Wife doesn't get it.

Rant? Rant. Actually, kind of a long rant.

My wife doesn’t get it. She’s completely convinced that there’s no way possible to locate a decent used car and come up to the good financially, compared to a new car. I, however, am unilaterally opposed to buying a new car again, ever. Won’t do it unless my income somehow skyrockets to the gajillionaire range and I just don’t care any more. $25-30k over 5 years is a sucker’s move, paying $15k or more for the “peace of mind” of a new car just isn’t worth it. I can do a hell of a lot with $500/month, and driving around in a shiny new car isn’t one of those things that does it for me- we’ve just got other stuff to pay for.

She seems to have this idea that when you buy a car (a mechanical thing), that it should require no intervention from the owner, ever. I only recently convinced her that she needs to at least let me know when the big “OIL CHANGE REQUIRED” note pops up on the screen in her car- to be fair she’s going one better and driving it through the Express Lube when it needs it. It’s taken me ten years to get her there. Tires? Shocks? Brakes? Any kind of engine repair? Those things still appear to fall into the mental category of “stuff that should magically last forever.” She has the same issues with computers, tools, any kind of inanimate object. If she paid money for it 12 years ago, it should still be functioning perfectly as long as she hasn’t actually broken it herself.

Granted, our old wrecks have all needed some expensive love recently. Her car had to have some engine work done, the old family truckster we’re still wrestling with a transmission shop on a rebuild (they haven’t got it right yet…), and the old pickup is soldiering on like late-90s Rangers tend to do, but it recently needed a bunch of unplanned-but-not-unexpected front end work (ball joints up and down, both sides) to keep it from eating a new set of tires. In the last year we’ve put about $4000 in our 3 cars beyond basic maintenance (gas, oil, tires) I guess, and she’s freaking out at the un-planned-ness of all this. My take is more like “well, when it rains it pours” and I figure if we fix the major stuff (and/or possibly get rid of some of the most problematic old cars) we probably won’t have another bad year like this for a while.

The question: How do you guys deal with this? I know I can’t be alone on this issue. She can't seem to see how a decently-low-mile $10k used car is a better move than a $25k new one. She's an accountant by training, which is why this frustrates me so.

She's not alone. I once had someone I'd sold a car to complain that it needed brakes a year and a half later. A co-worker had a falling out with her mother-in-law after she'd sold her a 2-year old Echo, and it needed brakes and tires two years later.

Break it down with each and every car: How much you paid, how many years it has lasted, and how much you have put into it including basic maintenance. Break that into monthly payments, and show how it will almost always be less than the $500 a month payment.

Some people just can't get past the whole "new vs used" thing. Honestly, the only way it works in my house is my wife is overly understanding of my need to drag random cars home that may or may not function on a daily basis. I've bought a total of 3 cars at a dealer, ever- and unless I either win the Mega Millions, or B- become that gajillionaire that you're talking about, I will never buy another. Like you said, I got better things to do with that money.

If she's an accountant, can you work the ROI angle? Say you pay 10k cash for a car, and set aside all the monthly payments you WOULD have made in an interest bearing account of some sort, in the event that it starts on fire or something. Seems to me that making 3% interest or whatever would be a helluva lot better than PAYING 3% interest...... not to mentioned letting someone else take the depreciation hit- thereby negating THAT giant loss..... I generally find arguing numbers with accountants is the best way to convince them of stuff like this. HOWEVER, it's not a guaranteed solution. Sometimes, people will not listen to reason... no matter how clearly presented.

Oh, and on the tire thing:

Ask: "What are tires made out of?"
Answer: "Rubber"
"What is an eraser made out of?"
"Rubber."
"Watch as I take this eraser and use it" (now, take a new eraser and use it for 60 seconds and show that it is no longer there)

My wife was excited when we got married and she would never have to buy a new car again since i can keep her car going.. now i want her to get a new car so I have more time for my stuff

eh. I see the merits of buying new (well, aside from paying out the nose)

My car is a 2009 bought new, wife just got a new car a couple months ago.

Hell yeah we could have saved a truckload of money if I had got her into a lightly used car, and that was the plan, at first. But you know how wifes can be. Sometimes they just want something new. I like the car too, maybe it will end up being my car someday, for DD purposes.

I think my new car may be my last new car. Dont get me wrong, its been great, not inheriting someone else's problems, etc... but once those payments stop, Im not sure I will want to do it again. I want moar toys and no payments = moar toys.

Had my escort for 2 years and including the money I paid for it and excluding oil and gas, I've got just over 2g in her. That beats my 12,400 brand new focus that Wifey drives by far.

You are fighting the hard to win emotional vs logical argument.

