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Time To Run The Numbers On Car Buying, For Real

Posted by Sean | Posted under Cars, Expenses | October 6, 2008

Abandoned car in a Provincial park
Creative Commons License photo credit: footloosiety

DW’s fully-depreciated car finally racked up a four-figure repair estimate.

Time to look for a newer vehicle… and take inventory of our experiences.

My experience: bought a new Saturn sedan in 1997. Saturn = I did not negotiate. I also did not consider 3rd-party financing. Basically, I was a huge fish. The only things I did right, money-wise, were driving it for 10+ years and considering MPG when it was unfashionable. Looking back, part of me would have liked to try the “beater strategy” out of college, and part of me wishes I bought the more reliable Honda Accord.

DW’s experience: bought several used cars. The prior one was a LeBaron convertible. It did exactly what you’d expect: total meltdown, rolled to a nearby dealer, zero resale, zero leverage. From that bad situation, against all odds, she hit the reliability jackpot with a late-model Oldsmobile Alero, racking up 178,000 miles (lots of driving for work). However, I don’t know if we can push our luck with cars not known for reliability…

Priorities: highest reliability at lowest total cost.

Neither of us wants more than basic “A to B” transportation. Out of college, I got all the silly stuff, like a moonroof for $900. I probably used it 10x before it stopped working = $90 per use! Similarly, DW got the itch for a convertible out of her system. We just want one more stupid car before either a) the next generation of smarter vehicles b) we move to a city with more non-car mobility, i.e. Chicago, Tokyo, San Francisco…

Questions:

  • Do the old rules-of-thumb still apply?
  • Is it always cheaper to buy used cars?
  • Do recent market trends favor new cars?

Time for internet research and number crunching…

(more soon)

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1 Comment so far
  1. Dawn October 8, 2008 4:57 pm

    Here’s an interesting thing - my car (a 2004 Honda Civic SI) was recently in the shop after a collision with a deer. While it was being worked on I had the unfortunate opportunity to drive a Chevy Cobalt. I hated the Cobalt - solely on on quality issues. The price between these two was not significant, but the quality was. It is certainly something to think about!