The car I drive right now is an 11-year old Dodge Neon. It wasn’t a fabulous car when it was brand new, and now it’s 11 years less fabulous. The dashboard gauges sometimes die, the windows are rattle-y, lots of road noise at high speeds, and I’m told the vibrations at highway speeds probably indicate something serious, though not immediate. So I’m starting to look at used cars to buy… Reliability is high on my list of important things, fuel economy is probably second. 2006-2007 Toyota Corollas Got good reliability scores, but they’re a bit pricey usually. I guess used Toyotas sell for more because everyone knows they make good used cars? 2002-2007 Hyundai Elantra is Edmunds’s pick for best used car, those are quite a bit cheaper. In fact… some of them are cheap enough that I could tighten up the belt a bit and pay cash for one. Which is a worse idea, getting a loan for a depreciating car, or spending most of my money all at once? I only have one monthly payment right now, for my student loans and it’s not very big. I hate hate hate debt, and my job seems pretty secure, but anything can happen.
Wow, that was longer than I thought, but it’s definitely mundane and I did feel like sharing!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you can afford an '06 Elantra, you could put a lot down on an '06 Corolla, so you wouldn’t have to finance much. I’m not a big fan of debt either, but to me it would be worth it have to make payments for a few months to own a Toyota over a Hyundai. But that’s based on my good experiences with Toyotas - I’ve never owned a Hyundai. I thought that Hyundais were one of the quickest depreciating cars, although if what Edmund’s says about them is true, maybe they’re better than I think.
Damn right they do. Toyotas last forever*. Seriously - go to any Toyota enthusiasts forum and there will be people bragging about having 300,000++ miles on their Toys. MY Taco has 80,000 miles and it’s hardly broken in.
*As long as they don’t rust out. But that’s something you can see happening long before it’s a problem.