She doesn't want to be bothered with the trivial bullE36 M3 of "What you mean I have to sit in a dark, dirty, unclean garage getting some tires put on? I could be out shopping with my friends at the mall instead of here." While, you say, "Get some tires on it, you are driving a rolling accident waiting to happen."

Reading your last paragraph, you have a princess who wants a limo for nothing with a warranty. Clearly, you want a no frills Yugo for the same money and don't mind spending money on it when it is broke. If I was in this spot, I would have to sit down with her and discuss what you all want in a "new" car, even NEW cars. Number the priorities for each then add and divide to have a mean number. Select a vehicle from the top 5 priorities chosen.

Oh and best thing, COMPROMISE!!!!

Hi Jake,

I fear this one will be tough. You are dealing with someone who sees the car as an appliance, and there is probably also some underlying "I'm a woman and I don't want to get stranded" tucked away in there. Maybe play the really cheap new car (think stripper Versa) vs the better optioned slightly used car? Start looking at, say, last year E46, and then if she buys in, you can look for something a bit older and cheaper in the same body style.....

Accountants like predictability.
A car payment and a car with less than 100k miles needs fewer big ticket items. Sure, it will need tires, brakes and shocks but unlikely to need trans and headgasket.

Is there also a element of style here?
Does you wife not like being seen in the older car she is driving? That "style" may not matter to you and I but it can be of real and genuine importance to others.

For me, I keep my wife in newer cars and myself in the older. When we travel together, we take her car (I drive.)
This is important because my wife is much less likely to "listen and learn" from the car. I take on that responsibility of "listening and learning" myself during these drives.

Let your wife drive the cars when they are newest and as they age, "retire" them down to yourself when you can give them the care and attention they need.
From there, it can be a fine line of knowing when to let a car go and not continue to reinvest into it.

Ranger50 wrote: You are fighting the hard to win emotional vs logical argument. Oh and best thing, COMPROMISE!!!!

Well stated.

I had an ex call me once to complain. Her parents bought her a 99 Accord that burned oil from the get-go. We started dating, and I made sure it always had oil in it, etc. We broke up five years later, then she called me a year after that complaining that her engine had died and it was my fault since I told her it didn't need a new engine before. Evidently the oil light doesn't mean anything to some people.

jrw1621 wrote: Accountants like predictability. A car payment and a car with less than 100k miles needs fewer big ticket items. Sure, it will need tires, brakes and shocks but unlikely to need trans and headgasket. Is there also a element of style here? Does you wife not like being seen in the older car she is driving? That "style" may not matter to you and I but it can be of real and genuine importance to others. For me, I keep my wife in newer cars and myself in the older. When we travel together, we take her car (I drive.) This is important because my wife is much less likely to "listen and learn" from the car. I take on that responsibility of "listening and learning" myself during these drives. Let your wife drive the cars when they are newest and as they age, "retire" them down to yourself when you can give them the care and attention they need. From there, it can be a fine line of knowing when to let a car go and not continue to reinvest into it.

This, right here.

The last two new-to-me cars I've purchased for dd purpose I was all set to buy new in order to in one case, find one of them (ms3 in late 07) or to get what I actually wanted (what do you want a 4x4 for?, this is Houston). In both cases I ended up finding a less than one year used model of what I was looking for with less than 10k on the odo. Both had been traded in less than a week prior to me buying, so you have to keep on top of autotrader and keep checking back at the dealers. Helps if they are on the way home from work. On the ms3, I saved about 2k off sticker. On the xterra, I saved about 7500 off sticker, about 4500 below realistic otd cost.

I'm going through something very similar with my wifey. We've been burned on a used car purchase before, so she's basically willing to pay out the nose for something "no one else has touched before". Thankfully, she is a fellow enthusiast and doesn't want to pay $25K for some incredibly boring car, but it has been like pulling teeth to get her to even consider a used car lately.

jrw1621 wrote: Accountants like predictability. A car payment and a car with less than 100k miles needs fewer big ticket items. Sure, it will need tires, brakes and shocks but unlikely to need trans and headgasket. Is there also a element of style here? Does you wife not like being seen in the older car she is driving? That "style" may not matter to you and I but it can be of real and genuine importance to others. For me, I keep my wife in newer cars and myself in the older. When we travel together, we take her car (I drive.) This is important because my wife is much less likely to "listen and learn" from the car. I take on that responsibility of "listening and learning" myself during these drives. Let your wife drive the cars when they are newest and as they age, "retire" them down to yourself when you can give them the care and attention they need. From there, it can be a fine line of knowing when to let a car go and not continue to reinvest into it.

