Honk Honk

User avatar
zaratustra
Posts: 1665
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:45 pm

Honk Honk

Postby zaratustra » Sun Mar 21, 2021 7:37 am

I have to buy a car but I can only afford the used very cheap kind

what is my strategy here

User avatar
nosimpleway
Posts: 4518
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:31 pm

Re: Honk Honk

Postby nosimpleway » Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:35 am

We were in the market for a new car pretty recently. So when I saw that Enterprise was retiring a big chunk of its rental fleet I offered my wife that we should go look at them. They're ex-rentals so they're taken care of even if they're high usage, and since they're liquidating for clearance they'd be cheap.

So I went and looked, but she wanted to go look at this other lot that was right by our bank and financed through them, so we were sure to get a good loan rate. So we went and looked and she fell in love with an SUV and wanted to buy it right away. I was pretty sure the retired fleet had at least one for less money, but she wouldn't budge.

Turns out that lot didn't finance through our bank.

So we bought a regular used car, at full price, at normal financing, and then she died three months later so now I'm driving a car I don't even particularly like.

tl;dr: i dunno my dude

User avatar
Caithness
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:45 pm
Location: Mint is a vegetable, right?

Re: Honk Honk

Postby Caithness » Sun Mar 21, 2021 1:08 pm

I wanted a car that was very low maintenance, so I got a Prius, but the hybrid premium doesn't pay for itself unless you drive a lot. Two of my siblings got Mazdas and seemed to be happy with them.

User avatar
hngkong
Posts: 604
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 7:29 am

Re: Honk Honk

Postby hngkong » Sun Mar 21, 2021 1:32 pm

Yeah, I used do a lot of driving (16-18 hours over two days about once a month or so, 3ish hours a couple times a week) so I went for a Prius to save on gas. What I didn't expect is that it's incredibly low maintenance compared to all my previous cars. I'm at ~160k miles and I've only had to have my brakes and calipers worked on, other than the standard oil changes and what have you. It's taken a serious amount of use and held up strong.

User avatar
Joxam
Imperisaurus Rex
Posts: 1003
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:23 pm

Re: Honk Honk

Postby Joxam » Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:31 pm

Also you live in the UK so quite frankly a lot of the cars we have over here are going to be taxed through the roof because of emissions and gas mileage.
Image

User avatar
Silversong
Posts: 714
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:00 pm
Location: Michigan

Re: Honk Honk

Postby Silversong » Thu Mar 25, 2021 8:55 am

I helped buy a pickup truck for an ex-bf once that was only like $400, I think that was a fluke of a nice older man basically giving a drivable vehicle away to some young'uns. Never gotten a car for myself for under $8k. I get anxious about dealing with person to person sales so my last car just came from a used dealership. But yeah the two things I know about are "actual ads in physical newspapers" and "used car lots."

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: Honk Honk

Postby Mongrel » Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 pm

Joxam wrote:Also you live in the UK so quite frankly a lot of the cars we have over here are going to be taxed through the roof because of emissions and gas mileage.

Yeah, absolutely.

From experience, I'm not even sure most of the models we might suggest would even be widely available over there, or if they are that they would function the same - for example 3- and 5-cylinder cars are common over there.

We'd also be excluding a non-zero number of cars available to Zara but not us. Like, okay, Vauxhalls are just rebadged Fords most of the time (IIRC), but we don't get Citroens over here in any significant number.

Better to suggest generalized principles for checking over used cars to try and help Zara avoid lemons or rebuilt-wrecks than actual cars. In that vein, make sure you get the full vehicle history of anything you buy before you buy it - which I'm going to hope IS something available to you in the UK? It should be something the seller pays for too, as well as any safety certifications required prior to a transfer of ownership.
Image

User avatar
zaratustra
Posts: 1665
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:45 pm

Re: Honk Honk

Postby zaratustra » Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:39 pm

I've had a Uber driver suggest I look at Priuses that were used as Uber cars as those tend to go for cheap. I was worried about they being run down, but if you say maintenance for a Prius is low...

User avatar
Caithness
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:45 pm
Location: Mint is a vegetable, right?

Re: Honk Honk

Postby Caithness » Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:20 pm

Just gotta worry about replacing the traction battery if it's really worn out. When I had to do that on my first Prius it would have been $3600 at the dealership but I found a guy on yelp who came to my house and did it for $1800.

The reason I had to buy a second Prius is that I totaled the first one in a crash, not that it died on its own.

User avatar
Upthorn
Posts: 1027
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:41 pm
Location: mastodon.social/@upthorn
Contact:

Re: Honk Honk

Postby Upthorn » Fri Mar 26, 2021 12:07 am

Will verify that Prius' seem to hold up very well. My current Prius has ~190,000 miles on it, and still runs better than my Honda Civic did at 100,000.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

User avatar
Joxam
Imperisaurus Rex
Posts: 1003
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:23 pm

Re: Honk Honk

Postby Joxam » Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:45 pm

My biggest tip for buying a car is to google what size tires, what type of oil and what size oil filter it takes before you buy it and price how much periodic maintenance is going to run you.

I don't know if its the case as heavily in the UK but in order to help with gas mileage over here a lot of full size cars and even smaller SUVs come with 18-20 inch rims and tires in that range can start to get expensive. For example my car has 18 inch wheels and because they're slightly lower profile I usually pay about $600 plus installing and balancing fees for a set of four.
Image

User avatar
pacobird
Posts: 796
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:25 pm

Re: Honk Honk

Postby pacobird » Tue Mar 30, 2021 11:02 am

zaratustra wrote:I've had a Uber driver suggest I look at Priuses that were used as Uber cars as those tend to go for cheap. I was worried about they being run down, but if you say maintenance for a Prius is low...


This is a variation on what has been my strategy for years: used rental fleets. A year or two old is really the sweet spot in my experience and rentals tend to not have that many miles on them. I personally wouldn't go with a used Uber car unless the deal was really great as I can't imagine those don't have way more wear on them than even a normal privately-owned commuter car, but hey, if you can get a deal!
Image

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 10 guests