Comments on: Dealer’s Voice: Buying your first car? Here’s some advice http://www.wheels.ca/feature/dealers-voice-buying-your-first-car-heres-some-advice/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:29:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Zekestone http://www.wheels.ca/feature/dealers-voice-buying-your-first-car-heres-some-advice/#comment-786912 Zekestone Mon, 07 Jan 2013 22:09:09 +0000 http://ec2-107-20-15-173.compute-1.amazonaws.com/?post_type=feature&p=32171#comment-786912 Useless article. When someone asks me about buying a car, the first things I ask are: 1. What do you need? How will this vehicle be used? What do you want (which is different from a need)? How much do you drive every year? 2. How much do you want to spend... both upfront and on a monthly basis? What's your budget? And from there they'll tell me a what they want to spend monthly or how much they want to spend buying a car. Then I tell them that whatever the car costs, add $400/month (for a small used car) to cover gasoline, insurance, maintenance, repairs, the odd ticket and registration fees. For a new car, I would say $300/month, but then add whatever the car payment is. Can you afford that? Do you want to spend $6000 (or whatever amount)/year on a car? And once that's done, many needlessly large/fancy vehicles get eliminated. When you have a list of candidate vehicles, the next thing to do is to do a Google search for "common problems" for that given model. After that, all the insurance company and find out what the insurance rates are for the given vehicle. Some vehicles are surprisingly expensive and some surprisingly cheap to insure. After THAT is done, THEN it's time to start test driving vehicles that meet your needs and price point. Useless article. When someone asks me about buying a car, the first things I ask are:
1. What do you need? How will this vehicle be used? What do you want (which is different from a need)? How much do you drive every year?
2. How much do you want to spend… both upfront and on a monthly basis? What’s your budget? And from there they’ll tell me a what they want to spend monthly or how much they want to spend buying a car. Then I tell them that whatever the car costs, add $400/month (for a small used car) to cover gasoline, insurance, maintenance, repairs, the odd ticket and registration fees. For a new car, I would say $300/month, but then add whatever the car payment is.
Can you afford that? Do you want to spend $6000 (or whatever amount)/year on a car?

And once that’s done, many needlessly large/fancy vehicles get eliminated.

When you have a list of candidate vehicles, the next thing to do is to do a Google search for “common problems” for that given model.

After that, all the insurance company and find out what the insurance rates are for the given vehicle. Some vehicles are surprisingly expensive and some surprisingly cheap to insure.

After THAT is done, THEN it’s time to start test driving vehicles that meet your needs and price point.

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