What car do you drive?

[Engineer]

People forget about that. OTOH, unless you're talking about a LOT of principal, you're probably only talking about a few hundred bucks over 4-5 years.

and it's now my few hundred bucks! It all counts...which is why I still pick pennies up to this day....even in moving traffic!

 

[Safeway]

I would rather the piece of mind of not having a huge debt over my head than the few dollars my money might be "worth" more in a few years. No matter what, I have to pay that money, so it's not like having it on hand makes any sense vs paying it off, it's money that at some point I need to give out, may as well give it out now and get it over with. Not like I can go buy myself something with it. Well I can... and that's how lot of people end up with debt out the ears.

I would almost always rather have cash on hand and finance a purchase. It is not only the cheaper option, but having cash on hand allows you to jump at opportunities should they present themselves. It eliminates the risk of lost opportunity. Should you want to do something with that cash, you have the option to do so immediately. That cash reserve wouldn't actually be paying the car note, your positive cash flow would be. The cash reserve is liquid opportunity and by wasting it, you're putting yourself at risk. This is why independently wealthy individuals ($100m+) still raise capital for entrepreneurial endeavors, even though they could quickly and easily self-fund. They keep their capital, and shift risk to others.

It's money that at some point I need to give out, may as well give it out now and get it over with.

For a car note over 5 years, you'll effectively may $3,000-5,000 more by paying cash up front versus financing for at or near 0%. Why would you do this? It's indefensible. There are at least defensible arguments for paying cash if it's some ridiculous 8% rate.

 

[brianmanahan]

Someday, we'll all be ballers and drive M3s.

Until that day, 2007 FJ Cruiser and 2008 Honda Fit

i don't think i could do an M3 justice

so i just got a fit as well

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would almost always rather have cash on hand and finance a purchase. It is not only the cheaper option, but having cash on hand allows you to jump at opportunities should they present themselves. .

The "opportunity" was to buy the car (imo not the best investment to make if you have that kind of money on hand, but to each their own). Whether you choose to finance or not, that amount of money is owed to the car in some way or the other. If you jump on an "opportunity" when you already have debt that you could pay off, you're just indebting yourself even more. You'll make the same argument "well I should finance that too so I have the cash on hand!" That's how people get themselves in a huge debt spiral.

IMO in the case of a car, it's not a financially smart decision to buy new period because of how you can get a used one for so much cheaper that will still serve the same purpose, but that's a whole other argument.

 

[Engineer]

IMO in the case of a car, it's not a financially smart decision to buy new period because of how you can get a used one for so much cheaper that will still serve the same purpose, but that's a whole other argument.

If nobody bought new, there would never be used cars for you to buy! You should encourage everyone else to buy new so you'll have an endless supply of cheap, used cars!

 

[Red Squirrel]

If nobody bought new, there would never be used cars for you to buy! You should encourage everyone else to buy new so you'll have an endless supply of cheap, used cars!

Haha that's true.

More people need to buy new Teslas then buy the next model and sell off the old one cheap.

 

[Raduque]

2013 F150 5.0 Super Crew 2wd

 

[Archer27]

As a current mechanic, I feel the used car market will die out. We aren't dealing with 40s-90s cars anymore.
Even early 2000s stuff was fairly cheap and easy to fix and keep on the road.
Coming from someone enrolled in computer engineering this will sound blasphemous, it's the mechanic in me but these newer cars are junk....technologically advanced throwaway junk. The introduction of BCMs, CanBUS, electronic VVT, AFM etc alone will make these cars fail 5-10 years down the line.
Trust me I've seen it.
I have 4 vehicles, including a 90s truck for a daily. The other 3 are many more decades old and still here kicking due to the ease of repair, cheapness of parts and lack of electronics.
It's quite easy to machine a new piston, or a cylinder head etc. Not so much fabricate and program an entire new computer. There are so many little details in car tuning these days and tolerances are so tight that these new cars will not last.

 

[zerokewl3]

i would have to agree. I had a prius that i took to the shop more than my drop top 86 chevy cavalier Z24. Im by no means a mechanic, but i could do most of the repairs on my Z24 by myself.

 

[Archer27]

i would have to agree. I had a prius that i took to the shop more than my drop top 86 chevy cavalier Z24. Im by no means a mechanic, but i could do most of the repairs on my Z24 by myself.

