Who drives what, how much do you think these drivers make?

[MJinZ]

Exactly. Why do you care?

Why does anyone care about anything? The question is what you think someone should be able to afford to drive with their incomes. It is a question of financial responsibility related to cars. It could easily have been about how much of a mortgage someone should responsibly afford on their income, but this is the garage and who cares about houses?

But of course, who cares how responsible people are with their spending right? If you don't, please feel free to ignore the thread.

 

[Turin39789]

this is how silly your thread is

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=29597039#post29597039

 

[vi edit]

If you want a number, I don't think a person should be spending more than 10% of their take home pay on vehicles with 5% a more conservative number.

If you bring home $4000 a month then $400 is the most you should be spending.

 

[Turin39789]

If you want a number, I don't think a person should be spending more than 10% of their take home pay on vehicles with 5% a more conservative number.

If you bring home $4000 a month then $400 is the most you should be spending.

I could go for 10-15% with the stipulation that it is on a 3 year term only.

But in reality I think the only people concerned with how others spend their money on cars are people who bought their own car as a means of ostentatious spending or are trying to justify their splurge.

 

[vshah]

i make 60k and drive an si, but i saved up and paid cash. it really depends on how much income you have every month after taxes, rent, bills, savings, essentials etc.

that said, here's my take, assuming all were new purchases

1) Econoboxes, $10k - $15k (Small Kias, Corollas, Civics etc)
20-40k

2) Midsize Mainstream - $20k - $25K (Camry, Accords, Fusions etc)
30-60k

3) Premium small size niche - $20kish (Mustangs, Genesis, GLI, Civic SI these types of vehicles).
30-60k

4) Large mainstream sedans - $25-30K (Avalons, Taurus, 300s).
50-80k

 

[KIAman]

IMO, a car should never exceed 30% of your yearly gross income assuming you have life responsibilities (aka, you have to provide for yourself). One has to keep in mind the actual COO (cost of ownership) which includes maintenance, gas, fees, insurance, interest, depreciation, etc.

AKA $20k car for someone making $66k or more per year.

If you have little to no obligations, then buy whatever floats your boat. I personally know several people who have free rent, food and expenses and spends their entire income on their car. There is a kid who works as a bagger in my local grocery store and owns a MB C63 AMG. GG kid.

 

[vshah]

IMO, a car should never exceed 30% of your yearly gross income assuming you have life responsibilities (aka, you have to provide for yourself). One has to keep in mind the actual COO (cost of ownership) which includes maintenance, gas, fees, insurance, interest, depreciation, etc.

AKA $20k car for someone making $66k or more per year.

If you have little to no obligations, then buy whatever floats your boat. I personally know several people who have free rent, food and expenses and spends their entire income on their car. There is a kid who works as a bagger in my local grocery store and owns a MB C63 AMG. GG kid.

i'm feeling nit-picky today..i doubt he actually owns it...yet :awe:

 

[ayabe]

i'm feeling nit-picky today..i doubt he actually owns it...yet :awe:

Yeah some FNG entry level guy at my job just bought an IS-F. He's been annoyed that people are asking him if his parents bought it for him.

It's like hey bro, reality check you make $30K a year maybe and are holding down an $800+/- car payment.....yeah some people might be a little shocked that you are spending half of your takehome on a car.

 

[MJinZ]

IMO, a car should never exceed 30% of your yearly gross income assuming you have life responsibilities (aka, you have to provide for yourself). One has to keep in mind the actual COO (cost of ownership) which includes maintenance, gas, fees, insurance, interest, depreciation, etc.

AKA $20k car for someone making $66k or more per year.

If you have little to no obligations, then buy whatever floats your boat. I personally know several people who have free rent, food and expenses and spends their entire income on their car. There is a kid who works as a bagger in my local grocery store and owns a MB C63 AMG. GG kid.

If that kid inherits, then he'll be fine. Except his own kids will not have that luxury.

 

[ichy]

My school is the kingdom of rich kids with hot cars. There is a Gallardo Superlegger, a McLaren SLR (he only brings it out every couple of weeks), Vipers, Corvettes, a pair of Astons, multiple M3s, M5s, a Maserati Quattroport, and a Maserati Gran Turismo. Makes me sick since these kids haven't paid a dime for anything out of their own pockets their whole life. I hate to say it, but I got a pretty sick sense of satisfaction seeing one of the vipers stuck up on a curb after he took a corner too fast and lost the rear end (in my defense the guy is known for being a dick, he once drove around hitting puddles on campus splashing people).

