buying a used car - worth it now?

[Anonymous]

We became a one car house early in the pandemic but with one of us heading back into the office soon and a new teen driver in the house, we want to buy a second car. This car would get minimal use - driving to and from the office (Bethesda to Rockville) M-F and local errands / teen driving on the weekends. We are guessing we'd reliably use the car for 5-7 years and then it is possible we might drop back to one car (both kids will be in college and one of us will have retired by then).

I started looking at used (2018ish) small suv's like rav-4, cr-v, maybe a subaru but the prices seems not that different than buying new! Any advice for someone who hasn't been in the car market, used or new, in over 5 years - where to shop, is it better to just buy new if I can swing it, etc. I know there are supply chain, etc. issues but I didn't realize how high the prices would be on used vehicles.

Thanks for any tips.

[Anonymous]

Maybe look further out to get better deals.?

[Anonymous]

Used seem priced very aggressively and I don’t think they are a good option for anyone who can afford to wait for a new car.

[Anonymous]

It will be tough right now to get a 2018 below new price because there aren't any new to sell on the lot. You could shop around though. We just got a new Subaru 4k cheaper then what was available used with a 9 day wait for delivery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It will be tough right now to get a 2018 below new price because there aren't any new to sell on the lot. You could shop around though. We just got a new Subaru 4k cheaper then what was available used with a 9 day wait for delivery.

Where did you buy this car? Thanks.