So here’s my latest debate. The facts:
1) I love awesome cars. My last three have been a Saab 9-3, a Mini Cooper S, and my current 400HP V-8 GTO. I’d drive something even more ridiculous if I wasn’t unwilling to pay an insane amount of money for a car, but I’m not that irresponsible.
2) I’m at the point in life where I’m doing well financially, I feel like I’m on the right track for retirement, I’m knowledgeable about investing, and I know where I want to be in the 5-10 year timeframe: my goal is to move to the Caribbean and own a bar. I know you’ve all probably heard me say that a million times, but I’m absolutely serious about it.
3) I’m aware that my vehicle is my greatest luxury expense. Sans car payment, high insurance rates, premium gas, paying extra for foreign-car service (try getting parts for this Australian-made car once, even though it’s branded GM), having to pay to swap out tires seasonally, etc., I’m estimated I’d be saving over $8,000 a year. That’s money that could be all going into savings for my future goals.
I’m considering selling my car, paying off the loan (I’d pretty much just break even, considering the current market), and buying another car with cash. That car would have to be cheap, because I have to save up for it first. I refuse to tap my emergency fund, so I’d be saving that money from scratch. If I worked really hard at it, I’m guessing I could put together a few thousand bucks within… 4 months? Six? It depends on the amount.
So what does a reliable used car cost? I understand that if I buy an older car that’s likely to be over 100k miles, I’m pretty much guaranteeing that some work will need to be done. That’s to be expected. I just want something that runs reliably, will start in the dead of winter, and will be fairly cheap to fix (I can do the basics myself). Since most of my travel tends to involve airplanes, 80% of my driving is making the 6-mile commute to work, anyway.
So how much cash do I need? Is $5,000 enough? $10,000? I see plenty of 2000-era cars on Craigslist for $3k, and that makes me more than a little nervous. Help me, internet! I really don’t know.
well, i drive a 1998 vw jetta that I’ve owned for 9 years and my wife drives a 1998 toyota camry that we’ve owned for about 5 (and had significant miles on it when we bought it) We paid around 10k each for both (I think i actually paid slightly more for my jetta but it was 2 years old when I bought it and had only 11k miles). They still run well and i’ve had relatively few problems with both recently, I spend about 1-2k in repairs a year on both cars (I use a mechanic who works out of his home and is way cheaper and more awesome – he’s also one of my employees). I’m guessing I could get about 1k for each around now.
I’ve been targeting the 5k-10k range for when something breaks that we can’t fix on these cars, but we’re driving them till the wheels fall off. It’s very cheap.
you’re a good example of the fact that it’s possible to drive something decent and still have it be fairly cheap. i keep having nightmares about driving a taurus.
yeah. I find you can’t go wrong with toyotas or hondas. there’s nothing sexy about our camry but its a heck of a dependable car and gets good gas milage too.
i will be buying another camry at some point in the next few years. they are that good.
At least in my area, you can usually find a 2004-ish luxury car (Lexus, Audi, etc) for around $8-10k. For some reason BMW’s and Jags run a little higher than other used luxury cars. Anything less than that is usually a Craigslist scam and if you reply you’ll get a message back from a “US soldier” trying to get you to send a cashiers check to Croatia.
I would expect to spend under $15k but definitely more than $8k, just to be on the safe side. That’s the price range where I find a lot of elderly couples downsizing to one car or trading it in for something that’s cheaper to maintain. I paid $8150 for my ’98 Lexus maybe four years ago and comparable ones (early 2000’s models) seem to be similarly priced right now.
yeah, the really cheap ones are too good to be true.
i definitely don’t need anything supernice. i might even buy american for once. *GASP*
We’re having the exact conversation now, because being carless is awesome but are getting tired of the rental/carshare game, and as much as Steve wants a WRX to bust around in, we want to pay cash for a car. The conversations usually amount to, “I would love to have X” followed by “We should just spend $5-10K on a used Civic.” Which is what we did last time; we were shopping for a reliable car and found a 2000 Accord with 75K miles for about $10K. Looking around here, those types of cars at those prices are plentiful.
My 1991 Accord went 250K miles before needing more than $500 of work, ever. We only sold Steve’s 2000 Accord because we moved, and it held its value extremely well. You can’t do much better than Honda for long-term reliability. I don’t have personal experience with Toyotas, but one of my friends drove a late-90s model 170 miles a day for three years with no problems.
I also want to add that my 91 Accord always got 30+ MPG highway, and that is awesome. Remember when you could fill up your tank for $10?
i’ve never driven a honda, but i keep hearing really good things about them!
Marshall’s on his way home for dinner right now… I’ll leave this entry up and show it to him when he walks in the door.
He’s pretty good with the car stuff, this guy of mine. :)
i’ve heard that! ;)
I’d plan on spending about $5,000 to get a decent “previously enjoyed” vehicle. More like $4,000 for the car, and some extra for the random maintenance the car will likely need (tires, brakes, wiper blades, oil change, etc.)
If you’d like help finding a car when you’re ready, let me know. I’ll be glad to help. It won’t be hard to find something that will suit you. I have a slight moral objection to getting rid of the GTO though. :)
i’m very glad to know it’s possibly to get a functioning car for that amount of money, because it’d be feasible to put that together within a fairly short amount of time. $10k would take a while!
and, yes, that would be fantastic! i worry about getting something with major problems. i know i’ll obviously have to put more into maintenance, but it’s worth it.
i’ll miss OD a lot, but our bar is way more important. :)