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Selecting and Buying My First Car

772 messages,  Last post on Sep 05, 2011 at 4:40 AM

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Messages Page 78 of 78

#764 of 772 Re: Anyone ever used adaptive cruise control? [mortal1] by ateixeira

Aug 17, 2009 (1:29 pm)

Replying to: mortal1 (Aug 13, 2009 8:15 pm)
Toyota Siennas also have that option.

#765 of 772 help purchasing my first used car by avtherav

Jul 20, 2010 (3:25 pm)

I am close to purchasing a vehicle for the first time in several years, and for the first time I am choosing to get something nicer used over a more basic new model.
the cars i am looking at are the volvo s60 and the infiniti g35x.
my question is (aside from any advice about these specific models): when faced with a newer car that has more miles or an older one that has fewer which is generally the better bet? to give an example of some cars i am looking at, i could get an 07 infiniti with 63000 or an 06 with 45000 for about the same amount.
for that matter there is the possibility of an 07 volvo with 35000 miles vs. an 08 with 45000

#766 of 772 Re: help purchasing my first used car [avtherav] by qbrozen

Jul 20, 2010 (6:22 pm)

Replying to: avtherav (Jul 20, 2010 3:25 pm)
For the most part, it depends on how much you drive.
 
For example, I drive quite a bit. When putting 20k per year on my cars, I like to get one with as few as possible because it will "even out" at some point. If I buy a 4-year-old car with 30k, it has only seen 7500/year. If I own it for 3 years and put 20k/yr on, it will have 90k and be 7 years old, making the average nearly 13k/yr, which is much more in line with typical used cars. Conversely, I don't want to buy a car with 63k if it will have 120k in just 3 years.
 
On the other hand, you don't want a car TOO old just because it has low miles. One that has only seen 5k per year for 5 years, for instance, may have been neglected and many components are ready to fail, regardless of the low miles.
 
Of those examples you listed, I'd go with the '06 Infiniti (nearly 20k less miles and the last year of the first generation, so less "buggy"), but the '08 Volvo (only 10k more miles for a year younger is a good trade off).

#767 of 772 Re: help purchasing my first used car [avtherav] by ateixeira

Jul 23, 2010 (8:34 am)

Replying to: avtherav (Jul 20, 2010 3:25 pm)
I had luck with a very low mile 8 year old car. It had just 26k.
 
My brother-in-law buys newer cars with 200k miles on them, I think he's nuts. Things break all the time. Not my cup of tea.

#768 of 772 Buying your first car by carpedrewum

Sep 05, 2011 (4:40 am)

Its all good and advisable to ask on a forum like this but a bit of your own research is good. Go online, use car sites that allow you to type in certain search queries like "model" "year" "price" "auto/manual" and so on. An added bonus is that you can come up with a good list from which to choose, you may find cars that you didn't think of, you know exactly where and how to find your seller should things go wrong, and even though you might not find exactly what you want you will get a good deal out of it.
I used a site in South Africa, I looked for and it went pretty darn smooth, relative to what I expected. The only thing is I wish their search was slightly more intuitive but I made that suggestion and hopefully they listen.

Messages Page 78 of 78

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