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| paula0000 |
 Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:41 pm Post subject: New car or used car? |
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Investing Manager
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| People have different opinions on this one. Do you find the best way to buy a car is used or new? What is the best deal? |
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| nemesis |
| Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject: hmmm |
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Member of the Month! March
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I really think a used car is better. Probably on that is around 1 - 2 yrs old. As you drive you rnew car you can actually cut of 3k $ a yr so if you drive it for 3 yrs you still save 3 - 6k,..... so you drive that car for a few yrs and sell it off again........car hopping.. |
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| trixiezzz |
| Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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Investing Manager
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I think a slightly used car is ideal for me. On our last vehicle purchase, we got a 1 yr old van with very low mileage for nearly half price of what the new ones were. There's no way I'm paying all that depreciation just for the new-car smell!  |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:20 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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A typical approach used to be to buy a car that is 2 years old, drive it for two years, then sell it. The assumptions behind this go something like this:
45% of the depreciation of a new car happens in the first two years
60% of the repair costs for a car happen after four years
So you're missing out on almost half of the deprecation, while sustaining less than half of the repair bills. However, I don't subscribe to this practice.
I buy new cars and drive them for ten years. I also do regular maintenance and take care of the car. With the engines in the cars today, you should expect to get at least 100-150K miles out of an engine, easy. Heck, my car now doesn't even require a tune-up until 100K miles. (Platinum spark plugs, hmmm, nice.  ) I don't buy a car until that model has been out for two years either, trying to avoid any recall issues.
By keeping a car for 10 years, you have (in theory) four years of car payments, a couple of years of very small maintenance charges, then perhaps an increasing amount of maintenance. When your monthly maintenance is approaching the cost of a new car payment, buy a new car. Oh, and for those years in the middle? Save that extra money for your next car. You put down a larger down payment, have a smaller monthly note, or as I have, have zero payments by paying cash for the car.
So that's the program I've used for the past several car purchases. |
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| freeye |
| Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 6:53 am Post subject: |
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Investing Manager
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i agree with poster rathbun ideas.
financial author charles j. givens has published similar ideas as one of his many strategies, although i do not recall in which one of his many books. most good libraries and used book stores will have it for those people interested in such ideas.
i do not agree with all of mr. givens strategies, but this one rang true with me and have adopted it as my own personal strategy. |
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