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The Sweet Spot for Buying Used Cars
- c-smile 4y agoClassics [engineering], failure curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
- minsight 4y agoI literally bought a 14 year old Corolla yesterday. This article helps counteract the "why didn't my car get written off 4 years ago when they were cheap?" voice that's been running through my head the last week or so.
- boopboopbadoop 4y agoWelcome to the Corolla club! I’ve had a 2009 Corolla since 2014. Aside from the expected stuff (brakes/lights/filters/oil changes/wipers/tires/battery), the only maintenance it has needed is a new exhaust connector. A couple things I love about it: - I like to maintain my own things, and the car and parts are cheap enough that I don’t worry about screwing something up. - Having owned it for a while, I know it’s quirks. E.g. I know if the radio starts going in and out, the battery is not charging and needs immediate attention. - I don’t have to worry about it being stolen or getting dinged. I planned on driving it to the ground, but I’m starting to believe that it will out live me.
- metadat 4y agoWhere did the assumption come from that a new car costs $20,000? This is off by a factor of 2-4x. I wonder how correcting this data point would influence the resulting recommendation.
- copperlight 4y agoHere is a list of 10 new (2023) cars that you can buy for prices ranging from 17,600 to 22,115: https://www.cars.com/amp/articles/here-are-the-10-cheapest-new-cars-you-can-buy-right-now-421309/ https://www.cars.com/amp/articles/here-are-the-10-cheapest-n...
- metadat 4y agoHow many of these will be in decent condition after 14 years of use? These are also the prices for the shittiest base model version, once you add decent options the price will increase considerably. Call me crazy but I don't believe cloth seats age well. I've had acceptable outcomes purchasing older higher-end fully loaded Japanese vehicles like Toyota and Honda.
- lukevp 4y agoCloth actually tends to age better in my experience. Automotive leathers are often bonded and sealed leathers these days, so they have a finite amount of moisture and colorant that wear out over time. Cloth is quite durable as long as you don’t have anything that’ll catch on it or rub it too bad, which is also a weakness of leather and vinyl as well.
- metadat 4y agoIn my experience cloth eventually gets stained and stinks after even relatively minor spills. The foam underneath soaks everything up. The same spills are minor and easy to clean from leather. Clearly ymmv, I appreciate you sharing yours.
- chadash 4y agoA base Toyota Corolla goes for $21,500. No, it's not a flashy car, but it is well built, relatively easy to repair and should last a while. Yes, the average car is far more expensive, but if you are looking to optimize for cost and just need something to get from A to B (which is what the article seems to assume), then a Corolla is a perfectly good vehicle.
- bloodyplonker22 4y agoIt came from the fact that the author is at the age where that WAS the price of a new basic car when he was growing up.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoI bought a new Subaru Impreza in 2020 for something like $23k
- iamthepieman 4y agoI also bought a 5 door Impreza in 2020. Manual, as base as I could get in stock for about 22,000. 0% financing. I also have a big vehicle for carrying around all 7 of us that was more expensive but I can't imagine why I would ever buy an expensive smallish car unless I travelled for work and wanted a luxury, quiet interior or just didn't care about money.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoYeah I don't get that either. If I'm going to pay a lot for a vehicle it's got to be because it's more practical for what I want to use it for. Also, this was my first time buying new because I figured that 0% interest wasn't going to last long.
- sonofhans 4y ago> Once you buy a car you will use it until it breaks. This assumption really calls the conclusions into question. I understand the problem is easier to model this way, but it’s neither pragmatic nor realistic. People do fix cars, all the time, and it’s often economically rational to do so. You can keep a good-quality 20-year-old car in nearly-new condition for much less than payments on a new car. Many cars that are legendarily reliable are so because they’re easy to maintain; finicky cars are more fragile and harder to repair. So this is a fun thought experiment, but it’s not useful to think of it as car buying advice until it accounts for maintenance.
- chadash 4y agoI assume that the author meant "you will use it until it breaks beyond the point at which it is worth fixing"
- tessierashpool 4y agono, OP is very explicitly talking about spherical cars with negligible friction.
- j45 4y agoThe reliability of vehicles since fuel injection became common has gone way up. Mid to late 90’s onwards are very different
- sixQuarks 4y agoThe correct answer is actually 4-6 year old cars. They are still new enough where you shouldn’t have major problems for several years, while having depreciated more than 50% of their original value. After 4 years, cars depreciate a lot slower.
- dghlsakjg 4y agoNot anymore. The used car market is absolutely bananas. I was looking at used small SUVs in the $30k cad range. A 5 year old Mazda or Toyota was going for $5k off of original msrp. There was a 2021 low mileage Subaru going for the same price as new. COVID did some wacky shit with the car market. The upside is that my junky old pathfinder is worth more than I paid for it in 2019
- SoftTalker 4y agoThings certainly did go crazy for a while, mainly due to supply chain issues that reduced the supply of new cars for sale. So people bought more used cars, driving the prices up. That's starting to correct now that new car supply is getting more plentiful. Even a 15 year old car without major issues is hard to find for less than about $5,000 USD where I am though, which is more than I've paid for a car in quite a while. You can find cars for less, but they get ugly pretty quickly.
