Even though I can easily afford to buy new cars, for the cars I drive myself I've always bought them used, so I can appreciate wanting to get a good value. Although some used cars are much better values than others, buying used isn't always the most economically optimal option.My backup car recently died and I'm in the market for a new (for me) vehicle to fill that role. For clarification, I don't buy new cars as I don't think they are worth it. Our primary car is usually something newish used and gets replaced about every ten years or so. Backup cars are kept basic and usually driven until they die or become uneconomical to repair. Currently I have my eye on a 2010 Corolla with 47k original miles and looks in good shape for its age. It's the base model, so no bells or whistles and its an old school five on the floor manual, which I do know how to drive. Corollas from that year have good reliability records. (The 07-09s not so much.) My problem is the dealer is asking $9k for it. Now I'm used to dealers going high in their asking price for cars, but that seems almost unreasonable to me. Not sure it's even worth putting in an offer. My research is telling me that car is probably worth 7ish (mostly due to the low mileage). Am I missing something here?
https://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/ctd/d/ ... 44702.html
Thoughts?
For high demand used cars from Toyota or Honda, I don't see the point in buying those used. Given how little they depreciate one could pick up a new one, drive it for 5-10 years, and I'd bet the total cost of ownership would be lower compared to buying a 15 year old one and keeping it the same length of time. After factoring in maintenance and repairs on top of deprecation.
Now one thing that does seem to be a great value right now are used EVs, have you considered one of those assuming one would work for you? Where I live there are 2015 Nissan Leaf with 50k or so miles advertised for 3-5k. Even a 2018 Gen2 Leafs are only 7-8k. In addition if you meet the criteria there is a 4k fed tax credit for used EVs: https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/ ... cle-credit
Statistics: Posted by flyingcows — Sun Jan 26, 2025 9:02 pm — Replies 29 — Views 1532