Buying a new car

Erikan73

We've had lots of discussions about buying cars and I just learned of a new feature from Kelly Blue book is that they will tell you what it will cost to own a specific car over the next 5 years with maintenance. Thought that was a cool feature and something a lot of people don't consider in when figuring out what they can afford. I know I'm guilty of it.

cbee817

This is fun! I just bought a 2016 subaru forester about 2 weeks ago and it's actually the lowest overall cost compared to other makes/models. And I paid a fair purchase price, got a good deal on my trade-in (2003 honda civic). 

Although I just looked at the insurance part of it and it's way too high. My insurance for the year is only $599, they have over $1,500 for the year based on my state... yikes. 

brij2006

Maintenance and upkeep of a vehicle, are my biggest deciding factors when purchasing a vehicle.

We tend to buy cars around the $5k-$15k price range.  We both like options and nicer vehicles, so we end up buying ones with more miles in order to get that.  My H is also a maintenance snob and fixes every little thing wrong.  He also likes to modify cars.  It's great, but damn, it adds up quickly. 

So when he was looking at a BMW last year with 130,000 miles, I had to put my foot down.  The cost of owning that and with his 30,000 mile/year commute, it just wouldn't make sense.  It's easily every other week that I have to humble him back into realizing that the maintenance on a very expensive vehicle, will add up quickly.  Even if the car is paid for, that doesn't mean it's free to drive.

short+sassy

@Erikan73, I have to admit, I don't consider the cost of maintenance either.  Though it's certainly a good idea.  But I do find out insurance rates before going forward with a purchase.  I learned that the hard way.  I bought a Honda Civic years ago and had my insurance go up about 15% from what it had been.

@brij2006 (sigh) foreign cars with higher end engines.  I love my MINI Cooper (produced by BMW now) and I'm not sorry I bought it, but she insists on mid-grade gas.  At least she sips it.  Oil changes are $90 (and that's at Speedee) because 100% synthetic oil has to be used.  I almost "blew a gasket (haha)" the first time I got the oil changed.  I had no idea.  But I learned after that the oil only needs to be changed about once a year when it is full synthetic, so that makes it much more palatable.

In fact, in the owner's manual, it doesn't even give a specific time frame for oil changes.  It literally says something to the effect of "your car will tell you when it needs an oil change".

I've only had to get repair work done once, fortunately it turned out to be pretty basic stuff.  But a couple garages I called won't even do work on BMWs.  Then I looked into a couple garages that "specialize in foreign vehicles".  Eeek, doesn't that phrase just scream expensive, lol?  One of them wanted to charge $100 just to run a "diagnostic".  And, even if you told them exactly what you wanted done, they would not work on any vehicle without "running a diagnostic".  FINALLY I found a garage, and pretty near my house, that charges fair rates and even ran the diagnostic for free.  Phew!   

julieanne912

@brij2006, yup!  My boss is feeling the pain of having a foreign car.  Before, she had an older Tahoe that her husband could do all the work on.  Then she got a little Mercedes because it was a good price and got good ratings.  But she's learning that the maintenance on that thing is crazy, and pretty much has to be done at the dealership.  

As for me, I learned my lesson with my current car.  I like my cars to look nice so I picked the Edge Limited model with 20" wheels.  It looks awesome, but buying tires for it was NO FUN.  A ex-coworker got the Edge Sport with 22" wheels... he actually swapped them for 20's once he saw how much snow tires for 22's cost, and he goes skiing a lot so he needs snow tires.

They don't have my model year on there, just 2015s and 2016s.  But, so far my cost to own has been pretty good, at least in terms of repairs. I haven't had to do a single repair on it that wasn't actually just maintenance.  I bought new tires, and I've put on new rear brakes, and that's it other than oil changes, and I have 76,000 miles on it.  

brij2006

Oh, my husband seems to think he will eventually get something foreign.

