Used Car Shopping - Not Fun

[Koolau]

We drive so few miles per year that it seems silly to invest in a new car. So far, both of my "old" cars are holding up. I don't anticipate replacing them unless/until they are no longer serviceable at a reasonable price.

My 25 year old car has 105K so should be good until an age-related issue dooms it. The other car is 13 years old with 90K on it.

I think I'm good for now.

 

[freedomatlast]

They said since we were the first to inquire since they ordered it, we had first crack at it. If we did not want it at that price, they would just call the next customer in line.

Salesmanship at its best.

 

[Texas Proud]

Salesmanship at its best.

Yea... but a true stmt... might as well be honest...

 

[Teacher Terry]

Nine years ago I bought a 2008 Toyota Corolla with 27,000 miles on it from a good friend. She could no longer drive and we paid 10 K for it. I had intended to drive that forever because the only thing that it ever needed was tires, brakes and oil changes. It had 73K miles on it.

Back in January, when I realized tariffs were going to cause a big mark up in cars and I had a big windfall from a year of backpay from Social Security and a big increase in my Social Security check I decided to look at newer cars.

Previously, my last new car was 32 years ago. Since then I found out it was much cheaper to buy 2–4 year-old cars from a dealer that were certified like new and came with the warranty. We had had really good luck doing that. When I looked at those cars, they generally now had 30–40 K miles on them and I was only saving 2–3 K on the price versus new.

When I looked at reliability, I saw that the Subaru was were ahead of both the Toyota and Hondas. I ended up buying a brand new 2024 Subaru Impreza that was on the lot. There were 30 to choose from and they went down in price. I ended up paying 27K after all taxes and fees were added in.

I am really happy to have some newer safety features such as the backup camera which makes it so much easier to pull out of a busy parking lot. It drives really nice and I had forgotten how it feels to drive a newer car. It also sits higher up than my Toyota, which is good because when my back is acting up, I was having trouble getting out of the Toyota.

While we don’t get a ton of snow, we get some here and also some crazy wind. With my Toyota when it was snowy or super windy, my car would blow around. My Subaru is excellent in snow and must be heavier because even when the winds were 70 miles an hour, my car was fine.

I can’t just stay home if it snows or it’s really windy because I still do some part-time consulting and I also have a much older friend who I have to drive to her medical appointments. The winter before it snowed quite a lot, my son came and took me to work and then brought me home. I’m glad that now I can just take myself.

I only drive about 4K miles per year so obviously this will be my last car. I am really happy I decided to buy a new car. A couple of my older friends kept their cars as long as they possibly could and then ended up having to get a different car in their mid 80s. They both said it was a big mistake as they probably won’t have that many more years to drive it after spending that amount of money. They both wish that they would have gotten rid of their old car sooner and bought something new.

 

[ncbill]

Love the Subarus I got for free from relatives no longer driving.

But their mechanically-coupled AWD system means they require more maintenance than a FWD vehicle.

They seem to be especially hard on wheel bearing units...on one all 4 had to be replaced before 80,000 miles.

 

[COcheesehead]

When we bought our 2024 Trax LS at the very end of 2024, the stealership was not willing to bargain at all. Their position was that the Trax was basically a new vehicle for 2024, and they have several customers interested in it at the MSRP of $22.9K. They said since we were the first to inquire since they ordered it, we had first crack at it. If we did not want it at that price, they would just call the next customer in line.

Since it was the exact model/trim/color we would have ordered, we just wrote them a check for it.

This was back during Covid, but we inquired about a hard to get car at a local dealer. He said the wait list was a year, but he’d let us know if anything changed. One day we got a call. He said a car came in, the people we ordered it no longer want it. So first come first serve. We waited about an hour, but when we got to the dealer there were four people interested in it. We had first opportunity to drive it. First opportunity to negotiate. We ended up buying it. They didn’t deal on the price of the new car, but they did on our trade which made the deal reasonable and they also gave us more manufacturer points that we used to buy a bunch of accessories at no cost to us.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Salesmanship at its best.

Yea... but a true stmt... might as well be honest...

To be honest, here's the whole story.

When the refreshed Trax came out in 2024 in our area, it was really difficult to even find one on the lot to look at, let alone take one for a test drive. The first one we were able to look at was at a stealership 2-1/2 hours away from our home. That one was white, which we were not interested in, and was already spoken for. They did say they would let us take it for a short test drive after it was returned by the couple that was currently preparing to take it for a spin returned it. We didn't feel right test-driving a car that was already allocated to someone else so we declined.

The next Trax that came available was at a stealership that was about an hour away. Due to our w*rk schedules, we couldn't make it down that Thursday so we called to schedule a test drive for Saturday morning. Of course, the stealership called us on Friday and told us the vehicle had been sold.

