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Comment by mothsonasloth | Hacker News Reader

I don't care if the car is propelled by organic ethical cow methane. I will never buy a new car, even with subsidies. It's just a bad investment overall.

To make matters worse, there is no incentive to buy a certified used EV (at least for Europe).

For the cynical amongst us, this is the best time to buy a luxury used Diesel car e.g. (Audi A6, BMW 5 series etc.)

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I honestly don't think I could sleep at night, having bought a new car, knowing how much its depreciating just sat there. An acquaintance bought his dream audi TT a few years ago, and after a couple of years of ownership we calculated that every time he drove it to the shop to get lunch it cost him $35 in depreciation on top of whatever he bought.

I bike everywhere, but have been considering buying a car for some trips where it's impractical: Visiting family far away, go to the mountains to ski etc. I could always rent, but I have ended up only doing it sporadically. Spending ~$50 on a city car to have it for a day out of the city has made the barrier so high.

But having calculated cost of owning a car (parking, insurance, repairs, deprecation, gas etc) I have realized I could do that every weekend all year, and still probably come out ahead. Even if comparing to buying a used car. So here's to hoping I will be better at doing it this winter.

I don't buy new cars either. The initial drop of in value is just insane. You can buy a really nice used car with electric windows(!) for the same price as new low end crap cars like Dacia. I never understood who buys those new if they already are looking for something cheap.

I would not call Dacia a crap car. It drives, it's cheap, and serves its purpose and niche.

Might be my own bias speaking, but... I think it's rash calling it a crap car.

I meant "crap" as in "cheap", sorry.

Sure a Dacia Sandero (two door) works and is nice but so is a 8 y.o. BMW or Volvo in the wagon class for about the same price.

What I don't understand is why by a cheap new car, when you can buy a cheap old car of higher class for the same price, or a cheap old car of the smaller classes for way less.

An used luxury car is cheap to buy because it can be expensive or time consuming to maintain.

This is not a reason why its cheap, all cars are expensive to maintain over time

The reason luxury used cars are cheap is because the people who can afford them new, generally can afford a newer one in 3 years. So they are quite abundant

Diesels sometimes command a 30-40% price difference to petrol engines in Germany thanks to the bans and the stigma - perfect if you're living in Eastern Europe and willing to import.

odds are that diesel x5 2l engine might pollute less than a 3l “hybrid”. the engines are usually larger on so called brids so they can carry all that dead weight.

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