when is it ok to buy a new used car?

[skives]

when is it ok to buy a new used car?

[disneysteve]

I think the time to replace your car is when the one you have either no longer works, isn't worth repairing, or no longer meets your vehicle needs. Also, you need to be in a financial situation to afford the replacement.

[disneysteve]

I replaced my car back in June. I had a 1998 Camry with over 150K miles. It was really showing its age and was going to need repairs that simply weren't worth doing. If I was going to spend a couple thousand dollars, I felt it made more sense to put that money toward a newer car with lower mileage, so I did.

[skives]

I have a jeep that needs $2,000 worth of rust repairs. The jeep is only worth 3,000 to 5,000 as a trade in. Is it worth it to repair it? It does have a new motor two years ago.

[bones72]

No, its not worth cosmetic repairs. And rust repairs, in my experience, don't last. If it has a new motor, run it till it drops.

[bjl584]

I have a jeep that needs $2,000 worth of rust repairs. The jeep is only worth 3,000 to 5,000 as a trade in. Is it worth it to repair it? It does have a new motor two years ago.

I'd keep driving it without having the rust repaired unless the rust is somehow a safety hazard or would prevent the car from passing inspection. If that is the case, then replacing the car make more sense.

[Jerry91]

@ skives : It is ok to buy a new used car when you don’t own a car and when you don't have the affordability to buy a fresh new car. It can be expected that a new used car may be less costlier than a brand new car.


[Sorry for the dual post... It wasn't intended!! Tried deleting one of the posts but was unable to do so!!]

[Slug]

The advantage of having a car is that you can go wherever you go.

I don't think you need a car for that. Unless you have out of body experiences where your soul requires transport and only a car will do it.

[maryadavies]

Ok, lemme give a better example. My brother kinda sorta owns a little beat up Ford car (forget the model, but it actually belongs to my gran. Since she's half blind we confiscated the car and keys, and she did not maintain it at all. So it always needs repairs since it started getting driven all the time.).

My brother has been putting about $300-$500 every other month into that car for repairs because my Gran didn't maintain it and it had been sitting around a long time (that wrecks havok on a car). Hopefully him replacing the turn switch is the last for a good while but he does like long trips to do some arcade stuff. (He's a arcade collector buff and sometimes you have to drive long distances to say, get a old monitor fixed.) If he gets a certain new job he's been hoping for, he's actually getting a new to him car b/c that beat up thing will not take the constant long drives very well, it'll only develop MORE problems (which get expensive/annoying to fix, my brother is already annoyed) since his best prospect is on a side of Atlanta that does not have bus/train service.

Don't get me wrong. We like our mechanic; he's one of the rare honest mechanics that only fixes what is busted and no more. (If you find one like that treasure him! Such might be a little more expensive but a mechanic like that will save you money in the long run.) But, we don't want to have to pay him to fix it so darn often if Bro gets that job.

[ua_guy]

Ok, lemme give a better example. My brother kinda sorta owns a little beat up Ford car (forget the model, but it actually belongs to my gran. Since she's half blind we confiscated the car and keys, and she did not maintain it at all. So it always needs repairs since it started getting driven all the time.).

My brother has been putting about $300-$500 every other month into that car for repairs because my Gran didn't maintain it and it had been sitting around a long time (that wrecks havok on a car). Hopefully him replacing the turn switch is the last for a good while but he does like long trips to do some arcade stuff. (He's a arcade collector buff and sometimes you have to drive long distances to say, get a old monitor fixed.) If he gets a certain new job he's been hoping for, he's actually getting a new to him car b/c that beat up thing will not take the constant long drives very well, it'll only develop MORE problems (which get expensive/annoying to fix, my brother is already annoyed) since his best prospect is on a side of Atlanta that does not have bus/train service.

Don't get me wrong. We like our mechanic; he's one of the rare honest mechanics that only fixes what is busted and no more. (If you find one like that treasure him! Such might be a little more expensive but a mechanic like that will save you money in the long run.) But, we don't want to have to pay him to fix it so darn often if Bro gets that job.

A few things to consider...

Is the $300-$500/month in repairs going to be a constant (year-long?) issue? Will a new *used* car be more or less expensive than what the old one costs you on a monthly basis? What will the difference in insurance be?

Figure out what you could theoretically afford or need to save for, and go from there.

What is *not* having to have the car in the shop constantly worth to you? That's the subjective piece. There is value in driving a car that you enjoy, that runs well, and has less chance of putting you in financial danger or physical danger, if there's a high likelihood it will give up on you in a really inappropriate spot (they always do...).

[maryadavies]

I think this is the last for a good while, *knock on wood* as long as the car isn't treated rough, like a lot of long road trips. Was about $200 this time, we got lucky. Mechanic quoted us $500 and then reduced the price, prolly less was broken than he thought! (As I said, he's a honest guy.)

If my brother does take it on tons of long road trips, the mechanic bills could grow to more than the car's worth. I figure if/when Bro gets that job, it will be more worth it to get a new-to-us car vs. dragging it to the mechanic all the time.(Bro agrees with me.) Right now, considering it was horribly maintained and we had to rep the timing chain..among other things..due to Gran not maintaining it and being a speed demon, if we don't have to fix much else it'd be more worth it to keep the car going as long as it isn't treated roughly. (We're basically paying the price right now for gran NOT having a good mechanic and not getting it maintained properly.)

[Frugal Guru Jenny]

Generally, if a car has been properly maintained, the price of maintenance per year increases to year 10 and then LEVELS OFF. The average 18 year old car is about the same price to maintain as the average 10-year-old car.

Now, the catch is that repairs don't come at a steady rate. One year, you'l spend $200 on repairs--the next, it might me $2000. People mistakenly get a $2000 year and believe that it's a sign that the car is in its final decline. But when a part is replaced, it's replaced, and it's not going to break faster just because it's been put into an older car.

Financially speaking, you are almost always better off repairing a car and keeping it longer. The exceptions are when the car no longer fits your family's needs anyway, when you were already planning on replacing it in the near future, and when problems aren't actually being fixed--you're spending money, but multiple mechanics' "fixes" have failed to solve the problem, so the car is not actually being repaired. Finally, if you took over a car in very bad shape, there could me a large backlog of repairs that need to be performed and additional damage caused by the lack of previous repairs that could drive the short-term costs of the car so high that a newer car is cheaper than addressing all the problems in the older car.

I ran a number of scenarios using real-world averages for a book that I've written, and this is what I found.