Katsmeow
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 5,308
I am trying to decide whether to sell my car to buy an older, less expensive car. I don't see a lot of downside to doing this and see a lot of upside. DH sees mostly downside and hardly any upside. The car in question is "my" car so it is up to me, but DH was negative enough about this that I want to see if I'm offbase.
The cars
We have 2 cars (actually 3, but one of the cars was given to our son who lives at home and attends college).
2012 Ford Explorer - This is my car. We have had it about 18 months and it has 30k miles on it. It is a Limited with most options. I get about 24 MPG. When we bought this car it had better gas mileage than the car DH was driving so we drove the Explorer most of the time. I was working a couple of days a week and would drive it to work.
The reason for the SUV was:
1. We have multiple large dogs and this will hold 2 large dog crates.
2. It will seat 7 people. We have 4 people in the home and whenever my mother or anyone visits need to carry 5, occasionally 6 people. We can also have 4 people in the car plus have a dog crate in the car. Lots of other options would allow a dog crate (or 2) but only if you put the back seat down.
3. It is convenient if we need to haul something larger than will fit in our other car.
Things I like about this car - I love the safety features: rear backup camera, blind spot warning, adaptive cruise control, collision warning. The first is easy to find, blind spot is becoming more common and the last 2 are difficult to find, usually only in newer, higher end cars.
I believe it could be sold for probably $30k to $32k.
2013 Hyundai Veloster - This is DH's car and was bought last August. Since buying it, we basically hardly ever use the Explorer except when I drive to work or we are doing something where we can't use the Veloster. This is because the Veloster gets much better gas mileage than the Explorer. Veloster can seat 4.
The Situation
On days I drive to work I spend 3 hours in the Explorer. I've loved it for my roughly 120 mile round trip commute on those days. It is a great vehicle.
However, I am probably going to fully retire sometime soon. Once that happens, the Explorer will be used rarely. Basically if we need to take a dog to the vet (usually once a year absent an illness) or to be boarded, or if my mother visits and all 5 of us want to go somewhere or if we need it to haul home something that won't fit in the Veloster. Of course, I would drive it if DH and I both needed to go somewhere different so we needed to drive separate cars. That happens sometimes.
Most weeks, the Explorer comes out of the garage only when I drive it to work. However, on those occasions when we need it - we really need it and the Veloster would not work at all.
I think that we don't need to have a car worth over $30k sitting parked in the garage the vast majority of the time. I want to sell the Explorer and buy a used car for $15k to $20k that will do for us what the Explorer does, but at lower cost. That is, be able to hold dog crates, seat at least 5 people and be able to haul around stuff as needed. It will also be our second car for when DH and I both need to drive different places.
Given this usage, it won't be going on the highway all that often or for long distance so - while I love adaptive cruise control and collision warning - I would look for something with blind spot warning and rear camera (yes, I do want those). From what I have seen I can find something that is from 2008-2011 in the $15k to $22k price range. We have a daughter that within a year we plan to buy a car for, so selling the Explorer and buying such a car would leave us more than enough money left over to buy that car.
DH's point of view is that we already have the Explorer, we know it is in great condition, it will last us for many years and it has all the features we really like. He doesn't like to buy used cars because you never really know if it will be reliable and if we bought a used car and it wasn't reliable then getting it repaired or even having to get rid of it and buy another car would eat into the savings from selling the Explorer.
My response - I do love the features of the Explorer but if we keep it we are paying a lot for features that we will get virtually no use out of since we will not be driving the Explorer very often. I would rather sell it, buy a less expensive car and end up with $10k to $15k left over.
I do agree we need a reliable used car so I would only buy a single owner car, with a good Carfax report that hasn't been wholesaled.
Once I am no longer working I think we will put somewhere between 3000 and 6000 miles a year on whatever car is our second car whether it is the Explorer or something else.
So....sell Explorer? Keep Explorer?
The cars
We have 2 cars (actually 3, but one of the cars was given to our son who lives at home and attends college).
2012 Ford Explorer - This is my car. We have had it about 18 months and it has 30k miles on it. It is a Limited with most options. I get about 24 MPG. When we bought this car it had better gas mileage than the car DH was driving so we drove the Explorer most of the time. I was working a couple of days a week and would drive it to work.
The reason for the SUV was:
1. We have multiple large dogs and this will hold 2 large dog crates.
2. It will seat 7 people. We have 4 people in the home and whenever my mother or anyone visits need to carry 5, occasionally 6 people. We can also have 4 people in the car plus have a dog crate in the car. Lots of other options would allow a dog crate (or 2) but only if you put the back seat down.
3. It is convenient if we need to haul something larger than will fit in our other car.
Things I like about this car - I love the safety features: rear backup camera, blind spot warning, adaptive cruise control, collision warning. The first is easy to find, blind spot is becoming more common and the last 2 are difficult to find, usually only in newer, higher end cars.
I believe it could be sold for probably $30k to $32k.
2013 Hyundai Veloster - This is DH's car and was bought last August. Since buying it, we basically hardly ever use the Explorer except when I drive to work or we are doing something where we can't use the Veloster. This is because the Veloster gets much better gas mileage than the Explorer. Veloster can seat 4.
The Situation
On days I drive to work I spend 3 hours in the Explorer. I've loved it for my roughly 120 mile round trip commute on those days. It is a great vehicle.
However, I am probably going to fully retire sometime soon. Once that happens, the Explorer will be used rarely. Basically if we need to take a dog to the vet (usually once a year absent an illness) or to be boarded, or if my mother visits and all 5 of us want to go somewhere or if we need it to haul home something that won't fit in the Veloster. Of course, I would drive it if DH and I both needed to go somewhere different so we needed to drive separate cars. That happens sometimes.
Most weeks, the Explorer comes out of the garage only when I drive it to work. However, on those occasions when we need it - we really need it and the Veloster would not work at all.
I think that we don't need to have a car worth over $30k sitting parked in the garage the vast majority of the time. I want to sell the Explorer and buy a used car for $15k to $20k that will do for us what the Explorer does, but at lower cost. That is, be able to hold dog crates, seat at least 5 people and be able to haul around stuff as needed. It will also be our second car for when DH and I both need to drive different places.
Given this usage, it won't be going on the highway all that often or for long distance so - while I love adaptive cruise control and collision warning - I would look for something with blind spot warning and rear camera (yes, I do want those). From what I have seen I can find something that is from 2008-2011 in the $15k to $22k price range. We have a daughter that within a year we plan to buy a car for, so selling the Explorer and buying such a car would leave us more than enough money left over to buy that car.
DH's point of view is that we already have the Explorer, we know it is in great condition, it will last us for many years and it has all the features we really like. He doesn't like to buy used cars because you never really know if it will be reliable and if we bought a used car and it wasn't reliable then getting it repaired or even having to get rid of it and buy another car would eat into the savings from selling the Explorer.
My response - I do love the features of the Explorer but if we keep it we are paying a lot for features that we will get virtually no use out of since we will not be driving the Explorer very often. I would rather sell it, buy a less expensive car and end up with $10k to $15k left over.
I do agree we need a reliable used car so I would only buy a single owner car, with a good Carfax report that hasn't been wholesaled.
Once I am no longer working I think we will put somewhere between 3000 and 6000 miles a year on whatever car is our second car whether it is the Explorer or something else.
So....sell Explorer? Keep Explorer?