That is how it works at our house, though newer is not new. My FIL only ever got one new vehical in his life that I know of so my wife grew up on used but nice cars and I have thanked my FIL for that more than once, my wife sees no need for a new car.

Have you looked at a lease return, 2 to 3 year old car? Still basically new, has a warranty but someone else took the big up front depreciation hit, that might appeal to an Accountant type.

Split the difference, buy a lightly used car. Something that is only a couple years old and still has time and mileage left on the waranty. Just old enough to let someone else take the biggest depreciation hit.

I think this is actually the best thing for headaches too, since it means someone else has gotten to deal with the teething issues of whatever wasn't quite right when the car was first built.

Yeah, it's not "cheap", but you save a lot off of new and the wear items are still fairly nice and fresh so you don't need to worry about what maintenance needs to be done right away. About a year ago, my girlfriend went from look at new Ford Fiestas to looking at couple year old Mustang GT's and RX-8's. She ended up with an '06 RX-8 with 30k miles.

I should point out that her “old car” is an ’08 model year that we bought about 2.5 years ago, and that we’re currently paying on. Runs perfectly, late model, if I shine it up with a detail and wax it looks brand new. It was very lightly used when we got it, and I think it hurt her pretty badly that it was the one with the big mechanical issue recently. It needed new camshaft position sensors, and that was not a cheap shop bill. The truck (a ‘98) and the SUV (an ‘02) are the only truly old ones that we have – and by GRM measures even they aren’t exactly that old.

As a further wrinkle, we’ve got three little kids, so Versa/Fit/other-super-cheap-basic-transports aren’t coming to my house any time soon. She’s not much of a princess, either, she just doesn’t get the whole “E36 M3 breaks, you gots to get it fixed” aspect of older vehicles.

The main issue right at this moment is that we’re paying on her car and the other two are aging faster than we will get done with that note. I commute 425 miles a week, and I want to offload the 17mpg SUV in favor of a car that gets better-enough (28 or so, hwy) gas mileage to wash out some of the payment. She’s afraid I’m going to wind up with another money pit, and can’t or doesn’t yet see my side. The truck is our ace in the hole, and the only reason we haven’t been forced to trade the SUV away already, since having that third car makes it possible to leave the SUV at the transmission shop where it’s spent several weeks out of the last year - we took a flyer on getting that fixed and it just hasn't panned out yet. I imagine that Ranger will be around forever. If the motor ever dies it’s getting a 302. That will be another fight.

I always see value in keeping a spare vehicle around.

I dont see anything wrong with your logic in wanting to swap the SUV for something more efficient given your commute. Especially if it raped your wallet last year. Just get something bulletproof....dare I say, appliance like?

LIKE A MAZDA 5!!!!!!!! BECAUSE RACE VAN!!!!!

Wait did you have a budget here or???

Help US help YOU

That SUV almost became a Mazda5, about 6 months ago. Then I drove one. Too small. I had a 3 at one point, figured, "same chassis, can't lose," but shoehorning that third row in makes the front seat too far back to use the second row, really, while still not being far back enough for me to drive long term.

Otherwise- good thinking. It'd work if I wasn't such a big dude.

Jake wrote: The question: How do you guys deal with this?

Make her buy her own car with her own money if she refuses to take your advice. Granted at the same time it goes both ways, you won't have any say in what she chooses or how much she chooses to pay to get into it.

Anything more then 3 kids plus two parents equals minivan. But even then, most minivans are barely mid 20's in MPG. Unless you found something like a unicorn 2.4 Caravan, add a SRT4 turbo, RS body manual shifter, pedals, and trans, lowering springs on some Koni's or KYB's, V6 swaybars............. Oh E36 M3 off to CL again...

chknhwk wrote:

Jake wrote: The question: How do you guys deal with this?

Make her buy her own car with her own money if she refuses to take your advice. Granted at the same time it goes both ways, you won't have any say in what she chooses or how much she chooses to pay to get into it.

I've gone the step further and if she buys it with her money, she pays to fix the POS when it breaks, if going against my advise.

Ok, another suggestion. this would be for your DD, wife keeps her 08 and I assume that would be the family road trip vehicle. Im also assuming anything involving kid transport usually is done with her vehicle as well.

Civilian spec panther chassis car, crown vic, grand marquis, town car, etc. with the 2.73 rear end, I was seeing 27mpg highway, more around 20 around town.

And you can get those cheap cheap cheap. And parts/repairs are cheap cheap cheap. Rear seats are wide, can fit 3. Leg room leaves a little to be desired though. What it lacks in passenger compartment space it makes up for in trunk space.

sorry. I think im turning this into a what car you to buy thread rather than how to negotiate a deal with the wife. I think ill stop for now.