Quote:
Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
Let's hope car prices go back down some day soon. Like I've said before, there are countries who have been in this type of economic situation with used car prices for decades. (In Mexico every car that was 200,000 pesos new was 200,000 pesos 5 years used regardless of where I looked, private or through a dealer. The same with 300,000 pesos, 400,000 pesos, etc. And this was long before COVID.) In the USA we've been spoiled with being able to purchase used cars that are only a few years old for a fraction of the price of a new one. Everyone keeps saying "in a year things will go back to normal" but I'll believe it when I see it.
I just tried searching for "certified preowned" vehicles on Autotrader within a 200 mile radius.
The first two cheapest results are a 2014 Ford Focus ($9,991) and a 2018 Ford Fiesta ($14,000) but with a 90 day, 4,000 mile warranty.
Then there's a 2016 Nissan Leaf for $14,000 with a 6 month, 6,000 mile warranty.
After a few more similar Fords there's a 2018 Hyndai Accent SE for $16,189, but since it had a 100,000 mile / 10 year warranty to begine with and it only has 29,550 miles on it it has 70,000 miles to go or until 2028, whichever comes first. But from what I can find, that price is about the same, if not more than the original MSRP
How long is a typical certified preowned warranty?
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Wholesale used car prices are rapidly falling - down almost 15% in December year-over-year and that was the 6th straight month of falling prices.
Certified pre-owned warranties vary from brand to brand. In general they aren't worth much because they only cover the first 100K miles or so of a vehicle's life - a period when very few modern vehicles have any major issues.
Generally they are about a year extra bumper to bumper and 2 years for powertrain.
I remember messing with the salesman when we bought our first Prius. I was choosing between almost identical cars - one at the Toyota Dealer and one at an independent dealer that only sold cars that were less than 5 years old. The Toyota salesman was giving me the hard press about how reliable Toyota cars were and how this Prius would go hundreds of thousands of miles without issues. I said great - what is your price because the dealership down the road 3 miles has the same car for $20K. The salesman said they weren't comparable cars because his was certified pre-owned with an extended warranty. To which I replied, "You JUST said this car would go hundreds of thousands of miles without any problems do to Toyota's legendary reliability - why would I pay $2K extra for a car with a warranty I will never use"? He had no reply - just that it was already certified and I had to pay for the warranty if I wanted the car.
I ended up buying from the independent and the car went another 10 years / 125K miles without any major issues. I did the maintenance, replaced tires, the lead-acid starting battery and that was it besides the 3-way valve that cost me less than $100 and 2 hours to fix. I sold it not because of any issues - just because I wanted to try and EV and Chevy was leasing the Spark EV for $99 a month and I had free charging at work.