How does $4,000 or $6,500 for a 2004 Acura sound? Km is under 130,000 too. I think paying in full would be the best bet in this case.

Has anyone heard of the time value of money. Yess you will pay 5,6,7% interest but if you can’t get a return on your money of more than 7% then you should pack it in.

Also with inflation your payment will be the same every month but the dollar will decrease in value so you will not actually be paying as much in value.

One tip I have is that if you know someone who “new car prone” and owns a car you would like used, let them know that you would like to be informed because you tend to buy used and you like the car make/model. Many people will feel happy to sell to someone they know as opposed to trading in to a dealer or having to advertise. And they will usually sell their car when it is still in fantastic shape.

All of my cars have been used and CHEAP. They have all worked great, and I’ve rarely been let down by them. (of all of them, my Ford Taurus (88) was the most prone to letting me down) All cars will occasionally let you down and. emotions and fear aside, buying new will NOT protect you from that. My current one has been the best–16 yrs old and still running strong (Honda Accord–and is the one that has NEVER let me down so far. I intend to keep it another 4 years, then we’ll see.)

I budget $600 per year for repairs or maintenance and never spend it all–mostly because very little goes wrong with it, and (minor point) I do all but the very complex stuff myself. If i had to pay a mechanic every time I would probably spend the $600 in full every year.

I will admit, this kind of car ownership is better for the non car-mechanic phobic. The more you know about your car’s mechanical workings, the less you will feel “terrorized” by the thought of breakdowns because the car will not be a mystery to you. This is helpful even for those occasions when you pay for the work to be done, because you can now speak the mechanic’s language.

I bought a ‘99 Ford Escort back in ‘01 from an action for $2100. I paid another $1200 to have it repaired. My total cost with tax (don’t forget the tax) and repairs was about $3500. I put 95,000 miles on it and sold it for $2500 to my roomate. I never had a problem with the car!! I changed the brakes once ($100 job) and the tires once ($200), but I got to drive the car for 95,000 miles!

After I finished college I bought a 2yr old BMW 330i at trade-in value. I put 25% down and financed the rest with a 0% interest rate! And that was the worst deal I ever made!!! Because I financed the car I was required to get compressive insurance $1400 per year vs. $350 for liability (i have a great driving record). I ended up paying the car in about 18 months and sold it the month I paid it off. I lost a total of $8,000 dollars!!! I included the cost of the sales tax in the loss (no one ever includes sales tax!). I could have bought 2 Fords with that money.

Meanwhile my college roommate is still driving that Ford Escort. His friend offered to buy it off him for $2,000. He only lost about $700 (with tax) and I lost $8,000 (with tax) in the same time period (about 2 yrs). And he put way more miles on his car and had less car problems too.

Moral of the story. Never buy an expensive car. Cars are horrible “investments”. Buy as little car as you can. Simple basic cars are more reliable and have fewer things to go wrong. Ask yourself this question… “How much money can I afford to loose today”… then don’t pay more than that for a car. (This way you can save yourself another grand per year in insurance costs by not paying comprehensive insurance, just get high liability and uninsured motorist, it’s cheap, comprehensive is lousy, the odds are always in the insurance companies favor.) Also, consider sales tax. Sales tax alone can equal the price of a used car.

There was a really interesting story about this a few months ago and it basically concluded any car no matter what make (yes that means you too “I drive a Japanese car that never breaks” crowd) , costs almost half its price MORE in maintenance once its 4 years or older.

And if that means you cant pay 100% then dont. Dont listen to these 100% people, they are WRONG. Yes you should try to pay 100% if you can, but if that means you need to get a older car then its just not worth it because you WILL be paying more in the long run. This is a proven fact now.

Accept the fact that car’s are horrible horrible investments and you will most likely never see the majority of this money ever again. I don’t think of the car as an investment, just another bill that I want to sink as little into as possible.

Don’t buy new!If you can, buy when you can get great rates and use as little money of your own as you possible. So only by a car that you can afford 100% payment on. Take the money you had for your down payment and invest 100% of it. At ‘average’ 8% growth rates you will have gained 40% return in 5 years. Automatically reinvest the dividends. Anything held over a year is a long term gain when you come to sell the. What does 100% down in cash get you? Next to nothing after 5 years.

When your car is paid for, rejoice and don’t by another until you have to. When I finished paying for my last car I simply took the $450 a month I was paying and had my financial advisor add another $450 to my monthly automatic withdrawal. I drive a lot as part of my job, and because of mileage reimbursements my 2001 300m with 150k makes me about $1100 gross per month.

When money is cheap, borrow huge. You will be rich.

But that’s just me. If I had piles of cash sitting around, I’d be perfectly comfortable paying cash instaed.

While buying used makes better financial sense, buying new works better for me. Many private-sale used cars I’ve looked at have had problems, none of which were fatal but some required sizeable repair costs and frequently the result of under or no maintenance which makes me wonder about what else is failing or about to fail on the car. Buying new means I know its maintenance/repair history from day one. I drive my cars into the ground anyway so amortized costs are low and I’d rather pay for new so I won’t have to deal with having to bring a used car up to speed. I also live in a small town and shopping around for a good used Japanese car is a bit more troublesome; the nearest CarMax is ~100 miles away and the nearest Japanese car repairman is in the next town >30 miles away. So I buy new, switch to full-synthetic lubricants immediately (engines live forever) and perform needed maintenance faithfully. My bought-new, paid-cash, summer 45 mpg @ 65 mph, winter 38 mpg @ 65 mph, 200-kmile, 92 Civic won’t turn heads but I’m debt-free.

If you must buy a new (or newer) vehicle, don’t forget to check with your insurance company to see which of the cars you are considering costs the least to insure. There can be a huge difference in costs between different models of the same car, too.

We drive a 2000 Hundai Elantra and 1996 Nissan Sentra. Toyotas and Hondas do run forever, but they are overpriced now. We like Kias and Hundais. They have a good track record, great new warantees (good indication of overall quality) and aren’t “in” yet, so they aren’t overpriced.

One more tip: search the car make, model and year and the words “technical bulletin” to look for typical problems. Also, add “problem” or “trouble” or “complaint” and you can get a great feel for the weaknesses of the car.

I also never buy new cars. I just can not invest invest on something that is going to de-value so quickly.

This is the exact flip side of Jared’s comment #36. If you buy from a manufacturer who offers 0% financing, be sure you aren’t going to have to sell the car any time soon.