- Mocking Bird
- Aug 17, 2011
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Cross posting from the Newbie Personal Finance Thread:
So, how do I manage this without being bad with money:
I want to buy a new car. My current car is a 99 Honda Civic that was recently stolen during a 2 month period where I had liability-only insurance (gently caress). It was returned, but with bald tires, bad alignment, a disassembled steering column, and a silver spray paint racing stripe. It's pretty pimp.
I put new tires on it ($230) and got an oil change and some fluids/air filter replaced ($60 because I'm lazy). I've been driving it again for about six weeks, and it's... ok? It's hideous, it stands out in a crowd, and it was already a really old car. It feels like riding roller skates on a gravel road.
The issue I have with continuing to drive it is that I'm a Child Protective Services social worker, and I use my car for work on a regular basis. That means putting about 500 miles a month on my car, and also taking it to clients' homes and schools to see children. Having a car this... distinctive is not an advantage, and I worry some day my car is going to get vandalized in the office parking lot, or someone is going to see it parked out front of my house and know where I live, as even though I live in a different city than I work, I live right off of the main drag that runs through six cities, and you can see my house from the bus route.
I am hesitant to buy a used car again, as the reason I bought this one was because it was owned by my sister's uncle, who maintained it beautifully. I had the whole service history, and it only cost me $2k. I've had it for five years and it just hit 250,000 miles. I don't know if I'd trust another car to be that reliable for me. Also, power locks that work would be nice.
So, two questions:
1. I make 65k a year, have about $1000 a month of unallocated funds (used before this to pay off credit card debt which is now gone) and have about 3k I can alot for a downpayment. I could probably get that up to $5k in fairly short order, but the buyback mentioned below is only available until the end of March. I qualify for financing through my bank for 3%, and I'm sure a dealer could give me a better rate. Could I afford a new car? The new Honda Fit is around 19-20k and drat if it isn't adorable.
2. What do I do with the old car? I got approved for the "cash for clunkers" buyback for $1000, but given that I just put new tires etc on it, it feels like such a waste. I could sell it on Craigslist, but with the creative paintjob, I doubt someone would pay a thousand for it, especially give the 250,000 miles. I could gift it to my "brother" (best friend's little brother) and his grandmother who are currently without transportation, but ethically I would want to make sure it was safe and reliable before I let a 19 year old drive an 85 year old woman around in it, which likely means fixing the steering column and getting the alignment done (~$300).
So, do I let the state buy back my clunker, add my $1k to the down payment, and finance a new car? Do I drive this car for another three months, save more for the downpayment, and the gift the car to my baby brother? Do I drive this car for another year until it gets set on fire in the parking lot or has a catastrophic failure on the freeway or in the hood, and then buy a new car in cash? I'm so torn 
Also, for hilarity's sake:
Follow up:
I don't know if you can see it, but the front bumper also as a little piece peeled back (they ran into a tractor trailer hitch when the police ran them off the road into a field) and both the front and back bumpers are painted silver as well as the hood. I certainly don't have the skill, tools, or space to remove hoods/bumpers from pick n' pull and install them on my own car. The interior is also "ok" with a small leak in the roof around the windshield and a completely hosed sun visor, but otherwise in good shape.
I don't know if I could get another 50,000 miles out of it - I've replaced the radiator, head gasket, and repaired a cylinder, I don't doubt there are some time bombs waiting to go off in there somewhere. I think conservatively I could drive it for another six months (10-15k miles) without a serious repair or replacement. The only current issue I've identified is a consistent oil leak near the back of the pan that would be around $500 to repair that I prefer to just keep pouring oil into. I would LOVE if I could get it to 300k just for the novelty factor, but I don't know how likely that is.
Do new cars really have that much significant depreciation? I was looking at used Fits, and to be honest, in my area they average 15-18k for a 2011/2012 when a brand new 2015 is 19k.
I have a 1.5-2 month expense emergency fund since I just finished paying off my credit card debt from graduate school, and I've been working full time for about 9 months. I want to get it up to 6 months, but I was planning on doing that slowly over time (I've been putting $500-800 a paycheck in a savings account so far). So essentially a car payment would reduce the amount of money being diverted to that savings account by $350-500 depending on the loan term.
It's just... so much money but I am terrified of getting rid of my beater and buying an even shittier used car that happens to look nicer. I would hate to have put all the money and maintenance into this one and then end up having to do a transmission replacement or hosed suspension or something on a different used car. I mean, when my head gasket was hosed, I opted to pay $1500 to repair this car rather than risk buying a lovely $3k-5k beater (obviously I can afford more now that I'm not in grad school, but still.)
So what do you guys think? Should I keep on keeping on with this piece of poo poo, give it away, sell it, junk it? Buy new, buy used, buy a pony?
It's so hard to talk to people IRL about car buying, because they legit ask me things like "how much of a monthly payment can you afford? How about a lexus?"
