Sell good car, drive beater(s), profit?

Generally I think it has a lot to do these days with cars being so much better than they used to be. In 1987 when I turned 16 my first car was a 1980 Corolla with 100K on the clock and it was worn out. Totally beat and it was a question if the feeble battery would crank it enough for the carbureted engine to fire on a cold day.

Now the beater we bought for our 16 year old is 19 years old with 200,000 miles on it and is better and more reliable than my Toyota was back in the day. If you buy carefully and do most of your own work you can drive a car these days for very little money. I'm looking forward to when our "nice" car is paid off so we can drive the fleet into the ground.

Even when I pay off the car and the kids I suspect that 5 grand and cash will be my most expensive car from now on. Payments suck.

bastomatic wrote: So in my state, with my numbers, it's costing me $1200 a year to drive a newish car over a beater in the best case scenario. Worst case and I have to do major repair work for the beater, or it strands me, or gets scrapped early, blowing up my budget.

So, your 4 year cost for a Leaf at $300/month is... $14,400

Drive the beater, put $100/month in the stock market. After 4 years you will have approximately $5,570.

That's 38.6% less expensive to operate.

Of course I should add that over ~30 years or so that's more like $120k in your pocket with the beater, still $0 in your pocket with the Leaf.

We just bought a 2016 Focus with 22k miles, well optioned se for $15,278, cash. Sold our 2008 focus for $2,400, cash. Only thing the 2008 needed was lower control arms, which were 100 per side, and I did the work myself. I bought it for $5,000. So $5,200 total, 40,000 miles over 20 months of ownership. She cost us 140 per month to own. A nice car with leather and heated seats, sync, side airbags and everything. 32 mpg with a stick. Not bad. At 140 bucks our newish 2016 would have to last 109 months to cost us the same per month. It will have 230,000 miles on it at the rate we drive. Probably not going to happen without major repairs. So the 2008 made more sense financially. But, the added safety and comfort of the 2016 more than makes up for it. Plus my wife loves it. Love love loves it. I like it a lot as well. She works hard and drives nearly an hour each way. Nice to have her in a comfortable place for those two hours a day. She works grounds maintenance and runs machinery, she's. it sitting in a comfy office chair all day. Most likely we will drive for 4 years, and resell her when she has about 100k on her. Looking at 100k mile 5 year old Focus sell for right now, I hope to be able to get 6k for her. That would leave me with 193$ per month. Not a terrible premium for safety, comfort, and a 100k mile power train warrenty. I think that's decent. I feel if you are going to drive anything, you need to budget 200 per month. So my theory goes if I buy a car for 2400, it should last a year. If after 12 months, the clutch goes, and it's 1,000 dollars for a new one, would I be able to expect the car to last another 5 months? If yes, than it's worth a clutch. If the clutch job is 5,000 (I know, crazy, maybe needs a trans to I dunno) and the engine already has 250k on it, it may not be worthwhile. That's my theory at least.

bastomatic wrote: It costs me around $300 a month to drive my Nissan Leaf, which I bought new. That's fuel, tax, title, license, loan payment, insurance, maintenance, and assume no resale value just for kicks, that I must scrap it on the last day I make a payment. That's obviously a worst case scenario. Or I could buy a $3000 beater and plan on it lasting 4 years and sell for $1500. Maybe put another $1500 worth of maintenance and repair into it in that time. Cost of fuel estimate about $1000 a year, title, registration, and insurance about $600 a year. That would be about $200 a month to drive my beater. So in my state, with my numbers, it's costing me $1200 a year to drive a newish car over a beater in the best case scenario. Worst case and I have to do major repair work for the beater, or it strands me, or gets scrapped early, blowing up my budget. TL/DR: you can save a little money driving a beater, but you're probably not going to save enough to get rich, and you might lose money.

Hold up.. I need the numbers breakdown on this one.