I went to school with some kids from very well-off families. None of them drove anything crazy like a Maserati, but several Infinities, Acuras, BMWs. I have to say, a lot of the guys who came from a lot of money still worked their asses off. There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of the fact that life was unfair in your favor, just don't be a dick about it or use it as an excuse to be a parasitic bum.

 

[theeedude]

I drive a car that cost me 10% of my gross income new. Financed it for 7 years too 🙂
Filters out the gold diggers. 😀

 

[PricklyPete]

Why does anyone care about anything? The question is what you think someone should be able to afford to drive with their incomes. It is a question of financial responsibility related to cars. It could easily have been about how much of a mortgage someone should responsibly afford on their income, but this is the garage and who cares about houses?

But of course, who cares how responsible people are with their spending right? If you don't, please feel free to ignore the thread.

You are trying to correlate two things that really have no bearing on each other. A better question *might* be how wealthy should someone be to drive such and such a car....but the question still ends up having so many other variables (location, expenses, dependents, etc).

In the end, your thread just comes off as you being judgmental of others when all you know is two variables and nothing else. This seems ignorant to me...hence my who cares statement.

 

[rh71]

Yeah some FNG entry level guy at my job just bought an IS-F. He's been annoyed that people are asking him if his parents bought it for him.

It's like hey bro, reality check you make $30K a year maybe and are holding down an $800+/- car payment.....yeah some people might be a little shocked that you are spending half of your takehome on a car.

I recently read a thread where the guy drives a 95k car because he loves cars but he's a scientist. At his job, everybody's a square and the parking lot is pretty well visible to everyone else. He feels so embarrassed to drive that thing anywhere near work. And that's just a g'damn shame... wtf kind of way is that to live?

Another poster mentions he's a sales guy and how is he supposed to be negotiating with clients for more money if he's driving around in a 70k BMW himself...

The other day I had a home contractor show up in a MB SLK of some sort... I couldn't tell because he parked it 3 houses down.

Point? Fvck judgmental people. People should just be doing what they like without fear of repercussions.

 

[vshah]

that scientist makes no sense. think of all the hot fem scientist ass he could get if he parked in the lot...? mm lab coats.

 

[halik]

IMO, a car should never exceed 30% of your yearly gross income assuming you have life responsibilities (aka, you have to provide for yourself). One has to keep in mind the actual COO (cost of ownership) which includes maintenance, gas, fees, insurance, interest, depreciation, etc.

AKA $20k car for someone making $66k or more per year.

If you have little to no obligations, then buy whatever floats your boat. I personally know several people who have free rent, food and expenses and spends their entire income on their car. There is a kid who works as a bagger in my local grocery store and owns a MB C63 AMG. GG kid.

Even 30% of your gross is entirely too much.

The most I've paid was about 16% of my gross for the CLK couple years ago. The s4 is sitting at like 8% 🙂

 

[KIAman]

Even 30% of your gross is entirely too much.

The most I've paid was about 16% of my gross for the CLK couple years ago. The s4 is sitting at like 8% 🙂

That was a general ballpark figure. Obviously, if you make 100 million a year, you would not want to spend 30% of your gross on a car.

Can you justify your claim for the middle class?

Here is my justification.

Someone who is making 66k a year has an average take home pay of about $4000. A 20k car including ttl comes to around 22k with a reasonable 5% interest over 5 years comes out to $415 a month with 0 down. $415 payment with $4000 take home comes out to about 10% of your monthly take home. Considering cars are usually most people's second highest expense (after mortgage/rent), this number looks really good to me.

 

[halik]

That was a general ballpark figure. Obviously, if you make 100 million a year, you would not want to spend 30% of your gross on a car.

Can you justify your claim for the middle class?

Here is my justification.

Someone who is making 66k a year has an average take home pay of about $4000. A 20k car including ttl comes to around 22k with a reasonable 5% interest over 5 years comes out to $415 a month with 0 down. $415 payment with $4000 take home comes out to about 10% of your monthly take home. Considering cars are usually most people's second highest expense (after mortgage/rent), this number looks really good to me.

I'm not disputing the monthly payments, but rather the total sum. At 66K a year I would cap the budget at about 12-14G max. Payments are function of the term and rate, so just pick whatever you can swing without impacting your cashflows too much.

