4 ms·

The small and quasi-loophole to getting a good used car deal is buying a hail damage car. I genuinely don't understand why cars were made to have shiny paint. C

The small and quasi-loophole to getting a good used car deal is buying a hail damage car. I genuinely don't understand why cars were made to have shiny paint. Cars drive on dirty roads with insects and pebbles abound. Paint doesn't matter. Car washes are crazy, except to abait rust

leakycap 1y ago
The issue you'll face is when you go to sell it – any noticeable hail damage means you are getting 1/2 the resale value if you can even find an interested buyer.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  Ideally you should be driving the car until the wheels fall off anyways. Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money.
  - dagw 1y ago
    Driving a car until the wheels fall off generally doesn't make financial sense. Keeping an old car on the road gets really expensive unless you have the space, time and skills to do all the work yourself. Then there is the opportunity cost of not having access to your car for days/weeks at a time while it is being repaired. Finally you have the stress of not being quite sure if your car will start when you turn the key or get you where you want to go. From both an economic and quality of life point of view, you are better driving your car until it starts to get slightly unreliable and then quickly trade it in for a slightly newer used car. Buy a 5-10 year old car, drive it for 5-10 years, then trade it in for a 5-10 years old car is probably pretty close to an optimal strategy.
    - leakycap 1y ago
      Same with technology. If you aren't rich, selling around the time the next model comes out is actually a great way to avoid paying full price for your modern tech. With Apple stuff, waiting more than 1-2 cycles means you've missed the ability to recoup most of your costs AND you got to use an old device for an extra year... yay?
      - lotsofpulp 1y ago
        More like extra 2 or 3 years, so yes, yay. Consumption is consumption, you don't get things for free. If the phone only lasted 1 more year, then the resale price of the phone would reflect that. Either the collective market of buyers lacks the information to evaluate this (doubt), or you got lucky finding the one buyer willing to overpay. You also always pay full price, because when you buy a new phone (or anything), you always have the option to buy the used or keep using the old one. Cost is opportunity cost, which is defined as your choice minus your second best choice.
        leakycap 1y ago
        > Consumption is consumption, you don't get things for free. While this is true, desirability in the used market doesn't work linearly. Apple devices fall off quickly in value after 2 years. If you buy early in the product cycle, selling as soon as you can buy the next year's model has proven to be the most economic way, because resale on last year's model is still great but 2 years ago is in the tank. I've been upgrading yearly since 2007 and my spouse waits 3-5 years between phones. Doing the math, over the years I've spent less overall because of the value of sales when I trade up vs. their phone was worth sub-$200 when I sold it recently, because it was older than a few years.
    - lostlogin 1y ago
      Does a Toyota Corolla ever get unreliable or uneconomic to repair?
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        Yes. Prices are all jacked up vs what you get because a historical surplus of very well kept cars on the used market has lead to every idiot on the internet being told they're somehow magical. A badge on the grill doesn't make 100k the of uber miles that the 3rd owner put on or being habitually driven low on some key fluid by the 4th owner any less destructive.
        lostlogin 1y ago
        I ran a Corolla with a holed sump, and no measurable oil. I was going to scrap it. After 3 months it was going ok so took it to a mechanic. They repaired it, said ‘don’t do that’ and it carried on for another 5 years before I sold it.
        leakycap 1y ago
        At some point, even a Corolla will need a repair or maintenance significantly more expensive than the remaining value offered by the old car. It sounds like if you drove it for 3 months without oil, you didn't have a lot of options at the time or you might have put oil in your car in the meantime?