Most cars are designed with dealer only tools in mind now. Most ECM flashes can only be done with multithousand dollar scan tools.
Chevys from the 80s had electronic carbs and TBI but were still old tech underneath, hence why they were easy to work on. If you go further back to what I have, the 70s 60s and 50s, the cars are a cakewalk to work on if you know the lost arts of carb tuning and breaker point ignition.
I've worked at both a dealer and indie shops. I've seen the cheapness...firsthand of new vs old.
I've seen the sub par materials, the difficulty of labor and the problems in newer vehicles working at dealers especially.
I've gauged the thickness of sheetmetal, the purity of the sheetmetal etc. Let me tell you the new metal, although galvanized, is steel that was recycled over and over again and rusts faster.
Those fancy turbochargers and superchargers? Ya....those have been in the performance arena for over half a century. The create more wear and tear on the motor by raising compression and boosting pressure beyond atmospheric.
Intercoolers leak, turbo seals wear out etc. And OEM turbos are not like an aftermarket turbo either. They are often harder to replace due to OEM piping.
Direct injection makes for a more precise, efficient burn, but is more prone to failure and runs at a MUCHHHHH higher pressure than traditional fuel injection(40-60 psi vs 60,000+)
These systems are much more prone to failure from an engineering standpoint.
There was an article, back in 2014 that had Ford claiming that they don't engineer their vehicles to be reliable past 5 years(150,000 miles) anymore(this was on the ecoboost engine in particular) but it is not only Ford that takes this approach. Many other manufacturers consider 5 years end of life for a car now.
Old was made better.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah not a fan of the direction cars are going. They purposely build them to fail and make them so it's not economically feasible to repair. Everything is electronic controlled, they probably even roll their own sillicon or FPGAs etc, so it's not like a repair is as simple as just replacing a resistor somewhere.

Would not really surprise me if lot of these cars have privacy issues too. Everything you do probably goes to a central server somewhere. Especially any cars that have any kind of voice recognition system.

 

[Archer27]

Yeah not a fan of the direction cars are going. They purposely build them to fail and make them so it's not economically feasible to repair. Everything is electronic controlled, they probably even roll their own sillicon or FPGAs etc, so it's not like a repair is as simple as just replacing a resistor somewhere.

Would not really surprise me if lot of these cars have privacy issues too. Everything you do probably goes to a central server somewhere. Especially any cars that have any kind of voice recognition system.

Indeed. Yes the computers are proprietary. It's not like you can put an intel or AMD chip in there....it's a very specialized computer that typically works on EPROM(electronic programmable read only memory). CanBUS makes things even more difficult.
Yes there are privacy issues galore. Onstar was listening in on people as early as 2007. GPS units, now nearly standard, do send information back to a server.
Blackboxes recording exactly how you drive for data collection(since the late 90s in Chevys).
Wireless hotspotting, being prone to hackers because the OEMs dd not take cybersecurity into account....for a car....for a d*** car. Something that is meant to be transportation. If I wanted to play with a computer, I would play with my 5 computers at home.

I'm happy, driving my vintage and antique vehicles around because I know I will have them forever.
Radiator job went swimmingly today in my daily.
One can't argue with a design that only includes unbolting a few bolts and undoing some hoses and flare fittings.
Sure beats quick connect lines, undoing electric fans and wiring and moving a million things out of the way to do what should be, a simple task.

 

[Raduque]

I could probably rip out the EFI and put in a carb, throttle cable, and wire the starter to bypass the ECM and swap to a manual, but likely none of the electronics would work anymore.

My dad is an ASE certified master mechanic (3 years of school) and his shop has most of the tools required to work on late model vehicles though, so I'm not really worried about it much.

Worse comes to worse, I'm sure I can end up with my grandpa's 75 C10 pickup.

 

[Archer27]

I could probably rip out the EFI and put in a carb, throttle cable, and wire the starter to bypass the ECM and swap to a manual, but likely none of the electronics would work anymore.

My dad is an ASE certified master mechanic (3 years of school) and his shop has most of the tools required to work on late model vehicles though, so I'm not really worried about it much.

Worse comes to worse, I'm sure I can end up with my grandpa's 75 C10 pickup.

CanBus makes that impossible now. Fly by wire is integrated into the system.
In fact, the car would likely not start.
I'm familiar with ASE, I'm master certified.
It does depend on the car though, if the car is pre 2005, you have a higher likleyhood of success.

Let me give you an excellent example.

