Starting to seriously think about a new car

[Tradd]

I bought my 2005 Focus new in February 2005 - 8.5 years. It's got a bit more than 93,400 miles on it. It was paid off in 2009. Starting to have a LOT of issues. I'd probably only get a couple of hundred for my trade-in (I have really gotten my worth out of this car).

I want another Focus. 4 door this time (current one is a 2 door hatchback). I'm looking about $18K for a 2014 Focus SE 4 door. The base model S would do me find, but the dealership doesn't have any and I'd need an automatic transmission, which they don't have as standard equipment.

Just ran my credit score - 727. My only debt is one credit card with $5900 on it ($6K credit limit). Not sure if I could get the special interest rates.

[SteveinMN]

I'd probably have to turn in my SLF membership card :) if I didn't suggest that it might be worth spending some decent coin on keeping your current car on the road. Three or four or even six payments for that new Focus would cover a fair amount of repairs and would be 36 or 40 payments you wouldn't have to make for another car. Plus the higher insurance costs and possibly higher registration/excise taxes.

Assuming that's not the answer, though, ...

Would the car have to be new or would newer do? The current Focus has been available for a couple of years now; it's possible it might be available as a CPO or dealer demo or such; that would save some money.

Do you know anyone who works at (or retired from) Ford? They have a special pricing plan for employees to offer family/friends/neighbors, called the X Plan. A neighbor of mine is retired from Ford and he offered us the X Plan when we had to replace DW's Honda. Very attractive pricing, but the Focus that year was the very old model and the Fiesta couldn't hold everything we needed it to, so we didn't take him up on it.

You might also have some more pull if you financed your current Focus through Ford and paid off that loan reliably and/or if you chose a car off the lot rather than one that has to be ordered/traded for. Lots of options. No pun intended.

[Tradd]

Steve, my dad worked for Ford for 30+ years. Z plan for salaried retirees, but I'm not speaking to the parents, so that option is out.

My current Focus was financed through Ford Credit. In fact, all my cars since 1991 have been through Ford Credit. I would choose a car on the lot. Dealership five minutes from me has exactly what I want. I applied with Ford Credit online and they approved me for $9K more than the Focus price.

Someone else suggested I go through Truecar.com. I did. Never heard of them, but you get some sort of a savings certificate for dealership you want.

[lhamo]

Is the price of a new model really worth the depreciation you will see the minute you drive it off the lot? Can you get a dealer refurbished model, with dealer warranty, that is 2-3 years old for a substantial discount? Given that you still have substantial credit card debt and have been complaining about finances being tight, that is the route I would recommend.

Also, do you have anyone who could teach you how to drive a stick? It isn't that hard -- I learned in an afternoon on a car with a really sticky clutch. Yes, I stalled a few times (most notably one time when I was at the library with my kids, and had a total freakout because I couldn't figure out how to get it started again and we were blocking traffic -- they still kid me about that (I did get it restarted eventually)). But it really opens up your options in terms of available cars, and you tend to get better gas milage with a stick.

If you want to stick with the dealership you have identified, can you see if the can get an S brought in from another dealer? Doesn't hurt to ask.

Good luck making your decision. I'm sure what ever it is it will be the right choice for you.

[Tussiemussies]

Hi Tradd,

I drive a stick, learned in one day although it took me a bit to start off in first gear if was on an incline little or big. Been driving one for over twenty years now and will never go back.....if I am correct aren't cars with manual shift a little cheaper?

[Tradd]

My stop and go commute would be awful with a stick. I'm not even going to consider a stick.

[Tussiemussies]

Well you know what is best for you....

[redfox]

Last year, we bought a 5 year old Yaris, 2 door hatch, awesome mileage. Love that car.

[try2bfrugal]

Steve, my dad worked for Ford for 30+ years. Z plan for salaried retirees, but I'm not speaking to the parents, so that option is out.

