Car Insurance More Expensive For A Dodge Magnum Than a Toyota Tundra

I recently purchased a 2007 Toyota Tundra SR5 Quadcab Long Bed with the 5.7 V8 for $30,700. A few months later my need for a large pickup changed and I decided to trade the Toyota in for a 2007 Dodge Magnum for $29,400.

I wasn’t too worried about auto insurance because adding the Tundra to my policy had already increased the premium $500 over a 6 month policy and the Magnum was cheaper by a few thousand, so I figured it would be a little cheaper in car insurance over the course of a policy period.

Here was my logic on car insurance for a Dodge Magnum over car insurance for a Toyota Tundra. The Toyota was bigger, more expensive, Japanese (expensive to fix and buy parts for) and had a bigger engine. The Dodge has a V8, but it’s a smaller vehicle and it’s American (i.e. cheaper to fix and replace parts).

A few days later when my wife finally got around to calling Progressive and dropping the Tundra then adding the Magnum, she informed me that we didn’t actually save any money – instead the premium went up $12 per insurance policy period.

It’s not that $12 is a lot of money, its more just that I’m wondering why we didn’t save around $100 for 6 months instead of owing more. The insurance company customer service agent can’t tell you exactly why the prices are so similar because it’s much more complex than one answer but my guess is that Magnums must be getting stolen more than the relatively new Tundra, or that Tundra reliability data hasn’t caught up with insurance companies yet and the Magnum’s been around for a few years so there’s plenty of auto insurance related information including claims, payouts, reports of theft, etc.

Either way, at the end of the day I’m paying more in car insurance for an Amerian vehicle than a foreign truck.