How many miles?
 

I am not yet a villager but hope to be one soon. I have read several posts on here that indicate most full timers drive their cars very little once they are settled in and do nearly all of their driving in the golf cart. I have two cars and have considered selling one before making the big move to TV. So, my question is: how many miles do you put on your cars in a normal year?

I don't think there is anything that you can accurately say "most full timers" do. Some drive their cars very little, some drive them a lot, and some don't even own a golf cart. It depends where you live and how near you are to your destination, and also how tolerant you are of the heat and noise while driving a golf cart. The Villages is a very big place. If you want to go to a far-away restaurant like Nancy Lopez or Paisano, you can either spend an hour or more driving your golf cart, or 20-30 minutes in air conditioned comfort in your car.

Spouse and I have one car and one golf cart. Excluding the out-of-state annual drive to see our kids, we put about 10,000 miles on the car. We find having these 2 vehicles is very adequate for our needs. It means sometimes one of us has to get a ride from a friend when we golf.

8,800 miles per year for the last 3 years. One car, no golf cart, and only a few out-of-town trips of less than 50 miles one way.

Before the virus I woutd go to Ocala and Orlando 4 or 5 times a month , I put about 15,000 on . I don’t have golf cart and no intention of buying one , I love ke to bike to some places for coffee or snacks

For me, it's way too hot to be running around down here in the summer months in a golf car. I also don't like driving it and parking for a couple hours in the rainy season then having to drive home in a storm. We might be in the minority but we use both of our cars several times per day. My wife drives about 10,000 miles per year just locally here in TV and I drive about 5,000 per year locally. Golf car once a week, we are not golfers and just have the golf car to ride around in when there is a cool evening or go to the pool when it's not too hot outside. I would never attempt to buy groceries in a golf car. Can you tell I'm not really enjoying summer weather this year but it still beats snowy and cold Northeast Ohio winters.

With most food shopping less than 5 miles away and other shopping less than 10 miles you can estimate annual mileage based on the number of shopping trips you will make then add some for vacations.

One car and two golf carts. About 7000 miles per year on the auto but we go most places within the Villages by golf cart, winter or summer. That 7000 miles includes a trip or two to Beaufort, SC to visit our kid/grandchildren and a trip or two to Ft. Lauderdale for a cruise. We live in Osceola Hills, which is just north of 44. It takes 40minutes to Spanish Springs and 51 minutes to Nancy Lopez by golf cart. But unless I am playing golf at Lopez or at Orange Blossom, we do not go to either by golf cart. We mostly go to Spanish Springs only if we are attending a concert at The Sharon or a ballroom dance at La Hacienda rec center. Of course no golf cart for those since it messes up the wife's hair. Golf cart to Sumter Landing is 25-30 minutes; to Brownwood 20-25 minutes.

Before we moved here we sold wifes car and planned to buy golf cart.

Neither one of us play golf and the places we go to are not cart accessible so for now one car as we typically drive less than 50 miles a week.

In normal times we would probably drive 15-20,000 miles a year as we head north to visit kids and family.

neither my wife nor I golf....no cart and one car is perfect

with trips outside TV you should expect around 8-10K annually

I have put 27xxx miles on my Pacifica in the last 3 1/2 years. That includes 2 round trips to STL.

Working we drove 4000 miles a year, work was 6 miles each way.

In TV we go to Disney couple times a month so car mileage about 8000 a year plus we have 2 golf carts

Interesting. I get antsy when favorite wife take out the car and I am stranded.

That is why we will shortly start looking for new one.

Average 5-6K, almost all are trips to the beaches and to see adult children in other states.
Do almost everything in G.C. in addition to playing golf; groceries, dentist, hardware, out to eat, to church (almost any denomination) even over to the U.S. post office and the Home Depot in Spanish Springs on the "historic" side. Until we moved here, we had only owned golf carts that were open, or had only a hard fiberglass top. The carts sold here (or you can have yours upgraded) all have soft plastic zip or snap enclosures, and many have hard plexiglass type "cabs", so weather is no problem. You can for a price, even have a heater, AC, radio, what ever you require. l take a very nice long cruise each year on the money I do NOT spend at the pump....LOL !

One car and two golf carts. Live close to LSL and Southern Trace, so golf carts are used a lot and for all golf courses north of 44. Average 9,000 miles a year for car travel.

Bought car in new in 2015. 80,000 miles on it 9/10/2020. There is so much to do and see in the surrounding area. You will find that The Villages actually shrinks in size after you live here for a while. The state is HUGE !!! The Keys are an 8 hour drive... St. Augustine is 2.5 hours.... Tampa, Orlando... airports (picking up guests that do not use the shuttle). So many unique areas.. that you will never find out about by reading The Daily Sun.

Some of the Thai, and Filipino models look good, and I am told they are very economical to run!:icon_wink:

One car and two golf carts. Car makes an annual 5K road trip, the rest of the time only leaves the garage when bad weather of we need to leave the bubble.....73K in 5 years. Inside the bubble we rarely use the car. Two carts are absolutely necessary for us since we participate in different activities.

Bought car new in November 2017 and it's almost 3 years old. We have 9,000 miles. Of course we've hardly gone anywhere since last March but the majority of use is the golf cart.

No golf car(t). A car and a SUV. total between the 2 around 16K... no intention of going down to one.

