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Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Depends. I got a car loan for a modest car with 0.7% APR, I don’t see a problem with that.

My mother-in-law leases a new Toyota Corolla every few years; she gets trouble-free motoring at a reasonable rate.

Myself I have no idea how many miles I am going to drive next year (do I work from home? take the bus? do I drive to Montreal or North Carolina a lot?) so I buy a similar car and drive it into the ground.

Many of those luxury cars are leased, not loaned; the headline number ($/month) looks low compared to a loan on a modest car. You will probably need a lot of warrantee repair (a Toyota and a Cadillac are quality cars in their own estimations, but not in each other’s; if you need your car to start in the morning so you can get to work pick the Toyota.)

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A Corolla is only $20,000, so that fits my point. But I have seen tons of people buying cars they can't afford, in order to impress people they don't like. The easiest way to waste tons of money is by buying an overpriced car

I've never paid more than about 3.5k USD for a car. Not sure what the second hand market is like in America but in NZ and UK you can get great cars for a fraction of the cost of buying new.

In terms of maintenance, I've had some that were troublesome, and some that needed nothing, it's a bit of a lottery in that regard. Most common problems are solvable with a few hours on your back in the garage though.

Possibly most interesting is that the value decay has already taken place at this point. Eg: buy a car for 2k, sell it 5 years later for 1.5k, as opposed to buying it for 80k and selling it two years later for 40k

The Cash for Clunkers program destroyed the used car market in the US. It's slowly recovering as cars from the 2000s and 2010s enter it.

the CARS program ran for 1 month in 2009. so it didnt affect 2009 and later model years. it appears to have increased new car sales in 2009 so it should positively affect the used car market in later years as those new cars moved to the used car market.

please explain how the used car market is "slowly recovering" 11 years later.

It took almost 700,000 of the most affordable cars off the market. That plus the reliability of newer cars means they stay with their original owners longer, so there are fewer used cars on the market at prices people can afford. Used car prices are still out of reach for too many people even before factoring in things like insurance and registration.

The floor price of a car that passes inspection is about what you say in the US but if you want a car for racing on a frozen lake you can pay less.

The $3.5k car is going to need more than $0 a month in repairs; the lease price includes that. If you like fixing your own car, get joy out of a unique car, don’t mind owning three VWs and having one run at any time the clunker can be a win. But if your clunker needs a $200 repair every month you might decide a payment and a reliable car is better for you.

Infotainment systems are in reverse gear but people underestimate the environmental and safety benefits of newer cars. There was that time I rolled my fit. I got lucky, but I didn’t even feel pain and the back window broke out so I even had an easy time getting out with the car wedged in the roadside ditch.

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