Buying used, instead of new for environmental reasons -Pros and Cons ?

[jakobnev]

I plan to just use Uber to travel and not own a car.

You order an Uber and some dude turns up in your car.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by jakobnev

You order an Uber and some dude turns up in your car.

Wouldn't really surprise me if Uber allowed cars more than 10-years old and with only 2 doors

[racprops]

Originally Posted by john991

A used car can take even more money than a new one

Like everything it depends on so many factors:

If you able to buy broken used cars and make the repairs yourself.

IF you can buy a used car for cash and use NO financing, remember financing can double or triple the final cost of anything.

We have three used cars, all fully paid for by cash, all running at this time and one dead 93 Chevy Star Craft custom Van G20 which once repaired will be used for road trips, which it is especially great for. I am investing around $4000.00 into a rebuilt 383 and upgrading the transmission from a 4L60 to a much stronger 4L80 and adding a second overdrive. You cannot but such a van used for less that $10,000.00NEW OMG $40K and up.

Plus it has been farther customized by me to suit our needs and wants.

I cannot see any good reason to spend such money on a New RV that gets used perhaps two to four times a year...

My wife drives a good 2000 Toyota, when we run around town we do so in the 02 Ford Explorer, and when I want to blast around I take the 03 Crown Vic…at this point the most useless but most fun hot rodding in.

Owning used can mean owning a number of cars/trucks for their best use.

THE ONLY good things about buying a new car (IF you’re really lucky and get a GOOD one, a bit of a lotto there…) then for the next upcoming years you know what a fixed cost of owning it in your payments per month. Again this mainly works as long as you do not run into any repairs that come out of your pocket, which should only be maintenance and tires…but even maintaining a new car can be costly for some.

With a used car there is always the risk of a major costly break down…still even an engine can cost much less that the new car especially when financing if figured in.

One of the saddest things is a new car you still owe on, and you lose your job and they reprocess it, so you’re out all those years of payments, out a car which can make finding a new job very hard.

With a good fully paid for used car no one will reprocess it….

On the other hand a financed used car, then this can turn ugly, a broken engine no money to repair it, lost job due to lack of showing up and they reprocess it.

And heaven help you if you buy a lemon, or simply grow to hate the car, I know a number of people that really dug a BIG hole trading in an overpriced slightly used car and allowing them to tack on the unpaid balance onto the new car…

So it all depends on your skills, either fixing a used car up OR holding a good job and picking a great car you love and it runs far longer that the payments do.

My 2 cents

Rich

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by john991

A used car can take even more money than a new one

Sure, it can be more costly... if you buy a used Bentley instead of a new Toyota Corolla.

The number 1 cost by far for most owners is depreciation, and you reduce depreciation by reducing the amount you initially spend on the vehicle (buy used).

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Sure, it can be more costly... if you buy a used Bentley instead of a new Toyota Corolla.

The number 1 cost by far for most owners is depreciation, and you reduce depreciation by reducing the amount you initially spend on the vehicle (buy used).

That depends a lot on the country. I know in Mexico it seems like cars keep their initial value for years. The last time I tried pricing cars I found a brand new, at the dealer, Mazda 2 was the cheapest car I could find that was within 5 years old in Ciudad Juárez, the fourth largest city in the country. Which is surprising, since being a boarder town you'd think that there's be a lot of cheaper imports from the USA. A new cat makes even more sense in a place like that since in five years or so you can sell it for some 80-90% of what it cost you originally.

The reason there are countries like that is the lack of people who buy brand new cars. Fewer new cars makes a lower supply of used cars. And if there's a demand for used cars then the prices go up.

That's kind of what's happening here in the States right now. The chip shortage and perhaps other factors has caused a decrease in new car availability and therefore new car sales. The result has been a decrease in used car availability, which has caused a 15% increase in used car prices, which is probably only going to increase for the time being.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile#40

The only way buying used is more eco friendly is if you literally save a car from the crusher and repair it.

1957 body on a 1966 chassis


1964 Type III body on a 1971 chassis.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

The reason there are countries like that is the lack of people who buy brand new cars. Fewer new cars makes a lower supply of used cars. And if there's a demand for used cars then the prices go up.

Even though Brazil has a large sales volume for new cars, used ones retain a quite high resale value. Econoboxes which are still best-sellers here often retain more of the resale value, as they're less expensive to operate and mantain for a longer while.

