Nothing. We always buy "pre-owned" cars and pay in cash.

Brand new Highlander, pay $400/month. I put 15k down at 0% financing.

we bought at $60K car (excluding taxes, etc) and put down around $10K. got a 5 year loan at a very low rate for the rest and pay around $1000/month.

Anonymous wrote:$0

Always buy for cash.

+1 (actually 2, since we own 2)

$0

Always buy for cash.

$289 a month for a new Honda for 60 months, $4,000 down. 1.9% interest.

Our car payment is $326/month for 48 months. Car was a new Subaru. We put about 10K down (including trade-in value).

We bought a new Toyota a couple of years ago and put $15k down. It was around $35k total with taxes, tags, and everything. It's not a luxury car, but it's got plenty of bells and whistles. We bought it new because the 0% financing and other factory incentives made it worth buying new rather than a 1 yr old car with a few thousand miles on it. Personally, I like to buy cars, pay them off, and run them into the ground. I'm not a car person and really just see them as a comfortable way of getting from point A to point B. They're all terrible investments as they depreciate quickly.

If you're into name-brand cars and upgrading every few years, I hear leasing is the way to go. Even leasing is pretty expensive for a luxury car. In my opinion, it's not worth it, but I'd just rather spend my money elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Is everyone actually "purchasing" the car, or are some of you leasing? Did you buy it brand new or used? What did you put down and how long are you paying it off?

You're aware that some people pay cash for cars, right? That wasn't an item on your list.

Of course I'm aware people pay cash. If they paid in cash then they don't have a car payment, so why would I put it on the list?

OP, leasing is worth it for certain people in specific situations. You should do your research and crunch the numbers if you think that's what you want.

We paid outright for our (used - was 4 yrs old when we bought it) car, and budget for repairs and depreciation, to pay ourselves forward for the next car purchase (which will hopefully be years away).

You shouldn't focus on the monthly car loan payment. That has no relationship with how much a car costs to own. Lease payments gets a little closer, but here again you don't know how much money was put down at the start.

I bought a $86k european luxury car last year about this time. It's worth $65k now. So regardless of what my car loan payment is (I don't have one), this car is costing me $1750 a month to own for the first year. Averaged out to 3 years, I would expect it to cost around $1200-$1300 a month.

You're basing your car purchase on what others are doing?? That's so bizarre. Payments vary wildly because the parameters for everyone's purchase/lease is different (Credit scores, down payments, trade in)
My payment is somewhere around $650 for a 2012 TL. I'm in love with it, but don't actually care what I drive so it feels liek a waste of money. I also have a Civic. It is not nearly as expensive, but certainly not a "cheap piece of crap". You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a solid, reliable vehicle. You just don't get the leather, push button starts, dual climate control, etc...

Is everyone actually "purchasing" the car, or are some of you leasing? Did you buy it brand new or used? What did you put down and how long are you paying it off?

You're aware that some people pay cash for cars, right? That wasn't an item on your list.

We normally buy about 35k (when new) cars used and pay around 20k or so. We pay cash. I do believe that many people are driving around in paid off cars.

We will be in the market for a car soon and I'm just wondering what people pay on average for their cars. Is everyone actually "purchasing" the car, or are some of you leasing? Did you buy it brand new or used? What did you put down and how long are you paying it off?

I see all these expensive cars driving around and think to myself, are they really paying $700 -$1000 a month for that car? It seems like that is what the cost would be at a minimum on some of these luxury cars. We don't need luxury, but we don't want a cheap piece of crap either.

Can some of you offer up what you pay and how you got to that price?