He regularly goes to car auctions (for stolen/repo'd/state owned vehicles) to buy a car and flip it.  This last one had a Porsche Cayenne on the sale and he had done all of the research to buy it so he could drive it daily.  I was so happy when the bidding price got too high for him to make a profit on it. 

Thankfully he knows how to wrench on things and we bring in extra income from him buying beater cars that don't run or need a little work, fixing them, then re-selling.  But that man has expensive tastes in vehicles.

We have a Ford Mustang Shelby GT-500 as a toy car.  It's soooo much fun to drive, and I drive it just as much as he does.  But adding that "Shelby GT-500" to the emblem means premium gas, synthetic oil changes, and more horsepower than anyone needs = high insurance rates. So @short+sassy I'm right there with you.  It's sticker shock when even doing something as simple as an oil change.  Even H doing it himself, it costs us $70.  

I remind him often that we can't afford for him to put 30k miles/year on an exotic car.  If he wants something nice, he can drive the Mustang a couple days a week in the summer.

short+sassy

brij2006 said:

Oh, my husband seems to think he will eventually get something foreign.

He regularly goes to car auctions (for stolen/repo'd/state owned vehicles) to buy a car and flip it.  This last one had a Porsche Cayenne on the sale and he had done all of the research to buy it so he could drive it daily.  I was so happy when the bidding price got too high for him to make a profit on it. 

Thankfully he knows how to wrench on things and we bring in extra income from him buying beater cars that don't run or need a little work, fixing them, then re-selling.  But that man has expensive tastes in vehicles.

We have a Ford Mustang Shelby GT-500 as a toy car.  It's soooo much fun to drive, and I drive it just as much as he does.  But adding that "Shelby GT-500" to the emblem means premium gas, synthetic oil changes, and more horsepower than anyone needs = high insurance rates. So @short+sassy I'm right there with you.  It's sticker shock when even doing something as simple as an oil change.  Even H doing it himself, it costs us $70.  

I remind him often that we can't afford for him to put 30k miles/year on an exotic car.  If he wants something nice, he can drive the Mustang a couple days a week in the summer.

I really admire that!  My cousin graduated from a trade school to be a mechanic, but was having trouble finding a job.  I told my aunt he should definitely look at fixing/flipping cars.

Unfortunately, the sum total of my mechanical ability involves changing the air filter and filling the fluids, lol.

jtmh2012

short+sassy said:

One of them wanted to charge $100 just to run a "diagnostic".  And, even if you told them exactly what you wanted done, they would not work on any vehicle without "running a diagnostic".  FINALLY I found a garage, and pretty near my house, that charges fair rates and even ran the diagnostic for free.  Phew!   

I will say, I can't exactly fault a lot of places for doing this these days.  Most cars these days have so much electronic stuff in them that the only way to diagnose problems is with the computer that the technicians have.  So what has started happening is that people will take their cars in, get the diagnosis, and take the car home to fix it instead of paying for the repair and the shop gets nothing for their time.

ThinkingCapital

I wasn't even aware of the fact that Blue Book listed what it will cost to own a specific car over the next 5 years with maintenance. This is certainly good information and something to read about when you're considering a new car. Thanks for sharing!

Erikan73

I know foreigns can cost more. The crazy thing is that when I had my Nissan Altima, when you looked at how much I spent over 10,000 miles and how much my dad spent every 10,000 miles for his Mercedes, we spent the same amount of money. But I have to say, my dad has had his Mercedes for 11 years now & it's just been normal wear & tear (tires and brakes). But brakes have lasted a long time and so has everything else. Since they take good care of it, the vehicle is 11 years and still looks as good as the day they got it. So since the vehicle will probably last them another 5-10 years, I think the higher cost is worth it to them. It still has original muffler, transmission, etc, you know the big ticket stuff.

brij2006

short+sassy said:

brij2006 said:

Oh, my husband seems to think he will eventually get something foreign.

