here is another option. buy a newer used car for the price of a cheap older car. how? At least until about 9 months ago, used hyundais of the post 2005 vintage

here is another option. buy a newer used car for the price of a cheap older car. how? At least until about 9 months ago, used hyundais of the post 2005 vintage were steals. hyundais post 2005 are extremely reliable, yet people still feel it has the reputation of a 'unreliable car'. reality is out of sync w/ perception. most people try for a reliable older car w/ a solid reputation. these cars have more miles on them and are, well, marked up b/c many people do this part of the cheapness of hyundai elantras comes from the fact that resale values are absolute garbage for older models. w/ improving brand perception and reliability of the products itself, resale values for post 2005 cars will be much higher than ppl expect. lower popularity means less chance of being stolen compared to an older vintage honda or toyota. i have had my older honda1993 stolen and had the police officer who took down the report brag to me about how he could've stolen my car w/ one hand tied behind his back too. Finally, if you look at the depreciation schedule of an average car (resale value over its lifetime) the steepest drops happen between years 1-3. then it flattens out to about year 10 or so. so best place to buy is year 3 or so, and sell it around year 10-12. (actually cheapest is to run it into the ground) My suggestion: buy a 2005 model hyundai elantra w/ low mileage (old drivers are awesome), with one previous owner only. You can find dealers on craigslist. I bagged on w/ 30K miles on it, which means I still have 20k miles of warranty left on this sucker for a bit over 7k out the door (you can do better in this current economy. got mine over a year ago).