New Jersey Not Among Most Expensive States To Own A Car

Some good news for New Jersey residents. We are in the top 20 least expensive states to own a car.

Go ahead, go read that first line again. It said what you thought it said. We are in the top 20 least expensive states to own a car. Finally, a little bit of good news for Garden State consumers.

For the record, New Jersey ranks as the 31st most expensive state to own a car in, according to U.S. News and World Report. So what factors led to our surprisingly good ranking?

Some of the key reasons we did pretty well include the fact that there is no vehicle property tax, plus our annual gas cost in New Jersey ($1099 per year) is a little bit below the national average.

But no New Jersey news comes without the bad variety as well, right? So what are the Garden State bad stats we all know are coming. Fine, if you insist. In New Jersey you can expect...

Higher auto insurance rates than most states.

Higher titles fees than the national average.

Higher registration fees than most states

Higher repair costs than most states.

There it is. Those last four feel more like home for us. The article does say that even though we are only the 31st most expensive state for owning a car, our average first year cost ($13,465) is higher than most states in the nation.

Regardless of all that, and maybe because the bar is pretty low, we'll take any survey where 30 states are more expensive in any category than we are. Chalk one up for the Garden State.