Do you all trade in vehicles? lease? drive until wheels fall off?

[Doppel]

I would say it is more healthy and less wasteful. The low price of used cars was never due to any inherent lack of value. It was always due to the market being flooded because the supply was so high. Factors in the last 4 years have corrected that somewhat, but it will drift back to the old state I am sure.

If a car lasts 10 years, and I buy a new one every 3, I'm adding 3 times the pool of vehicles to the used market than demand is going to warrant, and will drive used car prices down.

They were cheap because there were so many. Now there are less and more people want them instead of new. For the time being, the hyper supply has been corrected, and new cars aren't magically twice as expensive as perfectly functional used cars with only slight use. This is really how it should be based on value. It's always that supply has been so out of whack.

This is probably valid to a good degree. A $25k car after 3 years that is now $15k it's really silly to not by it used. I do think things have swung too much the wrong way now, though, and the recession had some damaging effect on the number of lease vehicles, most of which hit the used car market. My last car was $22,500 and the same one three years old was around 17k or so. That doesn't work for me.

 

[BassBomb]

Buy used and sell after 3-5 years is what we had normally done, but..

Probably will go for awhile with our current cars (both owned since 2007 and 2008)

 

[hanoverphist]

my ex wife likes newer vehicles, so we always had a car payment. when we split, i ended up having to finance a truck when my car catastrophically died, but once that was over i went back to my normal. i buy older cars for cash, drive them until they die or i get bored with them and sell them off. right now i have a few cars/ trucks and a motorcycle, but i also have 3 teen kids that are getting to the driving stage as well. so i have a bunch of older cars that are paid off and fixed up. i also still have that truck i financed. it will outlast most other vehicles i own now, i bet.

 

[A5]

My wife went 8 years in a Suzuki Forenza, so I think she'll be happy with her new Mazda 3 for at least a decade 😛.

I probably won't look to replace my Mazda 6 until I get to ~120K miles, which at my current rate (~15K/year) puts a replacement about 5 years away (at 45K now). A gas spike ($5/gal is probably my pain point) would spur an earlier replacement because this thing gets pretty bad city mileage (last tank was 22 mpg on a 2.5L I4...).

I guess my overall philosophy is to buy new and then drive it until maintenance starts getting expensive or it's just spending too much time in the shop. The wife's old car was starting to get really expensive and it was, frankly, a piece of crap.

 

[MovingTarget]

I buy old cheap cars with cash and don't have car payments. Some I've kept a year and some I've driven into he ground. Currently have a 95 miata that cost me $2200 about 3 years ago and an 03 pontiac vibe that I bought for $2200 early this year to replace an 89 dodge caravan that I bought for $800 and kept for nearly 13 years lol. I only drive around 7-9k miles a year so I don't see much point in spending a lot of money on my cars. You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a car in good condition.

This. With my 97 Cavalier and 87 Caprice, I will drive them until the wheels fall off....at which point I purchase new wheels. As long as the frame/body are sound, preventative maintenance goes a long way.

 

[jagec]

My last car was $22,500 and the same one three years old was around 17k or so. That doesn't work for me.

$22,500 sticker, or out the door? Because tax/title/license/delivery free/BS add-ons can really jack up the price of a new car relative to used.

Either way, though, that's not much of a spread...

 

[hans007]

cars are really my one big luxury and I know its a total waste of money. I dont know I just like getting a new one every 4 years or so and i'm fairly young and can afford it I guess.

had my last car for a bit over 4 years and bought it new. this current car i'll probably keep 4 years (so a bit under 1.5 left).

Have my eye on the next BMW coupe. It will be a brand new model in next summer. I'll have to buy it new so that really decides that. Might be my last "nice" car though, don't really know if i'd go out of my way to buy some hybrid electric thing and buy the time my next car is 4-5 years old i'd imagine i might want to do something like buy a house I guess.


I have noticed late model (2-3 year old) used cars you really don't get much discount especially on certain makes so people I think have caught on (especially if it looks pretty current, just get that detailed and people think you are smart with money AND have a nice car). Case in point if you buy say a 5 year old S550 mercedes you could probably get one with under 50k miles on it for like $40k. when they are $90k or so new. Pickups and SUVs you probably really win buying used. Sports coupes seem to retain value really really well (used r8, used A5, used e92 coupe, used mustangs even....)

On the other hand a 5 year old civic probably costs $10k and a new one probably costs $20k. Certain cars do not depreciate much at all though. 2008 M3 sedan. probably around 45k today. when they were still able to be bought in 2011 they were maybe $60k with some options (lets say if they were still available it'd cost that). I figure $15k is not worth it for not having a warranty on a car like an m3. that and the wear and tear etc.

 

[Doppel]

$22,500 sticker, or out the door? Because tax/title/license/delivery free/BS add-ons can really jack up the price of a new car relative to used.

Either way, though, that's not much of a spread...

That's base; you'd pay all the crap on top of that, but you would with the used car also 🙂 The car was a loss leader in the paper so lower than its brethren (wasn't a demo car, though!).

