Dealers are starting to refuse certain vehicles as trade ins.

..what are you doing to create such a hostile reaction to yourself in your workplaces?...

 

I have paid cash for new cars and have financed. However the financing was always a highly discounted rate from Toyota Financial available with excellent credit and with relatively short terms of 36-48 months.

They were zero percent or 2.99% loans which represented a 4-5% discount over bank or credit union rates. No down payment required but I usually put down the value of my private sale old car.

Pay on time to avoid fees and cds easily made money on the cash that would have been used at the dealer.

 

I got 7k for my 2012 with bad egr/headgasket? caravan offered 8 on the net, but I doubt they would have paid that if they drove it

 

Paying cash for a new car is the only way to do it if you can afford the depreciation or can turn it into a tax right off. But as always, there's different types of car owners. The bad drivers who carry multiple loans on previous and existing vehicles are the dumbest.

On the other side of it my dad helped me buy my 2007 Prius in 2012 and here I am 14 years later and car is still failrly clean and shiny and well maintained at 304K miles despite it being my daily driver for 14 years. And if you have a car care ethic like that sometimes in rare cases the car can fully hold its value.

For example my dad bought a Mercedes convertible in 1970 for $13K. and he sold it a dozen years later for same amount he paid for it. Of course for him to do that while raising 3 kids made him very unpleasent if we were near his car and not being careful. He was so fricking paranoid of damaging his car and when I was older I helped him clean it nearly every weekend. All of this was annoying as a kid. But now than I'm older I'm grateful for the car care discipline he taught me!

 

I can't find the part where he called a car an investment.

 

My dad worked hard to have me understand that 'dumb' and 'undereducated' can look a lot alike and be hard to tell apart. There are people who haven't been exposed to finance principles as effectively as you have, or even who wouldn't have had the time for you to explain it to them while they hustled to make ends meet, and who are paying on those rolled-over loans quite simply because something happened to the previous car and they needed the replacement to keep getting to work 'cause that's where the payments come from and they weren't in a position to do the 'smarter' thing.

 

my dad spent his weekends under the car

 

my dad spent weekends sending me under the car

not every weekend though

 

my dad was an airplane mech in ww2. he built a pit in our garage to work under the car. I wasn't supposed to use it

 

Don't turn this into a being mean to poor people problem!

To clarify I was specifically refering to all the useless idiots that refuse to even once clean their car, let alone find an affordable way to fix little things when they break so their car lasts a long time. I was also referring to all the useless idiots who have no idea what defensive driving is and are constanly wrecking there cars and never getting ahead in life because their incompetence with cars keeps their bank account empty or even negative.

It's beyond an education problems with these folks. It's more like I'm not going to wear a mask in a hospital when I visit my loved one dying of covid in the hospital kind of stupid and that kind of stupid is magnet to corrupt agendas, especially when it comes to the agenda of capitalism!

 

Paying cash is not always the most financially beneficial method as I pointed out in post 23.

Not everyone understands the math but smart people who recognize opportunity can gain income by paying car interest. Without having a tax write off.

There are other examples including buying phones on credit with no interest or using a cash back credit card when you pay off your balance every month.

On the other hand there are a few cases where cash is king such as restaurants with 3% cash discounts and person to person transactions.

 

I didn't think I was the one turning it into that, and after reading this response, I still don't.

 

A used car purchase is mostly a wiser financial choice; the previous owners' abuse and warranty issues is the blind spot here. You can get the TCO way down by mostly sidestepping the depreciation aspects; but again taking the chances the car wasn't abused and taken care of properly (hidden mechanical issues). For someone that doesn't wrench or know how things are suppose to work; they become a big fat payday for unscrupulous repair shops.

YMMV

 

Used from private party, not dealers

 

Private parties can be as bad and/or worse than a dealership. At least you KNOW where the dealership is if and when problems arise.

Had this kid that bought a low mileage Prius a few years ago from a private party asking why his speedometer wasn't working. Told him to pull the Carfax; it's actual mileage was more than double. Speedometer wasn't moving forward because they electronically rolled it back and busted it.
If you don't know cars; take it to a recommended mechanic for a full inspection - BEFORE buying it. That usually cost a hundred to two hundred bucks; but it's better than being out a multiple of thousands of dollars. A Carfax is cheaper , but data is ONLY logged if there is an insurance payout or the repair shop's computer is hooked to an insurance DB. Most dealerships and high volume repair shops are setup that way - Mom&Pop shops aren't usually set-up. That doesn't mean that they don't do good work. Any independent repair shop that can survive a decade or more; does halfway decent work - otherwise they wouldn't get repeat customers.

YMMV

 

You’ll pay more for that dealership experience, and non Toyota dealers won’t stand behind the product.
It’s all a crapshoot