I’m actually not crazy about buying used but relatively new cars. In my opinion the price typically isn’t low enough to offset the fact that some random guy drove the thing around for 2 years and put 20k miles on it. The biggest concern I have is why are they selling so soon? And if it’s an expired lease it’s even worse since it’s safe to assume that the person didn’t really care for the car since he was only renting it. Plus, on the vanity side, after 2-3 years your car starts to look dated as it’s now 5-6 years old and there may even be a new design for the car. This is really annoying considering you just shelled out a ton of money. In most cases, I’d rather bite the bullet and pay full price for the new car and get 5 solid worry free years with a new car.
Now, on the other side if you’re looking straight value, I do see great deals in buying a car with 100-150k in models 10 years old that were driving by grandma in the country. If you can get one of these for 2-3k and stretch it out for another 5 years you’re saving a ton.
The best deal you can get is by buying a used car off a private individual- it cuts out all the dealership costs. Unless you know cars, be sure and take it to a garage to have it checked out before you buy. My previous car I got off an private seller and had an SUV not crushed it (while it was parked mind you) it would have lasted forever. I bought my replacement car at a dealer and am paying for it, a lot more than had I had the time to look around a bit and gotten it off someone.
If you really don’t care about appearances go for a 15 year toyota / honda. Those things just don’t quit. When diesel in california a ~4years back my brother in law parked the dually and bough a '92 (ish) corolla for 2200 dollars. His daily commute was 100 miles round trip and the car is still running perfectly. Its at 240k no and all he does is change the oil. Even the AC works great.
I’ve bought 3 100k+ mile hondas (private party) in my life and never had an issue with any of them. My current car I bought used @ the dealership. 2 years old w/ 15k miles and the warranty was better than it would have been on a new car- 7 yrs / 100k miles. All out I saved ~ 4k over buying new which is a lot considering I paid around 14k after all fees. I think dealership is good if you are not buying an OLD used car since its still an investments and you can negotiate in a great warranty, etc. I myself wouldn’t feel comfortable buying a 20k+ car private party, but I’m not too car handy either.
There’s also the CPO route, which covers you for a few years. If anything serious doesn’t happen by the time the warranty expires, I think it’s safe to say your car will last a while.
This still hurts. In 2002-ish I got creamed with a 4-year, 45k miles Ford. It was probably the time when Ford’s reliability was hitting its all time lows. After four months and like $3K in repairs, got to sell it for much less. This old lady who bought it from me later told me: “you sold me a cancer”. I swore I’d never own a Ford again.
I took the big hit in the last two cars (mine and wifey’s) and plan to keep them for six years, buying one every three years. I agree it’s not the best strategy though.
I remember when I was in Buenos Aires, Peugeots and Fiats were plentiful. I think we need more of those types of cars, and I think some car companies are starting to realize that (e.g, Cobalt and Fiesta). Not only that, almost everyone down there drives a standard transmission!!!
Yeah, those are pretty common in Buenos Aires. Pretty cheap, and standard transmissions apparently have better fuel economy and run forever. I doubt Peugeot, Renault and the like will ever fly in the U.S. though. Because of their size and because they are … French cars. Affordable cars like Civics already have enough fuel economy and better size, and for US consumers would be hard to scale back after being used to a minimum car size. For instance I’m not sure if I can, or would like to drive a standard trans anymore since it was like six years last time I drove one, and been driving V6s for a while now. Buying a Peugeot wouldn’t make any sense unless I had no choice.
Renault tried to crack the US market a long time ago without much success, Peugeot as well. I see a fair number of Fiat 500’s on the road now. With the whole Chrysler thing, I expect we’ll start to see more Fiat models in the US over time. Their compact SUV’s should sell well here if they can match Toyota and Honda’s perceived quality. Plus we like the Italians a lot more than the French.
I am hoping to pick a 2003+ Accord or maybe a 98-01 Acura Integra, to replace and get rid of the loan on my 2011 Tacoma. I built a turbo Integra in my teenage years that had more than double the hp that it came with out of the factory (close to 300, 242 hp at the wheels), with no modification to improve reliability (ie: forged pistons and connecting rods, thicker axels), and it took a beating like a champ. Great car in stock form as well. I see the Accord as a grown up and modernized version of that car.
I am a big supporter of having 2 cars, because it is hard to find a cheap car that can do everything well. The more purposes it has, the less it can be focused on a single thing, ie: mileage, performance, towing, AWD, reliability. If you are looking to buy a used german car, you had better get a warantee, the electrical systems and the unecessary complexity as well as assumed deep wallets of the owners make them a pandoras box of maintenance issues.
I had a 1997 Integra in college (but not souped up). Man, that was a good car, although not particularly fast by today’s standards. The back could fit so much crap. The chassis was really stable, but with relatively low limits. So I regularly scared the crap out of passengers with my asshole driving. Too bad that Acura hasn’t manage to repeat that formula after the RSX. They are going through some kind of identity crisis at the moment.
I bit the bullet with a new Audi A4 last year. I agree, looking at straight monetary value, buying new is not the way to go. One has to look at the non-financial benefits if buying new. There are definitely non financial benefits if the girls who you hang out with are materialistic and you are single, which is my case. I had a long commute before and loved driving the thing every day, but now I have a short commute and take the train and it is not being used as much as I like, even on weekends, maybe this will change after CFA who knows. Will probably sell because I’d like to pocket the payments and invest it instead…but dealer is stinging me at about $1,500 below the loan value even though MV is about $3-4k above…will probably sell private and then maybe use my CFA knowledge and be rational in buying my next car.
I really like Audis. We’ve had an A8 in the fam for a while and my grandfather was going to get an R8 but…then 2009 happened and thought another 6 figure car wasn’t a great idea given the economy.
I want an S4 and technically I could afford it, but its a bit too much relative to my income. Gotta work your way up the car ladder.