My current Focus was financed through Ford Credit. In fact, all my cars since 1991 have been through Ford Credit. I would choose a car on the lot. Dealership five minutes from me has exactly what I want. I applied with Ford Credit online and they approved me for $9K more than the Focus price.

Someone else suggested I go through Truecar.com. I did. Never heard of them, but you get some sort of a savings certificate for dealership you want.

We bought a Ford through truecar.com. They often have pretty good prices without any hassle. I do think the dealer has to pay truecar.com a referral fee, so you might want to shop the dealers first and ask them what their best price would be without going through truecar.com.

Also, they never really have the exact cars you want in stock through truecar with the exact same options, so sometimes the dealers try to wriggle out of the price that way, saying well I have this other car for a different price. So it is best to first find out what local dealers are on truecar with a fake name and throwaway email address, go to the those dealers and write down what cars they have on the lot with the exact options you want. Then go back online to truecar again, enter your real name and email address this time and the car options from the cars you know are sitting on the lot. Then take the truecar price to the dealer and you know that exact car will most likely be still on the lot and available for purchase, and then they are supposed to give you the exact price you were quoted online.

In our experience some dealers will honor the truecar price and some will not. I called truecar to complain about a dealer who wouldn't honor the online price quote, and the person at truecar didn't really seem to care. I thought that was a bit odd, if their only function is to provide price quotes that prove to be meaningless, that isn't much of a business model. But we got a good enough deal on the one car we did buy through truecar that I would check out their prices and see if the dealers will honor them. It is a free service to the consumer so it doesn't cost anything except your time.

[mtnlaurel]

Are you tied to Ford cars?
We needed a large car for hauling and got a Honda Pilot '04 and it now has 168,000 miles on it and NOT a lick of trouble with it... and we are tough on cars - many, many cross country trips, back country roads, etc

I hate to steer you away from an American made car, but we have a Honda SUV & small Acura and we just don't have car issues outside of regular upkeep

The Pilot we bought through a car broker way under new price with maybe 10,000 miles on it
(we contacted him with specs of exactly what we wanted and he was licensed in multiple auctions and found it for us at a flat fee cost)
The Acura I found on Cars.com in a major SE city about 3 hours from where I was living and I worked the deal over the phone on a Friday afternoon at the end of the month, end of the quarter --- the salesperson was happy to get car in my hands with only 2 hours of work from him

Since I have worked in sales off & on throughout my career - do not underestimate timing of when you buy.
If you can get salesperson/dealership at the time that they NEED the numbers to hit goal it's a lot easier to get movement in the price.

[sweetana3]

Ran my Honda Civic 198,000 miles with nary an issue. Great gas mileage. Only reason I got rid of it was a semi tried to crush it. Still they got $500 for it at auction for the nonprofit I donated the remaining metal too. I would still have it now if I could.

I am really appreciative of the safety of Civics also due to two potentially fatal accidents caused by others that hubby walked away from.

Any car dealer should get you whatever you want within a few days. They simply contact their web of dealers and make the arrangements for transport.

I am also really impressed by the service departments at the Honda dealers I have had to use.

[rosarugosa]

I'm going to be faced with a similar situation next year if I can hold out that long with my 1995 Saturn SL1 that I will probably replace with a Ford Fiesta or Focus. While I intellectually can get the argument for recent model year used vs. new because of the instant depreciation, taxes, etc. I do have trouble lightly dismissing those first three stress and trouble free years of ownership. Like would I have skipped my carefree childhood to have more money in my twenties or something? (That might not be the best analogy, it didn't make sense to DH, but it's the best I can do to articulate my line of thought). We obviously keep our cars for a good long time. Buying a car also takes a lot of time and mental energy, so the less often the better as far as we're concerned. And it doesn't seem like used models are that much cheaper than new, at least for the cars I've been looking at.
RF: Did you buy from a dealer or a private party?
ML: Would that good time to buy be at the end of the month?
Tradd: Your car is 10 years younger than mine, so it seems pretty young to me! Have you considered the Fiesta? It seemed to me that both cars are well rated but the Fiesta is quite a bit cheaper. I'm interested in why you prefer the Focus, since I've been vacillating between the two.

