Used Car or New Car?

There is a great debate going on as to whether you should buy a new car or a used car. Of course your opinion on this is going to depend in large part on your reasons for buying the car. In general if you are looking to get the best value a used car is best, however not everybody is concerned solely with price. Therefore if you want a new car there is no reason not to buy one.

In general it is best to buy a used car rather than a new one because of the large depreciation that cars take in the first couple of years. After that the car will depreciate at a far slower rate. Therefore if you buy a car that is a couple of years old you will get more of your money back when it comes time to sell and replace the car. This is the conventional wisdom any way and for a lot of people it will be true. However like most things it is not as simple as all that.

The first issue that you have to deal with if you are buying a used car is making sure that it is in good condition. In general cars should still run just fine after a couple of years but of course you really don't know what the previous owner did to the car. That means that there may be some hidden repair costs that you have to deal with. This is generally not an issue with a new car which these days rarely have problems and even if they do they are covered by warranty. Clearly if you buy a used car that is bad shape you are going to end up paying a lot more.

Another factor to consider is that these days the cost of new cars is not a lot more than a good quality used car. Because of slow car sales in recent years there are so many incentives to get new buyers in the door that you may find that you are only paying slightly more for the new car than you would be for the used car. In this case it probably makes sense to go with the new car.

The last consideration is what is actually important to you when you are buying a car. There are plenty of people for whom getting the best value on their vehicle is not the primary concern. The luxury car market wouldn't exist if it was. In this case you may want a new car simply because it is new, or because you want a specific model or whatever other reason. The bottom line is that in most cases the best financial decision is to go with the used car provided you can get a good one. However if you really want a new car then there is no reason not to get one.