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What kind of gas mileage do you get?
paigeoliver:
Every business (self employed or not) relies on vehicles in some fashion or another, and breakdowns are a part of the business world. Replacing heavy use business vehicles every 60,000 miles in order to avoid ever even having a single repair is a bad business model.
But I am finished trying to educate here, everyone please continue telling yourselves that you NEED those new cars because the old ones break down all the time, and not because you just WANT a new car.
Man, I have no idea how all those businesses that generally run their vehicles up to 300K manage to make a profit with all those breakdowns. I am not even sure how construction workers ever get a house built or keep their job with all those beat up old pickup trucks they drive.
By the way, food for thought, lets say I offered you a deal where about once a year I would randomly call you up and delay you by an hour by talking about muffins. In exchange you would receive $4000 a year from me, tax free. Would you take that deal? Yeah, I would too. Amazing how many who think the random muffin phone call is a great deal, and then turn around and spend $4000 a year to avoid a possible small delay.
--- Quote from: AtomSmasher on April 26, 2008, 11:33:41 am ---
--- Quote from: paigeoliver on April 26, 2008, 06:05:37 am ---Of course a 5 year old car is 20 to 30 times more likely to break down than a new one. However it still isn't all that likely to break down, and even if it does, so what? How many thousands of dollars do you want to spend to ATTEMPT to insure that you won't be mildly, inconvenienced. The broken down on the side of the road scenario is fairly rare simply for the fact that most automotive failures present at start up and not while cruising down the highway.
--- End quote ---
So you admit that older cars are less reliable then newer ones. For me this is the biggest factor because any breakdowns, even not being able to start up is much more then a minor inconvenience. I am self employed and am constantly meeting people at specific times. Quite often those people take time off work so that they can meet me, meet at their lunch break, or its the only day off that they have, so rescheduling for a different day or time isn't an option. If my car doesn't start, then I lose money, period. I've owned used cars in the past and I've had them break down on me. My past few cars have all been new cars and while I've never put more then 60,000 miles on any one of them, none of them have ever broken down on me, not once. The worst I've had is a flat tire, which made me an hour late, but luckily the person I was meeting was able to leave the key under the mat, which is something people normally won't do.
Also, I often literally spend 8-hour days in my car driving around, so I prefer a car that is clean and quiet. A cheap used car will likely have plenty of stains, scratches, or dents in the interior or exterior, and have plenty of sqeaks and rattles in the interior. When I buy a new car, I know the interior is nice and clean and I don't buy a car if the interior has squeeks or rattles because it just bugs me. Yes I'm anal and these are minor issues I could learn to live with in a used car, but I'd prefer not to. Not to mention I like newer features like a built in MP3 player which you don't see too often on old cars.
--- End quote ---
AtomSmasher:
Because a business with only one person in the company runs exactly the same as larger business, right? Right now work is extremely slow and losing one client is the matter of staying in business or declaring bankruptcy (and don't say the reason is because I buy new cars, $200/mo does not make or break a business), so I do everything in my power to keep them happy. If you happen to miss a few hours of work because of car trouble, would you lose your job? Right now that is a distinct possibility for me.
And, I don't change my car every 60,000 miles to avoid breakdowns. My first new car I sold because I was upgrading to a much nicer car, then I "sold" the nicer car because it got totalled in an accident, so I had no choice but to get a new car. I would of kept the nicer car indefinitely because it was by far the best car I ever owned. I babied that car, changing the oil every 3000 miles, the interior was still like new after 3 years, and not a single scratch (until the accident of course). Everything about the car was excellent quality, so I have no doubt that car would of lasted a very long time before needing a major repair. But like I said, I had no choice but to get rid of it.
Also, when I went looking for my latest car, I looked at a lot of used cars and the used cars under $8,000 were pretty much all POS's falling apart with 100,000 or more miles on them. I found a one possibly good used car that I talked the dealer down to $13,000 for the car, but decided to think about it, at which point I found out Saturn was selling cars for 0% interest and I could buy a brand new car for the same payments of the used car I almost bought. That was definitely a horrible decision on my part, right? ::)
And you also seem to have selective reading, because I said that buying new cars means that I'm spending more money and that there were more reasons for wanting a new car other then reliability. Yes, I could buy a car for under $5000 that is extremely reliable, but a reliable car for that money would be a POS in every other respect. I could also buy an old moped and save even more money, perhaps I'll do that since reliability and saving money are apparently the only things that matter.
patrickl:
--- Quote from: paigeoliver on April 26, 2008, 04:42:19 pm ---But I am finished trying to educate here, everyone please continue telling yourselves that you NEED those new cars because the old ones break down all the time, and not because you just WANT a new car.
