Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com - View Single Post - Efficient, cheap beaters! Used car ads: 35 mpg highway or more for $1500 or less

bobdbilder · 03-01-2015, 02:02 AM

I live in South East Asia and know that the prices that the North Americans get for these cars are the lowest that I have seen. Especially for a Toyota. Where I come from Toyotas has the lowest depreciating costs. An Echo has probably same specs as the Thailand assembled Vios.

A 12 year old model 1.5 Automatic costs approx USD6k. Very few can afford to pay cash at this price. Therefore you need to take a loan. Here is the catch; the prices of cars are actually dictated by the banks and insurance companies whose interest (no pun intended) are to keep these prices as high as possible. In Singapore, any car more than 10 years old have to pay extra taxes. The loans that we take are normally have terms of 3, 5, 7 and max 9 years. If you take all these into account and knowing that wee don't make as much money as you do, it is not as 'Economical' as you might think.

The closest you could get to is a local assembled 2004 Daihatsu 660c manual Kei car model for USD 1.5k payeable only in cash. Which is only economic driven in the city, albeit a bit unsafe.

So you guys are really lucky to get those prices; if only the majority of people knew.

03-01-2015, 02:02 AM	#206 (permalink)
bobdbilder EcoModding Lurker Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Malaysia Posts: 83 Knight - '03 Proton Waja 90 day: 37.15 mpg (US) Whoopee - '01 Proton Wira 1.3 Aeroback 90 day: 38.69 mpg (US) Thanks: 19 Thanked 29 Times in 21 Posts	I live in South East Asia and know that the prices that the North Americans get for these cars are the lowest that I have seen. Especially for a Toyota. Where I come from Toyotas has the lowest depreciating costs. An Echo has probably same specs as the Thailand assembled Vios. A 12 year old model 1.5 Automatic costs approx USD6k. Very few can afford to pay cash at this price. Therefore you need to take a loan. Here is the catch; the prices of cars are actually dictated by the banks and insurance companies whose interest (no pun intended) are to keep these prices as high as possible. In Singapore, any car more than 10 years old have to pay extra taxes. The loans that we take are normally have terms of 3, 5, 7 and max 9 years. If you take all these into account and knowing that wee don't make as much money as you do, it is not as 'Economical' as you might think. The closest you could get to is a local assembled 2004 Daihatsu 660c manual Kei car model for USD 1.5k payeable only in cash. Which is only economic driven in the city, albeit a bit unsafe. So you guys are really lucky to get those prices; if only the majority of people knew.