I've had my new Yamaha (from Carts and Clubs in Ocala) for a year and have 5,200 miles on it. We rarely drive the Chevy anymore unless we go outside the bubble.

Excluding travel out of state.........less than 5,000 miles.

my wife doesn't drive any more....lol

I would wait on selling. We moved here in 2006. We had two cars and wanted to have a Golf cart. So that was a decision factor in the house we bought. Needed to have capability to garage three vehicles. Our cars were small Subaru Forester, Miata and Golf Cart. Golf Cart garage was mot available in section where we bought but we found a home with a garage that could handle those three vehicles.

If you buy in new areas, they may not yet have golf cart access to all Villages areas. And distances are such that you may not want to take the time to go by Golf Cart. This are has summer popup storms that are not the best time to be in Golf Cars.

We like to take day trips to Orlando area, Ocala, overnight trips to St Augustine , Sarasota, Clearwater, Amelia island , Daytona etc. Wife likes to thrift shop. We drive from LSL to our Gym in Brownwood. At 75 we are both active and like to have Flexibility, thus two cars for us.

At our age , we want reliability for trips so keep one car relatively new, and relatively small, Currently a 2018 Hyundai Kona ( 2 years old and 12,000 miles). We also drive north to Boston area once per year. Also have a 2013 VW Golf that is used for most daily trips. About 70,000 miles in 7 years. So it seems that we do about 15,000 miles per year.

I do not know how anyones answer to this question can relate to you unless their needs exactly match yours. I would not dream of not having a car at my disposal. The golf cart is cute but, depending on what you do, not necessary. A car per person and a golf cart. Until I am unable to drive, it will stay that way.

We own 1 car and drive less than 10000 miles a year. Some friends don’t own a car only golf cart but rent cars for trips outside or back north.

5 miles

you MUST have a car if you are ever going to leave the bubble. That includes a hospital, airport ( if you cannot find a ride) or attractions everywhere

When we moved here we sold one of our cars and bought two golf carts, electric. We live is Sanibel. Both carts were used until the last two years. Wife got ill. She doesn’t drive a cart very often anymore. We keep it because most people buy gas carts now and the sale/trade value is very low for electric carts. I now have a gas cart because The Villages is about to finish the cart paths to the newer Southern areas and I want the range to drive there if I wish. The gas cart has QuietTech and is not loud.

As far as our car is concerned, we only put about 3500 miles per year on the Subaru Outback. This Covid-19 isolation has reduced the miles even more because we have not left TV since February. 😏

We've live in The Villages for 87 days. We've driven 612 (yes, I'm a spreadsheet freak). That's an avg of 7 mi/day. We are in a convenient location (BV & 466), so that helps. We only have one car & one golf cart.

We do not leave “the bubble” much so we only put 4,000 a year on our SUV. But still need a car here.

One car and one golf cart. When we are in The Villages we drive the cart mostly because we enjoy it. Been here full time since 2012.

I put about 12K miles a year on my car, but we go to the beaches often, and make a trip up north for the summer....I use the golf cart a lot. The grocery store, drugstore, CVS, and just about everything else that we can. If we go out to a friends home and know we are going to be out later, or if it’s really hot out and we are going somewhere, we take the car for the air conditioning. If I shop at the grocer, I take a freezer bag....we live about 6 mins from grocers. I usually take the cart, Bob takes the car for most of his running around....and it works.

We moved here a year ago. We sold my husband's car. We now have 2 golf carts and 1 csr. We drive the car vert little.

Keep both cars your 1st year here.
 

After your first year here you will have a better idea on whether you need both cars, this will depend where you live in the villages and what you enjoy doing. We had 2 cars for a while and never used them so as a test we decided to sell them both and see if we could just use the golf cart for 3 months. We actually went 7 months before buying another car. We still use our cart the majority of the time.

1 car 2 golf carts. We travel to golf, other recreation, socializing, medical appointments, etc. all by golf cart. We rarely drive the car locally.

I put on about 8,000 miles a year. Most of that is going to Ocala or Orlando for various reasons. There are a few places just outside The Villages that I go to that are not golf cart accessible. I live in the north near 27/441. I go to Sam's Club about once a month. There is a strip mall with a Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond and a few other stores that I occasionally visit. Home Depot is also not golf cart accessible. The other way, there are a few restaurants that I like that I can't get to by golf cart.

As you say, I use my golf cart over 90% of the time when I stay in The Villages. I even took it to Brownwood once just to see if I could. But usually if I have to go past 466A I'll take the car.

I need to take my car to the meeting of The Beatlemaniacs every Friday morning because I have a lot of musical equipment to carry.

As a single female, I like driving my car only. I like the easy temperature control of a car (TV goes through major extremes of temps), and even though it's generally a safe environment, I also like to be able to lock my doors, especially at night, returning from squares.

I still work full time locally but outside the Villages. I drive to work. I have lived here 19 years and average under 10,000 per year. My husband is retired and drives less than 5,000 miles on his car. We use the golf cart daily. When I retire next year we plan to sell one car. You'll probably get more money selling your car up north. You'll love it here.

We put 7,000 miles on our golf cart in 2 years. We also use a 250cc motorcycle to get around TV. Most shopping and trips in TV are by GC. We downsized to 1 car and use it infrequently except for trips outside the villages.

The golf cart is my wife's deal. Even had her name put on the driver's side. I have no desire to ride around in it other than for golf or to go get the mail.