Automobiles and the young dreamer

I have two co-workers, both in their mid twenties. Both drive brand-new cars initially valued at $29K-$32K. Both live in apartments. Both also bought brand-new motorcycles for $6K-$8K. Oh, yeah, they make fun of my 9-year-old Miata and my used van, and they incessantly talk about Inifinit G35s and Acura TSXs as investments.

Then again, I have a 60-year-old coworker who's worth millions and drives a plain-Jane Geo Prism which is obviously from the early- to mid-'90s because Geo's been discontinued for quite a while.

Then again, I have a 60-year-old coworker who's worth millions and drives a plain-Jane Geo Prism

Why is the co-worker still working? - People like this are no heros of mine. Money is a tool, that is made to be spent. Financial Independence is the spending choice of people in this forum.

Your co-worker appears to be miser.

Yes, he is. His lunch is a PB&J sandwich. He's one of those guys whose hobby happens to be his job. Nice combo if you can swing it.

[BUM]

Money is a tool, that is made to be spent.

The annoying thing of it is... You can only spend it once.

Even at zero % financing my wife and I thought a long time before buying a new car in 2002. Although its a SUV we avoided the "biggies" and the V8's.

No buyer's remorse here...yet

BUM

[panhead]

TH Said:

"Snow seemed to bring out two kinds of people. The ones who thought "heyyy...my 1967 firechicken with the bald tires could use a nice spin around the city in the middle of this 20" drop" to "snowwww...hmm...I think they told me in high school driving class to double my speed, tailgate and change lanes as often as possible when it snows".

Heh Heh ! this thread seems to have cooled off but I just caught this reference to a "1967 Firechicken." As I've said before, I avidly play with cars and motorcycles and one of my current babies is a 1969 Firechicken convertible ! I love these cars, it's my third one ! Not only are they terrible in snow, but also in rain, mud, dirt, sand, leaves, and just about everything else. They go very well in a straight line down a dry road tho, as long as you don't need to stop fast.......

-pan-

[haha]

They go very well in a straight line down a dry road tho, as long as you don't need to stop fast.......

Best thing about these cars- aside from the sweet push in your lumbar region as you leave the light- is the great hood art. An American Classic. And I am a Rice driver, can't tell I'm moving until I hit 6000.

Mikey

[bongo2]

OK. I'm thinking about getting a new car. I thought that I was going to go Japanese for the quality like JohnBlake was saying, but now I see that I can get a 1yr old Taurus or Grand Am for $10-11k, while a similar 1 year old Accord or Camry will cost $15k, or $18k new. It seems to me that that $5-7k will pay for a lot of repairs. Or, looked at another way, the American car would cost the same per year even if it only lasts 1/2 as long as the Japanese car. I going wrong somewhere in my analysis?

[unclemick]

Wasn't it Millionaire Next Door - old Detroit Iron bought by the pound or something along those lines? A depreciated American car can pay for a lot of expensive gas also. I remember the 70's in Colorado - the cost of my 1961 full size Pontiac sedan made up for poor mileage
and high gas prices.

[haha]

OK. *I'm thinking about getting a new car. *I thought that I was going to go Japanese for the quality like JohnBlake was saying, but now I see that I can get a 1yr old Taurus or Grand Am for $10-11k, while a similar 1 year old Accord or Camry will cost $15k, or $18k new.

I think a low mileage 1 year old Taurus for $11,000 would be a real deal. Their gas mileage is good, and if you add a good aftermarket trans cooler, and use synthetic ATF and Mobil 1 in the crancase, you will never wear it out. My mother bought a new 1988 Taurus for $13,500. I bought it from her in 1994 for $4000. It had only 28,000 miles. My wife drove it for another 200,000 miles, and never did anything but normal maintainence. I sold it for $500 to a guy who was fixing my electric range. I think there was one radiator replacement, and one water pump. So our capital cost for very nice, reliable wheels was less than 2 cents a mile

A really OK car, IMO. But absolutely no fun to drive. When she replaced it she got an Integra, which is fun to drive.

Mikey

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Also unless you're going to drive it until the wheels come off, consider resale value.

Used taurusi are a dime a dozen and as you've seen, depreciate pretty quick.

Yep, the millionaire next door not only brought that up, they included an appendix with a list of many cars sorted by price/pound.

Those wacky phd's...

[Whakamole]

Also unless you're going to drive it until the wheels come off, consider resale value.

I used to think that resale didn't matter if you drove it 'til it died.

