Islander’s Analog life….

Never ever buy a brand new car again!

Why?  the minute you drive that new car off the dealer’s parking lot, the car has lost value.  A car can loose up to 25% of its value the first year. Then the percentage of devaluation slows down even-thought it continues at a much slower pace.  The second year you own a car, it will loose up to 15% of its value and so on.

The worst years (the biggest drop in value) are usually the first 2 or 3 years.  So get a new car which is used (low mileage and in excellent condition)

Lets do the math, if you buy a car which is 2  or 3 years old, you could save anywhere from 25% to 40% of the retail value.  Lets say that a brand new car would you $20,000.00 if you wait to buy this same car 2 years, you could save anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 and buy the same car for about $12,000 to $15,000

In other words, let someone else pay for the devaluation of that car and then you buy it when it has lost most of its value and the rate of devaluation is smallest.

I did purchased a 2 year old car with 15K miles, it still smell new and there was nothing wrong with it.  I actually saved about 10% due that this car was in high demand and it was fully loaded (leather seats, moon roof, etc)  I found my car on eBay Motors.

For piece of mind,  make sure you get an extended warranty through your bank (not through the car dealer).  The warranties offered by banks, are exceptionally good, they will set you back about $1000 to $2000 and you can have that money roll into the car loan.  Theses warranties can last up to 6 years or 100K miles and pretty much cover everything.  Mine paid for itself the first time I visited the dealer, I had a problem with the outside mirrors and the dealers suggested replacing them.  They did, and it cost me about $900 to have the 2 mirrors replaced.  I felt like I was robbing a bank!

Got new tires? Be careful you don’t get a tire that is over 6 years old.  It happen to me at a nationwide franchise.  I got a set of 4 tires.  2 were brand new and the other 2 were over 5 years old!!

A TV show called 20/20 (abc news) was airing a story called: AGED TIRES: A HIDDEN DANGER ON THE ROAD? about people having horrible car accidents due to their tires falling apart or blowing up.

These people were wondering how this was possible due that their tires were new. The deal was that the tires “look” new, they were bought recently, but they were manufactured years and years ago.  My understanding is that if a tire has been manufactured over 6 years ago, it should not be sold because it is dangerous. In the US the rubber manufacturing association opposed any sort of regulation being pass by congress on the subject.  But according to 20/20 in Europe there is a regulation that forbids or warns the customer that he/she is getting OLD tires.

How to read the tire manufactured date?

Look for the letters “DOT”, then look for a number series at the end .  The first 2 digits indicate the week of the year the tired was manufactured and the last 2 digits indicate the year.

If you look at the picture, you can see that this tire was manufactured the 27th week of 2007