Used vehicle prices are ridiculous!

[kornphlake]

You're mostly paying for the assurance that it hasn't been bagged.

My brother has bought 2 cars (Ford Escort and something else) where the spark plugs blew out after a few months. Upon closer inspection, we saw that the plugs were held in place with heli-coils. The plug blew out, a person put a heli-coil in, then sold the car. This happened twice.

My first car (Ford Tempo) had fucked up brakes and it would wear the front right brake much faster than the others. The person who sold that car obviously knew this.

My best friend bought an SUV (Chevy Blazer) that had some vacuum problems. It was good most of the time but it would randomly stall. It also had this very strange problem where the transmission or something connected to it wouldn't effectively transfer power when it was cold. The engine could rev way up while in drive and the wheels would barely turn. This problem didn't exist when it was warm outside; he bought this vehicle in the peak of summer.


I've bought 2 new cars in my life and so far neither of them have screwed up. My first one got up to 80,000km before some dickhead ran a stop sign and slammed into me. My current one is up to 7,000km and so far it's mechanically perfect. I'll probably keep buying new cars just because I know I won't need to deal with stupid shit like heli coils or fucked brakes or a sketchy transmission that doesn't work when it's cold. Used cars are only a good value if you're a car guy who recognizes common problems and knows how to fix them.

You've got to do the research and find a car that's good for 200k without problems, it's not like you can go and buy any car for $3000 and never have a problem with it. IMHO it's worth paying a mechanic to look over a car before you buy it, if you aren't a car guy, you might as well take that money to Las Vegas because it's a gamble as your buddy found out. You may loose $100 to a mechanic now but it will save you hundreds or thousands if it keeps you from buying someone else's problem.

How many times did you have to take your new cars in to have warranty work done? Most cars will have few if any problems before the warranty period expires. If you never have a warranty claim the warranty isn't very valuable, most often it's worth less than what you loose in deprecation.

I believe Certified Toyota Pre-owned vehicles offer a 100k warranty compared to the standard 30k warranty on a new Toyota, that could describe the premium price for a used Toyota. I'm not so sure Toyota's quality is as good as it was back in the 90's, it may be worth a bit more to get a better warranty.

 

[jlee]

I believe Certified Toyota Pre-owned vehicles offer a 100k warranty compared to the standard 30k warranty on a new Toyota, that could describe the premium price for a used Toyota. I'm not so sure Toyota's quality is as good as it was back in the 90's, it may be worth a bit more to get a better warranty.

A friend of mine just bought a CPO Camry and he got a 100k bumper to bumper warranty. I didn't buy my truck from a Toyota dealer, so it had/has no warranty other than whatever Toyota already has (assuming I'm eligible as 2nd owner..I have no idea).