Heres a current list of cars that depreciate quickly

That someone needs to have "more money than brains" to want a new car every
few years.

Eric

 

Wow, if that scares the crap outta ya, then you are one timid individual.

That wouldn't even raise my level of concern. An armed burglar trying
to break into my house, wouldn't even scare the crap out of me. Well,
if I couldn't get to my .44 magnum quickly enough, it might increase my
anxiety a little.


Matt

 

OK, Mr. Literal.

Why would that worry you? Don't you have a .357 Mag and a .32 Baretta
tucked in other locations like I do? Then there is always the Remington 12
ga on my wifes side of the room.

Eric

 

Remember, depreciation counts how much value you lose from its purchase
price. Hyundai warranties are priced into the car when purchased. You
already paid for it. The value of a depreciated Hyundai is its value to a
used car buyer. Suppose you bought a brand new Hyundai:

Value of brand new Hyundai to you (what you paid)
= (value of 100/10 warranty) + (value of 5/60 warranty) + everything else

Value of your brand new Hyundai to another buyer
= (value of 5/60 warranty) + everything else

Notice the absence of (value of 100/10 warranty) in the second equation. So
even before taking regular depreciation into account, you're out a chunk of
change. Manufacturer warranties are not worthless. I myself have used it for
an Accent's exhaust repair worth $300, and I know someone who used her
warranty to fix a busted Tiburon transmission at 80K. It's that kind of
value that should be priced into the depreciation equation.

Chris

 

No, I don't. I don't use toy guns of less than .40 caliber. Well,
handguns, anyway. My 7mm Remington Magnum is obviously less than .40,
but it still has plenty of punch. Any my Marlin .44 Magnum level action
is a really handy gun in close quarters.

Yes, hard to beat a 12 gauge for protection purposes.

Matt

 

Actually Eric - not so tongue in cheek. I'm getting to the point where I'm
really getting tired of working on cars. I have 5 to maintain in my
household plus all of the "friends and neighbors". I'm really starting to
see some value in simply driving them. Sometimes it seems that all you do
is bend over an engine compartment, or lay underneath a tranny, or wet sand
a body, or...

 

I have four to work on myself. I loved doing it back when I had the time.
I would still love it, but with two toddlers running around, and a third on
the way, I love playing with them more than working on the cars. And,
personally, I think spending time with them is more important. Plus, sleep
deprivation can make you do some weird stuff

I still do my own oil changes, and I will spend the time to at least
diagnose a problem before I take the car somewhere to get fixed, but doing
the work myself is a last resort. Plus, with the Hyundai warranty, I
haven't had to do any myself for financial reasons.

 

I wonder if they base their depreciation calculations on List Price or
the Actual Price Paid. If they base the depreciation calculation on
List Price, then the results are meaningless because many car brands
(such as Hyundai) sell well below list price whereas other brands
(such as Honda) sell at about List Price.

If would be incredibly stupid to base the depreciation calculation on
List Price rather than Actual Price but I would not be surprised if
they did.

Darwin

 

You make an excellent point, but how would they possibly calculate it on
price paid? They would have a different number for almost every car sold.

Eric

 

To follow up on this, I visited http://www.kbb.com and http://www.nada.com
and did a search on my car ('06 Sonata GLS V6). Both sites came up with
just about $16,100 on a trade-in in "good" condition. That is exactly what
I paid for my car brand new in September, 2005.

Eric

 

Sorta puts a dent in the depreciation story doesn't it Eric?

 

Except that you can't confuse those values with what you could actually
sell the car for. Unless you find a real idiot, which is always
possible, nobody is going to pay that much for a used car when they can
buy a new one for a few hundred more given the current new car incentives.

I'm just glad that depreciation isn't a factor for me.


Matt

 

Matt, if you go to the sites and try it, the price I gave was for a
TRADE-IN. That would be what a dealer would supposedly give me for my
car to trade it in. The full retail price was shown as $21,000 and
change. Which I believe is only a few hundred below what the window
sticker was.

Although I think these might be a bit on the high side, these are sites
I have used in the past to negotiate with the dealer, and I have always
come pretty close.

Yup, so much for depreciation.

Eric

 

Well, that doesn't really play Matt. It's a used car so it's only
reasonable that it won't sell for what you necessarily paid for it. That
does not change the fact that the average national trade in value is
approximately what Eric paid for his. That's about as good as one can
really hope for.

 

If you can get a dealer to give you that price for your trade-in and
still give you a price well below sticker, then you are doing a good job
of negotiating. I've found I can get a great deal on a new car, or I
can trade in my old car, but it is hard to do both. The good thing is
that I've never had any problem selling my old cars privately. Usually
relatives but them as I maintain them well and they are usually in very
good shape for their age and mileage.


Matt

 

Absolutely valid point Matt. Like you, I seldom trade. My cars have a lot
of life left in them at over 200,000 miles and they still look good, so they
go to someone who can use them. They wouldn't bring squat for trade anyway.
But you're right - you're typically only going to get one thing from a
dealer - a decent trade in value or a decent negotiated price.

 

The people who spend $15000 on a hyundai have more to lose then the person
who spends $30000 on an infiniti/lexus/acura when they trade it in every 2-3
years, simply because the person buying the higher priced car ussually
doesn't care how much money they are spending.

Then there are those people that stretch to afford the $30000 car, and then
skimp on maintenance and insurance and either end up wrecking their car and
having to scrape to get the deductable together, or skip every few oil
changes, transmissions flushes, etc...

 

What? Whether you care about the money or not doesn't change how much
you lose.

Those who skip transmission flushes are just skipping getting ripped off
for an unnecessary service. Nothing wrong with that. Now skipping oil
changes is a different matter... Though most folks I know who own
expensive cars take them back to the dealer for service so, assuming the
dealer is competent and conscientious, those cars are probably very well
maintained.


Matt