Used Cars

Andy W — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:18:00 GMT

I’ve never bought a new car. Would I like to? Sure, who wouldn’t! Will I? Probably never. Just more proof that I’m a tightwad? Maybe.

Earlier this year I bought a “new” van for the family. As mentioned before I have five kids, and the choices are pretty limited. The kid hauler for the past five years had been a 1997 Mazda MPV. We bought it with less than 70,000 miles on the clock. I really liked it too. It was just a bit ahead of it’s time – a cross between a minivan and a SUV and seating for seven (more on that later). It had true 4WD with a selectable-locking transfer case, not that AWD crap that today’s grocery getters have. On the way back from Florida we took a side trip through the Appalachians and we “off-roaded” the family truckster on Forest Service roads! The boys and I would go “camping” with the Boy Scouts with not much more than a sleeping bag. You see, the seats folded out into little beds, just perfect for a late-arriving Assistance Scoutmaster, who had to pick up the little guys on the way out to the campsite after staying late at work.

Well, that was two kids and 70,000 miles ago. And the darn thing started making a horrendous clanking noise. “Hello AmVets? Thursday? Great!”

Now the hard part… what to get?

You see, Indiana has this stupid child safety seat law. Just kidding! I took physics, and trust me – no kids are going around without being properly restrained. But really, the child safety seat law said that children under 8 years old or under 80 pounds must be in a booster seat. Well the oldest was 9 and skinny as a rail.

I bet you can guess how many cars can fit three child seats across the rear bench. That’s right, NONE!

Mini-vans? Nope. Full size vans yes, if you really want to, but who wants to suck all that gas, I thought.

Fortunately there was a “loophole” in the law – vehicles equipped with a center lap belt (with no shoulder belt) could be used without a booster if the outboard positions are filled with other child seats (or “normal” sized passengers).

Guess what? Catch 22. It seems that all of the new mini-vans have shoulder belts in the center position (and even if it doesn’t fit the law requires that a booster be used). BTW, they must have changed the law again this year because the 80 pound rule is no longer on the books. (Yes, I actually go too www.in.gov and read the laws.)

But I was looking for something a little different this time, ‘cuz the little guy rode between two booster seats on the back row of the MPV for about a year. It caused endless torment for the little guy (7 years old) and constant irritation for the two others beside him. Something had to happen. Vacations and road trips with all the soft bags crammed in under their feet and between the seats was true torture for all of them.

I started searching and doing my homework… and lo and behold… Chevy and Pontiac made a minivan for a few years with an option of 3 seats in the middle row (which was substantially wider than the third row bench), and a few of them can seat eight! The dealer down the street from work showed me the first one I had seen. I think this will work, and it’s very nice, but man, this one was pricey! Almost new, but way too many miles. I found another one and it seemed like a decent price, so I went to see it… well, it was beat, and it had been in a crash (crooked fender).

Another week goes by and there are signs of tension are in my wife’s face… she can’t really go anywhere with the MPV like it is… I am tempted to buy something on eBay and fly out to get it. Then Friday night I call my mother.

“Mom, what are you doing tomorrow? You want to drive with me all over creation until I find someone with a van like this?”

(It seems that car salesmen have amnesia when you ask them lots of questions over the phone.)

“Well I need you to drive one of the cars home. OK, I’ll pick you up at 9:00.”

The little guy goes with me to check out things like ingress/egress and bench width from a kid’s perspective.

At about 3:30 in the afternoon we finally find one that looks like it might do the trick: Chevy Venture, seats 8, Warner Bros. Edition (DVD and all). Sheesh! that’s getting up there in miles. $11,999, hmmm. The test drive goes pretty well. After a few hours of what seems like forever, and finding out that the finance guy at the dealership really doesn’t enjoy actual cash all that much, we leave for home.

My wife just about had a cow when I pulled up to the house in my $6,800 out-the-door 2001 Ford E-150 full-size van with 5.4L V8 and Class III tow hitch.

I don’t think she spoke to me at all that weekend.

You see, a couple slots down from the Chevy Venture sat this big Ford van. “Wow, check out all that luggage space!”

“We just got that on trade-in yesterday. We haven’t even had a chance to detail it. I don’t know too much about it. Boss wants $7,900.”

Drove nice. Rear A/C didn’t blow any air. Two tires need to be replaced. Boss didn’t know about the rear air. Cha-ching!

My wife has since decided that I made a good choice, and it sure was helpful during the move. I absolutely love the beast – open the doors, throw it in, close the doors! I had forgotten what it was like to drive a V8, and I haven’t owned a V8 since 1970’s technology. Plus with the money I saved over a new van, I can afford the gas (which is not as bad as I expected). The rear A/C was temporarily fixed with a piece of duct tape. The kids have plenty of room, and there’s room for all of our luggage too. Which is something they forget about when designing mini-vans… I guess they assume you’re going to fly all five kids to your vacation spot this summer. I don’t know how you could afford to though, with those $725-a-month car payments.

Which gets me to my point… I’ll never how-much-a-month a car again. Instead of buying a $35,000 van I’ll buy three $7,000 vans and get the gas for free. And I’m not even counting the interest payments! And insurance! And license plates!

You’ll spend ~$14,000 in interest on that $35,000 car loan over five years. But if I pay cash for a car I can afford now and save $250 a month for five years I’ll have $15,000 in cash the next time I want to buy a car. So instead of paying interest, it’s like getting free cars for the rest of your life… and the only thing you have to do is… not pay interest on the first one!

Want a $30,000 car? Can you afford $500 a month? Then drive a beater for five years and save your cash. But by that time you’ll be thinking, “Do I really need a $30,000 car?” It’s a hard thing to hand someone $30,000.

There’s one thing that I’ve learned in dealing with banks over the years since I’ve graduated high school. They want your cash, they want all of it, and they will do whatever it takes to get all of it. The reason they want your cash is they want you as their *ahem* “customer” for the rest of your life. If you have no cash you may decide to borrow to get the things you want, and if you borrow, they’ve got you.

Another reason to buy used? I’d rather let someone else pay for the first 3-4 years of depreciation for you.

“Aren’t you afraid of breaking down?”

1) I’m a big boy; I can take care of myself.

2) I’m not paying $750 a month so a break down is an inconvenience, not a disaster.

3) I don’t let fear run my life.

4) Keeping your car well-maintained greatly reduces the chances of a break-down.

5) I don’t drive places I’m afraid to be.

What else… I drive them until the wheels fall off. If it hadn’t been for the kids not fitting in the old van, I would have had the engine work done. And even if it had been $2000 or $3000, I still would have come out ahead. Previous to the MPV we had a 1988 Pontiac Bonneville. I sold it for $100 when it had 235,000 miles on it. We got it free with 175,000 miles and the 3.8L V6 ran beautifully for three more years and got 27mpg on the highway. The transmission finally went out.

And I would have fixed it had it been possible to fit three car seats across the back for the child we were expecting.

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Used Cars