But someone said, "hey, what if you get into an accident?"

If your car is totalled, they'll pay you enough to buy another of the same car. So if you drive a Taurus, you'll get less cash than if you drove (say) a Camry.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yep. Ya also have to balance the comfort factor, but not the first comfort factor that comes to mind.

I have an expedition. First american vehicle I've bought in a while and a great buy compared to other comparable vehicles. Huge piece of crap, and the dealer service has been awful. Transfer case replaced, a couple of computer modules, window motors, a/c compressor, two wheel bearings...about 12 trips to the dealer, several for more than one day. Every time I drive it it leaves me feeling "I wonder what the heck is going to fall off today and if its going to get me home?". This thing only has 35k miles on it!

I drove home 3 japanese cars/suv's in the 7 years preceding, and except for some tires, oil changes and a few filters and spark plugs, no problems. No trips to the dealers. Never thought about the reliability.

To be fair, I had an '85 thunderbird that I rolled up 140k miles on, and I dared it to die so I could buy something else, but it was solid. And the expedition is a sample size of one which aint that great statistically.

But I can absolutely guarantee that my next vehicle is very unlikely to be a ford, and highly likely to be a honda or toyota, price be damed. That wont happen until the expedition dies a horrible and hopefully flaming death, but I'm not sure that will take very long at this pace.

Hello TH and all. Some of this I posted before and some is new.

I have owned/leased maybe 50 vehicles, with myself
wife and family. Cadillacs were the best as far as low-
no maintenance. First one I bought in 1998 had almost 200,000 miles on it 10 years later. Never had it tuned up and it ran great. I recall
owning a couple of Japanese cars at the same time as
I owned an American brand. The Japanese car was
always better. Never an exception to this. Right now we have a 91 Jeep and a 98 Dodge Ram, 195,000
and 135,000 miles respectively. Both are excellent
in view of the high miles. I also have friend who can fix
anything, is very creative and cheap to use, so that is a big advantage for me.

John Galt

[bongo2]

"If your car is totalled, they'll pay you enough to buy another of the same car. So if you drive a Taurus, you'll get less cash than if you drove (say) a Camry."

This is not really a good thing. It means that you will pay more (certis paribus) for your insurance on the Camry.

TH, you know it was my experience with a Ford mustang that had me thinking that I'd buy Japanese. I may just do it yet.

I also checked extended warranties, and was surprized that a Camry extended warranty cost more than a Grand Am. This leads me to think 1. something wierd is going on, 2. they are equally reliabile, or 3. Camry's break down less often, but then cost a lot more to fix. Any ideas?

[Skylark]

We have two Fords, an Escort and a Taurus. Last Friday, the Escort motor quit out in the boondocks somewhere. This is only the second time it has done this in 150,000 miles, so I am not too upset about it.

The nice part about it is all I had to do was ask the tow truck driver to take me to the nearest Ford dealer (there seems to be one in every small town) and an hour later I was in a courtesy car on my way home.

I have looked at other cars, but decided that if there is no dealer/mechanic within bicycling distance of my house, it just makes things too complicated. No matter what kind of car you buy it is going to need some service.

When looking at Fords, I try to buy a vehicle and motor type that has been in production for a while so the bugs have been worked out of it. We have had excellent luck with the Taurus and Escort models.

The small town dealer network is a big plus when choosing a car.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I also checked extended warranties, and was surprized that a Camry extended warranty cost more than a Grand Am. This leads me to think 1. something wierd is going on, 2. they are equally reliabile, or 3. Camry's break down less often, but then cost a lot more to fix. Any ideas?

Yeah, right off the bat that the people selling the toyota warranties are very happy, because they're taking more money in and paying less out.

I havent seen an auto extended warranty thats worth its salt. I'm sure someone has had one and had horrible problems that the extended warranty has covered, but I havent met any yet.

My dad just bought one for his car without reading the fine print after the salesman told him he'd "practically never have to pay a cent for anything" for the full term.

Unfortunately the fine print has enough blah-blah in it to pretty much insulate the warranty company for covering much of anything except for a major component failure that is definitely NOT due to normal wear and tear or the item reaching its ordinary and expected lifespan. Oh yeah, the warranty outfit decides what is normal, ordinary and expected.

My first car was a mustang, but an old one, so I have a soft spot for the brand. But despite the good thunderbird experience I had a while back, this crappy expedition experience has me off the brand forever. Wasnt so much the poor product quality, but the lousy dealer service that made it really rotten.