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Buying a new vehicle hasn't made sense for about 30 years now.
I've been driving for about 30 years and in all that time, I've never owned a new vehicle. I kept buying used vehicles for about $2,000 - $3,000 per vehicle. The oldest one I've ever had is a 2004 Volvo station wagon and I still maintain it and it's still running as one of my main vehicles. My other main vehicle is a 2010 GMC Truck which I also maintain. They don't look new, they show a bit of rust around the edges, but they are still very good vehicles that will last several more years.
Once they break down enough ... I'll buy another used vehicle. In all, over the past 30 years, I've spent about $30,000 on multiple vehicles (I think I've gone through 8 or 9 in that time).
It has never made sense to me to buy a brand new $40,000 car that will only be used for about five years before you buy the next one.
That's going to become more and more difficult to do over time.
Cars are being designed to be difficult to repair and to fall apart in less and less time.
I agree ... I think the cutoff is about 2010-2015 vintage vehicles. I like Volvo cars and station wagons, they are literal workhorses that were designed by a Swedish company for winter use. And in that vintage, it is just at the peak when the company was still producing good vehicles and just before the point where they were heavily Americanized, then taken over by Chinese interests. The vehicles are still produced in Europe (I think) but of a lesser quality because the company got taken over by foreign interests. And like all manufacturers, they are moving away from the piston engine technology and transitioning to all electric.
Yes it is inevitable that everything will move away from old piston engines ... but I think it will all last another 20-30 years before it all becomes impossible or way too expensive for anyone to maintain their old clunkers after that.
To be fair by 2010 they'd been owned by Ford for a decade and then in 2010 were sold to Geely, the Chinese parent company. From everything I hear, the quality actually has gone up under Geely, compared to Ford, which was easily the worst era of Volvo. Personally I still like RWD Volvo bricks, but of course they're not as safe or efficient as modern cars.
No, cars are designed to be easy to manufacture. Which makes them difficult to repair. As someone who has designed and built machines, you need to understand that there is a big difference between easy to manufacture and easy to repair.
Look, I'll go out there and say it.
Cars are just an afterthought on the heater core. That's why it's called the heater CORE and also why you need to disassemble half the damn car to get to it.
I'd really like to know where you are buying 15 year old GMC trucks for $2000-$3000 that presumably run and aren't beat to shit.
I bought it when it was ten years old and from a friend of a friend who was selling it privately. The only real way to grab a good vehicle is if you know of someone who had a vehicle from new. It's just constant searching and luck that one is able to find vehicles like this. The guy I bought it from had it from new and took care of it and by the time I got it, it had minimal rust. He knew the truck's life was limited which is why he wanted to get rid of it. As soon as I took hold of it, the rust started growing on the damned thing and I've been fighting to keep it going and away from any further rust as possible. The engine and transmission are good and will last a very long time, its just the rest of the truck, especially everything from the wheel wells down (minus the engine and transmission) that will fall apart first.
Speak for yourself.
I have purchased multiple new cars over the last 25 years, and, while they’re more expensive than a used car (although that difference is shinking all the time), I also run them for years because I can keep up with maintenance. My last new car was bought 14 years ago and is pretty much still new condition. I still even have the plastic film over the climate control screen.
I don’t care about depreciation or resale values.
EDIT: Punctuation.
This is how we know this guy is a bot, alien, psychopath or monster.
HOW THE FUCK HAVENT YOU PULLED THAT OFF?!?!?!?!?!?
Ha! 112k miles and still sticking. At this point, it’s like a streak milestone so I’m just seeing how long it goes and curious what the dealership reaction will be if I ever trade it in. Thus far no one in the service department has ever commented on it.
Would you peel it before you sell it if you ever sell it?
Like you could show it to them and peel it off...
Ooh. That’s a good question. Or do I leave it so they can put it as a feature on the car’s listing? :D
Demand an extra $3k for pristine screen with the oldest most satisfying peel off you would ever experience. Feel the 200k miles as you slowly pull it off, or let it grow to 300k for even more vintage plastic value!
You could have bought yourself a 1 year old used car and saved yourself thousands for the same outcome
That's what I did, less than half the price for a car with 10k on the odometer
Maybe. Or I could be driving a one year old lease repo that the dealer pinky promises is good as new. I’d rather actually buy new and get the warranties and protections that come with it. Thankfully thus far, I have been in the financial position to be able to do so. I’m beyond the point in my life where I want to be driving the $600 K-car to save cash. Everyone has something that they think spending the extra money is worth it, for me, it’s having a nice car that lasts.
Plus, without people like me buying new stuff, you wouldn’t have those one year old cars to buy in the first place.
See, this is where your stupidity and ignorance shines. Used cars can and do last. It's not even a gamble if you go to a reputable dealer.
The insults are not necessary. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I could make the same argument as you about someone spending a bunch of money on a new top shelf gaming rig instead of buying used parts on eBay.
I didn’t say used cars didn’t or can’t last. I’ve driven plenty of vehicles in my life and know how to maintain them. I’d like to buy the exact car I want, know I’ve been the only driver, and know it’s full service history and drive style over the entire life of the car, which as I said, I keep for many years. And for me, that’s worth the premium to buy new.
If you’d like to continue to buy used, have at it.
Yeah, he's an idiot.
Don't take financial advice from people who buy new cars.
You better hope there are plenty of people like him. Without someone buying new cars, there would be no used ones for you to buy.