A few weeks later, a Fountain Blue 2RS model arrived at our local-ish (in a different state, but only 9 miles away) stealership so DW called and scheduled a test drive for the next day. We drove it, but did not like the color, the wheels, the keyless ignition, or the larger screens - especially the large screen behind the steering wheel. We preferred the analog-style gauges of the LS model and we really wanted the Blue Glow color which was darker than the Fountain Blue.

When the salesgirl (I say girl because she was only about 20 years old) asked how we liked the test drive, we told her we were looking for an LS model instead of the 2RS. She went in to the orders department and came back with the build/order sheet for their next LS model, which wasn't expected for a few months. It was the exact Trax we would have ordered, so we said we were very interested in that one and would like to test drive it when it arrived. She gave us their 6-digit order code so we were able to track it as it was being built in Korea and being shipped to the US. Almost 6 months later, it arrived at the stealership. We test drove it, we liked it, we asked about any special offers and/or financing offers. DW did get an educators credit for $500 off the price, but as a close-to-base model, they simply were not willing to negotiate on the price at all.
We looked on the lot for another Trax, but it was winter now, and all they had were Trailblazers, since they were available with AWD. So like I mentioned before, we just wrote them a check.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

This was back during Covid, but we inquired about a hard to get car at a local dealer. He said the wait list was a year, but he’d let us know if anything changed. One day we got a call. He said a car came in, the people we ordered it no longer want it. So first come first serve. We waited about an hour, but when we got to the dealer there were four people interested in it. We had first opportunity to drive it. First opportunity to negotiate. We ended up buying it. They didn’t deal on the price of the new car, but they did on our trade which made the deal reasonable and they also gave us more manufacturer points that we used to buy a bunch of accessories at no cost to us.

We also got manufacturer points. We used them to buy a full set of all-weather floor protectors for the front, rear, and cargo areas.

 

[COcheesehead]

We also got manufacturer points. We used them to buy a full set of all-weather floor protectors for the front, rear, and cargo areas.

We got mats, a cargo organizer, a jumper box…I think my wife also got a hat, maybe a few other things. My wife negotiates for sport. There’s nothing she isn’t afraid to ask for a discount on. LOL.

 

[Hyper]

Auto dealerships have well surpassed realtors for poor/no ethics, morals!!

 

[pb4uski]

... I ended up buying a brand new 2024 Subaru Impreza that was on the lot. There were 30 to choose from and they went down in price. I ended up paying 27K after all taxes and fees were added in. ...

Something that the OP should consider.

 

[TheWizard]

Auto dealerships have well surpassed realtors for poor/no ethics, morals!!

Ok, but it's hard to buy a new car at Walmart or Home Depot, so...

 

[Texas Proud]

I am not going to be on the side of the sleazy dealerships, but they are selling to people with an item whose price is loosely based on supply and demand... and to the reference above the same goes for a house...

I do not remember which car it was but there was one where they made only 9000... so dealership put a $10,000 'market adjustment' on it... and might have gotten more...

I will say that if you want a Toyota pickup right now there are a LOT of them on the local lots... they might deal on those..

 

[Golden Mean]

Ok, but it's hard to buy a new car at Walmart or Home Depot, so...

Carvana. Shop online, pay online, walk in, drive out.

 

[TheWizard]

Carvana. Shop online, pay online, walk in, drive out.

I think Carvana is used only. I tend to buy factory ordered new vehicles.

So I configure the vehicle on ford.com, typically, and then print a few copies of the detailed specs.
Then I hit three local dealers, chat with a sales person for a bit, and drop off my spec sheet for a quote.

The quotes don't vary all that much typically but I value a no BS approach at least as much as $100 less in price...

 

[tfudtuckerpucker]

I will say that if you want a Toyota pickup right now there are a LOT of them on the local lots... they might deal on those..

I wonder if it's related to the '22-23 Tundra & LX engine replacement recall. 100K engines, regardless of miles! It's a blemish on Toyota's quality, but they are making it right by replacing all those engines. I love my 2021 V8 Tundra!

 

[engineernerd]

engineernerd said:

I don’t worry about vehicle depreciation rates.

I generally don't either, but I only purchase vehicles that have already depreciated. If I buy a new vehicle for $30K and need to sell it a couple years later for whatever reason it may only be worth $20K. That's a $10K loss, a really bad investment. That same $10K could earn a lot more money with even safe investments.

In comparison, we have sold most of our used cars for the same amount we paid for them, if not a bit more (barring wrecks where we couldn't sell the vehicle).

Seems there might be an issue with how this forum works, I only posted once to this thread and those words were not in my post! Weird.

That said, it is how I feel. I hate putting mental energy into vehicle management/shopping and will continue to love whatever vehicle I have until it strands me in a way that doesn't seem like a one-off.

