Basic Car Buying Tips

Besides the obvious reason, that being transportation, just like water a car is now considered a necessity in most urban areas.

One of the reasons to consider when buying a car is if the vehicle being purchased is a good deal.
Is it in good condition?

How long a life does it have left?

Is it an excellent ride?

Does it have a great warranty, etc.

As we said, it’s virtually impossible to get along without a car and if you can’t afford a new car, following are some basic reasons you should consider when making that all important car purchase.

Is it a good buy?

The best time period to buy a car is later in the month. Usually, there are numerous rebate programs and bonuses offered by month’s end based on a dealer’s monthly sales quotas. The idea is, sometimes dealers fall short of meeting their sales objectives if their performance is assessed by the end of the month.

This happens more often than not. The result of this is good news to most car buyers. Since dealers are more desperate to meet their quotas, they now have no choice but to sell the vehicle at a lesser than normal price just to make the sales they need to meet their goals.

Peace of mind

Sometimes dealers will do a “dog and pony show” just for them to make that sale. The result is that car buyers then end up with features that they realize later on they do not really need with a price they actually could not afford. The moral? Don’t buy more than you absolutely need. Avoid unnecessary stress and/or sleepless nights.

Always remember to trust your instincts. If ever you feel in doubt, the answer to that is don’t — do not let yourself be pressured into making that purchase now. This is the common strategy of car dealers where they would compel the customer to buy that car, now, this moment, today!

Do not forget that you can always sleep on it and then decide. This is a lot better than making your mind up now and forever holding your peace. If the car is gone the next day, there’s probably a good reason why you shouldn’t have had it in the first place.

Car Buying Tips - Don’t Invest

Car Buying Tips

It drives me crazy when people use car buying and investing in the same sentence.

O.K… excluding antique and classic cars, I’m talking about basic everyday car buying. So, here’s the number one tip… cars are not investments… in fact they are quite the opposite.

Your car begins to depreciate the before the ink is even dry on all those papers you just signed.

How much you ask?

On average both cars and trucks will lose more than 20% of their initial value in their very first year!

Ouch!!!

If no other reason you should now be convinced it is in your very best interest to get the best possible car deal you can when you buy your car… with that kind of depreciation hit, you sure don’t want to overpay for your car right out of the gate.

Using nice, round numbers to illustrate this hit you’re taking… if you paid $20,000 for your car; after but two years of driving your $20,000 car might now be worth about $13,000! In case you are wondering that works out to about $300.00 per month to the negative… nice investment eh?

If your house or your retirement account offered up to you those types of ‘investment’ numbers, you’d probably feel like jumping off a cliff… So, again… car buying tip number one… all together now… a car is not an investment…. it’s a major expense in your life.

Keep this at the forefront of your mind the next time you feel that itch to buy a car feeling… if you do, this type of reality will be the the cold bucket of water for you.

If you’re driving a car that is getting you around and is paid off, chances are it’s older and as such you’ve already paid for the depreciation, so get some good use out of your money and keep driving your car for as long as it will stay reliable and get you to your job and back.

If, however, you just can’t stand the thought of driving your current car and your going to scratch the proverbial car buying itch, at least get the best deal you can… so that’s where we’ll start our next set of car buying tips.