Nissan Leaf

• Purchase Price:
• Length of financing:
• Tax, Title Fee (One time payment):
• Yearly Tag renewals:
• Insurance per month:
• Maintenance over life of loan(Tires/brakes):
• Fuel per month(cost of electricity used to charge at home)
• Miles driven a month:

How in the world is that only costing you $300 a month?

Here's my calculations for a $3000 2008 Hyundai Elantra 5spd on CL I found near me.

• Purchase Price: $3000
• Est. length of ownership: 60 months
• Tax, Title Fee (One time payment): $374
• Yearly Tag Renewals: $81
• Insurance per month: $56 (full coverage)
• Maintenance over life of ownership(Tires/brakes): $1000
• Fuel per month: $70 @ 30mpg avg.
• Miles driven a month: 833 avg. (10000 per year)

Monthly cost of ownership over 5 years: $205.65

With the Hyundai you get the benefit of being able to go farther than 35 miles one way if desired.

So I really want to know how the hell your cost of ownership is only $300 a month on the Leaf, lol.

For the Hyundai, are you assuming 100% depreciation?

If you are only keeping it 60 months, it should have plenty of residual value, more like $1500. I assume any car that is straight, not rusting, not ripped to shreds on the inside, and has A/C is worth at least $1500. If you buy the beater in that condition, its easy to keep it that way.

Also, a lot of this comparison discussion is based on numbers posted for the Leaf, which is one of the cheapest new cars you can possibly own. The OP isn't in that situation. He drives a 200, so it still has the fuel expense on top of all the other expenses.

In reply to t25torx:

I pay $170 a month, $0 down. 60 months which included all the upfront fees. My insurance is about $1000/yr. yearly registration fees are about $266 in MI I'm guessing. Tires are a wash between the cars so I didn't count that. Juice is about $20/mo. Mileage about 10k a year.

I don't know what my wife's Fit bought new is in expenses but I'd bet it's been close over 9 years to a beater. That might be a better comparison.

ProDarwin wrote:

slowride wrote: Some months I paid more in maintenance than the payment I had on my Mazda (now 5 years old).

patgizz wrote: Depends on maintenance and breakage. I was in a 10 year old avalanche that between payment and breakage was costing me new 40k truck payment per month

I don't get this. How long can this go on? A beater *might* cost me more in one month than a monthly car payment once every 10 years. Even if it does so once or twice a year, its likely a financial win. I've had the same beater DD for the last 5.5 years or so. I spend about 2-4 hours/year working on it. It saves me an *insane* amount of money over a new or new*er* car. New cars are definitely nicer, quieter, more reliable, etc. Financially, they lose. Every time.

For me 2.5 years, spreading the repair cost over the term of the payments monthly, with another $1800 repair looming(failing transfer case, and i was not spending 1200 on a junkyard one)was going to put me right about 600 per month on a 48 month note on a 2005 truck that i "bought" at 13500 out the door(plus interest). I bought it because it had trans rebuild a year before I bought it and it was clean. Well, pump failed in rebuilt trans. I did not do that myself as it was 1350 for trans or 1750 installed. Rear axle exploded. Upgraded to beefier rear axle then that ate bearings so i took it to the driveline shop for bearings. Rebuilt sloppy steering. Shocks. Front diff let go 1100 miles from home. When traded in the t-case was clunking and the front diff was never fixed. I feel lucky that i was given more than i owed at time of ditching it. Did not do trans or rear axle rebuild myself, everything else done at home. It had service 4wd, check engine, abs, and traction control lights coming and going. It summed up my idea of new millennium gm quality in one vehicle. Trash around an all time great engine. When your vehicle that is there for getting you to customer's homes is leaving you stranded and you aren't getting where you need to be, it's bad.

will i buy another '00+ gm truck? Sure, as an engine donor.

At least my new truck will still be worth 20k when my loan is paid

Basically I think we are talking about risk aversion here.

If you're willing to live with the increased financial risk of breakdowns and unexpected repairs, it's possible to come out pretty well ahead by driving a beater.

