WTB: Grown-up Car

[WRXtranceformed]

Don't lease if you are going to have to do a lot of driving. If you are going to lease, put down as little as they will let you unless you eventually plan to buy the car off of them. Shop around for the best financing. New cars will generally net you good stealership interest rates (assuming your credit is good) but if you are buying gently used the interest rates are going to be higher. You can refinance a car loan really easily, or just get preapproved through a credit union with a lower rate than the dealership will have access to.

[HAULN-SS]

Having bought a handful of cars..dont get suckered into the "low interest rate, bad price" vortex of doom. You can end up saying "oh, look, this car is 400$ a month" because the interest rate is 1%, but the problem is if you sell the car before it's paid off, you're not selling the interest rate, you're selling based on how much you still owe on it. Starting off with a lower bottom line is better than having a good interest rate on just about any deal.

[SlimKlim]

Having bought a handful of cars..dont get suckered into the "low interest rate, bad price" vortex of doom. You can end up saying "oh, look, this car is 400$ a month" because the interest rate is 1%, but the problem is if you sell the car before it's paid off, you're not selling the interest rate, you're selling based on how much you still owe on it. Starting off with a lower bottom line is better than having a good interest rate on just about any deal.

To add to this, if you do plan to buy new or nearly new, either put enough cash down to get yourself in front of the brunt of depreciation, or make sure you're really in love with the car so you own it long enough to get the amount owed caught back up to the value of the car. If you put $2k down and pay $400/mo on a $30k car and decide you don't want it in a year you'll lose your shirt twice trying to get rid of it. Whereas if you did like $6k down you'd be in much better shape.

As far as where to get the loan, poke around. If you buy new and have good credit or a cosigner, you might get 0% from the manufacturer's finance company. Otherwise I'd go through a credit union. I'm a member of Apple Federal and I think they are offering "as low as" 2.20% on used car loans. I'm also a member of PenFed (just on paper) and they are offering 1.74% on used cars, 0.74% if you buy through their "TrueCar" buying service, and I think 0.74% on new car loans in general. NavyFed also has pretty awesome rates, but can be tricker to join than PenFed. All you have to do to get into PenFed (if you arent a military family) is donate to a military charity.

I'm going to apply for a PenFed one today actually, as soon as their Online Banking Portal stops timing out between page loads... if that one doesn't work out I'm just going to take whatever Apple offers me.

[Jake]

Put as much down as you can, if you're buying. I put something like 26% down on the ST, because I didn't want to finance more than $20k.

The Ford dealer shopped my credit around to get me financing, and I ended up getting the loan through SunTrust. I took a 5-year loan, but I'm over-paying it like mad so it won't actually take that long to pay off. My goal is that if I end up selling the car in a few years, before the loan is completely paid off, to not be underwater on it. It'd be way better to pay off the balance and even pocket a grand or two.

Leasing feels like renting a car to me, so I didn't bother investigating it much.

[WRXtranceformed]

Put as much down as you can, if you're buying.

Only do this if you plan on keeping the car IMO so that you can avoid as much interest as possible during the life of the loan. Cars depreciate way too fast, especially new ones, to keep that much money tied up in them without the desire just to be debt free. I would MUCH rather have $20-25k tied up in my investment accounts earning over 15% right now than a car that loses 3-4k+ per year.

I say this from experience having gone both routes. I put a lot down on my first WRX only to sell it for maybe a few grand more than my payoff. Every vehicle since then I have put down maybe $500 each time and waited to sell it until my payoff was <= the resale value. That way you are basically just trading keys. Never take a loss on a car or roll in negative equity...I know so many people that do it here and it is SO ridiculous.

[Jake]

I would MUCH rather have $20-25k tied up in my investment accounts earning over 15% right now than a car that loses 3-4k+ per year.

Yeah, see, I don't have 20k tied up in a 15% investment account. I have cash. So, it's either have a fuckton financed, or have less-than-a-fuckton financed. I chose the latter.

[WRXtranceformed]

I would MUCH rather have $20-25k tied up in my investment accounts earning over 15% right now than a car that loses 3-4k+ per year.

Yeah, see, I don't have 20k tied up in a 15% investment account.

That's easy to fix Now when you are that young is a great time.

I don't regret any decisions I have made but I threw a lot of money away on cars over the years. If I knew then what I know now through experience I probably would have done a few things differently. I have friends who just never learned and are paying $70k notes on brand new Tundras. :vomit:

[Jake]

That's easy to fix Now when you are that young is a great time.

I'm actually interested in learning more about this. I'm clueless. Wanna PM me and tell me some things?

[WRXtranceformed]

That's easy to fix Now when you are that young is a great time.

I'm actually interested in learning more about this. I'm clueless. Wanna PM me and tell me some things?

Sure bud if you have any specific questions shoot me a PM, I do not claim to be an investment guru but I hired someone who is

[.RJ]

So from all my other recent (or not so recent) real-world entrants and car buyers, any advice on sacking up and taking on a car loan for the first time?

Shop around finance rates. Dont be afraid of financing through a dealer, either.

[ScottyB]

credit union

or as noted, if the manufacturer is doing something tasty like 0% financing, look hard at that. sales guys make a lot of their money on the backend financing stuff, so be prepared for a lot of nay-saying finance nonsense from them that sounds good...but usually isn't.

[.RJ]

I got better rate through the dealer than my CU when I bought my ridgeline, by a fair amount.

[ScottyB]

i'm probably out of date. i bought the 2.5rs back in...'07? i'm sure the market was different then.

[JPolen01]

[BFisch06]

That's easy to fix Now when you are that young is a great time.

I'm actually interested in learning more about this. I'm clueless. Wanna PM me and tell me some things?

If you're interested, my dad is an investment broker and is pretty damn good at it. Rachel and I already have Roth IRAs set up making a good chunk of change per year, and that's in addition to my stock and mutual fund portfolio. :thumbup:

[Levey]

So, I stopped at a Chevy dealer here in Norfolk because they had a couple of C6 Corvettes and 5th gen Camaros. I made the mistake of taking a C6 for a spin around the block. I say mistake because I am now convinced that my life cannot continue in the way that I want it to until I own a 2008+ 6 speed Z51. The one I drove was a 6 speed base with 45k miles for $33k. It was an absolute blast to drive and would make it possible to smile on the way to and from work. Not a stellar buy, and with a few more miles on it than I'd like. Plus they offered me $5,500 for the Camaro. I realize my car is most likely worth that on trade-in, so when the time comes to pull the trigger I will attempt to sell privately for a few thousand more.

[Beej]

Are Grand Sports that cheap yet? Because I mean, fenders.

[Levey]

Grand Sports are still over 40, so not feasible yet. I wish they were within reach. Maybe with the release of the C7s, the C6s will take a price hit?

[WRXtranceformed]

Love the Grandsport. Came super super close to buying one but I couldn't get a reasonable trade in value yet for my Caddy. FWIW I know several people who daily drive C6s and they have great things to say about it. I really need the ability to transport clients every now and then so it is probably better that I didn't pull the trigger. Nothing says professional like folding the seat back to squeeze an SVP into the back of your coupe and then burning rubber through their parking lot :lol:

[Levey]

That's good to hear. Mid-20s mpg with mixed driving would be an improvement over the Camaro.

I did have to pick my director up for work one morning while his car was in the shop. I wasn't excited to pick him up in the 02 SS. I'd be going from not much room in my car to no room in my car. But it'd be a Vette....