How bad of an idea is it to buy a new car?

Life is too short to buy used cars.

I bought my 2010 silverado new at the end of 2010 and after rebates and haggling I paid just a few hundred more than the trucks that had 10-15k on it. Just look around and do what you think is best.

I had never owned a new vehicle and felt good knowing I'd be the only one that had ever done maintenance on it

I have done both- paid cash for the new -heavily discounted

Recently bought a pre owned with only 23K- vehicle was 4 years old, owned by an older genteleman who trades for new cars every 3-4 years- it looked and smelled brand new! Paid less than half the cost of new

I just did a search on autotrader and there are about a dozen used trucks similar to the one I bought new in February. they are all within $2k of what I paid for mine some more some less.

Slightly used isn't the deal it used to be.

Now if you're willing to buy 5-6 years old you'll save some money.

Definitely not for Jeeps. When I was in the market the 2-3 year old Jeeps were only a couple thousand cheaper than new. I went with new, because I didn't want to chance that a previous owner drove the Jeep like an a-hole.

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Is it really that bad of an idea due to depreciation? I

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I don't really treat cars as investments where I am highly concerned with resale value. Like someone else said, unless you plan to sell in 3 years or so, who cares.

There's also some intrinsic value in having the latest technology and reliability of a new car that's tough to quantify.

It's a personal decision without a real right or wrong IMO.

My daughter just bought a Volvo XC-60 managers demo with 1200 miles on it. Regular warranty is 5 yrs, 50,000 miles. They also offer free maintenance for first 36 mo which they extended to 5 years since it is a demo. It was a 2015 which had 2250 in dealer incentives and an additional 1000 since I'm a Volvo owner. I own an XC-90 with over 100,000 miles on it. I paid almost as much for mine back in 2009 and it was a year old with 14,000 miles on it.

Also - I shopped her trade-in (Altima that took her through high school and college) and got several thousand more from Car Max than the dealers we talked with. Had it appraised in Houston and they let us drop it off in Fort Worth where we picked up the new car.