[Tradd]

Fiesta: Given my highway driving and that I've come awfully close to being flattened by a semi several times lately (bad driving on semis part), I'll take the slightly bigger Focus.

American vs. foreign-owned company: I'm a Ford baby. Dad worked at Ford (white collar) for 30+ years. Grew up driving Fords. I've only bought Fords. They've served me well. The only real lemon was the 1981 Fairmont I learned to drive on. ;) I grew up in the Detroit area. I remember the late 70s very well when non-Fords were getting vandalized in a local Ford plant's employee parking lot. You didn't even THINK about driving a foreign-owned company's car. Period. I don't care if the car is made in the US, it's still made by a foreign-owned company. Ford also didn't take any of the gov't bailout money. I buy Fords. Non-negotiable.

I picked some heads of guys on another forum I belong to. I already know current car needs motor mounts, tires, alignment, rear brakes. I'm going to take car to the well-recommended (by multiple coworkers and a customer) shop by work I've gone to before (front brakes over the summer), and get an estimate. We'll go from there.

[Yossarian]

There is more to owning a car than dollars. Time, safety and security have value too.

Does the Focus come in standard option packages? For example, when we bought our van the Honda basically came in basic flavors, LX, EX, etc and the options were bundled into that choice of trim level. Toyota had similar trim levels, but the levels were just a start and you still had to navigate multiple options at a given trim level. That made shopping on line for the Honda much easier, you could email X number of dealers and say "I want a Odyssey EX with Nav, what's your price?" And then you could even reverse auction the high bidders "Sorry, your price is too high, I can get one for xx,xxx, can you beat that?" Hard to do in the old days, very easy in the internet age and no need for a buying service. But this is easier to do when the options are simple.

[iris lilies]

... Ford also didn't take any of the gov't bailout money. I buy Fords. Non-negotiable.



yeah, baby! In 2009 when the other car company was sucking up Obama money, we bought 2 new Ford/Mercury products. DH always buys Mercury anyway and I am not brand loyal, but that year I didn't want anything to do with General Motors.

Buying new isn't always our thing but at this stage in life our time means more than money and we didn't want to devote time to run around looking for appropriate used vehicles. Also, because of the Obama money going out to buy up used vehicles (further giving his buddies at GM a shot in the arm) there were fewer choices.

And shockingly, we didn't even shop around. This goes back to bae's question about buying local, sort of. We have a long term friend who sells cars, he's been doing it for 40 years. We just go to him to support him and also because he gives great service. While I'm sure it's more expensive than if we bargained among dealers, we like supporting him and the service he gives. He came to my place of work multiple times, delivering to me paperwork that needed my signature.

[lac]

Pushing 215,000 on my Honda. Plan to run it until it can't run anymore. Love keeping it simple and saving money!

[SteveinMN]

While I intellectually can get the argument for recent model year used vs. new because of the instant depreciation, taxes, etc. I do have trouble lightly dismissing those first three stress and trouble free years of ownership.
We tend to keep cars until they drop. The car I had before this was traded in after 3-1/2 years because I really wanted a wagon (unavailable when I bought the previous car) and I had money and got the deal I wanted. That's the only car I didn't keep until it was beyond economic repair. Otherwise we take care of them and drive the wheels off. DW's Kia was a floor model, so we got a deal on that one. My current car was brand-new off the transporter (but see below) but the previous one was a dealer demo they were looking to unload before it hit 10,000 miles. It's a good way of getting some $$ off what is still essentially a brand-new car.


And it doesn't seem like used models are that much cheaper than new, at least for the cars I've been looking at.
Popular models are holding their value surprisingly well. I think automakers are realizing that the old charge-a-high-price-and-then-put-rebates-on-the-hood price model didn't work well for them, so they're keeping prices more reasonable. Add in the large number of cars which have been damaged by floods and severe storms in the last couple of years and there is one more argument for buying a car you know has not been flooded, especially if the price difference is not great. At an average sale price of around $30,000 these days, though, it doesn't take much of a discount to turn into "real money".


