New car...what to get?

[Steve Carlton]

Originally posted by kaisen
There is no way I would suggest buying a new car in your situation. I'd go a couple years old, at least. You could do as Steve mentioned, which is good advice. But I would NOT pay the premium for low miles, in fact, I'd buy one with higher miles.....

The supply of four year old Porsches is also greater. They're just getting off lease, and they're just getting out of warranty. Cheapest purchase point?

If it's a Porsche, then the hit for miles is a STEEP curve. The spread between one with 10K and 80K can be $10000 plus on a 4 year old car. I can fix a lot for $10K, or better yet, buy one hell of an extended warranty and have $$ for repairs....

Sorry kaisen, but I disagree with a lot of this. Example:

Go to Kelly Blue Book Used Car Values and book out a 2000 Boxster S with 20K miles for trade-in value (use good condition), then again with 60K miles. The difference is only $2,400, money well spent IMO.

Then book it out with 100K miles. As kaisen says, it's a STEEP curve. The difference is $6,000 from 60K to 100K!

Buy the low miles "cheap," put on the "normal" miles that should have been there, then sell it without the high miles that impact the value so severely. Plus, you'll be driving a mechanically younger car that won't have the problems you're now suffering with your cab. Starting with a high miler would be okay for a guy who drives very little. For you, it'll be a disaster.

Booking out a car this way will generally give you a good prediction of a car's true trade-in value. In my experience, it's been amazingly accurate. A market value would probably be $2-3K above the trade-in value, but this is all relative.

High mileage cars are hard to sell for a good price. Not as many buyers. And you're going to get a crappy warranty on a high mileage car. Spend the money on the car instead. That's the truth...