I've never had to sell a vehicle early except once, and that was a used car (bought from an independent dealer) that had a hidden, intermittent mechanical issue nobody could diagnose or repair. You'd start it up, drive it a bit (usually long enough to get on the freeway) - and all of a sudden an absolutely HUGE plume of white smoke would emanate from the tailpipe, causing everyone behind us in all the lanes to drop way back so they could see something besides our white smoke! We donated it within the month, and bought something else.

 

[audreyh1]

I suspect something got messed up when editing a reply. Multiple replies in a post you can get into this situation when trying to delete part of it.

 

[Diogenes]

I am not going to be on the side of the sleazy dealerships, but they are selling to people with an item whose price is loosely based on supply and demand... and to the reference above the same goes for a house...

Cars are mass-produced in factories, and sold all over the country (often, all over the world) in essentially the same form. Houses are built on-site, often custom, and even if it's a builder such as Ryan Homes, there are stark and substantial variations from lot to lot, from development to development etc. So, while we can (and probably should) resent frictions and commissions and sales-tactics both with real estate and with vehicles, with the former at least there's a custom-touch, or local variation. Vehicles, in a perfect world, would indeed be sold at Wal-Mart or Amazon and so on.

One reason that I prefer used cars, is that there's such as thing as private party sales... such as Craigslist. With new cars, there is no "store" with fixed prices, except for Tesla. Saturn used to do something similar back in the 90s, but they're defunct... and for some reason, the broader GM never promulgated that sales model beyond its former Saturn division.

 

[COcheesehead]

Cars are mass-produced in factories, and sold all over the country (often, all over the world) in essentially the same form. Houses are built on-site, often custom, and even if it's a builder such as Ryan Homes, there are stark and substantial variations from lot to lot, from development to development etc. So, while we can (and probably should) resent frictions and commissions and sales-tactics both with real estate and with vehicles, with the former at least there's a custom-touch, or local variation. Vehicles, in a perfect world, would indeed be sold at Wal-Mart or Amazon and so on.

One reason that I prefer used cars, is that there's such as thing as private party sales... such as Craigslist. With new cars, there is no "store" with fixed prices, except for Tesla. Saturn used to do something similar back in the 90s, but they're defunct... and for some reason, the broader GM never promulgated that sales model beyond its former Saturn division.

There’s a lot of fixed price dealers.

 

[RetireBy90]

Our last 2 vehicles we bought from Carmax. In April I sold my 2001 Ranger and got a 2019 with 21K.
I don’t consider we got any great deal but the prices seemed reasonable and no doing the sales pitch.
I plan a 800 mile trip in July and DW didn’t want me to take the old truck so I upgraded year to make her comfortable.
Just my experience but I got what I wanted and we are both happy.

 

[mountainsoft]

Okay, never say never, but I am "considering" a 2024 Certified Previously Owned Jetta for around $20K. The local VW dealer has a few around the 20K mark that are practically new with only 15K miles or so on each. With used cars running around $12-14K with questionable history, another 6K wouldn't be all that bad. Not to mention they still have around 3 years left on the original warranty and another 2 years for the CPO warranty.

I haven't seen them in person yet, so that could change my mind. I also need to check what insurance will cost me. I currently pay $130 every six months for liability only, but I would want full coverage on a $20K vehicle. Maybe a high deductible could make it affordable. We'll see.

Taxes and licensing could also make it a no-go.

We'll see, I'm just dreaming at this point, but these CPO Jetta's are within the realm of possibility. I'm still having a hard time justifying that kind of expense when there's really not much wrong with my current car. I have never bought a car because I "wanted" one before, it was always out of necessity (wrecks or cars otherwise not working).

 

[COcheesehead]

Okay, never say never, but I am "considering" a 2024 Certified Previously Owned Jetta for around $20K. The local VW dealer has a few around the 20K mark that are practically new with only 15K miles or so on each. With used cars running around $12-14K with questionable history, another 6K wouldn't be all that bad. Not to mention they still have around 3 years left on the original warranty and another 2 years for the CPO warranty.

I haven't seen them in person yet, so that could change my mind. I also need to check what insurance will cost me. I currently pay $130 every six months for liability only, but I would want full coverage on a $20K vehicle. Maybe a high deductible could make it affordable. We'll see.

Taxes and licensing could also make it a no-go.

We'll see, I'm just dreaming at this point, but these CPO Jetta's are within the realm of possibility. I'm still having a hard time justifying that kind of expense when there's really not much wrong with my current car. I have never bought a car because I "wanted" one before, it was always out of necessity (wrecks or cars otherwise not working).

If you have an umbrella policy, you will have to have higher liability limits on the auto too. Keep that in mind.

 

[Texas Proud]

Check them out... the newer safety features really make a difference IMO... and well worth the money...

 

[Teacher Terry]

The 20k car you mentioned definitely seems like the better deal versus paying so much for a very old car. I have to say after driving a 17 year-old car I am thrilled to be driving my brand new car. I particularly love the back up camera. It was worth every penny of the 27K that I paid. I’ll never need another car because I don’t drive that much.