My daily Dodge Ram 1500 97', has old school tech in it. The 318 they have been using since the 50s, a modified 727 torqueflite(46RE) and old school powersteering setup they've used since the 60s.
The engine could easily take a carb, there are very few sensors(not even a knock sensor) I would just have to change out the distributor to a breaker point type and I could swap in a manual tranny for good measure.
That would work because I don't have any intergrated electronics. Only fuel management and ignition are controlled by the computer.

The biggest thing is cylinder heads. Carbs were meant to have something called a wet intake via the venturi effect. Fuel injection....save for late 60s mechanical fuelies and 80s Chevy TBI, is a dry intake meaning the intake only takes air and the fuel is injected just above the valves in the head itself(ported) or into the cylinder(direct).
My RAM has it's fuel injection ports in the intake...so all I'd have to do it swap the intake. You would likely have to swap cylinder heads, change your intake out etc if even possible on whatever car you have.

 

[zerokewl3]

geeze. seems my computer will last longer than a new car!

 

[TheVrolok]

14 Accord. Have no complaints.

 

[Zorro]

2015 Toyota Camry SE no issues

 

[Raduque]

CanBus makes that impossible now. Fly by wire is integrated into the system.
In fact, the car would likely not start.
I'm familiar with ASE, I'm master certified.
It does depend on the car though, if the car is pre 2005, you have a higher likleyhood of success.

In case you missed it, I did mention installing a throttle cable (implying all required support brackets, springs, etc) and bypassing the FBW, and wiring the key switch directly to the starter like old-school. Wire fuel pump into a switched hot line. I don't think my truck uses direct injection - it's a 2013, and I think Ford only started using DI in 2015 in the truck engines. Injectors are attached to the intake, IIRC. Don't get me started on the damned transmission, though. Electronically shifted POS. I would kill for a way to swap it for a stick.

I vastly oversimplified it, yes it would take a shit-ton of work, but with enough money anything is possible.

If you go further back to what I have, the 70s 60s and 50s, the cars are a cakewalk to work on if you know the lost arts of carb tuning and breaker point ignition.

I missed this from your other post, but damn do I miss that stuff. Adjusting timing by moving the distributer a touch, changing jets in a carb, tweaking the float arms smidge. Now, to tune thing you can just plug in a computer, as long as somebody reverse engineered the interface and wrote the program that can overwrite the parameters.

I still remember being in high school and having to get out and what the Quadrajunk on my Oldsmobile with a wrench when it wouldn't start. But man when those giant secondaries opened up on the highway...

 

[IronWing]

Not sure how I could be more secure than 5 year - 3% CD's.

Where you getting 3%?

Never thought I'd see the day when 3% looks awesome.

 

[Engineer]

Where you getting 3%?

Never thought I'd see the day when 3% looks awesome.

I locked in 3% CD's for a 5 year term through Penfed about 3 years ago. Have 2 more years on the term.

I wish that I had put all of the money into them instead of laddering into the 2% - 3 year and the 1.3% - 15 month CD's at the time.

I've seen 5 year CD's at 2.25% lately but with rising interest rates, I don't think that's the safest bet. I'll take the 1.5% savings account for now (better than most CD's) and see how it goes.

 

[Mixolydian]

2010 Ford F-150 truck

 

[Cappuccino]

You're wrong.

0% financing costs less, and so does any interest rate that is less than inflation. If inflation is 3% and your interest rate is 2%, it's cheaper to finance at 2% than it is to pay cash.

Assume the following:

• Inflation of 3%
• You have $50,000 cash
• You want to buy a $50,000 vehicle

At 0% interest financing over 60 months, the discounted present value of the payments, factoring in inflation, is substantially LESS than $50,000.
At 3% interest financing over 60 months, the discounted present value of the payments, factoring in inflation, is $50,000.

Think about it this way. If someone asked you in 1950 to pay them $10,000 either immediately or in 2017, which would you pick? $10,000 in 1950 was a substantial amount of money. $10,000 in 2017 is negligible. The same principle applies to shorter durations of time.

I am thinking loaning instead. I think it's cheaper.

 

[FIVR]

2015 Tesla Model S 90D



It's a decent car.

 

[manly]

You think this is a good deal for £24k BMW 1 series?

https://m.imgur.com/1WrTOXh

I don't know what auto financing rates are common in the UK, but that APR is a sick joke.

 

[Cappuccino]

I don't know what auto financing rates are common in the UK, but that APR is a sick joke.

IKR! I'm going to loan instead. It's cheaper me thinks.