Buying a car

hondas don't depreciate that much after a year or two, do they?

we've GOT to get a new car.

gina has a 93 4-door civic and i've got a 93 4-door accord. both are gettting to the point that we're spending money to fix them. no car payments is nice -- especially since we're bringing in $2,000 less per month after making the move from charlotte to tallahassee.

she bought hers new and i bought mine used in 96.

we'll probably get another honda and drive it until 2010.

 

we'll probably get another honda and drive it until 2010.

got one for sale

 

0% interest is funny to me when I hear it on commercials. It's also a lie. READ THE fineprint, when you do you'll see that they charge you $16.67 per $1000 borrowed. So if you borrow $20,000 your car payment with that special 0% interest, what you call free money is going to be $333.40. Yeah it's cheaper than the rate you'll get on a used car but you'll be paying for that new car longer than a used car.


Just bought a 97 Maxima for 6,500 put down 2,000 in cash. Financed 4,500 at 7.99 for 3yrs. For a grand total of 140.99 per month. If you research a car you can find out if it was taken care of or not. The Maxima is a one-owner, local car(bought and traded in locally) that was well taken care of.

Never rush into a buying a car take your time and find a good one.

Trust me I've rushed in to a few that I wish I hadn't.

Used is almost always better than new unless you like throwing money away.

 

Bought my LS400 used 2 years after it was new and paid a 1/4 of the price.

 

My last buy was a certified used vehicle. I think I'd recommend the experience - idealy you get most of the warranty benefits of a new car purchase without worrying about the initial depreciation loss. I feel like I got that with my purchase.

In reality though - it really depends on who you do business with. I was gonna buy a 2000 or 2001 Acura TL from Hendrick, but they wanted to fleece me. The asking price was outrageous and they didn't wanna come down. Later, I found some more realistic dealers out of town. A good price coupled with the certified warranty (CHECK YOUR PAPERWORK - make sure the warranty stuff is there, intact), is a lot like getting a new car for cheap. At the time, I could get 5.49% financing, which I'm willing to pay on any loan.

The one other caveat with the certified purchase is mileage - there is an absolute ceiling that the factory places on the cert. coverage. It's usually 50k to 75k for bumper to bumper and 100k for drive train, etc. It's of course stupid to buy a certified car that only has a couple thousand miles left before the warranty expires.

As far as which make & model, and thenw hich particular car to buy - I read consumer reports, edmunds.com (thebest!), and also put my faith in lists like the top 5 mass production engines in the world auto market, and in longstanding development/history. There are several cars out there (especially japanese ones) that are using the 5th, 6th or 8th generation design of the same engine and trany that were founded on - meaning, they took a good product and refined it that many times. A good example was the Maxima until the latest incarnation (although that 3.5 V6 is supposed to be a very sound power plant). I know a lot of guys at work that bought something like a 96 or 97 Maxima, which now has 140k on it, but still looks and runs almost like new & they have no car payment and little to no maintence costs. Plus, it's still a pretty darn good car (they arent embarassed to drive it). That's the smart way to do it.