  - leakycap 1y ago
    > Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money. Depends. No reason to pour money into a depreciating asset that you trust your life with. I saw an early 2000s small car get into a ~30mph collision recently and ... I wouldn't drive an early 2000s car after that. A lot of people do, and they probably should try to get something with more modern safety equipment.
- harvey9 1y ago
  That's accounted for at the time they bought it since it was already hail damaged.
  - leakycap 1y ago
    Is it savings if you buy an item worth less and you pay less? You're just buying a damaged item at that point ... which is worth less to everyone That isn't getting "deal" unless you plan to never liquidate... cars generally don't get used up like a can of soda, so the dent actually matters when you go to sell it.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - lelanthran 1y ago
      > That isn't getting "deal" unless you plan to never liquidate... cars generally don't get used up like a can of soda, so the dent actually matters when you go to sell it. Yes, but it mattered already when you bought it! In other words, the dents were already priced in when you paid for it, so you paid less. They'll like be priced even lower when you sell it after 5 years of usage.
      - leakycap 1y ago
        Almost all buyers finance. You cannot generally get a loan on a car with much hail damage. Buyer pool now significantly smaller = less value, must sell for less to attract one of the few potential buyers. This means for most people trying to unload their hail damaged car, they get to sell to dealer at auction pricing (aka rock bottom prices, penny on the dollar value), sell it to an auction yourself, or hope someone on CraigsList is desperate for a car enough they don't care it's a golf ball. It's interesting how something like this might be hard to understand if you haven't been through it. Previously working in the car industry, not understanding this is actually common among car buyers and a source of frustration for people who get stuck in their low-value, hail damaged cars. Think about something other than a car: If I buy something that is normally worth X, but it is damaged and is now worth 0.3X and there I pay 0.3X I did not save 0.7X off what I got... I got something worth what I paid. You cannot extract value from a deal where you were paying less because you received less (aka damaged and less valuable property with less market value).
- mlyle 1y ago
  Yes, but you also paid half the cost to acquire the car. You're just paying less in depreciation for the time you use it.
  - leakycap 1y ago
    My last car got minor hail damage across many panels, it was a difficult PDR for some reason - when I traded it in it was worth 1/4 what KBB would have been for a similar year and mileage without dents Even trying to sell it myself for around 1/3 KBB "good" value took 2 months because the next buyer can't get financing on a car worth very little, so you have to find a cash buyer who doesn't care how their new ride looks. It's rare for anything other than $2,500 cars
    - lelanthran 1y ago
      > next buyer can't get financing on a car worth very little, so you have to find a cash buyer who doesn't care how their new ride looks. The idea is to be the next buyer who is paying very little because of the hail damage.
ggm-at-algebras 1y ago
Confirmation bias but a very good friend did this: bought back the hail damaged car from the insurer in preference to keeping the undamaged VW Beetle, sold the beetle, has been driving the hail damaged car with the minimum legal insurance to third parties for 15 years since. She's streets ahead in costs of car ownership and drives long and short distance, urban and country.
gloxkiqcza 1y ago
People are rarely this pragmatic but I agree! Slightly beat up cars for the win!
lostlogin 1y ago
It’s a lot easier to clean a shiny surface than a matt one. Try clean a house ceiling versus a house wall - though anyone sane wouldn’t paint a ceiling matt, or for that matter, even contemplate painting a ceiling. Get a painter to paint it semi-gloss.

