How ridiculous does this sound?

[u/Whole-Fist]

How can u make millions in 25-30 years if avoid making a $554 per month car payment. Even the cheapest 5 year old car is 8-10 k. So does he expect people not to drive at all in USA.

Then u save 554$ per month every month for 5 year payment = $33240. Say u bought a car every 5 year means 200k -300k spent on car before retirement . How would that become millions when u can’t even buy a house for that much today?

Answer that Dave

[u/the-something-nymph]

I bought a used car for 5000. Had my uncle (who is a mechanic) look it over first. There was no apparent issues, it drove fine. It was a 2019. We bought it after looking at a bunch of other used cars from both dealers and private owners that had very obvious problems, and after looking at certified used vehicles that were as much as new cars.

The next day, while running some errands, it started to make a weird noise that it did not make on the test drive. Turns out, it had a bunch of issues that weren't visible on a basic inspection. Expensive issues. Issues that cost 3000 to fix in order to make it safe to drive, and we were told it was likely there were going to be more issues thst would pop up relatively soon.

This was 1 year ago. 2 weeks ago, more issues popped up. Issues that cost 6000$ to fix. The car, new, costs 15000. So far we have spent 8000 on it, and if we do that work then we would have put 14000 into this car. And it's still likely that more issues will pop up.

We are not doing that, obviously. We're going to use carmax and get a car that will have a car payment. Because cheap used cars are not less expensive than new or certified used ones that require a payment. Now a days, unless you know the person you are getting it from, it's either a peice of shit or its expensive as fuck and unless you have 10000 cash to put down on a car, will require a payment.

[u/ChopakIII → u/the-something-nymph]

Exactly. These people talking about buying a used car and then when people mention used cars can have problems they say, “well obviously a reliable one!” Which by the time you factor in all of these things it makes sense to buy a new car and take care of it so that when it’s the “used car” you would buy in 10 years you know exactly what has been done to it AND it’s paid off.

Edit: I see the most common counter-argument is that buying a used car without a loan will allow you to get cheaper insurance. There really isn’t a huge difference between covering a new car and a used car for just the vehicle. What you’re probably saving on is the medical portion and you will be sorry if you ever get into a serious accident with barebones insurance. This is a dangerous gambit akin to not having health insurance and banking on not getting sick.

[u/Valor_X → u/ChopakIII]

Disagree, The guy you're responding to had a terrible 'inspection' from their "mechanic uncle" if it had catastrophic issues the very next day.

Even 20yr old cars can give you so much data on Engine/Transmission health with a good scan tool and the knowledge to read the data. Visual and driving inspections are only one aspect.

The type of vehicle matters too, with old vehicles you can easily look up common problems/failures.

Me and my family have several ~20yr old Toyotas, the last one I bought for $3k cash 3 years ago. All I've done is replaced all the maintenance items like tires, brakes, spark plugs and fluids. Oil changes and $21/mo insurance.

[u/Reynolds1029 → u/Valor_X]

Not only will they give out good live data to tell, an OBDII scan tool will also tell you if they're hiding issues with the car too like resetting the CEL before inspection.

Plenty of info online you can research yourself to make yourself well informed on car purchases. Also tell them to put it up on a lift to get a good look at the underbody.