- EricE 4y agoAs soon as interest rates started to go up the market flipped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw2rainqEtw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw2rainqEtw
- TacticalCoder 4y ago> The correct answer is actually 4-6 year old cars. They are still new enough where you shouldn’t have major problems for several years, while having depreciated more than 50% of their original value. After 4 years, cars depreciate a lot slower. That is spot on. I bought mine 5 years old after it already took its huge, gigantic, depreciation curve. Moreover depending on the car segment you pick, the depreciation curve can be even more dramatic. I bought my car used but with an extended manufacturer warranty, which I extend yearly (or for two or three years at once) and which I can renew up until 15 years and/or 200 000 km (whichever comes first). So there's no issue of "unforeseen costs": car has got a problem, it's the car manufacturer's problem, not mine. Sure, I pay for that extended warranty, but I prefer it that way. Wife recently bought a five years old car too. Four or five years old is also long enough to know if the model is a lemon or not and what to look out for on that model when you buy it: some manufacturers do really come up with a model full of problems once in a while and when you buy new, you're the guinea pig.
- Ocerge 4y ago14 years is a _long_ time in terms of safety tech. I wouldn't buy anything older than 5 for this reason alone.
- barbazoo 4y agoWe used to drive these cars in the past though. Was makes them too dangerous to drive now?
- eightysixfour 4y agoWhile I get your point, the driving environment has changed. The weight of the average vehicle model has gone up something like 700lbs in the last 20 years, not to mention that the vehicles actually sold have transitioned to heavier and more powerful trucks and SUVs.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Der_Einzige 4y agoIronically, many cars from the 2013-2018 era are safer than modern cars, at least in terms of things like collision avoidance systems due to their usage of radar-based systems rather than optical or optical + AI systems. Old teslas with parking sensors are safer than the newer ones where they were removed. Age is not always indicative of technological safety.
- CrazyStat 4y agoHas anyone other than Tesla replaced radar with optics+AI for collision avoidance?
- austhrow743 4y agoI see this written a lot but I'm curious to know if anyone actually has data on money spent on new cars vs alternatives when it comes to QALYs saved. Intuitively it seems to me like there would be much better ways to spend the hundreds of thousands spent over a life time to always be driving relatively new cars. Or just not earning the hundreds of thousands in the first place.
- QuarterReptile 4y agoObviously this was done as a fun exercise, rather than as a practical reference. Other important factors: 1. Does your area have significant road salt? This brings your frame's lifetime way down. 2. What are the consequences of your car being in the shop, cost- and convenience-wise? 3. Going along with (2), how quickly do you need to fix your AC if it dies? 4. For lower volume cars, does your area have a good mechanic that likes to work on your car and has parts (90s Saabs and their Saab graveyards come to mind.) 5. Some cars are designed with a pile of ridiculous features because their owners' blindspot for anything past a 3 year ownership length. My limited awareness suggests that this is common in the 50k+ range of SUVs. 6. Do you know the seller? You should be willing to pay up and make compromises for a car from someone you know and believe to be a conscientious owner.
- mertd 4y ago7. 14 year old cars have the standard safety features of 14 years ago. That means almost surely no emergency braking, blindside warning or backup cameras.
- j45 4y agoNot quite. My 2009s had 2 of those 3 if not all. Don’t be so sure. 2009 Lexus, Nissan, Infiniti, BMW for sure and others might surprise you. Cars in Japan often had all those features in the mid 2000s and slowly exported
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- gennarro 4y agoIn case anyone is considering taking this headline seriously, please don’t forget the safety advances you will be missing. Most 14 year old cars won’t have, say, a back up camera or blind spot detection.
- EricE 4y ago1997 is when side impact regulations were enacted - there hasn't been anything as dramatic since. Yeah, newer cars may have a few more airbags but feelings about those things can go either way. Especially if you are a smaller person - airbags are probably more dangerous than a help.
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- bradfa 4y agoThere are very few 14 year old cars which will pass NY state safety inspection left in upstate NY where I live. Cars rot out from rust very fast here due to very high usage of salt to deice roads in winter. Maybe a 14 year old California or Arizona car is a good deal but not in New York.
- SoftTalker 4y agoYeah southen cars don't rust out like salt belt cars. You might need to be wary of flood cars if you buy from anyplace that's had a recent hurricane. Once a car is 8-10 years old, the age really doesn't matter anymore. It's all about the condition of the individual car. At that point the lemons are pretty much gone; the remaining cars are survivors, but some were taken better care of than others.
- kris_wayton 4y agoThere's also the notion of seeing when expensive planned maintenance is due. Changing the timing belt is a good example where the cost can exceed $1k, so knowing when that's due milage wise and what the current mileage is becomes important.
- jacknews 4y agoSome countries have very high vehicle or road taxes, and in that case the price difference is effectively less, and the taxes are maybe better used for a newer model. I like to buy things on their own merits, because they last, etc, but for example new cars usually have warranties. So the 'financialized' mode of purchasing is sometimes a better route; buy new with comprehensive warranty, get free replacements if anything breaks, buy on free credit and invest the money you'd otherwise have spent in a lump sum, etc, etc. ie contract and financial tricks can beat out simple solid engineering choices.