Been fairly interested in trading in my 4Runner for a while now and seeing some Palisade Calligraphy trims sitting on the lots in my area. Early last year I spent $500 to replace the actuator in my driver door (power lock stopped working) and now that same part is out on the passenger door. Also dealing with a tire pressure sensor that won’t turn off on my dash due to my spare getting stolen, at least that is what I believe happened as I would’ve noticed if it randomly fell off somehow, and I haven’t replaced that yet either. So my question is, would you disclose those things to the dealer when they’re assessing the trade, or keep quiet and see if they find it?
Looking for a used car that can balance family and commuting needs. One kid on the way and hoping for more. I drive 40ish highway miles to work one way 2-3 times per week. $35k OTD is ideal but I have wiggle room. Would prefer something that is enjoyable to drive and not a boring appliance (Toyota). Not ready for a van yet. I’ve been looking at mid-sized CPO SUVs that are around 3 years old. This might also be the use case for a wagon. I’ve never driven one but love how they look. My wife would prefer something that sits higher. Maybe a Cross Country Volvo wagon could split the difference. Any suggestions? Started researching this week and feel like I’m lost in the sauce. I’ve been looking at XC60, XC90, v60 CC, MDX, Lexus RX, CX-5, CX-9, Pilot. Thanks.
I think my 2012 G37 with 180k miles is about to need some work. It’s probably worth $5k or less, so I hate putting too much into it but goddamn cars are expensive and car payments suuuuuuck.
Can you find the CX-5 with the bigger engine for that price? https://www.caranddriver.com/mazda/cx-5-2021
# of kids/ages will matter, but I cannot recommend the Pilot or it's siblings (CRV and lastly Passport) enough. I pretty much have only ever owned a full size SUV (Tahoes) but if I wasn't in that category, I'd get a Pilot.
cx-5 is a little small for a family. my wife has one and now that we have two kids it’s very tight in there
Jetta Sportwagon is great, but back seat is small. Wagons are slim pickins these days, but the V60 and V90 are both really nice. I hear different things about the powertrain...some think it's trash, others now. IDK. We had a Benz wagon for five years and that thing was great, but service was expensive. On the other hand, it was about 10 years old and had a lot of miles. If you look around, you can easily get one that's $30k or so with 50-75k miles. They're fantastic cars. Fair amount of room and awesome for your 40mi drive.
Wife is between an Audi Q5 Sportback and a Genesis GV70 3.5T. Anyone have any opinions? I don’t know shit about shit.
Sheesh. My 2014 Infiniti just hit 70k miles. However, I go into work 4x a week now and it’s 30 miles round trip, so I’ll be wracking them up.
There are a lot of used EVs in that price range. Somebody else takes the depreciation hit and you get a great car. Any more than two kids in the future and you just need to get a Sienna or Odyssey
Showing my bias here but I would be all over a very late model Subaru Outback LTD, or possibly even Outback Wilderness, at that price point. Super reliable and not boring at all. Once you are man enough to get over the “scissor me” jokes you will find yourself in one of the most capable cars out there with very high safety ratings.
Love my Outback and old enough to not give a shit what others may think of it. The utility I get out of it is great without it being a land barge to drive and park.
This is the answer. Outback is the mass market wagon version of the Volvo; if you want some more luxury, then warranty up a CPO Volvo, but the Outback will do everything you need - but cross shop it with some 4Runners. The 4Runner's rear roll down window will forever hold a special place in my heart.
I'm still bitter there's not a Legacy wagon, and you've got to buy the Outback with the lift and the shitty plastic. This thing is one of the GOAT wagons.
FUCK. I don't know shit about cars so I'm definitely getting fleeced by the dealership, but the quote is for $4,600. That's the whole car's value. I was definitely not trying to put thousands down on a new car and have a payment. FUCK
Putting money down on a car is a fools errand. My son is about to turn 16 in April, so I've been paying attention to the ads and such. Lease ads are such a crock of shit. Dealership near me advertising a GMC Sierra for $180/mo with tax, title, license and first months payment due at signing. I email a salesman and get quoted $590/mo. I wasn't expecting to actually get it for 180, but 3x the price is ridiculous.
It's a depreciating asset. Your money would be better spent investing or even literally just keeping it in savings. Putting money down on a car just reduces the monthly payment, and if you can't afford the monthly payment without putting a lump sum down, then find a cheaper car.
I leave all my financial decisions to One Two but he told me that putting money down on a car impacts the principal amount being financed so it would reduce the overall amount I’d be paying in interest on a depreciating asset for the course of the loan assuming you aren’t making more in a savings or investment account over the APR on the loan.
If buying a new car Lexus takes great care of you. Had a few small issues with my wife’s GX and they went above and beyond.
Finagling with trying to beat apr with investment gains reminds me of the Mets Bobby Bonilla disaster. The Mets deliberately deferred payments for Bobby Bonilla for 30 years because they calculated the gains from the lump sum invested would pay off the deferred payments… they calculated based on an an extremely high expected return on investment due to their prior success with their investment manager, Bernie Madoff.
Unless your credit is complete dog shit, using some quick round numbers, the difference in interest paid at current market rate (I used 6%) for a $40k loan vs. a $30k loan is roughly $1,600 for a 60 mo. loan. An index fund will grow at roughly 10%/year over that same 5 years, would grow by $6,000 over the same 60 mos.
10% a year growth from an etf is very ambitious especially seeing as trump is about to drive us off of a cliff
the no down payment thing made way more sense when interest rates were 3% now its not straight forward at all
We bought a barely used q5 about 2 years ago. I really like the car, drives fun, much better than our 2013 Lexus RX350. It is a little smaller, but mostly big enough. Hasn't had any issues yet, my only concern with a German car vs Japanese. Sportbacks are nice but wasn't worth the added price for essentially nothing more than a smaller rear space
Thanks. We’re upcoming empty nesters and have very little we haul. The sportback is purely for the look she likes. We actually went ahead and found one coming in April so we went that way. Appreciate you saying soemthing
I love it. Super quick, big enough for small kids in the backseat, and fun to drive albeit heavier than a comparable ICE option. The only issue I've had in about 10 months is the infotainment system rebooting while driving 2-3 times. The EV factor is very situation dependent. 95% of my use case is commuting and driving around town, ~40 miles a day on average. I have easy charging at home and a charging station (free for me) about a mile from my house. If I was driving longer distances and/or didn't have convenient charging options, the charging side would be a much bigger adjustment than it has been for me.
Cool. My wife has a cayenne diesel for longer trips if we need to and we have an electrify America station about a mile away at a Kroger. I think it’s a pretty good situation for an ev. I’ll probably do the e40 and used prices are really good right now for evs