I loved the comments in the last post regarding your experiences and choices you have made in your car-buying lives. One of the comments from “Anne” stood out to me in particular.
“….We don’t have a loan right now, but we’re looking to buy a car within the next 6 months. We REALLY want to pay cash for a used car (out of savings) but I can’t tell you how many people have told us it’s better to buy a new car w/ financing from the dealer, especially when they’re giving 0% financing. We still want to pay cash and buy a used car, but it’s getting harder and harder to justify that decision, especially when older and wider adults keep telling us we shouldn’t. But the thought of having a car loan is depressing. We just paid ours off a year ago, and I can’t imagine having to scrape the money together again to make those payments.”
I must include some disclosure here: Anne is a distant cousin of mine so I know her personally. I can vouch that she is highly intelligent and that her young family leads a fiscally responsible lifestyle. I have not okay’d this post with her! (Anne, I hope you don’t mind?) I hope she excuses me for being presumptuous, but her question is such an important one and such a typical representation of the situation that so many of us find ourselves in: 0% financing is a strong pull. (So is that new-car smell.)
To start off the discussion, I present you with yet another poll:
Just to clarify my two-bits: Every part of me screams, “Don’t buy new!”
Except for one little itty-bitty part that knows of one recent situation where a couple researched a particular van extensively and, because of the current situation with certain dealerships being… Um, desperate, shall we say? They were very surprised to learn that a brand-new van purchase made more fiscal sense than a used one of the same general type.
No, I don’t remember what kind of van it was. Sorry.
Some considerations about buying used that come to mind:
- What if you don’t know anything about the mechanics of cars?
- What if you don’t have cash and can’t get personal financing outside of a dealer?
- What about a warranty?
Personally, I have a husband who knows cars, so buying used does not concern me like it would if I were buying a car on my own.
Again, Anne — I hope you don’t mind being the guinea pig for this post! I guarantee that many, many more out there are weighing the options of this very same important decision that, truly, affects a household’s financial health for years to come.
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As a side note: Check out the results so far from the last post’s polls regarding car loans and purchasing cars with cash. I can’t say I’m surprised that the majority of you who voted don’t believe car loans are inevitable; or that a good percentage of you currently do not have any car loans at all.
After all, y’all are the type to read personal finance blogs and stories about people striving to be debt-free.
If you haven’t voted yet, please do. (After giving Anne your two-bits down below, that is.) 
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Side-side note: I’ve had a little more time for it to sink in that we have no consumer debt. It feels pretty good, I must say.
No, we are not officially debt-free! (Yet!) Not by far, unfortunately. Details will be forthcoming.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh! I also want to say that we plan on driving our Honda until it falls apart, so I guess it ends up being an ok investment in the long run. My main concern is committing to a large amount of debt while we’re still in a transition stage in our lives, like having more children, possible moves and job changes, etc..
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Our Lives Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Anne, if this can be any encouragement, our Honda Civic lasted us almost 18 years before it died.
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I love reading everybody’s stories and I don’t mind being a guinea pig! We’re definitely going to buy a used car and pay 100% cash, if possible. Our last car purchase was a new 2004 Honda Civic and while it has never caused us one single problem, I realize that we could have bought a USED Honda and still been problem-free. I also think debt aquired before having children is different than after having kids. Now I feel like spending extra money on a car isn’t worth it. Although, my husband’s cousin works for Nissan and keeps telling us what a great deal we can get on a new car so that’s kind of tempting. We have to stay strong!
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We have bought used for years, both from individuals and from a reliable dealership sales person that we knew personally. Having worked at a car dealership for 10 years I learned the value of buying used, or slightly used, versus new, because of the rapid depreciation in the 6 months of new car ownership.
I would say if you buy new plan to keep the car at least 10-15 years, or until it dies on it’s wheels.