 

[TruePaige]

I always heard the rule of thumb as a car being half your salary. Over 6 years that is 8% of your salary per year.

30k? 15k car. 60k? 30k car.

Not one i believe in firmly myself, just throwing it out there.

 

[DarkThinker]

Well, it all depends like everyone is saying. Some people are wise some are not.

I can easily afford a brand new luxury car north of $50K, but instead I opted out for an off lease low miles 3 years old luxury sedan that cost me to get just as much as those econoboxes do but at least I enjoy driving it and it packs a punch too. I have an 8 minute commute each way and rent is cheap enough. So I really am not in a need for an excellent fuel saver. I am efficient with my spending and investment, but from my perspective, life is way too short to spend it driving some 125Hp car...I did drive a 14 year old cheap and fuel saving accord for long enough, now it's time for some fun for a while (just a little).

But I believe the most important thing is for someone to get a car much below what they can really get, cars are nice, but there are reasonable limits.

 

[zCypher]

Having ridiculously overspent in terms of car/income ratio in the past, I can say that you definitely need to consider the entire situation to have an answer which makes sense. The circumstance of the person in question makes all the difference in whether they can afford the car. Do they pay rent, how much is their cost of living, what is their lifestyle, how much do they spend on whatever, how much do they make, how much is their car likely to cost them based on their driving style, insurance, the car itself, etc.

You can't just say... whatever car = need whatever income. It doesn't work that way.

people do tend to overextend themselves though. I think it's more likely that those who are better off, don't overextend themselves as much and probably aren't the ones driving the nicest cars in all cases... they became successful by being smart, not by being an idiot and buying a car they can't afford 😛

 

[rdp6]

All of these posts seem to point towards always having payments; what about saving about 1/3 of the purchase amount, financing the rest on reasonable terms, performing routine maintenance / keeping it insured & fixed in the event of accidents, and driving it until it falls apart, then repeat?

Back to the profiling bit, at my first engineering job my team worked in remote lab. In the parking lot:

2007 Passat 2.0T / 6M
New Beetle TDI / manual
BMW 325i / manual
Acura RSX / 5M

And the guy who commented on this was an engineer principal, his ride was BMW 330i / manual. All the German cars were black, the Acura is some sort of pearl white.

 

[StageLeft]

Depends no age. I basically always think a person doesn't have much money if they're in an econobox.

Midsize and above it's rather hard to say. People making $11/hour buy accords. Rich guys who just don't give a sh*t about cars also buy them. Mustangs, etc. I assume they like cars a bit more.

Avalon I assume the guy is decently well off.

Low end luxury cars like a bmw it depends on age. If a young guy I assume he just likes to show off. If old guy i assume he is well off.

 

[bommy261]

alot of people who make really good money and who are smart with it don't blow it on expensive cars, because cars (big surprise coming) are an absolutely horrible investment.

 

[exdeath]

If you want a number, I don't think a person should be spending more than 10% of their take home pay on vehicles with 5% a more conservative number.

If you bring home $4000 a month then $400 is the most you should be spending.

If you are making $4000 a month take home there is no reason you should have to even finance or lease a car south of $100,000. Nothing better than having that extra $400 a month while your peers who got their new car first are still struggling with car payments and reduced hours/pay 4 years later.

Anyhow, with regard to topic, the inverse is usually true. The more expensive the car, the less money the person probably makes, and the car is to mislead and pose. Most everyone I saw in college with a brand new BMW, lived at home, parents paid insurance, etc, and they were broke all the time trying to maintain their image, if it was even their car to begin with.

 

[ayabe]

I recently read a thread where the guy drives a 95k car because he loves cars but he's a scientist. At his job, everybody's a square and the parking lot is pretty well visible to everyone else. He feels so embarrassed to drive that thing anywhere near work. And that's just a g'damn shame... wtf kind of way is that to live?

Another poster mentions he's a sales guy and how is he supposed to be negotiating with clients for more money if he's driving around in a 70k BMW himself...

The other day I had a home contractor show up in a MB SLK of some sort... I couldn't tell because he parked it 3 houses down.

Point? Fvck judgmental people. People should just be doing what they like without fear of repercussions.

I fully support people buying whatever pleases them, everyone has their own priorities and if owning the car of your dreams if their #1 priority, then hey go for it.

My neighbor works 3 jobs to pay for his ~85K Range Rover Sport, I think it's ugly and overall a stupid vehicle, but it's comfortable and fast and he loves it, so more power to him.