Although I just broke my decades old rule with a new 2008 DTS, buying used, and carefully, is fun, cheap, and a lot more rewarding than buying new out of the box.
My first car, bought new,was a '55 Chevrolet Bel Aire (rose and ivory) that I paid the outrageous price of $2,250 for, drove for 18 years and, like a fool, sold it in 1973 for about $600 to a couple who was driving about 1,500 miles to Michigan the next day. It had about 50,000 miles on it, was in great shape because i always kept it serviced, and still had little black marks in the paint on the hood where some of the scotch tape from our wedding celebration crepe paper and tin cans peeled a bit of the paint off. So what was my depreciation cost lol?
Some of the used cars I've owned: a 48 Pontiac coupe, a 64 Buick Electra, a 62 Ford Fairlane, a 69 Buick Electra, a 72 Chevrolet-plus a 62 Mercury Marauder and a 58 Buick Special that I bought in the 80's as collector cars.
The only other new cars I've bought in some 58 years of driving were a 62 Mercury Comet, which is absolutely the worst car ever built and a 1986 Buick LeSabre that I drove for about 15 years.
A couple of years ago I bought a pristine 1998 Lincoln Continental with less than 40,000 miles on it, nursed by a "Little Ole Lady" that only drove it when she came to their winter home in Myrtle Beach.Absolute perfection-always serviced with nearly new tires and everything working right. I paid $8,600 for it, have been driving it for 2 years and I'm confident that I could sell it for $7,000 right now. So what was my depreciation cost?
In thinking about it, our new DTS(leased) is going to end up costing me more than all the new cars I've ever bought and pretty close to all the cars I've ever bought in my entire life!!
But the worst part is since I'm "fixed" for cars now with the DTS and the Lincoln that we both love driving when I search Ebay for those "always garaged, driven only my mom to the beauty parlor" ten year old cars that I dearly love to lust over, I can only slobber for a few minutes and move on.:+)
Re: Buying "Little Ole Lady" cars and surviving...
Unfortunately, some of the "little ole lady" cars have carboned/gummed up fuel systems from never seeing a WOT and 10 year-old tires with 20K miles and dry rot.
Or, the car is advertised as such by some curbstoner and, upon closer inspection, it looks like it was driven by Jesse James.
Re: Buying "Little Ole Lady" cars and surviving...
I, too, have made a long time habit of buying "newly" used vehicles and saving lots of hard earned dough. Usually bought them three years old with less than 36K miles, at about half of retail price. Not always easy to find what you want, but usually worth the search.
Interestingly though, I discovered that the old saying, "It's not the years, but the miles", is not entirely accurate.
I know this is a Caddy thread but I will share this anyway. I bought a used 1990 Olds 98 from an Olds dealer who had just taken it on trade from a retired Exxon executive in Pinehurst NC just moments before. I actually met the guy in the showroom. The car was very low mileage for the age (I think it was five years old at the time). That car ultimately caused me all sorts of aggravation. And this was after previousley buying an identical used vehicle (1988 Olds 98) two years earlier that was fast becoming the best car I ever owned.
I also bought a dealer-serviced, garage kept 1991 Buick Park Ave owned by a retired couple who put daily mileage on the car, but it only had 40K when I bought it for $4000 in 2002 (11 years old at the time, wow). At that point it was my fifth GM sedan with the 3800 V-6 (great engine by the way, with GREAT gas mileage, I don't care how low tech they say it is). Point is, I was becoming very familiar with that platform with engine/transmission package. Trouble was, as pristine as the car was, and with miles that low, I still began having to replace things that I had never had to replace before on vehicles of that vinatge, and so soon.