[Isaac Zachary]

As far as new vs. used goes, many seem to feel we are pretty much at the point of vehicle perfection. Basically the same as the point of diminishing returns. The same can be said of electronics. What does a new car or computer have that a 3, 5 or 10 year old one doesn't? If you have a newer vehicle or computer I don't see any reason to upgrade to a brand new one, unless you accidentally smash yours.

During this pandemic I've been hunting down cheap or free computers of all sorts. Laptops, towers, PC's, Mac's, etc. Some are over 10 years old. I usually keep the hard drive for storage, add a smaller SSD for the boot drive, up the RAM to 8GB, and sometimes throw in a faster processor. Sure, I might spend some $100 fixing up an old computer, but in the end they run like a brand new +$500 one. Add to that, that with modern day Windows and Linux and the slowing of needed performance gains a newer computer can last many more years, perhaps even decades, before needing to be replaced.

The one area that you have to buy new all the time is mobile electronics, or OS dependent hardware in general. Even Mac's and Chromebooks have a limited life span because of this. When the OS is tied to the hardware it's only a matter of time for the manufacturer to stop supporting it.

Of course cars are mostly different in the sense that roads don't need upgraded vehicles in order to work. The worse that can happen with modern day vehicles is that the infotainment center, especially the integrated GPS navagation, will become outdated over time. This is why, as a used car buyer, the infotainment center is not a selling point to me at all. But it is to those who buy new.

One thing that gets me about new vehicles and electronics is that people keep buying them not only inspite they have diminishing upgrade benefits but also because they've lost their cool factor. When I was a kid cars were cool. Sure, there were the vehicles built strictly for practicallity. But then there were the muscle cars, the sports cars, the hot hatches, the novelty little mid-engine cars, the tuners, etc. SUV's and pickups used to be cool back then because people could actually use them to do things like go off-roading. Even novelties, like the automatic doors on minivans was cool back then. But now everything is a grey crossover. That's all that seems to exist on the roads, at least here in the USA. Nothing is new, except maybe the hybrid and EV categories. But that's about it. It seems like coolness is now measured by the size of your infotainment screen.

The same can be said of electronics. Every year, phones, tablets and laptops are just a little bit thinner and a little bit faster and have a little bit better camera. But other than that, I don't get why people are buying new, other than because they can or for those who end up losing or destroying their possetions. I got a "budget" phone, that feels just as smooth and fast as any flagship phone. In fact, budget phones actually have more useful features, like having a headphone jacks and SD card slots.

Another thing to factor in is that used stuff has a sort of proof-of-reliabilty. If you look at buying a 5 or 10 year old car and there's one brand everyone knows that in those years has a high transmission failure rate, you know not to buy it. But if you buy a brand new one, even from a reputable company, you really have no idea of how it's going to hold up for the next several years. For an example, my Prius has over 200,000 miles on it. Sure, it needs a new HV battery that's a couple thousand dollars if I go OEM. But at least I know it'll last another 200,000 miles.

In summary, if you already own it, your best bet is to just keep it as long as you can. If you own a car, CHANGE THE OIL REGULARLY AND USE THE CORRECT OIL!!! Try to fix things when they're a small problem before they develop into a big expensive problem. If you have a computer, look into 1. putting the boot drive onto an SSD and keeping the HDD for your folders by moving personal folders by using "Location" in the properties menu, 2. upgrading the RAM to at least 8GB, 3. seeing if you can change out your processor for a faster one, 4. GETTING RID of all unnecessary apps like free, non-stock virus and malware protection, and 5. changing settings to optimize speed, not looks.

If you need to buy another vehicle, phone, computer, etc., the question of whether it should be new or used depends on a lot of factors. Where do you live? Are used things cheaper (or maybe even free) there, or nearly as expensive as brand new? Are you good at fixing things yourself? If you aren't who do you have that can do the repairs, are they truely good at it, and how much do they charge? How available are the parts to the cars/electronics you are looking at to buy?

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

When it comes to electronics, it sounds like the softwares are set in a way to induce the so-called planned obsolescence, and push people into buying newer (and unjustifiably more expensive) replacements.

[freebeard]

That might be true of proprietary software, but with Free & Open Source software anyone (who can code) can improve the performance of old hardware. Witness [GNU-]Linux making old Windoze machines viable again.

And don't get me started on Blender. Cycles X has cut render times by a major fraction, and the Node Editor makes things possible that weren't [practical] before. On the same hardware.