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We seem to have bought more new cars than most 30 year olds I know, and the trend needs to stop. We bought a new 2003 Mazda Protege 5, which we sold to my parents as soon as it was paid off. We bought a new 2004 Scion Xa (made by Toyota). That was our main car after we sold the Mazda (better gas mileage and it’s a Toyota). Then we bought a Harley Davidson (don’t get me started) new for my hubby to commute on. We’re trying to sell it now (can’t ride that with a baby). We bought a used 2000 Honda Insight (a hybrid). Best deal we ever got. Paid so little for it we could have resold it on e-bay the next day for twice what we paid. Never had any mechanical trouble. Had to sell that when we had the baby (only two seats). Scion Xa was too small for baby – so now we have a (purchased new by us) Toyota Yaris Sedan S. Love it a lot – great gas mileage, super practical, and it is an automatic. In the meantime, while we have always had one or two car payments, my brother and his wife have purchased two slightly used cars (a Saturn and a Chevy) at CarMax for CASH and have never had any mechanical problems at all. My sister-in-law also purchased cars at CarMax and never had any mechanical trouble. If we ever buy another vehicle, it will be USED and we will pay cash and we will most likely drive two hours to the nearest CarMax (or we’ll by the certified Toyota or Honda used at the dealer). I’ve had it with new cars and new car payments. We might as well have leased all those cars we bought for all the good it did us. I think we were both tired of being poor kids driving used broke-down cars and when we got real jobs we went kind of crazy. We wanted to drive new, and we did. And we would have been better off to have kept that Mazda in the first place once it was paid off, but we didn’t. Oy. Lessons you learn.
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We purchased our Toyota Corolla in 2005 new and I have to say that was the best “car investment” we have made so far. Like Abbie, neither my husband nor I are car mechanical inclined. Yes, there are car payments (last payment will be this October) but because we have been very diligent in keeping the car checked regularly, it has not given us any problem at all. We had an one year warranty on the car and we had the car seat upholstered and some other things done without having to pay anything for that whole year. We have kept the interior pretty clean too. It is a light grey color. we have a strict rule about eating in the car: No food and only water is allowed in the car at all time. We like the new car smell too, but the ease of mind was the best money spent for us and not to mention this car is going to be our daughter’s graduation present (it will be her first used car from the reliable previous owner LOL!). We are also looking into buying another car in six or seven months (and this one will be going to our son when he turns 18). So yes, we will be getting a new car again.
P.S. We had purchased old car/van before from strangers and friends. My advice is not to ever buy any vehicles from family members or friends unless you are willing to risk the relationship you have with them. We paid so much money for the car/van repair that in the end when we realized the error we had spent almost three times as much as the car/van’s cost. No more used car (other people’s car problem) for us.
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How long do you plan to keep the car? How expensive would it be new? The last time I bought a car was a Honda Civic in 2004. I put down enough cash to have a $210 payment for three years. I paid it off in 2007, and am still driving it, relatively problem free. My husband and I don’t know much about cars, and we’re the type of people who have terrible luck (could research for months, make a solid decision, and then have some random, weird, super-expensive problem) so we buy new. Bu I’ve also learned from my parents to hang onto a car until it’s not usable. The civic seemed like a good investment bc we don’t have children, and even if we did in the next couple of years, it would be fine. I think if you can get a short, zero-interest loan on a new car you plan to drive for six or more years, buy new.
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In 1995, I purchased a Kia Sepia for just under $10,000 cash. It currently has 180,000 miles on it, and I have spend $1,500 in repairs and about $15 every 3 months for an oil change at Walmart. The car came with a 100,000 mile warranty, which I never had trouble getting the dealer to honor. Not having car payments, and not having to pay for repairs for the first 100,000 miles has more than enabled me to save enough cash to purchase a new car–and will, as soon as I feel the repair cost justify it. I would always buy new and I would always pay cash. I just won’t pay interest on an asset that is going to decline in value. I would rather save my money, while earning interest and then purchase the car, even if that meant getting buy in an old car, or even doing without for awhile.
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