Buy a used vehicle wholesale

[Sammydabullz]

My wife and I needed a second vehicle. So we bought an 15year old van. After less than $350 of maintenance, it's still going strong for 4 months so far. We paid $900 for it at a dealership for wholesale. A lot of dealerships will get trade-ins and decide that they won't make it road ready. They will just wholesale it to get rid of it.

[Sammydabullz]

The van is still going at 180K miles. new problem it has, it now burns oil regularly. but runs smooth. The cluster is going out, so sometimes i have to use the speedometer app on my phone. i've had it for about 5 months now. my expectation was that the van wouldn't last more than 12 months when i purchased it wholesale.

[msomnipotent]

Are you able to do these repairs yourself? I'm pretty handy and I might be tempted to buy a beater wholesale if I needed one, but so far it doesn't seem like your van is worth it. 900 (purchase) + 350 (repairs) / 5 (months) = $250 per month, which is a fair monthly payment on a new car. Factor in repairs for burning oil, which I'm just assuming is worn piston rings, and it is probably another $1,000(ish). I'm not sure how much a new instrument cluster is, but it probably isn't a few bucks. I do know that replacing the speedometer cable is a lot cheaper than a ticket for not having an operable speedometer.

If it were me, I would have saved the $1250 and gone without until I had more money for a car. I'm a SAHM and can just do my shopping when my husband gets home and Uber or rent a an economy car if I really needed. If I needed a car to get to work every day, I would want something more reliable than what you are describing.

[Sammydabullz]

The 350 in repairs was for an alignment and a couple new tires. As far as fixing the problems it has... I am not planning on fixing them. Just keep driving it until it dies. At 180k miles it is a good beater. I do have a reliable car that I can depend on. Buying this vehicle was about it being temporary. Yes I looked at the cost of the vehicle in terms of how many monthly payments of a new vehicle it would take me. Umm...Uber is not much of an option, I live 17 highway miles from work, in a rural area populated with Amish/ Mennonite people.

[TexasHusker]

The 350 in repairs was for an alignment and a couple new tires. As far as fixing the problems it has... I am not planning on fixing them. Just keep driving it until it dies. At 180k miles it is a good beater. I do have a reliable car that I can depend on. Buying this vehicle was about it being temporary. Yes I looked at the cost of the vehicle in terms of how many monthly payments of a new vehicle it would take me. Umm...Uber is not much of an option, I live 17 highway miles from work, in a rural area populated with Amish/ Mennonite people.

In that case, perhaps you could take a horse or an ass cheaper ?

[disneysteve]

Buying this vehicle was about it being temporary.

I wonder if knowing that you'd only need the car temporarily, you would have done better to spend a little more and buy something in better condition that you could have resold more easily when you were done with it.

With this car, you can still try to resell it but it's probably going to be harder to find someone who wants a junker that burns oil and doesn't have a working speedometer.

I'd say it's too soon to know if the van was a wise purchase since you haven't had it that long. I'd be curious to hear updates along the way and also how much you're able to get for it when you sell it in a few months.

[Sammydabullz]

Your reading to far into the word "temporary". I meant that I purchased the vehicle knowing that I would have to purchase a replacement vehicle after it dies. As to the length of time it will run is the risk I chose to take on. The purchase price $900+$350 repairs minus salvage value $200. Leaves me at risk for $1050. 1050/5 equals $210 a month so far. The cost per month will continue to fall with each month it continues to run.

Since when is having a vehicle to sell or trade-in considered more important than having a vehicle to meet my current needs??

[disneysteve]

Your reading to far into the word "temporary". I meant that I purchased the vehicle knowing that I would have to purchase a replacement vehicle after it dies. As to the length of time it will run is the risk I chose to take on. The purchase price $900+$350 repairs minus salvage value $200. Leaves me at risk for $1050. 1050/5 equals $210 a month so far. The cost per month will continue to fall with each month it continues to run.

Since when is having a vehicle to sell or trade-in considered more important than having a vehicle to meet my current needs??

Sorry if I misread that. When you said it was temporary and you expected it to last 12 months, I thought you meant you only needed it that long.

I don't think the resale value is more important than current needs but I do think it is a factor to consider when making a purchase. Let me give you a non-auto example. Our daughter is in college. A lot of college kids today rent their textbooks because it's "cheaper" than buying them. That's true on the surface, but we've done very well buying her books and reselling them at the end of the semester. Our net cost of ownership has been well under what the rentals would have cost.

The same may or may not be true for your car. There's no way to know yet because you don't know how much more you will spend to keep this one running. If it doesn't give you any more costly trouble, you'll make out great. As you said, the monthly cost of ownership will steadily drop as long as the car remains trouble-free.

I used to have a friend who bought junkers, drove them for 6 months or so, and then resold them. He was mechanically inclined so while he had the cars, he would do minor/cheap work on them. He usually sold the cars for right about what he had paid, sometimes even more. It made his cost of ownership close to zero. Tough to argue with that.