--- End quote ---
You really should look better into where your costs are. If you add it all up you will see there really is not that big a cost difference between buying a new car every 4 years and driving an old car. The drop in depreciation is compensated largely by the increase in maintenance costs and the lower fuel bill for a newer car.
danny_galaga:
look, most people here are making valid points. atomsmasher, the one time i bought a new car was for my business. and like you say you want that extra bit of reliability (i was a courier, i especially needed that). i put 150,000km on it before i sold it (daewoo matiz, thats a lot for an 800cc car). near the end of me owning the business it started to play up. first the water pump, then the clutch. then an aircon compressor bracket. quite acceptable though for a work vehicle. if i had continued, that would have been the time to buy another car (after 3 years in this case). If you are a very well paid person of some importance to the company you might want a new car too, because you dont want to be late for meetings, appointments etc.
for all us 9-5ers, if you are late every now and then for work because of a car break down, thats quite acceptable. if the boss were to fire you for that, who wanted to work for an a-hole like that anyway?
patrickl, i still dont follow your maths. especially with the luxurious position of replacing new cars every 4 years. lets break it down over four years first (ball park figures to get a handle on whats happening) in dollars. the cars in this case are similar in fuel consumption so we need only look at extra costs:
new car old car
mid sized small mid sized small
year one 30,000 15000 5000 2,500
year two 0 0 500 500
year three 0 0 500 500
year four 500 500 1000 500
total 30500 15500 7000 4,000
thats the kinda 30% id like my shares to earn ;D
ok, now to year five
first we sell our cars. this is what we get for them:
new car old car
sell 15000 7000 2500 1000
so this is what we have left after four years. in four years we have spent 15500/8500 on a new car, and 4500/3000 for an old car. now to buy another car
year five 35000 17000 7000 4000
using the money from the previous sale, we have spent another 20k/10k on the new, and another 4.5k/3k on the old. the total spent so far by year 5 in this simpistic model is pretty much the bottom line- new 35000/17000, old 7000/4000.
a pretty simple example i must admit. it doesnt include the fact that your old car might suffer such expensive wear (like replacing an engine) that you are better off just buying another car. therefore just double the price on the bottom line for old cars from 7000/4000 to 14000/8000. thats still less than half what you spent on the new car.
thats one extreme, the other is what my dad used to do. he would buy really beat up old cars (even from the wreckers, and at least once was given a car) and drive them for a year or two (and fixing them with parts scavenged/wreckers) before buying another one. make that bottom line $500 x 5 years/$400 x 5 years= $2500/$2000! following his lead,my first car was $150, spent maybe $200 getting it on the road, and then sold it for $800 a couple of years later ;D a cortina mkII. sigh, the memories...
and yes, you can get mid sized cars for 20k or so. the quality will be a little less, and more chance of things going wrong
year one 20000
year two 0
year three 0
year four 1000
year five sell, get 10000
buy new car 22000. only if you compare a new small car to an old large car will the figure get closer, in my opinion...
this is an economic reason only. yes, it is freakin cool buying a new car and being the first to own it, and having smell new for several years (several months in the case of a couriers car ;) ). but for some of us, its even more cool to have an extra 10 or 20 grand to play with in 5 years. not many of us (including me until the last couple of years) will be able to show you 20 grand after 5 years, but it would have meant a lot more comfort and the ability to buy other new things! even i wouldnt buy something like a TV or console second hand if i can get it new. hell, i even spent $90 on a sega genesis lately because it was brand new!
edit: when i say economic reason, obviously im talking about personal economics. on the national or global scale, people need to buy new cars to keep the economy going.
patrickl:
You need to look at all costs and use realistic values.
Buying a new Honda civic and driving it for 4 years, costs me 600 euro a month (everything included for 15,000km a year). An old car (from it's 5th till 9th year) costs between 400 and 500 a month. Driving an even older car is a crap shoot. It could cost between 300 and 2,000 euro a month.
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