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New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

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Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#151

Post by dragontamer »

fransje26 wrote: post #100
hef19898 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love leasing! Well, not to lease myself, but the cars returned from a 2-4 year leasing contract are usually great value to buy used directly from a brand dealership, come with guarantees from the manufacturer comparable to new cars and are usually, at least, acceptable milage-wise. I talk about Germany specifically so. Once, I bought a car new. Will never do it again, used (somehwere between one and four years) is…

Somehow, I have a bad (unfounded?) association with lease drivers and car-friendliness, and I can't help but wonder how they've mistreated or abused the car mechanically in those 2-4 years. Things like full acceleration with a cold engine/turbo, and violent gear shifting and clutch abuse.. On a side-note, do you have any company or website you would recommend for ex-lease vehicles buying in Germany? Or do you simply…

In America at least, most cars are automatic transmission now, and a lease requires 6-month maintenance to stay in good standing.

So you know over the 3 years of leasing, there were ~6 maintenance visits, and without manual transmission there's no worries that someone else burned out the clutch.

I've never leased before, and IIRC leasing agreements differ from dealership to dealership. But the overall expectation is "free maintenance", but "required maintenance". You have to come in if you want to keep the lease in good standing, otherwise you have to pay a penalty later.

Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#152

Post by pandaman »

asdaq1312512 wrote: post #61
globular-toast wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus. I just went on autotrader, found one that looked good that I could afford to buy 3 times, went to bloke's house, stuck my head underneath, unscrewed the oil cap, shook hands, did a bank transfer, taxed it online and drove it home. Took me a day.

on top of it all, your loss of value over time is much lower. will never understand why people would buy a new car that depreciates by 30% the very second you drive off the dealership.

>that depreciates by 30% the very second you drive off the dealership

Nobody would underwrite loans for new cars with low down payment and low interest if this had been true. Also we would see the year old cars with low mileage selling with >30% discount, which is also not the case.

The reason I buy new cars is customization: I get exactly the car I want with colors/materials/options I selected.

Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#153

Post by themadturk »

globular-toast wrote: post #82
jolmg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concerns over reliability? Some car issues can be erratic and you may not find out about them until some time later. If you buy used, there's a level of risk regarding what the car's been through with previous owners. If you have a family and/or work with a tight schedule and/or park in areas where you wouldn't like to be left stranded, you may really value reliability.

You've never heard of a brand new car going wrong? A used car that's been on the road for 10 years with a full maintenance history gives me more hope for reliability than a brand new car that hasn't had time to reveal its problems. You can always pay someone to insure you against unlikely events and they don't care at all whether the car is new or not. It's up to you to decide how much risk you want to take.

New cars generally carry warrantees, and buyers are protected in some locations by lemon laws. Not so used cars.

Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#155

Post by rusticpenn »

G3rn0ti wrote: post #93
maxehmookau wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is heading this way too, and I hate it. If you show up with cash to buy a car, you're looked at like you're crazy. They push, and push to get you to take out a loan. It no longer puts you in a better negotiating position to be a cash buyer, as they're making more money selling you finance than selling the car. For all of Tesla's failings, car dealerships will die out. Millennials and Gen Z _hate_ being sold to…

> The UK is heading this way too, and I hate it. > If you show up with cash to buy a car, you're looked at like you're crazy. They > push, and push to get you to take out a loan. With used car dealers in Germany it's a common thing to pay in cash. At least the down payment is usually in cash. However, having payed for my used car in cash, it still makes me nervous thinking of me taking a bus to the dealership with €1…

I have just used a bank transfer in Germany, it has always worked.

Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#156

Post by globular-toast »

martincmartin wrote: post #125
asdaq1312512 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on top of it all, your loss of value over time is much lower. will never understand why people would buy a new car that depreciates by 30% the very second you drive off the dealership.

An economist literally won a Nobel prize for answering that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons When you buy a used car, even one that's less than a year old, you have no way of knowing if there's something wrong with it. So buyers offer lower prices. Then a seller who has a car that they know is good says "I'm not selling it for such a low price, I know it's worth more." So the only people who sell…

I wonder how much this is affected by the prevalence of leasing. Something like 1/3 of new cars in the UK start off as leases. At the end of the lease period most/all of them hit the second hand market. In this case I think even the seller doesn't know if it's a lemon or not and, in any case, they will always want to liquidate the car as soon as possible, even if it's a peach. So they would factor the market price into the lease deal and sell all cars at market price regardless.

Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#157

Post by wiz21c »

hef19898 wrote: post #84
wiz21c wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, negotiating a price is a loosing battle on average. why ? Because you're always on the defending side: the salesperson tries to max the money he gest from you and then you have to make a rather big effort to just get the fair price. Granted, when talking to big company, you can't even negociate. I'd find myself in a pretty awkward position if my goal in a professional relationship was to make the other side loo…

That's not how sales work so. Seems more to be an issue on your side whem it comes to negotoating.

Okay, fair enough. But then, how does it work ?

I think I'm just economically rational: the only thing I look is the price, nothing else, in a situation where there's no competition.

So as negotiating is about trading price for something else, well, I don't have much to negotiate...

But the whole issue I have with negotiating is the one of "value". We don't put the same value on objects. For example, for me, the value of a car is the cost that is needed to produce and sell it. The social status thing has zero meaning for that. So I'd be glad to say to the salesperosn "hey, drop that social status option and let me pay a bit less" :-)

Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#159

Post by anthonypasq »

maxehmookau wrote: post #122
firstbabylonian wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean, sensible, introverted living is overrated. There's something deeply human in the whole 'awkward dance'. Not everyone is born a great dancer, but this doesn't mean that dancing is a stupid and pointless activity. People have been trading with one another (and often tricking or getting tricked in the process) for millennia. The 'Grand Bazaar' you evoke stands for something timeless — a promise of wealth earned w…

But dancing is fun. The act of dancing evokes joy, and happiness for people. For most people, buying a car is a chore. I'm not here to be negotiated with. Give me the price of something that means you make your profit; if it seems like a good deal, I'll buy it.

you completely missed the point. theres many cultures throughout the world that enjoy haggling. In fact the west the weird one in that regard

Re: New car buying guide: the algorithm (2021)

#160

Post by aksss »

dragontamer wrote: post #4
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #2

Not sure who needs to hear this, but you can buy a nearly new car used and save 1/3 to 1/2 of the cost. One big benefit is you let somebody else find out if new models are lemons. Another benefit is you don't need to haggle, as there will be many different options at different prices and you can quickly find out if the price is reasonable by checking KBB.

You grossly increase the chance of a lemon with your strategy. Why would anyone sell a near-new car for 30%+ off *unless* they knew the vehicle is crap? -------- Buying lightly used (~3 year or ~5 year) cars is likely the superior strategy. There's a set of rich buyers who want to keep up with the latest trends. This leads them to leasing vehicles for 2, 3, or so years. Other times, they have enough income that they…

From experience, my philosophy is don’t buy/own a German luxury car that is more than three years old, unless you hate money.
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