Should you buy new or used cars? – Part 7
Becoming an educated consumer is probably the best tool you can bring with you when shopping for your next car. Obviously, you have to make sure you are prepared financially, but you also need to be ready mentally for dealing with the tremendous pressure from the sales force and for not letting their words sway your questions and concerns.
In the past six years I have bought both a new car in 2000 and a used car in 2005. My first car, which I drive to this day, was a brand new [sparkling] champagne-beige Pontiac Grand AM SE1. I drove past the dealership many times in my rental vehicle just looking at it, drooling. I finally gave in and signed the finance papers at $308.00 a month for next five years of my life. Less than two months later mechanical problems began. The power windows were getting scratched going up and down, the turn signals and the emergency signals weren’t working all the time. All kinds of noises were coming from inside the door on the driver’s side. I went to the dealership and they fixed the issues. A month later all the problems were back. I applied for a lemon law through BBB and received two additional years of warranty from the manufacturer on top of the original 3 years/36,000 miles. Another couple of months later, my brand new car got keyed on both sides with several thick markings. That is when I lost it and completely regretted buying a new car. Never again. Talking about depreciation, my Grand AM since then had several other problems that occurred after the warranty expired, such as the dashboard that popped up and cracked in several places in the front due to heat, the breaks that I had to replace 3 times, and the screeching suspension that everyone kept telling me they could not hear until I found a smart mechanic who did. The problems are too expensive to fix, so I drive with the car “as is”, with scratches. It runs fine. The original price of my vehicle was around $17,000 + interest over five years. Today, based on its condition and several responses from the dealerships, it is worth about $800 as a trade in. It’s a shame.
In late 2004, my husband and I went shopping for a used car for him to upgrade his dying Nissan Quest. We saw and test-drove many models, as we were open-minded and didn’t have a specific model in mind. After about two months of information gathering, we zeroed in on a Yukon XL. We chose it because it is a large, safe SUV, it received good reviews, and it also felt comfortable for my
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