QotD: Cars
Posted August 7th, 2004 @ 06:06pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: How did you purchase your car? Did you finance through the dealer, buy new or used, etc.?
My Answer: I bought new, and traded in the two-year-old model that I'd had for one year. I financed through the dealer - a mistake as I now realize it given the interest rate I've got - but then again I was just out of school, had moved 1100 miles, and had just started a new job so I'm not sure I'd have gotten a better rate elsewhere. I paid 1% over invoice price, though, thanks to Edmunds.com.
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Posted 08 Aug 2004 at 9:54am #
No car for me! That's even cheaper.
Posted 09 Aug 2004 at 11:49am #
I bought my car new in November of 2001, it has 16 miles on it, I think I drove about 10 of those in test drives. I liked the idea of having a car when it was brand new, I hoped that would decrease the number of problems that it would have. I was trading in a 1992 Honda Accord.
Anyways, I got my loan through my dad's bank that offered the lowest interest rate. I had no credit, he had to co-sign on the loan, but as far as the dealership was concerned, I was paying cash and I would own the car in full.
I regret not getting a 1 or 2 year old car, I would have been able to get something nicer, for a better price. Not to mention the car insurance on my new car, I don't want to think about it.
Posted 10 Aug 2004 at 10:54am #
My first car, a '93 Toyota Corolla, was new. Fully financed through a loan from a credit union I had just joined. Probably could have gotten a better deal, but I was young (21), this was my first car purchase, and had just gotten my first decent paying job.
When that got smashed up in 1998, three payments before paying it off completely, I got 12k from the insurance company. So I used that to buy a new '98 Camry. Got probably the best deal I've heard of cuz I used this newfangled world wide web thingie to use a pretty new Toyota site that gave me all the dealer invoice costs and used them to great advantage. The guy at the dealer was very taken aback that I knew what their costs were. 🙂
In '01, I absolutely drooled over the then-new Lexus IS300. Worked a deal with my mom so she could buy my Camry from me and I used the extra after paying it off to put the down payment on the IS300. I could only lease it since it was relatively expensive.
Then just a few months ago, I decided to get into an '04 Lexus RX330. Lease again, but likely at the end of this one, will look to buy it out. I really love this car.
Anyway, bottom line, new every time, combination of purchasing and leasing. I'm not much of a used car person. I like the fresh new car smell. 🙂