He regularly goes to car auctions (for stolen/repo'd/state owned vehicles) to buy a car and flip it.  This last one had a Porsche Cayenne on the sale and he had done all of the research to buy it so he could drive it daily.  I was so happy when the bidding price got too high for him to make a profit on it. 

Thankfully he knows how to wrench on things and we bring in extra income from him buying beater cars that don't run or need a little work, fixing them, then re-selling.  But that man has expensive tastes in vehicles.

We have a Ford Mustang Shelby GT-500 as a toy car.  It's soooo much fun to drive, and I drive it just as much as he does.  But adding that "Shelby GT-500" to the emblem means premium gas, synthetic oil changes, and more horsepower than anyone needs = high insurance rates. So @short+sassy I'm right there with you.  It's sticker shock when even doing something as simple as an oil change.  Even H doing it himself, it costs us $70.  

I remind him often that we can't afford for him to put 30k miles/year on an exotic car.  If he wants something nice, he can drive the Mustang a couple days a week in the summer.

I really admire that!  My cousin graduated from a trade school to be a mechanic, but was having trouble finding a job.  I told my aunt he should definitely look at fixing/flipping cars.

Unfortunately, the sum total of my mechanical ability involves changing the air filter and filling the fluids, lol.

Yeah, H didn't go to school for this.  He has a business management degree, but a passion for cars. He's taken his cheap toy car completely apart, rebuilt the engine and swapped the automatic for a manual transmission, and put it back together.  

Right now he only flips cheaper cars.  He prefers to stay in $5k or less simply because buyers are usually coming with cash to purchase them.  His latest one was a 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix with 134,000 miles on it.  It needed a new part that the previous owner ditched it for.  The part cost $200 and it took him about 4 hours to change it.  Then I did the interior and exterior cleaning and detail in it.  He had $1,400 and 7 hours into it and sold it for $2,100.  We made a $700 profit, so $100 an hour.  

This little "hobby" is the reason we need a larger garage.  He's to the point of deciding if/when and how much to expand and grow with it.  He now has a dealership sending him the cars people bring in on trade that have problems. He looks them over and decides whether or not he wants to buy it from the dealership and fix it, then re-sell. He also is to the point of needing to get a dealership license because he's trending to move enough cars this year for the state to require one.
It's crazy how quickly this little side income of flipping cars, can turn into a business.  If your friend has the knowledge to do something like this, there are a ton of people looking for good used vehicles out there.  I even find a lot of them on the local FB swap sights.  People throw $500 on them just to get rid of them because there are "issues."  We've fixed and re-sold many of those for a profit. H does all of his sales just by posting them on Craigslist. 

short+sassy

jtmh2012 said:

short+sassy said:

One of them wanted to charge $100 just to run a "diagnostic".  And, even if you told them exactly what you wanted done, they would not work on any vehicle without "running a diagnostic".  FINALLY I found a garage, and pretty near my house, that charges fair rates and even ran the diagnostic for free.  Phew!   

I will say, I can't exactly fault a lot of places for doing this these days.  Most cars these days have so much electronic stuff in them that the only way to diagnose problems is with the computer that the technicians have.  So what has started happening is that people will take their cars in, get the diagnosis, and take the car home to fix it instead of paying for the repair and the shop gets nothing for their time.

I don't think they should do a diagnostic totally for free, necessarily.  But people can go to Auto Zone and have a diagnostic run for free.  Or, in my case, I bought a $25 gizmo that diagnoses the problem.

And, while their equipment is certainly a lot fancier than mine, it only takes them a couple minutes to run it.  So I find $100 absolutely outrageous.  I'd even find it less outrageous if they at least put that $100 towards the repairs if a person does have them do the work.  But no, it's just an additional fee on top of the repair work.

To be fair, the mechanic I used might not normally do them for free, but he already knew it was a spark plug problem and had already given me a quote (that I'd accepted) to fix it.