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Comment by llampx | Hacker News Reader

It's been a hot minute since I last saw a "barely used" car going for an appreciable discount over a brand new one. Even today you may be able to find a better deal on a new car where the dealership isn't adding a scalping fee.

For the reliable cars like Honda Civics and in-demand ones the 1st year depreciation wasn't actually all that much compared to buying it new with a good dealer discount, urban legends notwithstanding.

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Same here, we bought a new Subaru Crosstrek the end last year. Looking at the depreciation curve we found that the car didn't really depreciate more the first couple years than it did later years, so going for a new one made a lot more sense than I initially thought it would.

Same with my Subaru Forester! My car got totaled so I needed a new one. Used Forster that were 2-3 years old with 30k miles were selling for 24-26k with loan interest rate of 1.9 or so. I ended up by a brand new Forster xt for 28k with 0 interest loan from Subaru. Only cost me 2k more to get brand new car with full warranty vs a car that was 3 years old. Made back the difference in interest rate. I took a 5 year loan because why not no interest. I was never underwater on the car as put decent amount down.

Fairly annoyed they discontinued the Forester XT. Only reason I bought a used one.

I like it. I kinda wish I got the touring for eyesight for adaptive cruise control. But it came with leather and I was just not going to deal with leather. Though the outback XT is pretty good as it is 2.4 ascent engine so no premium.

I got the touring and it’s definitely nice. The problem is that you can’t replace the head unit since the Harmon Kardon speaker system needs an extra amplifier. That means I don’t have CarPlay. Makes me sad.

The ACC is a bit spiky. Could use some easing. But with everything on it’s not too bad in rush hour traffic when I don’t feel like taking the motorcycle out. Feet on the floor and it takes care of everything.

My 2019 Honda Accord LX got totaled from the Ida flooding, it had 16k miles on it, I paid $22K.

Looking at cars now I’m seeing 2109 LX’s with 30K mikes selling for $26-28K it’s crazy.

Subarus are weird.

They focus on and serve a few niche markets, so some models are always in tight supply and rarely have incentives.

Just watch out for that head gasket problem!

Yes, if you calculate the depreciation based on getting a pretty good deal rather than paying the list price, the fabled thousands you lose as soon as you drive off the forecourt mostly vanish.

If GP is like me, it's related to buying used higher end and/or "luxury" brand vehicles. In my experience, my previous 2 vehicles were 2 and 3 years old respectively and cost roughly ~60% of sticker price.

I imagine this is a big motivator for car companies to start moving towards a CaaS model

Volvo is trying this! They call it a car subscription. Doesn't seem like it has had a huge impact, though: https://www.volvocars.com/us/care-by-volvo/

Looks exactly like a lease except they cover a few more things like tires? And even then, it says they cover cases of "excessive wear" which implies something wrong with the vehicle which the warranty should cover in either case.

Is there any real difference besides the fact that you can order it online and that it appears much more expensive?

To answer my own question, looks like they include the insurance and they do pay to replace the tires if needed and you can cancel after 5 months, I guess.

I thought it also includes insurance, and you could also swap cars at any point? So pretty similar but a little more than a lease.

That's what a lease is.

I'm thinking more along the lines of how car companies can recapture the money that the second owner is saving by buying a used vehicle.

For example instead of selling a car, selling a license to use the car to the first owner and then deactivating features or throttling performance if/when they resell the car.

"You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy"

"...and you'll ignore all the warnings (like ^ this comment) until it's too late."

If the car is known to have no resale value, it will command lower price when new, so car companies can hardly do much here.

GM currently tracks 100+ variables of your car over the life of usage (thanks on star!) and then calculates a resale price and offers to buy it back or gives you a certain deal when trading in.

Ford does something similar but is easily defeated by changing the stereo. The APIM tracks your driving habits locations and ecu vars which is captured and uploaded to Ford when you take the car in for service (don’t know how this works in their newer 2019+ cars since they are also connected 24/7 like GM)

My local dealer (pre-covid) had a deal where basically you paid $1000+ a month, and got your choice of which luxury vehicle you wanted. Swap em in and out like old school Netflix. No idea how successful it was, but I don't hear anything about it anymore.

Yep, this is what I've experienced last two times around looking at Acuras, Lexus, etc. Maybe it's different with trucks, SUVs, and non-luxury brands, but the new cost of a mid-tier Acura is at least 50% more than one with 20K miles off a 2-3 year lease. This was always the sweet spot for these cars as they were in perfect shape and still had pretty decent "certified warranties".

I'm due for an upgrade, but if my choice is between a full price $40K new sedan or a 3 year old one for $38K (instead of the $26K I'd expect to pay a few years ago), then I'm more than content to just keep my ten year old Acura, knowing I'll need to spend $500/yr on repairs as it starts showing its age.

Yeah for me when we were buying our next minivan Honda it was more important that we didn't end up buying the first cars in a generation refresh. The first year of a generation tends to have more bugs than others. New vs like-new doesn't matter for the big reliable mass produced cars.

https://www.autolist.com/honda-odyssey/honda-odyssey-generat...

Yeah the last two times I bought a car I just bought new with the plan to ride it out until it started becoming unreliable. Well, the first one I totaled instead so it didn't totally work out, but the second one is paid off and still running great, plus I know it has been maintained to a reasonable standard.

I've done that with my wife's last two cars but in both cases we ended up spending a lot before we replaced them. This time we will swap them out a little earlier.

Simply put, the ask-bid spread on barely-used and/or CPO cars are huge (read: they buy really low and sell really high). Dealers make a lot of money this way.

My 2014 Ford is now selling for the same price I bought it for. I have only put 10k miles on it in the last 4 years. Tempted to sell it and wait for the recovery and pickup a new car at bargain basement prices

Depends on the make and model.

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