how much have you paid for a car and what would you pay for a car?

[Petunia 100]

In order for e-vehicles to be widely used, the manufacturers need to adopt a standard battery pack that can be quickly and easily swapped out at any gas station anywhere. Running low on juice? Pull in just as you would to fill your tank. An attendant pulls out your battery and drops in a new one and you're on your way.

It can't require specialized charging stations and it can't take 30 minutes or more.

That's an interesting idea. Like JoeP, I will not even consider an electric vehicle at this time.

[disneysteve]

So our requirements are: long range, plenty of refueling stations, fast refueling (minutes), low purchase costs, plentiful new/used parts availability. When electric cars can do this, we're all-in. Until then, we'll stick with IC cars.

In order for e-vehicles to be widely used, the manufacturers need to adopt a standard battery pack that can be quickly and easily swapped out at any gas station anywhere. Running low on juice? Pull in just as you would to fill your tank. An attendant pulls out your battery and drops in a new one and you're on your way.

It can't require specialized charging stations and it can't take 30 minutes or more.

[JoeP]

Paid 28k for a Volkswagen SUV, has 14k miles CPO.
Paid 40k for a Jaguar XF, 9k miles
Paid 53k(after Tax credit) for a Tesla Mode 3 Long Rang with Full Self Driving

So far I have 18k miles on the Tesla. I charge the car to 90%(for longevity of the battery) once every 4 days. When I first purchased the car a 1.3 years ago, I would get 278miles@90%. Today it's charging to 281 miles@ 90%(Tesla updated the car and made the battery more efficient via cooling and increased charged miles). Next update will give me even more range via better regen braking and another 5% increase in power(which makes this a total of 10% since I bought the car..which means 30bhp for FREE).

So I have spent 0 dollars on gas(have solar) and 0 dollars on maintenance. I have saved 2k on gas and 400 on oil changes (200 dollars/oil change for luxury performance sedans and 3 dollars for premium gas).

Model Y is suppose to come out a bit sooner than anticipated, volume production summer of 2020 so there's that if you want a CUV type car.

Honestly if I were to buy a new car under 50k, it's going backwards buying any combustion engine. The 2018 Volkswagen 3 row SUV we just bought is just years behind a Tesla. All that auto start stop nonsense plus 8 short gears to save gas while using a 4 cylinder turbo that barely gives you any acceleration..just terrible. My Tesla doesn't need any of that while accelerating to 60 in under 5 seconds while being powered by sunlight. And when I need to "gas up", just plug it in overnight, takes 5 seconds vs finding the local gas station. No more fumes, no more wait time, no more stressing out whose gas is cheaper, and no more spilled gas on my hand. I know I sound like a fanboy but can't be more happy with the purchase.

I like the concept of electric cars, but for our lifestyle, the current situation does not make sense for us.

• We like to go on long trips, sometimes 300 miles. With an IC car, we can stop whenever we want to for fuel. Stopping at any hotel with a quarter tank is no big deal because we can refuel in minutes pretty much anywhere.
• If we get an electric car for commuting purposes, which is very attractive, we'd still need a vehicle for longer trips. It doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have a $53 car sit in a garage because it can't do long trips.
• My car cost $15k 5 years ago and I put $40 worth of gas in every 2 weeks. That's about $1000 worth of fuel every year.
• Cars rust quickly in upstate NY due to the tons of salt they put on the roads, so buying anything expensive is financially foolish. Better to spend a more reasonable amount.
• I like to work on my own cars, and electric cars are very unfamiliar. Are parts readily available for the DIY type of person, or will I be locked into a limited number of parts vendors?

So our requirements are: long range, plenty of refueling stations, fast refueling (minutes), low purchase costs, plentiful new/used parts availability. When electric cars can do this, we're all-in. Until then, we'll stick with IC cars.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Here's an interesting thought brought by a friend who just bought a house and is selling their old one. They were upset someone offered $20k less than asking. I said take it. It's $20k. I pointed out they were planning on buying a new car which would cost more than $20k. Suck it up and wait and take a bird in hand offer.

I know we quibble about eating out, traveling, spending. But seriously the things that break the budget are car payments (and I have a $500/month one right now) and homes you can't afford. I wanted to point out moving from a home they bought for 1x to a home they just bought for 3x might be a bigger problem but who knows. I'd worry affording a new home payment triple what they used to pay.

[bjl584]

We paid 53k and change out the door for our 2018 Dodge Ram 2500 with a Cummins diesel engine. The sticker price was 55k, so we were pleased. (Well, relatively pleased, lol. I did not enjoy forking over that money). We had looked and looked and looked for a good used one. To get the price under 40k, you are looking at trucks with 6 digits on the odometer. That just didn't seem like a good trade off to me.

If you need something to haul a 5th wheel, horses (more than 1 or 2 at a time), or other heavy loads and you aren't going to haul only where it is flat, you need more than a half ton (Ford F-150, Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado 1500, etc.). When you go up to bigger towing capacity models, you go up in price. A diesel engine has more power and lasts much longer than a gas engine. A diesel engine adds about 8k to the price.

