Every time a buy a car I look around to see the best way to buy it. I have bought new and used over the years. I keep cars until they become unreliable. My current car is leased. This is the first time I have leased. The deal was just too hard to pass up, plus it is electric and I liked the idea of having a “3 year trial” before I bought it. I do plan to buy it in 5 months when the 3 year lease is up.
Generally, yes, but of course it depends on the price. We’ve all seen folks over-pay for a used vehicle. Car fever is real. It takes time and patience to find that great deal. I’ve bought one new vehicle in my life. A 2002 Ford Ranger. After 21 years, I still drive it every day. If you’re going to keep it a long time, the price of new vs used doesn’t matter much. Cars are like Wives, it’s always cheaper to keep her. I kept her too.
Absolutely! I think its madness that a brand new car depreciates by 20% the moment you drive it off the lot. I think the sweet spot is around the 3 year old mark
I follow the conventional wisdom of buying a used vehicle at least three years old. Only new vehicle I ever bought was a motorcycle for cash and lost money on it even after selling only a year later. Think what is comes down to is whether a loan is taken out and since loans on new cars are likely higher (than on used), one is bound to lose more money buying new.
If I have the resources, and expect to hold onto the car at least 15 years, I like to buy new. I can get exactly what I want, with the latest safety features, ensure timely maintenance, and I can baby the car. We’ve done this twice: 20 years and 301K miles, 17 years and 276K miles.
If not, a used car can be a great option. I like used Toyotas with 100K miles on them. There are usually some expenses with used cars beyond the purchase price, so I try to include a couple grand of repairs in my budget. It’s especially great when you have kids. A fender bender is no big deal.
I’ve also leased a car, when I wasn’t sure I wanted to own it forever, but did want to try it out. It was a Kia Sportage, which we loved. We returned it, but we are looking into it’s big brother, the Sorento PHEV, and have one reserved.
Bought a 2012 Genesis new. Bought the premium warranty which I never do. It is a 10 year, all electrical and things not covered in the power train warranty. I did this because of all the new tv screen and no knob electronics. I modified the car with what is referred to as the “Korean Bentley package.” It is my Sunday driver and still only has 78,000. So far Hyundai has paid for undercarriage damage, a new sun roof, and an electronic valve assembly for the parking brake. About $12,000 in repairs. Right now, because of this perceived “chip shortage” (with no explanation. Probably stacked up somewhere with all the toilet paper we couldn’t buy) I am a little leary of buying new now not knowing where the electronics are coming from or what the story is with a shortage of something the is plastic and metal and you can ship in your pocket.
One more story about the merits of buying used. My son’s GMC Sierra truck’s engine died after nearly 500k miles of hard use. He could not afford new so he started looking at used trucks around 3 years old. They are hard to find. He finally found a couple of GMC Sierra’s at a dealer about 100 miles from our large metro area. It was a 1 year old truck with 5k miles that had been owned by the dealer’s father. It had lots of extras and was in cream puff condition. He never priced new, but based upon list price and projected selling price, he paid $33k for a truck that sold for around $45k new. He did a lot of online research which resulted in him finding this really good deal. There are lots of online tools that can help people find what they want, but it takes a little bit of work and patience.
It depends. Sometimes the discount to be used is so small that is does not make sense to buy used. Some cars, like Camry and Accord, hold their value extremely well. OTOH, there are really good cars that depreciate much faster and it makes more sense to buy used. The Toyota Avalon is a good example. A 3 year old Avalon sells for about half of new, and it is a very good car with excellent reliability. We bought a 2007 Avalon Limited in 2010 with less than 40k miles for about half the new price. It has been a very dependable car and my wife loves it. The dealer gave us a 12k bumper to bumper warranty to boot. There are other good used models like that. People have to do their research to find them. Today’s market is crazy. This is not the time to be buying a new or used car. Hopefully, the market will normalize and next year will be better.
Well first if you can safely afford a new car (even though you take the depreciation) you get the warranties and such. But really now prices are so high on used vehicles you may want to buy new.