I can say this proudly because I live in northern Ontario which basically salts our vehicles for about six months of the year. We might as well live on an ocean coast, we have so much salt on our highways. I do my own undercoating every year (it's a real pain) and I put it on thick and in every nook and cranny. The work that I do just delays the rust, it doesn't prevent it because there is just too much salt up here. Mix into that ice and snow and all that stuff just cakes on, falls off, takes away the coating, exposed metal, more salt and repeat all winter long. I'm lucky if I can hold onto a vehicle longer than ten years up here.
I’m in Minnesota and we use salt also, although in recent years it’s been a lot more brine and pre-treatments before it snows rather than just dumping rock salt out like they used to, which has helped. Used to see rust in wheel wells and such all the time, but it’s much more rare these days.
I've never seen people more mad that a stranger paid a few thousand extra amortized over 14 years.
You're an actual dumbass. New cars lose 20% of their value the moment you drive it off the lot.
Clearly. You'd rather get ripped off by the dealership.
How about you get some life experience and try buying and maintaining a used car? Then you can see for yourself how stupid your assumptions are.
If you buy a piece of equipment new and keep it for the expected lifespan of the machine, then you get to 'keep' the depreciation. Depreciation only matters if you plan on replacing the machine BEFORE the end of use life. And with things like cars, people often get rid of them long before the use life span is reached. And it's at that moment that the depreciation is a problem. I too, find it doubtful that hydrashock has kept multiple new cars long enough to personally use up the depreciation value of any one of those cars.
Example: That shiny new iPhone you bought took a depreciation hit the moment you paid for it. And when you trade it off when the next new model comes out you pay the cost of that depreciation through the trade in value. Had you kept your phone until it no longer worked before you replaced it, you would have recouped the cost of depreciation.
I dunno. I bought a Honda new twice. Once showed up on the city bus and negotiated them down to a nothing down & low monthly payment that I could manage for 5 years (I am an accountant and first built a spreadsheet with present value calculations to figure out my target price) car is built to last 20 at least, I paid it off easily enough, then someone ran a stop sign and absolutely smashed it to bits, I took the insurance money as a down payment and got a better car new, same low monthly, paid that off years ago and have been driving it since 2014. This was mostly possible because Honda did a zero or 1% loan both times. Used to buy beaters but this has been so much nicer, and it's easier on cash flow. I hope I can keep this one for as long as I need a car (mostly use the electric bike now) because it has all the tech I want but none of the tech I don't want. Like at this point if I won the lottery I still don't know if I'd want a car of today.
New car at today's prices, and what they are, I kind of agree with you but used cars at today's prices seem just as bad of a deal. And it was not always like this. You used to be able to negotiate, they had too much inventory.
I used to think like you, but then my time became worth money. It's no longer such a clear cut case.
If I spent even 100 hours a year working on my car, that's now several thousand euros. More than a year's worth of lease payments on a brand new budget vehicle or (and this is my preference) a 3 year old executive car. And at the end of the lease I have the option to buy it for what's likely significantly under market value and then either keep driving it, or sell it immediately to recoup some of the depreciation.
Then consider that with the new vehicle you can get full coverage insurance which isn't even available on a 20 year old vehicle (and full coverage gives you peace of mind that if YOU fuck up or an animal fucks your car up, you get the residual value back). This occurred to me when my friend's old, around 1000 euros worth car slipped into a ditch in the winter. Its value just dropped by half and there's nothing to do about it. If it'd been their significantly newer car, it would've been a 350 euro copay to get it repaired or totalled and paid out. My car at the time was worth around 3k and if I'd totaled it by either driving into a ditch in the winter or hit a moose, I would've been out of a car and out of money. My next car after that was a lease and if something would've happened to it, insurance would've made me whole. In fact I got a brand new OEM Mercedes windscreen fitted for free, no copay since it's usually 0% for windows. That alone was worth over a year of insurance payments.
Currently I'm back to driving a shitbox. Nice car attracted gold digger, gold digger ruined finances, now I'm living as cheaply as possible. But the shitbox life is not great either - I'm going to have to either change the transmission on mine to keep it going another few years, or sell it for a loss compared to what I paid for it just 5 months ago. This is after I've already done brakes, belts and some electrical work. Sunk cost fallacy becomes way too real way too quickly on cheap used cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
You're a smart person and can probably manage your money better than most Americans swept up in consumerist hysteria.
The problem is, most people bitching about "not having enough money" will say that the decisions you made are "not good enough" for them. They believe they are entitled to more before others who have less so they can give that excess to the people ripping them off.
And if you say anything about it, you're the bad guy.
Yeah, a lot of those shiny trucks and SUVs are bought on credit by people who really can't afford them and don't need a vehicle like that anyway.
Yeah, my current car is an almost 20 year old Mercedes c class, bought it a couple of years ago for 3k. Some of those cars that used to be at the upper end of the price range are pretty affordable when they get older. Mine had a good dealership service history, it's given me very little trouble, and it's great to have a nice car. I can't imagine wanting to buy anything new, even if I could afford to.
My 2003 E-Class remains the best car I've ever owned, except for one annoying fault that kept coming back with reman parts and new part availability was shit - the steering rack. I do fully believe I just had bad luck with the reman units personally, but it made me sell the car. It had almost 400k km on it at the time and still drove beautifully. Of course I replaced some ball joints and two lower control arms and a few other things... But that's natural.