If you've been burned a few times maybe you're more risk averse, and see the extra money of driving a newer car as money well spent.

Myself, I've made both good and bad decisions buying beaters. The bad decisions naturally stick in my mind a little more and so I've made the decision to daily a newer car. YMMV of course

bastomatic wrote: Basically I think we are talking about risk aversion here.

This is the deciding factor.

Between spare vehicles and cash in the bank, I don't worry about repairs too much. The amount of risk is basically non existent.

bastomatic wrote: In reply to t25torx: I pay $170 a month, $0 down. 60 months which included all the upfront fees. My insurance is about $1000/yr. yearly registration fees are about $266 in MI I'm guessing. Tires are a wash between the cars so I didn't count that. Juice is about $20/mo. Mileage about 10k a year. I don't know what my wife's Fit bought new is in expenses but I'd bet it's been close over 9 years to a beater. That might be a better comparison.

The gas is what gets you in the $3000 car. With 10k miles a year at our current gas price and 30mpg average it's about $4200 in fuel costs. Drinking dead dinos is expensive.

Also $170*60=$10,200.... how in the world did you buy a new Leaf for 10 grand?

This time last year I bought a 2001 CVPI for $500 to take on a banger rally. Turned out its a pretty solid car and comfy to drive to work every day. That left me with my Marauder and my Abarth. I only have room in my life for one garage queen/occasional driver so when the Abarth had sat for 3 months without being driven I sold it and lost a car payment in my life.

The CV has been my primary car and if/when it needs to go down for maintenance I can jump in the Marauder to get to work for a couple of days.

FWIW, my commute is 70 miles each way every day, so I prefer to drive a beater rather than something new that will get destroyed with all those miles.

Bobzilla wrote: I thought he was going to drive the chrysler and sell the B4000. Then I realized the OP considered the 200 a "nice" car.

How about the newer, more expensive car with the payments?

t25torx wrote:

bastomatic wrote: In reply to t25torx: I pay $170 a month, $0 down. 60 months which included all the upfront fees. My insurance is about $1000/yr. yearly registration fees are about $266 in MI I'm guessing. Tires are a wash between the cars so I didn't count that. Juice is about $20/mo. Mileage about 10k a year. I don't know what my wife's Fit bought new is in expenses but I'd bet it's been close over 9 years to a beater. That might be a better comparison.

The gas is what gets you in the $3000 car. With 10k miles a year at our current gas price and 30mpg average it's about $4200 in fuel costs. Drinking dead dinos is expensive. Also $170*60=$10,200.... how in the world did you buy a new Leaf for 10 grand?

I wasn't quite clear enough on that. I leased it for $200 a month for 32 months at first. Then financed the purchase off lease, 170 a month for 60 months more.

JThw8 wrote: ...The CV has been my primary car...

That may be the option if the B4000 doesn't prove to be sea-worthy. Fly and drive a P71 from Southern Ontario. $4-6k all day every day for a decent one.

I'm in this situation currently. I drive offroad often. I like camping inside my vehicle (or under a truck cap) at the end of the world.

But, when we have family or friends in town, it'd be nice to haul 4 people offroad in comfort. A nice big SUV would be awesome. I can find an SUV for cheap, and I can find plenty of capable trucks for keep. But finding a truck that has a 6' bed and hauls 4 people comfortable is a challenge, especially under $10k.

Downside? I don't have room for more than 2 vehicles currently.

So I'll likely get a single more expensive vehicle that can fill multiple roles.

bastomatic wrote: Basically I think we are talking about risk aversion here.

Only partially.

What is obviously missed is the value in NOT driving a beater.

Just like I never saw the value in driving a beater in the winter vs a Miata, there's value in driving a new car.

A lot of you obviously just brush that aside as having no value- but others factor that in the cost of ownership and really LIKE owning new cars.

Life isn't 100% above numerical money.