New car vs. used

[Anonymous]

I'm all for used. In early 2009, I bought a "used" 2008 car. Less than 20,000 miles on it.

[Anonymous]

i prefer buying used from a private seller. you get the most bang for your buck that way but it does require extra legwork in terms of finding a seller who has taken good documented care of the car, and not one of those craigslist auction people who just bought the car at auction and is now reselling it and never actually used it. (they're very easy to detect, just by asking.) we're not lawyers, we don't make a ton of money, and i will gladly spend extra time in exchange for saving thousands of dollars.

so we've had pretty good luck in finding used cars (oftentimes just by browsing washington post print ads) by responsible previous owners and they've been great while saving us a ton of money.

we bought one car new, which involved a trade-in and online haggling, and the feeling of being ripped off (because of the tradein- which i would never do again) left such a sour taste in my mouth i would be loathe to do it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think NPR did a thing recently about how right now it's hard to find good deals on used cars, because the economy has caused more people to buy new instead of new. Something to think about.

Heard this story too, the price of used cars has gone up roughly 30% in the last few years. Though I've always bought (and been happy with) used, this might make me take a closer look at the numbers.

[Anonymous]

Another Honda family here, and we've always bought new for the reasons PPs have stated. Also, for us, because we were financing our car, with the interest rates, it was almost the same for a late model used car with a 5-6% interest rate and a new one at 2.9%.