After many hours of thinking and a long conversation with my grandpa, I have decided to keep my Explorer for at least another year or two and save up my money so that I can put a really good down payment or pay cash for a new vehicle when I am more financially solvent. Many people didn't seem to understand this concept so I will try to explain it because it could very well benefit someone else that is in my position. My truck broke down just about two weeks ago and I had to have it towed back to Keokuk ($123) but I consider the tow-bill my fault because I knew something was going on with it and I took it out of town anyways. Normally if it would have broken down at my house or in town, it would have cost me about $45 to have it towed to my shop. I was able to borrow my grandpa's truck for the two weeks to get back and forth to work so my cost of a rental was $0 thank goodness. Since I didn't know what was wrong with the truck, I had really considered trading it in for something newer. I found an Escape that I would love to have for $11,900 though I think I could have talked him down to at least 10K.
What I think some people fail to remember (and I was guilty of this until my grandpa set me straight), just because something is newer and off a car lot does not mean that it won't break down soon! Even if you get a warranty on it, that doesn't mean that it won't break down and leave you out of a vehicle, it just means that if the dealership is halfway decent, the cost of fixing it might be less. Often times, dealerships offer warranties on used vehicles that will pay for 50% of the cost of fixing it (if it falls in their guidelines of course). However, I have had car people tell me that they basically raise the cost of the procedure to double so that you are actually paying for the whole thing. The problem is, if you want them to fix it under warranty, they have to fix it - you can't take it to your own local garage that has (hopefully) more honest people. And if you do that, you void the warranty! Okay, so basically a warranty on a used car is pretty useless.
So, if I had gotten him down to $10,000 and he took a trade-in off my truck for $1,000, I would have a loan out for $9,000. That would likely make a car payment of $250 per month. Since I would have to carry full coverage on it, my insurance would also go up to approximately $60 (I only pay maybe $25 a month now for my portion of our insurance). So there is an addition of almost $300 a month that I hadn't been paying before.
I found out yesterday that the fuel pump was the problem with my truck. That is pretty basic when it gets down to it. Generally, fuel pumps last for about 100,000 miles and mine has over twice that on it. So I paid $327 for a new fuel pump and filter (very reasonable actually). My truck has never run better than it does now, it's amazing. So if I continued to drive my truck, hoping that nothing else will go wrong with it, I will have saved my self approximately $3600 over a year ($300 x 12) or $7200 over two years (300 x 24). This doesn't even include what would be saved from interest rates. Even if something else goes wrong with my truck, it would have to cost a whole hell of a lot of money for it to have been worth trading in. And if my truck broke down again, I could leave it sitting in the garage until I could save enough to get it fixed. It would only cost me the cheap insurance fee and nothing else because I own it.
Now, if I had gotten this new truck and had been paying a $300/mo for payment and insurance and it broke down and needed a new fuel pump (for instance) and the cost was the same. Then I would have to pay $627 in one month because I would be paying for repairs and the regular payment. If I decided to not get it fixed right away, I would still have to come up with that $300 every month no matter what.
This situation is obviously pretty personal to my own life but if you are thinking about getting rid of a vehicle for something newer and "better", it might be worth really stepping back and figuring the numbers up. This of course doesn't include all the money that you would be spending for interest rates so consider that too. I have lots of other things I would like to spend my money on than throwing it at a lender for interest. I could go into a lot of other things as well, including what paying cash for a vehicle would save in interest but I don't feel like going into the mathematics of it. I do know that by the time you pay interest on something, you basically pay for it twice. Nothing like throwing away nine grand right?
Some of you might be thinking, "but what about getting a vehicle that gets better mileage because gas is so high?". Well, I would say, have you figured out how long you would have to drive that car before it paid for itself with the better mileage? It would surprise you. Let's see about an example. My Explorer gets around 17 miles to the gallon in town (higher on the highway, but we will go with the worst to be safe) when it is running right. People generally drive about 15,000 miles a year. If gas is about $3.80/gallon, then I will spend about $3,352 a year (damn!). But if I got a vehicle that got 24 mpg in town (like my husband's Focus) and drove 15,000 miles a year, with gas at $3.80 - I would spend $2375 a year. That is a difference of $977 a year. So, in order for a $10,000 car that gets better mileage to pay for itself, I would have to drive it a little over 10 years (more than that if you consider the interest!). Of course, if you are buying a new vehicle you should get one with better gas mileage (duh). But you shouldn't necessarily trade in your vehicle for the purpose of getting better mileage - you won't notice the difference in what you are paying! Below are the calculations so you can see how I came up with my numbers (feel free to correct me if needed - sometimes my math skills suck).
Explorer
Miles per year = 15,000
Miles per gallon = 17
15,000/17 = 882 gallons per year used
price per gallon = $3.80 x 882 = 3352
cost of gas per year = $3352
Focus
Miles per year = 15,000
Miles per gallon = 24
15,000/24 = 625 gallons per year used
price per gallon = $3.80 x 625 = 2375
cost of gas per year = 2375
Difference in amount spent is 3352 - 2375 = 977
So, hopefully for anyone who doesn't understand why I made the choice that I did (and the choice others should consider), this explaination will give them information about the actual numbers involved. It's hard to believe that keeping my 95 Explorer (with 225,000 miles on it too!) with it's crappy gas mileage will save me money compared to something newer with potentially better mileage. Of course, if you buy something outright with cash and don't have payments to consider, a lot of this is a moot point. That's why I am saving up my money instead!
No comments:
Post a Comment