How much money you comfortably spend on a veh?

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Mid 20's for a new vehicle is my limit. I will make do with vehicles in that price range.

My current daily driver is 4 years old and for the shocking facts, get this: It does not have any of the following: navigation system, leather seats, heated seats, mirror warnings for cars passing me, backup cameras.

I know, this is primitive and unacceptable to many drivers today. It would be a terrible inconvenience for those drivers to have to turn their head and look before backing up. And having to know how to get where you are going without a navigation system, well this will just not do at all. And those drivers have an allergic reaction if their rear ends would ever touch a cloth seat, it would be a medical emergency.
 
No more than ~$23K all-in has been my max for something new to a year or so old, but I'm lowering that max as time goes on. I always finance and put just enough down so that if I have to sell/trade it at any point I am not upside-down. If I can't get a low interest rate I don't buy and I always pay a little extra towards it every month.
 
Significantly more than most in this thread apparently.....
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Originally Posted By: ZZman
How much money you comfortably spend on a veh?

Apparently $0 because I have not bought a new car in 11+ years.
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I can afford a lot for a car, but I don't want to. If I were to buy a new transportation for myself I'd probably spend $10k on a used car, for a minivan to haul around family, probably a $30k new minivan. For a long commute EV to get on a carpool lane, probably $200 / month lease (assume free electricity to charge at work).
 
Originally Posted By: SeaJay
Mid 20's for a new vehicle is my limit. I will make do with vehicles in that price range.

My current daily driver is 4 years old and for the shocking facts, get this: It does not have any of the following: navigation system, leather seats, heated seats, mirror warnings for cars passing me, backup cameras.

I know, this is primitive and unacceptable to many drivers today. It would be a terrible inconvenience for those drivers to have to turn their head and look before backing up. And having to know how to get where you are going without a navigation system, well this will just not do at all. And those drivers have an allergic reaction if their rear ends would ever touch a cloth seat, it would be a medical emergency.


The navigation is pretty worthless these days unless you have Apple carplay or Android integration. Mine is built in with traffic from Sirius, but I find my smartphone is better than the built in navigation because it gives you traffic and routes you around jams which the built in one won't do. It's only nice in that it's a bigger screen than my phone so I leave the map up but don't have it programmed for a destination. Mercedes also has fake leather seats called MB-tex, not really leather, more of a leather made from vinyl so they don't have cloth seats. I don't have blind spot warning on mine, but I just use a $2 blind spot mirror, it's nice to see some manufacturers building that into their cars as standard. Heated seats are nice in the winter. Once you get used to them, you wonder how you survived without them and before you have them, you just think it's a gimmick. Mine also has the front and rear parking sensors which beep when you get too close in addition to the camera. I believe the camera is actually supposed to be standard on all cars after 2018. Too many kids run over by cars backing up and they're too little to be seen over the top of the trunk. I think about 30% are kids under 5.
 
We used to be all about $3-5k sedans that i would carefully buy low, take care of, and often sell for more years later. Ended up buying a few new cars and the depreciation is real. The annual tags are a lot more too. But is worth it for the tech and safety factor.
 
I've spent a range of 40 to 1800 Pounds Sterling.(Lada 1200 saloon and Renault Dodge lorry respectively).

Both worked out as good value, though since I lived in the lorry in London for a year or two it saved me a lot of rent, giving it the economic edge.
 
We were in the market for a 7 seater SUV and they seem to be almost as expensive as pickups... And some of the used prices make buying new make financial sense, but $32-35k is hard for me to sign up for as our vehicles get used off road and for kid and farm duty.
We did buy a new Tracker in 2003 because it was cheaper than used ones, but it was $17-18k, and I don't really want to spend even that much again. Our gross income suggests we could buy all sorts of fancy vehicles, but once everyone takes their cut and we meet our savings objectives for the kids education and our self funded leave, $30-40k is alot to blow on something that's going to be worth 10-20% of that in 10 years.
 
Depends on the person and their financial status. I have friends who have always been making payments since their first vehicle, and 10 years later are still making payments on cars, just assuming it is part of life. The sad part is that since financing things seems so easy now, and people are used to it, they take on more and more debt. You have people with giant car loans rolling over debt into the next car loan when that car breaks down, etc.

This isn't so common for people over 35 I think, but for my generation everyone wants new fancy things right now, and financing the thing for 8 years allows them to do that. The whole YOLO (you-only-live-once) mentality is thriving.
 
Actually, a lot of younger people care more about the latest phone than they do about a flashy car.
I've always been oriented toward less costly cars and usually buy new although I've bought some used cars that turned out to be very cost effective. There were few decent used cars cheaper and more durable than an old-school Benz or BMW, for example. That's why I've had an old BMW in my sig for the past seven years. Cheap to buy and cheap to own and fun to drive as well. Win-win.
A car is ultimately no more nor less than a transportation appliance and we'd prefer to spend our blow money on winter vacations someplace warm and things of that nature.
It is more important to us to keep excess funds to save and invest for a comfortable retirement than it is to drive anything extravagant.
Others obviously don't agree. If most did, the global car industry would look a lot different and there would be no cheap old Mercedes and BMW cars to buy.
 
