Remember the first used car you bought?
I do.
$500 and a case of beer were enough to get my hands on an old Honda Civic a friend in Springfield, Missouri was selling.
Was it a beauty? No.
Was the price right? You bet.
Most of people bought their first used car by scraping together some cash and buying whatever they could afford.
While that's still the case for millions of people, a new study says millions others cannot afford to buy the average used vehicle in their city.
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4 comments:
No mention in the article about repair costs.I have bought many used cars with and without using Carfax.Each car had major problems within the first 2 years that I owned them,and I only put 7 or 8,000 miles per year on a vehicle.Repair costs are a big deal.
I am one of those. I can only afford to keep one car payment. I haven't bought a new car since 2003. I've notice used car prices are now as much as what I used to pay for a new car. Totally affordable unless you finance it for 5 years or more.
The prices of used cars are artificially inflated, much higher than they should be. The reason? CashFor Clunkers took a lot of them off the market.
Don't forget...all the required junk on new cars inflates their cost. This drives more demand and higher prices for the alternative - used cars.
At least cars continue to be made better than in years past. I'm up to 250k miles on my car. Wife is around 130k. Both get oil changes every 10k - 12k miles, as recommended by the manufacturer. Try that with an old Pinto.
A 60 month loan on a used car might be OK if it's 1-2 years old. But on a 5-6 year old car? No way!
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