In article , Hell Toupee wrote:
On 8/11/2011 7:16 AM, Doug Miller wrote:

Buying a new car is *never* a financially sound decision, rebate or no. The
only thing that makes financial sense is to buy used, at least three or four
years old. Let someone else pay the depreciation.

Not true.

Yes, it is. Do the math. You get killed on depreciation. Let someone *else*
buy the car new, and pay all the depreciation.

As another poster pointed out, there are times when the
price difference between a late-model used vehicle and the same one
brand new is so minor, it makes no sense to buy used.

You both drew the wrong conclusion. The correct conclusion is that if a new
car, and the same thing used, one year old, are basically the same price --
then they are *both* a bad deal.

Total cost of ownership is *always* lower buying a used car -- *if* you use
your head. Buying a one year old used car that's the same price as a new one
is obviously stupid. But that doesn't mean that buying new is smart, only that
buying new is (in that case) less stupid than buying the one year old used
car. Buy three years old, or five years old.

That's how I
ended up buying my first new car - after shopping around and
discovering the difference between my buying the particular model new
versus two years old with 25K on it was only a few hundred bucks, I
(to my amazement) bought new. Market forces worked in my favor that
time.

No, they didn't. Your eagerness to buy a new car worked in the car dealer's
favor that time.

How much could you have saved by getting one four years old, with 50K on it?

Did you even check?

It may apply in some cases now, too. Low demand for new and high
demand for used may once again make the used vs. new price difference
on certain models negligible - in which case you might as well buy new.

It obviously makes more sense to buy new than one year old used at the same
price -- but it makes still more sense, much more, to buy three, four, five
years old used.



You want to talk about discounts from list price? After our second child was
born, in 1991, we bought a 1984 Buick LeSabre for $4200; the original window
sticker was still in the glove box, showing a list price of about $14K. The
car had 54K miles on it when we bought it, and it was still running when we
sold it ten years later at 211K.

In the example I gave above, the price difference between the vehicle
new and two years old with approx 25K on it ended up running between
$500-600. So, 25K fewer miles and two more years on the warranty for a
few hundred more? Sold.

And I bet you never even looked at the same thing, four years old, with 40 or
50K miles on it. The price difference would have been thousands.

If the financing on a new vehicle is more favorable than on a used
vehicle, and the buyer intends to finance, that's another factor to
take into account.

No, it's not. It's *never* a financially sound decision to buy a new car. It
may be less unsound, in some circumstances, to buy new vs. one year old, but
that does *not* make buying new a smart thing to do.