leakycap 1y ago

The issue you'll face is when you go to sell it – any noticeable hail damage means you are getting 1/2 the resale value if you can even find an interested buyer.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
Ideally you should be driving the car until the wheels fall off anyways. Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money.
- dagw 1y ago
  Driving a car until the wheels fall off generally doesn't make financial sense. Keeping an old car on the road gets really expensive unless you have the space, time and skills to do all the work yourself. Then there is the opportunity cost of not having access to your car for days/weeks at a time while it is being repaired. Finally you have the stress of not being quite sure if your car will start when you turn the key or get you where you want to go. From both an economic and quality of life point of view, you are better driving your car until it starts to get slightly unreliable and then quickly trade it in for a slightly newer used car. Buy a 5-10 year old car, drive it for 5-10 years, then trade it in for a 5-10 years old car is probably pretty close to an optimal strategy.
  - leakycap 1y ago
    Same with technology. If you aren't rich, selling around the time the next model comes out is actually a great way to avoid paying full price for your modern tech. With Apple stuff, waiting more than 1-2 cycles means you've missed the ability to recoup most of your costs AND you got to use an old device for an extra year... yay?
    - lotsofpulp 1y ago
      More like extra 2 or 3 years, so yes, yay. Consumption is consumption, you don't get things for free. If the phone only lasted 1 more year, then the resale price of the phone would reflect that. Either the collective market of buyers lacks the information to evaluate this (doubt), or you got lucky finding the one buyer willing to overpay. You also always pay full price, because when you buy a new phone (or anything), you always have the option to buy the used or keep using the old one. Cost is opportunity cost, which is defined as your choice minus your second best choice.
      - leakycap 1y ago
        > Consumption is consumption, you don't get things for free. While this is true, desirability in the used market doesn't work linearly. Apple devices fall off quickly in value after 2 years. If you buy early in the product cycle, selling as soon as you can buy the next year's model has proven to be the most economic way, because resale on last year's model is still great but 2 years ago is in the tank. I've been upgrading yearly since 2007 and my spouse waits 3-5 years between phones. Doing the math, over the years I've spent less overall because of the value of sales when I trade up vs. their phone was worth sub-$200 when I sold it recently, because it was older than a few years.
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    Does a Toyota Corolla ever get unreliable or uneconomic to repair?
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      Yes. Prices are all jacked up vs what you get because a historical surplus of very well kept cars on the used market has lead to every idiot on the internet being told they're somehow magical. A badge on the grill doesn't make 100k the of uber miles that the 3rd owner put on or being habitually driven low on some key fluid by the 4th owner any less destructive.
      - lostlogin 1y ago
        I ran a Corolla with a holed sump, and no measurable oil. I was going to scrap it. After 3 months it was going ok so took it to a mechanic. They repaired it, said ‘don’t do that’ and it carried on for another 5 years before I sold it.
        leakycap 1y ago
        At some point, even a Corolla will need a repair or maintenance significantly more expensive than the remaining value offered by the old car. It sounds like if you drove it for 3 months without oil, you didn't have a lot of options at the time or you might have put oil in your car in the meantime?
- leakycap 1y ago
  > Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money. Depends. No reason to pour money into a depreciating asset that you trust your life with. I saw an early 2000s small car get into a ~30mph collision recently and ... I wouldn't drive an early 2000s car after that. A lot of people do, and they probably should try to get something with more modern safety equipment.
harvey9 1y ago
That's accounted for at the time they bought it since it was already hail damaged.
- leakycap 1y ago
  Is it savings if you buy an item worth less and you pay less? You're just buying a damaged item at that point ... which is worth less to everyone That isn't getting "deal" unless you plan to never liquidate... cars generally don't get used up like a can of soda, so the dent actually matters when you go to sell it.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    > That isn't getting "deal" unless you plan to never liquidate... cars generally don't get used up like a can of soda, so the dent actually matters when you go to sell it. Yes, but it mattered already when you bought it! In other words, the dents were already priced in when you paid for it, so you paid less. They'll like be priced even lower when you sell it after 5 years of usage.
    - leakycap 1y ago
      Almost all buyers finance. You cannot generally get a loan on a car with much hail damage. Buyer pool now significantly smaller = less value, must sell for less to attract one of the few potential buyers. This means for most people trying to unload their hail damaged car, they get to sell to dealer at auction pricing (aka rock bottom prices, penny on the dollar value), sell it to an auction yourself, or hope someone on CraigsList is desperate for a car enough they don't care it's a golf ball. It's interesting how something like this might be hard to understand if you haven't been through it. Previously working in the car industry, not understanding this is actually common among car buyers and a source of frustration for people who get stuck in their low-value, hail damaged cars. Think about something other than a car: If I buy something that is normally worth X, but it is damaged and is now worth 0.3X and there I pay 0.3X I did not save 0.7X off what I got... I got something worth what I paid. You cannot extract value from a deal where you were paying less because you received less (aka damaged and less valuable property with less market value).
mlyle 1y ago
Yes, but you also paid half the cost to acquire the car. You're just paying less in depreciation for the time you use it.
- leakycap 1y ago
  My last car got minor hail damage across many panels, it was a difficult PDR for some reason - when I traded it in it was worth 1/4 what KBB would have been for a similar year and mileage without dents Even trying to sell it myself for around 1/3 KBB "good" value took 2 months because the next buyer can't get financing on a car worth very little, so you have to find a cash buyer who doesn't care how their new ride looks. It's rare for anything other than $2,500 cars
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    > next buyer can't get financing on a car worth very little, so you have to find a cash buyer who doesn't care how their new ride looks. The idea is to be the next buyer who is paying very little because of the hail damage.

ggm-at-algebras 1y ago

Confirmation bias but a very good friend did this: bought back the hail damaged car from the insurer in preference to keeping the undamaged VW Beetle, sold the beetle, has been driving the hail damaged car with the minimum legal insurance to third parties for 15 years since. She's streets ahead in costs of car ownership and drives long and short distance, urban and country.

gloxkiqcza 1y ago

People are rarely this pragmatic but I agree! Slightly beat up cars for the win!

lostlogin 1y ago

It’s a lot easier to clean a shiny surface than a matt one. Try clean a house ceiling versus a house wall - though anyone sane wouldn’t paint a ceiling matt, or for that matter, even contemplate painting a ceiling. Get a painter to paint it semi-gloss.