New Car Vs Buying A Car

938 Words2 Pages

Buying a preowned vehicle is a substantially better investment over buying a new car. Automobile manufactures continue to produce cars at an alarming rate with little or no concern as to how quickly they depreciate. New car advertisements seem to be as common as the sky above being blue. It's very difficult to flip through a magazine or watch television without seeing an advertisement of a new car depicting everything that's missing from our ordinary lives. What the advertisers fail to mention is how these streak of lighting cars equipped with expensive gadgets depreciate at an extreme rate. This can lead to the American consumer becoming buried deep in debt, creating a cycle that may have drastic financial outcomes.
Modern consumers …show more content…

However its the accelerated rate in which this occurs that leaves the new car owner feeling as if he was robbed by a thief in the night come trade in time. The ones that feel this effect the most are those who replace their car every three to four years. The average price of a new car today is $33560 total market value, this is the price you would pay a new car dealer after negotiations. After the paperwork is drafted and the documents have been signed your new steel stallion takes its first blow of depreciation. Within minutes of ownership an average of 9% has been deducted from the total market value, in other words you just lost $3021 of your cars value.
The first year is the highest percentage of depreciation with an average of 19% lost. By the one year anniversary you have lost an average of $6377. The following years are not much kinder, in the third year of ownership the total depreciation is now at 42%. Your investment has dwindled down to a staggering value of $19464 from its original value of $33560. That equates to a loss of $14100, this loss can not be recuperated from this vehicle. With such loss in a short time its quite impressive that the manufactures are capable of finding new buyers willing to make such a poor …show more content…

If we look at a new Mercedes Benz S Class with an entry level price of $70,000 we may tend to look in another direction. But once this car has depreciated in its first year the preowned price of $48000 may be in our budget now.
The benefits of buying used go much further than our wallets, it can help our environment as well. A 2004 analysis by Toyota found that as much as 28 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions generated during the life cycle of a typical gasoline-powered car can occur during its manufacture and its transportation to the dealer. (Scientificamerican.com) Purchasing a preowned car is one less vehicle that has to be produced, shipped and eventually disposed of. When we eliminate these factors by purchasing a preowned car we make a smaller footprint that can be negative on our environment.
The scales seem to weigh in favor of buying prewowned versus new when we look at it from this prospective. From a financial standpoint it just makes sound sense to purchase a preowned vehicle with the rapid depreciation a new car experiences. The pool of used cars is quite plentiful allowing one to choose a once out of reach higher priced car within our financial grasp. Consumers concerned with the enviroment have an option that is a eco friendly helping to reduce the carbon footprint created by manufacturing a new

Open Document