The One Financially Appealing Thing About Buying A New Car
The first rule of fight club personal finance blogs: don’t buy a new car.
Ever.
After extensively shopping for used cars, I’m less than 100% convinced.
The new cars might have one thing on their side: base model, no frills.
For example, I think I can find a base 2009 Hyundai Sonata for around $16,000 OTD. Now, if I’m being honest with myself, it satisfies my requirements: low cost, high mpg, four doors, four wheels, long warranty, good reliability. Just as importantly, it does not have all the things I don’t need or want. The things I could pay more for… but why?
I see people prefer used cars because they can get more luxury or options, but if these things have no value to me, they cost too much even if they are halfway depreciated. If “don’t buy something you don’t need just because it is on sale” applies everywhere else in personal finance, why not with cars?
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An interesting take. It makes sense if you are looking at used cars that cost more than new cars. We’re all about something right around the base model — something in the $10,000 - $12,000 range. So I guess it really depends on how much you are want to spend. If you get what you think is a good deal and you drive it til it dies (hopefully 10-15 years), then it really doesn’t matter whether you buy new or used.
I would tend to agree, but why not look for a used car with no features? Also, ‘used’ is often times a pretty loose term. I recently bought a 2008 model which was ‘used’, but it only had 8000 miles, and I bought it from a car dealership and it came with a warranty and many of the other benefits of buying new, but at a marked down price. I would suggest looking long and hard at both options and make the right decision for yourself.
Thanks for the input!
IP, I’ve done a lot of looking, no finding. Hard enough to find something with low mileage. Then try and find THAT in a base model (even an insignificant trim upgrade can add thousands of dollars)… feels like multiplying 10% by 10% = 1%. I think Sonata is getting closer to $15K OTD as we speak. Hopefully we can get 15 years out of it. That’s the plan for now. We’ll find out soon enough.