Since the vast majority of people finance, it isn't just saving $1,000 up front, but compounding interest. Google says that a manual Fit is $16,190. Experian says
"The average auto loan interest rate in the last quarter of 2019 was 5.76% for a new car," and BankRate says a 60-month loan would have $2,482 in interest.
Okay, Google is giving me different information than you guys. Adjust accordingly. It says $20,000 for an LX sedan with a manual transmission. Both of these were the cheapest options. Just changing the purchase price, BankRate says that would accrue $3,066 in interest.
I think that is correct. I needed to calculate it multiple times. I would change the price for the Civic and the payment and interest would go down. Random other things would change.
$584 is less than I expected and a $3,810 was more than I anticipated, so if the difference were $1,000 there would be an additional $153.28 in interest.
"Why didn't you pay $1,000 more for the Civic?"
"It would have cost $1,153.28 more with interest!"
"Yes, but our elbows are touching!"