kayla Bruun at Morning Consult. For middle-income folks, that means trading down to cheaper cars, she said.

Among lower-income consumers, though, “those that already have cars are increasingly saying that they’re not confident in their ability to make payments,” Bruun noted.

Anyone who bought when the market peaked and wants to sell now also has a problem, Brauer said — with used-vehicle prices falling. “Automobiles aren’t a particularly good asset. But because they were for about three years there, people got a false sense of reality,” he said.

Brauer said a lot of people owe more on the vehicle they bought at top dollar than it’s worth today.