Man, some of you are Gods amongst men here, with your ability to live off of and enjoy cars as little as $500, or your ability to live with a car that doesn't have leather, or other fancy nick nacks.

I have a wife, and a house with a 4 car attached garage.
We have 3 cars, and 3 motorcycles filling up those 4 bays, all of which we absolutely love.
I don't have any kids, and my wife's daughter turns 26 in January (I get to drop her off of my work's health plan next year), so no little ones that I have to shovel money into health and college funds for, which means that my wife and I get to spend our money on ourselves.

We love cars.
We have 3 cars we love.
Each one was worth every penny that we paid.

If we had to replace any of the three cars, we would absolutely replace them with a new version of the same car.
With the exception of the Cayman, because the Cayman no longer comes with the Flat-6 engine, and the Turbo Flat-4, while way more powerful, doesn't offer the same auditory experience while driving it that the Flat-6 offers, so we would have to find something else to take its place.

It would be really hard to replace the Cayman, since there isn't a car that offers the same driving experience for the money in the market, at all.
So I would have to replace it with a completely different vehicle.

If I had to replace the CX-5, I would go straight to Mazda, and either get another, or get a Mazda 6 with a manual.
If my wife had to replace her Fiat 500 Abarth, she would go straight to Fiat, and spec it exactly the same as her 2012 is.

Unlike a lot of you, I'm willing to spend money to make sure I have exactly what I want.
To me, the car I drive isn't just an appliance.
It's a piece of art (visual and mechanical) that I can drive.

Some of you have mice suits, and expensive watches, and vacation homes in pretty places.
My wife and I live in a fantastic place with phenomenal roads, and we drive nice cars on them.

To each, their own.

And to answer the original question, $69,525, minus discounts, plus tax was what I was comfortable paying for the most expensive car in our fleet.
The way I wanted it optioned meant that I had to buy it new, as there are no other Caymans optioned the same way mine is.
We're going to have it a very, very long time, so that is worth every penny.

BC.
 
Originally Posted By: Bladecutter
Man, some of you are Gods amongst men here, with your ability to live off of and enjoy cars as little as $500, or your ability to live with a car that doesn't have leather, or other fancy nick nacks.

I have a wife, and a house with a 4 car attached garage.
We have 3 cars, and 3 motorcycles filling up those 4 bays, all of which we absolutely love.
I don't have any kids, and my wife's daughter turns 26 in January (I get to drop her off of my work's health plan next year), so no little ones that I have to shovel money into health and college funds for, which means that my wife and I get to spend our money on ourselves.

We love cars.
We have 3 cars we love.
Each one was worth every penny that we paid.

If we had to replace any of the three cars, we would absolutely replace them with a new version of the same car.
With the exception of the Cayman, because the Cayman no longer comes with the Flat-6 engine, and the Turbo Flat-4, while way more powerful, doesn't offer the same auditory experience while driving it that the Flat-6 offers, so we would have to find something else to take its place.

It would be really hard to replace the Cayman, since there isn't a car that offers the same driving experience for the money in the market, at all.
So I would have to replace it with a completely different vehicle.

If I had to replace the CX-5, I would go straight to Mazda, and either get another, or get a Mazda 6 with a manual.
If my wife had to replace her Fiat 500 Abarth, she would go straight to Fiat, and spec it exactly the same as her 2012 is.

Unlike a lot of you, I'm willing to spend money to make sure I have exactly what I want.
To me, the car I drive isn't just an appliance.
It's a piece of art (visual and mechanical) that I can drive.

Some of you have mice suits, and expensive watches, and vacation homes in pretty places.
My wife and I live in a fantastic place with phenomenal roads, and we drive nice cars on them.

To each, their own.

And to answer the original question, $69,525, minus discounts, plus tax was what I was comfortable paying for the most expensive car in our fleet.
The way I wanted it optioned meant that I had to buy it new, as there are no other Caymans optioned the same way mine is.
We're going to have it a very, very long time, so that is worth every penny.

BC.


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Originally Posted By: Bladecutter
Man, some of you are Gods amongst men here, with your ability to live off of and enjoy cars as little as $500, or your ability to live with a car that doesn't have leather, or other fancy nick nacks.

Others can spend as little as they want, just like you can spend as much as you want. Both approaches are fine, if that's what you like to do. Why do you feel the need to ridicule others just because they don't do things the way you do?

And yes, I might be wearing a nice mice suit for Halloween.
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Ducked
Originally Posted By: Bladecutter


Some of you have mice suits,...



Who told?


A little birdie did.

BC.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
And yes, I might be wearing a nice mice suit for Halloween.
smile.gif



Now that's worth a Halloween thread post.

BC.
 
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