 

[Doppel]

cars are really my one big luxury and I know its a total waste of money. I dont know I just like getting a new one every 4 years or so and i'm fairly young and can afford it I guess.

had my last car for a bit over 4 years and bought it new. this current car i'll probably keep 4 years (so a bit under 1.5 left).

Have my eye on the next BMW coupe. It will be a brand new model in next summer. I'll have to buy it new so that really decides that. Might be my last "nice" car though, don't really know if i'd go out of my way to buy some hybrid electric thing and buy the time my next car is 4-5 years old i'd imagine i might want to do something like buy a house I guess.


I have noticed late model (2-3 year old) used cars you really don't get much discount especially on certain makes so people I think have caught on (especially if it looks pretty current, just get that detailed and people think you are smart with money AND have a nice car). Case in point if you buy say a 5 year old S550 mercedes you could probably get one with under 50k miles on it for like $40k. when they are $90k or so new. Pickups and SUVs you probably really win buying used. Sports coupes seem to retain value really really well (used r8, used A5, used e92 coupe, used mustangs even....)

On the other hand a 5 year old civic probably costs $10k and a new one probably costs $20k. Certain cars do not depreciate much at all though. 2008 M3 sedan. probably around 45k today. when they were still able to be bought in 2011 they were maybe $60k with some options (lets say if they were still available it'd cost that). I figure $15k is not worth it for not having a warranty on a car like an m3. that and the wear and tear etc.

Yeah major diff in brands. Buying a mercedes used or something like a bentley they lose value like a stone.

I haven't found this with a civic, though; I think it's one of the worst cars to buy used. If the new one is $20k I imagine you could find a lot of people trying to sell a 5 year old one for a lot more than $10k.

 

[hans007]

I noticed with luxury cars the really high end stuff stops value a lot but entry level luxury that is relatively new doesn't. Like a s class amg yes. 7 series etc.

But like a 3 series coupe you always have those people trying to step up from "normal" cars so they tend to not lose a lot.

Then again maintenance on say a maserati quattroporte has got to be a lot even if you get it cheap

 

[ponyo]

I noticed with luxury cars the really high end stuff stops value a lot but entry level luxury that is relatively new doesn't. Like a s class amg yes. 7 series etc.

But like a 3 series coupe you always have those people trying to step up from "normal" cars so they tend to not lose a lot.

Then again maintenance on say a maserati quattroporte has got to be a lot even if you get it cheap

High end luxury depreciates huge percentage the first couple of years. Which is why you should always buy those used. But I wouldn't get something like Mercedes S AMG or BMW 7 series. People who buy new Mercedes and BMW tend to put lot of miles on those cars. Where as car like Bentley, it's easy to find used low mileage mint car. Depreciation on something like the Flying Spur is huge. Maintenance costs are all relative. If you can afford the car, you can afford the maintenance. Maintenance cost on Bentley is not much more than comparable Benz or BMW.

 

[Jeff7]

Drive until it falls apart has been my way of thinking, though I'm only on my second car now, after getting 11 years out of the first one.

It will partly depend on how much I'm getting paid in the years ahead, and how well battery and self-driving vehicle technologies advance.

 

[kalrith]

I typically drive it until it falls apart, which is evidenced by me spending a lot of time and money fixing my '92 Mercury Cougar, which I bought 10 years ago.

However, I'm about to have a 60-mile round-trip commute, so I think I'm going to sell our SUV (~18mpg hwy) and get an econobox (~40mpg hwy). I'll let my wife drive the Cougar since she doesn't drive as far.

 

[JoeyP]

I've had my fun with sports cars, and have ZERO desire to look at cars as anything besides functional machines that get me from point A to point B safely and cheaply.

So we will never buy new cars. We buy used cars with cash. The money we save by not spending so much on cars and car loans is much better spent on other things.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I would say it is more healthy and less wasteful. The low price of used cars was never due to any inherent lack of value. It was always due to the market being flooded because the supply was so high. Factors in the last 4 years have corrected that somewhat, but it will drift back to the old state I am sure.

Part of the correction made 4 years ago was that the used cars that were traded in with the government rebate program were never able to hit the market; they were kept off the market by being "destroyed". This caused the shortage of vehicles - which you call a correction; increasing the value of good used vehicles and trickling down.

It will take another 3-5 years to get that adjustment out of the way.
That will be when those new purchases start to hit the used market.

 

[Vdubchaos]

I'm a keeper. I keep all of my cars until it no longer makes sense or they fall apart.

# of reasons for this

a) it teaches me to make the purchase decision RIGHT and live with it
b) saves me TON of money (no new cars every few years like most people etc)
c) sentimental value. When you have a car that long you have ALL kinds of memories associated with it (and I value that A LOT)

We currently have 3 cars
Family car: 2000 Mazda MPV 105k miles
Daily: 2001 Mazda Protege 85k miles
Fun/Weekend car: 99 VW Passat 1.8t (5sp) 145k miles (K04, 2.5" Exhaust, Bilsteins, H&R springs etc)