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Luxury Cars depreciate much faster than regular cars. I have seen Mercedes S 550 and BMW 750il a few years old for 30k. Most rich people do not want a car that is over 4 or 5 years old thats why the middle class can get a super fancy car for a solid bargain.
Why do you think mommy "has to" work?! Afterall, you can't expect her to go without the car, nail and hair appointments, and vacation for the sake of raising /being home with kids. Can you?!
A luxury car is a perk for the working mom of today. I know (and have known) too many who claim they "have to" work because the family can't afford for her to stay home. Yet, they have the expensive vehicles, habits, vacations. Do you wonder why?!
Luxury Cars depreciate much faster than regular cars. I have seen Mercedes S 550 and BMW 750il a few years old for 30k. Most rich people do not want a car that is over 4 or 5 years old thats why the middle class can get a super fancy car for a solid bargain.
Insurance, maintenance and repairs on those cars will also eat you alive. Peanuts to the people who bought them new, but potentially a big problem for an unprepared middle-class second hand owner.
Insurance, maintenance and repairs on those cars will also eat you alive. Peanuts to the people who bought them new, but potentially a big problem for an unprepared middle-class second hand owner.
Even those who buy them new dump them right before the warranty runs out or leases them and turns them in after 2-3yrs for a new one.
Insurance, maintenance and repairs on those cars will also eat you alive. Peanuts to the people who bought them new, but potentially a big problem for an unprepared middle-class second hand owner.
Not if they are smart and handy. I can work on my BMW 7 series myself, so the buy-in was inexpensive for what I got and the insurance is cheap because it's not new and there are no payments being made. Thanks to the internet, getting OEM parts is rather inexpensive, too.
Insurance, maintenance and repairs on those cars will also eat you alive. Peanuts to the people who bought them new, but potentially a big problem for an unprepared middle-class second hand owner.
Not if one buys right and uses the available reliability and annual repair cost data for each make and model. Doing that, one can easily get into a luxury car that is more reliable than any non-luxury car and just as cheap to repair as an Asian non-luxury car of good build quality.
I can buy a 3 year old off-lease luxury sports sedan with a V6 engine and less than 36,000 miles for the same price as a new 4 cylinder non-luxury sedan. As I implied / stated, this car will have better reliability than any non-luxury car on the road and will be as cheap to annually maintain and repair as an average non-luxury auto of good quality. According to the data.
The age and miles is the equity trade-off for the better engine, luxury interior, and better all-around build quality. Its a fair deal in which I see value. For me, the reality of the used luxury auto market makes it difficult to spend the equivalent money on a non-luxury car. I imagine that many middle class people do the same calculations and come to the same conclusion. If so, that would likely account for many of the times when anyone notices a middle class person driving a luxury car.
Not if one buys right and uses the available reliability and annual repair cost data for each make and model. Doing that, one can easily get into a luxury car that is more reliable than any non-luxury car and just as cheap to repair as an Asian non-luxury car of good build quality.
I can buy a 3 year old off-lease luxury sports sedan with a V6 engine and less than 36,000 miles for the same price as a new 4 cylinder non-luxury sedan. As I implied / stated, this car will have better reliability than any non-luxury car on the road and will be as cheap to annually maintain and repair as an average non-luxury auto of good quality. According to the data.
The age and miles is the equity trade-off for the better engine, luxury interior, and better all-around build quality. Its a fair deal in which I see value. For me, the reality of the used luxury auto market makes it difficult to spend the equivalent money on a non-luxury car. I imagine that many middle class people do the same calculations and come to the same conclusion. If so, that would likely account for many of the times when anyone notices a middle class person driving a luxury car.
There’s a reason that off lease price sounds so reasonable.
There’s a reason that off lease price sounds so reasonable.
It's because most luxury cars depreciate very hard. Especially sedans.
You just need to buy one that doesn't have ridiculous maintenance requirements / cost. Luxury cars that cost no more to maintain than a regular car do exist.
I have a 5 year/40K mile bumper to bumper extended warranty. My wife drives 7K miles per year.
There will be no expensive repair bills or anything to worry about. If it breaks, the dealer hands her the keys to a new one while it's being repaired.
The car (it had 33K miles on it) plus the warranty were less than $30K. That's not so loaded midsize car money.
My years in the military have shown me that on average, the lower a Soldier gets paid, the more they spend on a car. I don't get it. Junior enlisted guys are buying Audi and Infinti while officers are driving Toyota, Honda and Chevy.
But it seems like people these days are all about projecting an image so they can look like they have more money than they really do. It can be with their cars, clothes or other material things.
We have a Hyundai and Kia, we use pre-paid cell phones. I rarely buy clothes. I'd rather spend my money on stuff such as good food than clothes or cars.
I agree, and it's not anything new, or confined to guys in the military...I graduated high school in the late 1970s, and it seemed like guys right out high school in their first job would buy cars equal to their annual pay on credit. It can happen at any age, but I think usually by the time we reach 30 or so, most people have learned enough about financial limits as well as how important a fancy car really is (not so much), that they're not spending half their paycheck or more on something that's essentially a disposable item.
Inflation, automakers cutting costs on things like seats. If they have to spend more to make the car a cocoon of safety, the seat comfort is going to suffer. So will engine sizes and options, so will everything else besides the exterior these days. 90's didn't have the looks, the pistaz, the modernity, but they were comfortable gas guzzling a-b commuters. And that's the way we liked it. Think how a Jetta used to have a v6 just a decade and a half ago. That seems like yesterday. So all liberal overregulation did was create more class schisms. Thanks ***holes.
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