Every time a buy a car I look around to see the best way to buy it. I have bought new and used over the years. I keep cars until they become unreliable. My current car is leased. This is the first time I have leased. The deal was just too hard to pass up, plus it is electric and I liked the idea of having a “3 year trial” before I bought it. I do plan to buy it in 5 months when the 3 year lease is up.
Generally, yes, but of course it depends on the price. We’ve all seen folks over-pay for a used vehicle. Car fever is real. It takes time and patience to find that great deal. I’ve bought one new vehicle in my life. A 2002 Ford Ranger. After 21 years, I still drive it every day. If you’re going to keep it a long time, the price of new vs used doesn’t matter much. Cars are like Wives, it’s always cheaper to keep her. I kept her too.
Absolutely! I think its madness that a brand new car depreciates by 20% the moment you drive it off the lot. I think the sweet spot is around the 3 year old mark
I follow the conventional wisdom of buying a used vehicle at least three years old. Only new vehicle I ever bought was a motorcycle for cash and lost money on it even after selling only a year later. Think what is comes down to is whether a loan is taken out and since loans on new cars are likely higher (than on used), one is bound to lose more money buying new.
I’ve done both.
If I have the resources, and expect to hold onto the car at least 15 years, I like to buy new. I can get exactly what I want, with the latest safety features, ensure timely maintenance, and I can baby the car. We’ve done this twice: 20 years and 301K miles, 17 years and 276K miles.
If not, a used car can be a great option. I like used Toyotas with 100K miles on them. There are usually some expenses with used cars beyond the purchase price, so I try to include a couple grand of repairs in my budget. It’s especially great when you have kids. A fender bender is no big deal.
I’ve also leased a car, when I wasn’t sure I wanted to own it forever, but did want to try it out. It was a Kia Sportage, which we loved. We returned it, but we are looking into it’s big brother, the Sorento PHEV, and have one reserved.
Bought a 2012 Genesis new. Bought the premium warranty which I never do. It is a 10 year, all electrical and things not covered in the power train warranty. I did this because of all the new tv screen and no knob electronics. I modified the car with what is referred to as the “Korean Bentley package.” It is my Sunday driver and still only has 78,000. So far Hyundai has paid for undercarriage damage, a new sun roof, and an electronic valve assembly for the parking brake. About $12,000 in repairs. Right now, because of this perceived “chip shortage” (with no explanation. Probably stacked up somewhere with all the toilet paper we couldn’t buy) I am a little leary of buying new now not knowing where the electronics are coming from or what the story is with a shortage of something the is plastic and metal and you can ship in your pocket.
One more story about the merits of buying used. My son’s GMC Sierra truck’s engine died after nearly 500k miles of hard use. He could not afford new so he started looking at used trucks around 3 years old. They are hard to find. He finally found a couple of GMC Sierra’s at a dealer about 100 miles from our large metro area. It was a 1 year old truck with 5k miles that had been owned by the dealer’s father. It had lots of extras and was in cream puff condition. He never priced new, but based upon list price and projected selling price, he paid $33k for a truck that sold for around $45k new.
He did a lot of online research which resulted in him finding this really good deal.
There are lots of online tools that can help people find what they want, but it takes a little bit of work and patience.
It depends. Sometimes the discount to be used is so small that is does not make sense to buy used. Some cars, like Camry and Accord, hold their value extremely well.
OTOH, there are really good cars that depreciate much faster and it makes more sense to buy used. The Toyota Avalon is a good example. A 3 year old Avalon sells for about half of new, and it is a very good car with excellent reliability. We bought a 2007 Avalon Limited in 2010 with less than 40k miles for about half the new price. It has been a very dependable car and my wife loves it. The dealer gave us a 12k bumper to bumper warranty to boot.
There are other good used models like that. People have to do their research to find them.
Today’s market is crazy. This is not the time to be buying a new or used car. Hopefully, the market will normalize and next year will be better.
Well first if you can safely afford a new car (even though you take the depreciation) you get the warranties and such. But really now prices are so high on used vehicles you may want to buy new.
We have bought mostly used, a few years old. And drive at least 10 years after. At this time with used so close to new prices, we would consider new.