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Feb 13, 2015 21:05
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Apr 29, 2024 11:30
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- Mocking Bird
- Aug 17, 2011
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 effort-post incoming.
Anyone saying "cash for clunkers" these days is just marketing. The official program ended years ago, and would never have applied to a Civic since the gas mileage is way too good. The entire goal of that program was to try and pull low-MPG vehicles off of the roads while selling more new cars.
It's a Civic. It could be literally missing major components and you'd probably still have people tripping over each other to give you $1000 for it. It's still a running driving car, it's a Civic, it's less than 20 years old, it's a Civic, it's got a sick racing stripe, it's a Civic... In case you haven't noticed, it's a Civic. Literally every $1000-or-less Civic I'm finding on my local Craigslist is older and has worse problems than you've described. So get it out of your head that some shithead car "salesman" is being so generous by lowballing the gently caress out of you on your trade, no matter how rough it is. List it on CL for $1500 as-is and take the first offer over $1k.
I know you said "the state" but I am having a really hard time imagining any state that's willing to give you $1000 to get something as clean as a Civic off the roads.
If you're looking for the save-the-most-money approach, it's still always cheaper to keep the car you have than it is to replace it. A lovely Maaco job won't be as good as the OEM paint was, but it'd be better than what you've got now. Nothing you've described beyond that is something that can't be fixed to be drat near back to OEM at a reasonable dollar amount.
But, if you want a new(er) car, get a new(er) car. Anyone who makes a blanket statement that "all new cars depreciate x% off the lot" clearly hasn't looked for a used car in the past three years because that's just not the case anymore. I bought a new Honda CR-V in 2013 because at that time a used 2012 with 20,000 miles was still listing within $500 of MSRP on a brand-new 2013. The Honda Fit might be the single highest-resale-value car on the road, and seeing 1-2 year old ones selling within spitting distance of brand new Fits is a story you'll find over and over in this thread. There are other cars that do depreciate more and it might make more sense for you to get one thats a few years old... but if you want to buy new, buy new. If you want to see a worst-case price, use Truecar.com. You can probably beat it with some negotiating, but anyone who can work a website can get at least that pricing.
As to "can you afford it"? Well, if you've got $1k of extra cash laying around every month, you sure as poo poo can afford the car payment, gas, and the extremely low amounts of maintenance any modern car (that is not a Fiat) will require. Insurance is the only question mark since a lot of that depends on where you are and your personal record. Keep in mind that if you have a loan you must have comprehensive and collision, typically with no more than a $500 deductible.
Interest-rate wise, if your credit is at all decent, you should be able to get 1.9% or less through the financing arm of any manufacturer, often for up to 60 months. At that point you should really just plan on paying as little as possible into a down payment, since unless you're just going to leave it in a savings account, you can do better than 0.9%-1.9% with the down payment elsewhere instead of putting it into the car right away. Even if you can afford the car cash, you should probably finance it, because why tie up $20k into a car instead of actual investments?
I love effort posts, please do so always  (completely serious)
I live in California, so no joke it is a state bureau offering me $1000 to retire my vehicle: http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/avrp/avrpeo.htm
How much would one expect to pay for a paint job? Would it be the whole car, or could I just paint the affected panels? Hmm...
I have full coverage/comprehensive/collision etc insurance with a good deductible through USAA for about $75 a month. My credit is around 720, so not perfect but certainly still good.
This doesn't leave me feeling less conflicted about what I should actually do  It's so much money to put into a car to buy new, 10x what I paid for this clunker.
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Feb 13, 2015 22:46
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- Mocking Bird
- Aug 17, 2011
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I drive one as my work vehicle, and while I've always found it comfortable and a good daily driver, I feel like the viability is limited and it has enormous blind spots compared to my civic. It definitely is the most comfortable car I drive on a regular basis though. Much better than the Ford Focus we have, though the focus has way better visibility.
Edit: Oh, and the hybrid feature does seem be pretty well integrated with much less annoying brake resistance than out older Prius, and we get decent mileage out of it.
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Feb 16, 2015 18:40
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- Mocking Bird
- Aug 17, 2011
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Thanks for the advice.
Viability because it's simply not proven long term like the Accord is, or do you have some other info you can share?
One thing that appeals to me about the Fusion is the noise cancelling technology in it. I'm not sure if that works on the highway though, or to get rid of some weird rumbling with the hybrid drive. I want a really quiet car but don't want to spend as much for say, a Lexus. As I understand it, both modern Fusions and Accords are improving on road noise.
Typo! I meant "Visibility" through those silly slit windows, which is probably not substantially different from an Accord. I am also 5'9 and sit tall, so ymmv. And it certainly is quiet, I take it on 6 hour drives once a month, and it's like manning a yacht - quiet, takes up a lot of room, very comfortable. I prefer something smaller and zippier myself.
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Feb 17, 2015 02:03
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