re: Best car for ~25k. What would you get?

Ace--Hypothetically speaking, if youre telling me that you would pay $22k for a 3 year old car with 30k miles rather than buy the same car brand new for $22k I just dont know what to tell you. Respectfully, we will just agree to disagree.

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How much depreciation are you "eating" after two years on a 30k car?

How much money (total) are you saving if you don't have a car payment for two years?

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Duh, just buy everything in cash so you don't have this problem.

At least I assume that will be his answer.

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How much depreciation are you "eating" after two years on a 30k car?

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Much less than the first 2 years and 30k miles. I'm not making this up.

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How much money (total) are you saving if you don't have a car payment for two years?

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At a certain point, you should be holding the cars long enough to never have a car payment - but it is mathematically impossible to spend more on the used, depreciated cars - per mile - that it is on new cars - all other things being equal.

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Do factory rebates and negotiating a better deal on a new unit count as keeping things equal? Because for the vehicle I own, you'd be a damn fool to buy a year or two old on compared to the deal I paid new. It literally would cost you more money to buy used than new.

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Yes, the bottom line is all that matters. And yes, it's possible that you got a better deal with financing rebates etc; than you would have on a standard used car depending on the make model and dealer.

Especially if it was a dealer where the auto manufacturer has a volume commitment that they need to hit or else they lose their entire bonus

I may have missed it, but what did you get new and what was the deal you recieved?

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I may have missed it, but what did you get new and what was the deal you recieved?

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Got a loaded F150 FX2 SuperCrew for $29,300. Sticker was $43,xxx. After almost 3 years, I still could sell it for around $25,000.

How about this.

I need a new every day sedan. New or Used I don't care. Just get me a sweetheart deal.

Please, this shite sucks.

Preferably under 25k new. I prefer paying like 15k or something because I hate buying cars and never want to.

Someone do that for me and I'll never be a dick to you on TD again. Thanks.

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Someone do that for me and I'll never be a dick to you on TD again. Thanks.

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hmmmm. pretty enticing.

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Got a loaded F150 FX2 SuperCrew for $29,300. Sticker was $43,xxx. After almost 3 years, I still could sell it for around $25,000.

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$29.3K after or before rebates? How much down? assume 0%?

Sounds like a badass deal.....

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No, it isn't. If I buy a used car for 20k, finance it over four years at 4% and put 100k miles on it, I am paying roughly 21.7 cents/mile The break even point under that scenario for buying a new car at 30k at 0% is ~138k miles...far from "mathematically impossible".

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Wait what? $20K in financing, 4% financing and four year loan is a $460.59 per month assuming you didn't put anything down.

The present value of 4 years of monthly payments a 0% rate is $22,108.12. In other words it gets you $2,108.12 more over 4 years. That =/= $10,000 more in purchasing power.

That being said, there are other variables to consider: MPG, Scheduled maintenance (often times a newer vehicle comes with free maint) trim level etc; It's definately not mathematically impossible for it to work out more positive especially if you're working with a dealer that is about to get a $1M bonus from the manufacturer for hitting your volume commitment and he is 10 cars short of meeting that commitment.

Also depends on what type of car you want, and what used car inventory is in your area.

Yeah, I know that's what you were saying.

I think your math is off: $20k financed over 4 years at 5% is $460.59 per month. At 0% it would be $22,108.12.

$30k financed over 4 years is $625.00 per month.

One is $7,500 a year and one is $5,527 a year?

Are you saying that the value at which you can sell the car you bought new which now has 100k miles on it is worth $16,891 and the car which you could have bought used has 130k miles on it would be worth $9,891?

Just as a check, here's a couple of 2010 models that were worth $30k at sale:
1) Ford mustang GT: I could only find two within 200 miles of my area with 90k miles on them, and they ranged from $12k to $14k
2) Honda Accord V6 Coupe: Same deal, range from $11k to $12k


The difference in $10K in additional cost and 5% less on financing is $7,891. I'm confused by your post because if I'm paying $20k for a used car, and a 2010 model that sold for $30k is now worth $12k, that means that in 2010, if I decided to buy a 2008 model, it would only be worth $4,108. This is assuming that I bought it with 30k miles on it.

I'm confused because you appear to be stating that you are comparing 2 equal cars, one brand new and one a few years old, but the math doesn't match what I found in reality.

Even with $1000 in additional maintenance each year it only closes the gap by 1/2. I could buy your argument if you were saying that you basically break even and a 2008 accord in 2010 was worth $20k, but you spent $30k on the new one, and the one with 130k miles on it is worth 8k and the one with 100k miles on it is worth 12k. That said, that doesn't appear to be what you're saying? What am I missing?