As we live in a 5th wheel and want to take it places like the Alaska highway, all through the Rockies, etc., towing capacity is a crucial consideration.

I hope I never again have to shell out so much for a vehicle.

The EPA has choked the diesels out with all of their exhaust regulations.
It's causing all sorts of issues with them.
As soon as the warranty is up on my Ford I'm going to delete the exhaust controls from my Powerstroke.

[Petunia 100]

We paid 53k and change out the door for our 2018 Dodge Ram 2500 with a Cummins diesel engine. The sticker price was 55k, so we were pleased. (Well, relatively pleased, lol. I did not enjoy forking over that money). We had looked and looked and looked for a good used one. To get the price under 40k, you are looking at trucks with 6 digits on the odometer. That just didn't seem like a good trade off to me.

If you need something to haul a 5th wheel, horses (more than 1 or 2 at a time), or other heavy loads and you aren't going to haul only where it is flat, you need more than a half ton (Ford F-150, Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado 1500, etc.). When you go up to bigger towing capacity models, you go up in price. A diesel engine has more power and lasts much longer than a gas engine. A diesel engine adds about 8k to the price.

As we live in a 5th wheel and want to take it places like the Alaska highway, all through the Rockies, etc., towing capacity is a crucial consideration.

I hope I never again have to shell out so much for a vehicle.

[disneysteve]

The F450 and all of the heavy duty class trucks are built for heavy hauling and towing.
I'd guess that most are company owned.
I see a fair amount of them around here hauling for the oil fields.

That makes sense. I can certainly see it in that setting. Not as a personal vehicle though unless perhaps you are hauling something huge like a large boat or RV.

[bjl584]

I'd love to know who is buying the 90K pick up trucks.

The F450 and all of the heavy duty class trucks are built for heavy hauling and towing.
I'd guess that most are company owned.
I see a fair amount of them around here hauling for the oil fields.

[disneysteve]

I do have an uncle with a $75,000 truck, but I suspect they earn in the range of $250-300k per year

I'm at the low end of that income range and there's no way in hell I'd spend 75K on a vehicle with the possible exception of a motor home but that puts it into a different category in my mind.

[disneysteve]

Speaking of trucks.

I went to Ford's website and build my own F450.
$88,685

I'd love to know who is buying the 90K pick up trucks.

[myrdale]

We paid right at $20,000 for my 2002 Nissan Frontier when it was new. I am currently saving for a new Toyota Tacoma, 4 door 4 wheel drive. I am budgeting $32,000, but I am hoping by the time I have the cash in hand to talk them down to $30,000 or so.

I have a very hard time justifying anything over $40,000.

I do have an uncle with a $75,000 truck, but I suspect they earn in the range of $250-300k per year.

I am sure you're aware of Dave Ramsey's suggestion that all of your vehicles together should not equal more than half of your annual income.

Ultimately I would suggest shop around hard. Don't buy anything off of emotion. When you do find that perfect car, go home and sleep on it for the night, it will still be there in the morning.

[bjl584]

Speaking of trucks.

I went to Ford's website and build my own F450.
$88,685

[LivingAlmostLarge]

No I don't think it's a bad idea but I don't get how it jives with living simply to buy a car that is more than your annual consumption.

[Snave]

I think we paid around 42K for my wife's Suburban a few years ago and it was 2 or 3 years old at the time, but was a fully loaded LTZ. We aren't car people really and the last one she had we put just under 200K miles on it. I bought a used Outback and think I paid 19K for it and it was also 3 years old. Both cars are paid off though, so we will drive them as long as possible.

[Singuy]

I was just reading MMM blogs and I had to post something that struck me. Okay so I get tesla are environmentally friendly. The cheapest where I live would be $43k without any bells and whistles after taxes I believe. But something I didn't get is how can you live so simply but justify ever buying a tesla? I mean that car would be many people's 1-2 year living budget? I get you spend money on what you love, I'm a big spender on traveling, but I am not a frugalite by any stretch. It's why we are still working and planning until kids finish college. But I don't get how anyone following his mantra of living simply which I think is great to be honest and justify that sort of car? Versus say picking up a used nissan leaf or even volt or bolt? I ask because three friends bought electric cars used recently and told me they got them at under $15k as commuter cars because they couldn't justify the $40k new tesla.

MMM is probably changing his mantra since he got a divorce. So yeah I got yelled at with the MMM crowd simply suggesting buying luxury goods even if you can afford it. Their mantra has always been "meditate until you become a monk so you can retire with 50k saved up".

That being said, used Leaf is probably a terrible idea since they put in zero battery management system which means degradation is actually very real for that car. There were reports of 10%+ degradation in a Leaf after year 1 while a Model 3 with 100k miles only saw 5% degradation. This is why any electric car besides a Tesla drops like a rock in resell value because none of these companies do the powertrain any justice.