Thanks for the input
Whether the “new” vehicle is literally a new vehicle or not is yet to be decided, doesn’t really matter based on the question asked. Our last “new” vehicle was 5 years old.
Depends what you're in the market for, but if you're okay buying a non-luxury vehicle I personally found that a new car isn't a terrible deal. Especially if you're interested in financing it and want the most competitive rate.
If you're set on a luxury brand (lexus, audi, mercedes, bmw, volvo, etc) you definitely pay a huge premium for a brand new car and can find huge savings in buying a slightly used car.
My car was totaled by a drunk driver in November 2018 leaving me having to buy a car in a hurry. I was looking for a mid sized suv and quickly did a ton of research. Looking at non luxury suvs, there just didn't seem to be enough savings buying a 2 to 3 year old suv compared to a brand new car. I ended up buying a brand new 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe with the second highest trim level for $31k after all taxes, title, and other fees. I financed the difference between the cost of the car and my insurance payout for 2.5%. I hated having a car payment, so I went ahead and paid it off a few months later. But in principle it wouldn't have been a bad car payment to have at that interest rate.
Two other things I learned from that experience:
- I aggressively fought back against the initial payout I was offered by the insurance company for my totaled car and got them to improve my payout by nearly $6k. Payout value is supposed to be determined by active listings in your immediate area for the same car at a similar mileage. I was able to find numerous listing that helped significantly improve comps for my totaled car, which ultimately improved my payout.
- For buying the new car, I figured out the exact car, color, and trim level I wanted, and reached out to every hyundai dealer in the greater metroplex through their online sales rep, which was usually an online live chat. I told them what I was looking for, that I was looking at every dealer in DFW, and I wanted their best out the door price they could offer. This usually led to follow up via email which gave me numerous competitive offers in writing. I used these offers to have the most competitive dealers further compete against each other, ultimately trying to get the closest dealer to me to agree to the best offer I was getting. Spoke to the sales rep over the phone making it clear that we were agreeing to the final out the door price and financing, and if anything changed once I got to the dealership I would leave. Got the final agreement in writing via email. Drove to the dealership. Test drove the specific car I was interested in. And was driving off the lot with my new car in under 2 hours. They still tried jerking my chain a few times and attempted to add some additional costs / increase my interest rate on the loan. After threatening to leave a few times, I finally got to what we had agreed to before I arrived. Anyway. Felt this strategy really helped me get an extremely competitive price for the car.