Cars with low depreciation -- when to buy new

[maat55]

I would not buy new unless I were buying a very cheap(10k to 12k) new car. There is not much room for depreciation in these.

IMO, all cars have sustantial depreciation from their new cost. A two year old Lexus, BMW or Mercedes is still much cheaper than a new one.

[dawnwes]

Just do your homework carefully and run the numbers.

In 2004 we bought a Toyota Sequoia (back when we really didn't care about debt).

The sticker price was $35,500. A 2 year old model of the same car was around $32,500 give or take a thousand.

Interest rates on a new vehicle were 1.9% while interest rates on a used car were around 6% at the time. That alone made it about the same price to purchase new over a 5 year loan.

However, we went online and searched for "fleet pricing" and were able to get the same vehicle at the same dealership with fleet pricing for $31,900 and still get the 1.9% interest rate. That made it actually cheaper to get a new vehicle.

Today we would not choose that expensive of a car and we hope to never finance again, but the good news is that the 2004 car is our newest car, has almost 100K miles on it, and is still running very strong.

Dawn

[Ima saver]

This is my husband's motto for cars and he is sticking with it! "Life is too short to drive an ugly car"