I’ve been mulling this over in my head for a while, and I would appreciate any other advice that is out there. I am moving from Scotland to Minnesota for 1, possibly 2, years. The best thing about this is that it’s a great excuse to buy a 4x4 / SUV - its more difficult to justify in the UK! I am selling my old car here, and on top of savings and relocation costs, I am fortunate to have a fair bit of cash to put towards something if need be, and therefore won’t require finance. I had originally planned on getting an old banger. However it’s struck me that there is a risk of incurring a hefty repair bill, and also a possible difficulty selling it afterwards. Therefore I was considering getting a newish car (2-5yrs old, <40,000 miles) that will hold it’s value, considering I will be putting under 10000 miles on it. I’ll avoid anything too new as, to my knowledge, depreciation is greatest within the first year or two.
So, my question is, which 4x4 / SUV car (plus age / mileage) do you think will depreciate the least over a 1-2 year period, that would make it financially viable over leasing something, and if you were in my situation, would you go for a newish one, a 5-10yr old mid-range, or an old fun giant 4x4 pickup rustbucket to live the American dream? Or ultimately, would you just save the bother and lease one?
About how much is your budget? And are you actually looking for something to get off the beaten path, or just something to get around in the Minnesota winter? If it’s the latter, you don’t really need a high-riding SUV or even really 4 wheel drive. It’s flat and they’re pretty good about snow removal in that part of the world. Most of the locals just drive boring old front wheel drive sedans with winter tires they remove during the three months of summer.
If you do want something more rugged, a used compact pickup truck like a Ford Ranger or a Toyota Tacoma would be a good option that holds their value pretty well. They also tend to be quick sellers which is important for when you’re trying to move home. One thing to be aware of, though, is that pickup trucks are actually pretty awful for on-road winter driving. The problem is that (other than some of the newer fancier ones) they’ve got part-time 4 wheel drive which you can only engage on slippery surfaces. With a lot of winter driving you get intermittent patches of snow and ice where you can’t really use it, and when they’re in 2wd mode pickups are RWD with virtually no weight over the rear axle. But, again, a good set of winter tires (and tubes of sand over the rear axle) will go a long way towards negating that.
Another sort of middle path between boring and rugged would be a Subaru. They haven’t quite caught on in Minnesota like they have in the Rockies where they have to contend with lots of snow AND hills AND sometimes intermittent snow removal, but anywhere there’s snow they hold their value pretty well and should also sell pretty quickly. They are definitely the best on-road winter car out there until you start spending Audi or Volvo money, and if you get one of their higher riding models they can definitely get you down some more difficult backroads.
One other general piece of advice is that if you do wind up buying something a little older… rust is a major issue in that part of the country. Salt is a large part of how all that snow removal is achieved. Newer cars are vastly better than they once were (it was once not all that unusual to have actual rust holes in a 5 year old car) but it’s still something to look out for, especially if you’re looking at something 10+ years old.
Oh, also, to generally address the “new versus rust-bucket” points:
At least in the US, the “drive it off the lot” depreciation in the first few years is way less than it once was. The drawback is that a 1-3 year old cars are nowhere near the bargains they once were, but at least if you do buy a newer car it’ll hold its value fairly well. Even buying a brand-new car short term isn’t the terrible proposition it once was, although this brings me to my next point…
Where you’re really going to lose money isn’t on depreciation from owning the car for two years, it’s simply the difference between buying retail and selling wholesale. You certainly can sell a car to a private party but assuring a speedy sale usually means pricing it way on the low end of what it’s worth. This is especially true if you have a newer more expensive car where potential buyers are going to need financing. That would possibly tend to tip the balance more towards an older sub-$10k car as a short-term ownership strategy.
Although one other thing is that you’ll always have a plan B, which is that there’s a chain of mega used car dealers in the US called CarMax that’ll buy your car outright for usually about the same as you’d get trading it in. I’m sure there’s one in Minneapolis. With whatever you buy, you can try to sell it yourself when it gets close to time to head home, but worst case you’ll still be able to get most of your money back out of it.
I agree with all GJ said.
You could help by giving a few ideas of your stay here.
Say for example you are interested in winter fishing, a good 4X4 pickup with CLEARANCE is must, well a great asset :rolleyes:
if you are going to cruse the concrete jungle , metro then those fulltime suv’s are great.
As for this rust, anyone looking at buying a used vehicle needs to have it checked for frame rusting especially if there is a plow or has been a plow on it.
Welcome and don’t believe all the signs. and I am referring to the Minnesota Nice signs, Colorado is much much nicer
Well - he does come from Scotland and they get snow and a three month summer (Summer is pretty much the same as Winter but with added midges) so it shouldn’t be too much of a shock.
I drive a 4x4 and my wife an AWD but that’s mainly because we’ve lived here 13 years and have to get to work in the morning at places that never shut down for snow storms.
The 4x4 is nice but not a necessity as we drove a FWD Honda Accord and a FWD Toyota Corollla for the first 5 years.
Cheers everyone! Whilst I’m not too happy about the whole ‘3 month summer’, in Scotland we get a 15-20minute summer. Then is just rains - there isn’t even all that much snow!
I’ve narrowed it down to a landrover freelander, a subaru outback is a great call, or an audi allroad. I’ll also check out carmax.
This might be one of those strange instances in which a car has wildly different reputations in different countries, but both the Land Rover and the Allroad are considered some of the least reliable cars sold in the US in recent years. The Land Rover in particular also actually does still have an incredibly steep depreciation curve.
With CarMax, I mostly just mentioned it as an option to sell your car with minimum fuss when you’re done with it. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend buying from them since their prices tend to be a little on the high side, although the no-haggle thing might be handy if you’re buying from afar. Also if you do end up buying some unreliable high end thing, they do also have an unusually no-questions-asked approach to the warranties, as a car writer recently gleefully found out: http://dougdemuro.kinja.com/why-your-next-unreliable-luxury-car-should-come-from-ca-814250605
First thing, go to Kansas or Missouri and get a 4-5 year old Subaru Outback. Also buy 2 cases of ‘Skin so Soft’ ™ for mosquito repellant and you will do just fine.
Where are you going to be in Minnesota? Like others have said, if it’s the metro area, or even one of the smaller regional cities, (Rochester, St. Cloud, Mankato, but not Duluth*), there’s no particular need for 4WD, as they’re all pretty flat and have highly efficient snow removal. I wouldn’t bother with winter tires, either, for the same reason.
*Duluth is basically built vertically onto a cliff. Do think about 4WD if you’re moving there.
If you can manage to find a Freelander or Audi Allroad that hasn’t already been sent to the junkyard, you should definitely buy it because everyone in the know would be astonished that such a thing still exists.
Make sure you get the real first generation Freelander, with your proper pot metal engine block and cheese head gaskets Rover K-series, instead of the later LR2 with the boringly reliable Ford engines and Aisin transmissions.
