One Stop Motors

Buying new cars from a car lot might help spark and fill the coffers of the economy, but everyone has a different reason to avoid dealerships.  We know the modus operandi (the mo) of the car salesman; stone-set like a statue and vicious like a monster under the bed.  They are fast talking, power walking people eaters who will go to unbelievable lengths to get you out of that hooptie and into that new hotness.  Most people don’t have the funds, patience or killer instinct to play on par with wheeling, dealing automotive mad men at a dealership.  Enter the private seller.  Their Joe Everyman looking to get a good value for their old ride who more than likely got a raw exchange rate when they brought it in to a lot to trade-in.  Dealers are people too, yes, but give them a suit and a six speed and watch them transform into a sales beast out for blood.   The used car world can be a dealers game as well, but for the most part it’s a privatized market where hand shakes and verbal agreements are the primary business practices. 

When is the best time to buy used?  Easy answer, when you need a car.  Especially with today’s economy where it is, people tend to hold out on buying another car until they really, really need it.  This result in the grinding down of their current car until it’s ready for the junkyard or sold for circus peanuts.  There is nothing wrong with this strategy, but if you have a family or an active social life, an beat down automotive is not going to cut it.  A quality car and one that has been cared after will have a much stronger appreciated value in the used market.  They come at a fraction of the dealer’s sticker price and there won’t be riddled with hidden fees.

The ongoing debate between new and used cars is that new cars are proven reliable, working vehicles.  With a used car you run the risk of acquiring a busted, half past dead automotive.  The truth is, most cars can handle over a decade past its manufacturing year.  Even those cars three or four years of age come at a staggering discount due to time elapsed.  Finding these pre-owned jems has been made easy with the growing reliance on the internet.  There are a lot more online resources and companies available to aid in finding a used car than there is to get a new one.  Dealers want you to come in and put in that face time, so listing their vehicles isn’t necessarily ideal.  The more traffic they have traveling through the showroom the better their odds of making a sale.

There’s more to used cars than cheaper prices and avoiding dealerships.  Logic can be applied in this scenario as well.  If you buy a car from a dealership brand new, you’re paying for not just the car, but the extra cost attached to it.  Fast forward several years and you trade it back into the dealer.  Now, you not only overpaid for the new car, but you’re going to get next to nothing on a trade-in.  Dealers don’t want your old car, they want you in a new car.  They take your pre-owned to sell you new.  Let’s say for half the price of what you would have bought that original new car, you get a used car from a private or third party seller.  Fast forward and you’re ready to get a new car and put your used on the market.  Since it’s a bit older than that original new, you’re not going to get that same price, but it will most likely average out to be closer to what the dealer would have paid in the original scenario.

It’s hard to make an argument against new cars.  People with the money and ability will always spend it on the latest and greatest.  For the rest of us, the hard working class and the struggling students, new isn’t being rational.  We need vehicles just as much as the upper crust, so why should we have to be slaves to what some salesman decides we should pay based on our personality and his gauge of what he can convince us to pay?  Easy answer, we don’t.