ML: Would that good time to buy be at the end of the month?
End of the month is good. Major holidays are good. End of year is great. December and January are great times to buy since most people are busy and/or tapped out from holiday spending. I got my current car by dealing with the Internet sales rep at a dealership that was vying with another one in town for the most sales for the year. The rep misunderstood what I wanted and quoted me for the non-diesel version of my car. We haggled over the trade-in, but I knew what they would be able to sell it for, so I did alright there. By the time everything was straightened out, it was New Year's Eve and they needed the sale so they honored their mistake. So I bought the car.

[rosarugosa]

Thanks Steve. I always respect your opinions, and I appreciate your input. Could certainly be a different way to spend NY's Eve . . .
I plan to pay cash for my next car, but I'm dragging my heels because if I bought a new car right now I wouldn't feel like I had enough of a cash cushion. I was thinking about next August (because August is when I bought my current 18 year old car, not for any really objective reason - although almost another year to boost my savings).

[SteveinMN]

Could certainly be a different way to spend NY's Eve . . .
Thanks for the kind words, rosa!

One car my ex and I bought was purchased late in the afternoon that the Minnesota Gophers were playing in the Sweet 16 for the first time in years. I don't give a fig for basketball, so I pretended not to notice as the salesguys got fidgety about closing up all the paperwork so they could get out and watch the game. We dawdled long enough that they eventually handed us off to the guy who owned the dealership. We didn't get everything we wanted, but we got pretty close to it. So often the deck is stacked against the buyer; it was nice to have a wedge for a change.

[Spartana]

Check out Hertz car sale website. They sell newer (2012 and 2013) low mileage (many under 20k miles) used cars - including the Focus - for alot less then a dealer or even a private party. And tthey usually come fully loaded too. I looked at their site earlier and they have a lot of selection of all sorts of vehicles at really reasonable prices. They come with the original factory warranty too.
WWW.hertzcarsales.com
Other car rental places also sell their cars but Hertz seems to have the best deals. I'm planning to buy one from them soon.

[Tradd]

Well, no new car! Left car at mechanic today while I was at work.

$1130.49 will take care of everything:

Motor mounts and passenger side rear wheel bearing most urgent. About $450 will cover those. That's very good, since I've got $500 to spend on repairs now.

The rest is a full new set of tires, plus front sway bars.

Motor mounts and wheel bearing will be done on Thursday.

The rest will be done mid-Nov. Shop owner forgot to quote me on the rear brakes, but those aren't terribly urgent and need more of a "touch up," as I was told when my front brakes were done in July ($300, rear would be the same).

So, no new car!

[rosarugosa]

Tradd: Good for you; it's always nice if you postpone that big purchase!
Spartana: Thanks for the Hertz link. That looks like it has potential!

[SteveinMN]

Well, no new car! Left car at mechanic today while I was at work.

$1130.49 will take care of everything
That’s maybe three or four car payments for that new Focus you were looking at and should be good for tens of thousands more miles. Sounds like a good deal to me!

[lhamo]

Well done, Tradd. Now you can focus on saving up for when you do need to replace the car eventually. Even if you do decide to finance it, a good downpayment wouldn't be bad to have.

lhamo

[JaneV2.0]

Check out Hertz car sale website. They sell newer (2012 and 2013) low mileage (many under 20k miles) used cars - including the Focus - for alot less then a dealer or even a private party. And tthey usually come fully loaded too. I looked at their site earlier and they have a lot of selection of all sorts of vehicles at really reasonable prices. They come with the original factory warranty too.
WWW.hertzcarsales.com
Other car rental places also sell their cars but Hertz seems to have the best deals. I'm planning to buy one from them soon.

I bought my car from Enterprise. I was happy with the hassle-free experience and fair price.