I’ve become interested in getting a car lately. I’ve coveted one for quite some time, but I figure it’s time to get a bit more serious and to see what is ahead of me.
Here’s the deal. I had a license back in 1991 for awhile (I got one so I could drive to my friends graduation), but living in NYC, after that trip I lost it and never got around to getting a new one. I only mention this for possible insurance reasons because I didn’t just get a license, I’ve had one long ago. I’m currently in the process of getting a new one, well, because I assume the other is long expired. Anyway, the deal is I’m interested in getting a car but have no clue how to go about it. I would have around $4,000 for a used car, and I’d expect as a 30 year old never owned a car male who parks it on the streets of Brooklyn to pay about $3,000 a year in insurance.
So, I buy the car, and look forward to about $275 a month in insurance and about $100 a month for gas and air fresheners right? I would also try and keep $500 to $1,000 under my mattress in case I get a flat or a window gets smashed. etc.
How does the general idea of that sound?
Now to the car. I’ve been looking at autotrader.com and the cars seem to be about what I expected to pay except for one thing. The mileage! They’re all over 100,000 miles (if I’m lucky). Is that normal? I always thought a car with a 100+ K miles was destined for the junk heap. As far as buying a used car what are the pitfalls and what should I look for?
I don’t know about the insurance (I pay ~$2600/year for full coverage on two cars in Houston, 50 year old male with no tickets in a long time), but as to mileage, a modern car with a good history has likely got quite a bit left in it with only 100K miles on it.
If you look in the phone book, you can find plenty of car insurance brokers who will give you a quote right over the phone. Just call, tell them about your personal info and driving history, the amount of coverage you want, and the kind of car you are thinking of getting, and you’ll prolly get a quote right over the phone.
I just filled out a Geico quote, just to get an overall idea of what I’ll be looking at. It was sort of creepy how much personal info I had to give out, but I figure it’s something I’ll have to get used to during this process.
Get quotes from places other than Geico. I have heard horror stories about what a rip-off they can be.
A car with 100k miles today is not the junk heap of 20 years ago. Today many cars can pass 200k miles before their time expires!
There are sites out there where you can put in the vin from a car and get the history of who it was registered to and if it was in any accidents that were reported. I did this when I bought my last car.
I wouldn’t buy a car that has been in a serious accident (bent frame) and I would see what the dealers you are talking to are offering for warantee coverage.
Average mileage for a car is about 15,000 a year so a 6 year old car would normally have around 90,000 miles. Too many more and you can get a price break for that and too many less and they up the price for the ‘low mileage’ vehicle.
I’ve bought 4 cars in my life. A Dodge truck that I bought new for $8000 dollars about $12000 after financing. I was required to carry full coverage so insurance was awful. In 1991 I bought a 1975 Chevy Impala, an old police cruiser, for $850 cash and carry I only had to carry liability insusance which cost a coouple hundred dollars a year. Put a transmission in it in 1992 for $1000 dollars. It broke down in 1995 and I sold it for junk, $75. I bought a Mitsubishi pickup last year for $2500 and I bought my wife an Escort wagon 6 months ago both cash and carry. Since I own both vehicles completely I only carry liability insurance on both about $1300 a year. If either one were damaged in an accident, I have the replacement value in the bank so I would sell it for junk if it were stolen I couldn’t sell it.
As for insurance if you own the vehicle always carry the minimum legal coverage. Also most companies base your premium not only on your driving record but they also have a thing called “credit profiling” based on your creidit report. I know Geico does this.
In NYC, registration is a real bitch, I seem to recall it costs $200 or so a year – and does this include yearly emissions inspections? Sorry, don’t recall. Check into the yearly cost for registration and emissions.
I do remember that when I moved my car out of NYC, and the insurance went down to $30/mo (very rural area, female driver with clean record), my dad said that was less than he paid on his first car in NYC, in 1968. LOL.
So for everyone who is chiming in to say “Oh, insurance isn’t that much” NYC is one of THE most expensive places to insure a car.
If you look outside of the direct metropolitan area you should find cheaper prices on the same cars.
I must strongly disagree with your suggestion that the OP carry the minimum legal coverage, if by saying this you are urging him to ONLY carry the minimum legal coverage.
The minimum liability coverage is wholly inadequate in most if not all American states.
A single accident in which you are at fault can cost… well, tons. For an example, the guy across from me at work had $117K in medical costs alone as a result of his last accident.
Judgements in the hundreds of thousands are not unheard of, and minimum coverage in my state is a 5-digit amount.
You can wind up going from a healthy financial situation to grossly indebted for years. This is in fact one of your best, thriftiest cases for buying “just a little bit more” insurance with a good shot at getting your dollar out of it.
For the record, I do not work for any insurance agency although I do work for a company that makes most of its revenue from selling hardware to bankers.
Since a lot of individual repairs can occasionally be in the $1,000-$2,000 range, I’d either keep a little more under my mattress OR be prepared to put the difference on a low-interest credit card and make payments for a couple months.
i second the idea of buying more than minimum insurance. Going from minimum to ten times minimum is not that much of an increase, and remember you can be help personally liable for damages not covered by insurance. I hate insurance, and only have liability, but I have lots of liability.
Look around you in traffic. When I pull up to a light during rush hour here, there may be close to a million dollars worth of mostly not-yet-paid-for cars at my light, and if my brakes fail, the legal minimum liability insurance might well be exhausted quickly. If you (accidents do happen) total just one $80,000 Mercedes, you’re over your legal miniimum insurance coverage.
