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Originally Posted by hyperyaris
P.S. I used to buy cheap, used, old cars for the only money I had all at once. They would drive for a month or two, then have some major failure that I could not afford to fix. So, I would buy another. I once calculated a monthly payment for a new Toyota with how much I was paying by buying clunkers every few months, and the new car was cheaper. Sorry, but some of us are poor and HAVE to pay on time, or else we could not drive, and therefore could not work, and therefore would starve to death and die.
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And from cfg83:
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I've never bought a car with cash. In my life, I've bought two new cars and one used car, all with 60 month loans. Then I make block payments to pay-off the car early (so the bank gets less total interest, hee hee hee). However, if I were to lose my job, I have a low payment. If I then get a lower paying job, I'm still able to make my payment.
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So far, I've bought only one car on payments. The first car
I bought was an '81 Corolla. I bought it in 2000 for $200 cash. It shook like a wet dog at any speed over 60mph. Over the next year and half, I replaced a starter, alternator and battery, water pump, and head gasket. In each case, I was replacing original parts... not bad for a 20 year old vehicle with around 250,000 miles. Total repairs cost me around $450, doing the work myself (except machining the cylinder head). I then bought my only payment car: an '01 Alero. No major issues, just replaced a battery. I sold it in '04 when I was given a 95 Taurus and thinking about starting a family. Only major repair was a blown transmission ($1,200). Sold it in 06 when I decided I wanted a truck (01 Ford Ranger, wrote a check for $6000). No problems. When gas went through the roof last year, we bought my 01 Corolla (wrote a check for ~$3200). No problems. On the wife's side, in '03, we bought my wife an 01 Ford Explorer (wrote a check for ~$10,000). No problems. If I lost my job or took something lower paying, I don't have any payment to worry about.
Hyperyaris, I'm sorry you've gotten burned, but a cash car doesn't necessarily mean clunker. I got slightly burned on a free-to-me Taurus, but hell, the car was free. And new doesn't mean reliable. Afterall, until recently, 3 year / 36,000 mile warranties were the norm. For total cost of ownership, the Alero was, BY FAR, the most expensive. Buying a car for cash isn't easy, $3 - $10k isn't chump change, but we just do something too few Americans know how to do: SAVE. We make a car payment each and every month to ourselves. My wife plans to keep her explorer a total of seven years, paying herself around $175 each month. We sacrifice a lot of little things so that we get out of debt (only the house left!) and never get into debt again.