CAR lease or buy
yuichi
Urban sprawl 11,331 Posts
So I've been leasing a Carolla these past few years and the term is about to be up. Leaning towards another lease, but to me it will only make sense to finance a loan for the residual amount of this car, if I am willing to drive it around for another 5 or 10 years.
What are yall doing about your cars? How long have you kept it? And how much in yearly repair and maintenance costs?
What are yall doing about your cars? How long have you kept it? And how much in yearly repair and maintenance costs?
Comments
No, unless you're willing to wait a long time.
buy a decent used car.
Some dude is close to putting 1 million miles on an 8th generation honda civic.
Yea, that seems to be the case. I was looking at the Nissan Leaf. MSRP is 35K. Pretty sure you'd have to hold on to it for a long time for the cost-benefit of owning an electric or hybird vehicle to sink in huh?
Seems pretty risky in a way, if you buy the wrong car, and end up making costly repairs and maintenance fees on it every year.
Leases are good in that, you don't have to worry about this, because the car's running fine without any worry for the first several years.
2) Test drive a used honda with the seller to the mechanic or pay the mechanic to come with you
3) Buy a vehicle that a) won't create new emissions from the building of the car (those electric batteries shit all over the environment) b) will get better gas mileage than some wankster hybrid.
Pretty simple.
This. EXCEPT GET A CAR WITH SOME FUCKING STYLE. YUICHI YOU NEED IT.
And if the car you want to check out is untaxed/not road legal, find someone with Dealer plates.
Although, for #3, any used car that can put in over 150k miles or 10-15 years service is already better for the environment than some new thing that is full of plastic and computer chips.
http://tools.financial-projections.com/LeaseOrBuyVehicle.html
We picked up a Mercedes CLK320 for the wife in perfect condition with 66,000 original miles for $9500. Haven't had a single problem with it in the last 40,000 miles. Exceptional car and value with minimal depreciation. We could sell it today for at least $8,000-8500. Try losing less than $1000 of depreciation on a new or leased car over 40,000 miles. Good luck.
I'm rockin' my '96 Sentra, haven't had a car payment in 13 years.
It's the car that wouldn't die, I've probably only put two to three hundred bucks into maintenance per year, including regular oil changes. It was pretty much the perfect car for grad school, but I'm definitely in the market now that I'm earning a living wage. At this point I'm mostly just driving it out of curiosity as to how far it will go before the wheels fall off.
Our '99 VW Beetle was not such a good story. After it turned about 8 years old, we could expect to put at least $1000 a year into it. Fortunately it was put out of its misery last year by an inattentive driver and has been replaced by a new Subaru about which we have no complaints. New VWs and Audis are great, but they get expensive in their old age, I'd probably only consider leasing one if I had to go in that direction.
If you have the cash, buy used, you'll get the most car dollar for dollar. If you have to finance, you might as well get something new because you'll get a much better interest rate if your credit is decent. If you don't mind having a car payment forever and you need a new car every 3-5 years then lease away. A car is not an investment, it's an expense, cars only depreciate over time. Whether you buy, finance or lease you're throwing money down a pit.
You get less precious about these things once you have kids, trust me. Just imagine it as a pile of notes sat outside, and every day, the wind blows some away... so just to have it standing still, it's costing you.
I run two cars; one's the wife's 2000 Saab 9-5 wagon with 160K on it (bought 10 years ago for less than half-new price) and a 96 4Runner with 150K on it (had this 2 years, takes the bikes and tents everywhere. You could run it on cooking oil until the supermarkets got wise and ballooned the prices).
Neither do great mileage but nothing has gone wrong. I know a good mechanic who does all my servicing and I buy the fluids and filters off the internet.
Aston One-77 when the lottery comes up, no doubt
no regrets either. I had a cash-down used VW with low mileage for over a decade and wasted more money on that pile of shit than I care to count. Fuck VW till the end of time. every time I worry about whether I made the right decision, I plug in my ipod and turn on the heated seats. Grown up shit.
obviously I can understand getting a used reliable car with 50k on it or whatever. But that's not my lane right now
I used to buy early 90's hondas with 90,000 miles on them for $3500 and sell them at 140,000 miles for $2500-3000. Never put any maintenance money in to any of them other than oil changes.
Hyundais have come up a lot in the car world lately. I've heard so many good stories about them from other people.
I'm just sayin that if a car can make it to 1 million miles, thats gotta be worth something.
But if car theft is an issue in your area, don't get one. I knew tons of dudes growing up that had master keys. People still get their Hondas took left and right in the Bay.
I find a lot of used cars are now way over-priced. I feel like a one year old car with 28,000 miles is only like $1000 less than the same car new. If you keep your eyes open, you can get great deals on new cars, especially if the next years models are here or coming soon.
I'm not advocating one over the other, just saying.
And for those making their decision with the environment in mind, the way you own your car has way more of an impact than the particular car you buy. The majority of environmental impact a given car will have occurs in it's manufacture, not it's use. If you want to have the least negative impact, buy a car, maintain it, and drive it until it can't go no more.
definitely seeing this. plus you can get decent 5-7 year servicing plans on a new car from some manufacturers if you can only stick into their piddling mileages.
i'm looking at a new pick up, toyota hilux or ford ranger (leaning towards the toyota). country roads are a beast on my commute. potholes in my lawn related
VWs are also expensive leases because most models don't retain a lot of value for sale after the lease. It also depends on what you need the car for. If it needs to be reliable and start every day to get you to work, a lease at least ensures that maintenance costs are built in. I lease because I wanted the car to be reliable for my wife and the baby. We lease a Jetta sportwagon for about $300 a month and put another $3K down at signing. When the lease runs out, I think I'll buy a "pre-owned" audi.
I was looking at some small/mid-size Hyundais. Doesn't look bad and leasing is cheap.
For me, fuel efficiency is one of my biggest things. Don't need a gas guzzler even if it looks good....Gas ain't cheap (will never be cheap).
Right now I fill up my Corolla with like 50 bucks and I can commute to work for about a week. Not bad.
A used BMW/Benz is obviously appealing, but how much more gas money will that run me in a month??
I drive this:
It gets 38mpg, has 65,000 original miles on it, cost me $2800 and will never lose value, holds a gang of records, and surprisingly gets a lot of compliments.