Webs’ Random Ideas

My 1994 Toyota Camry has finally met it’s end

Every time my Fiance takes a car in we get a repair bill for $1300. It happened two years ago with our Lumina and just a month ago with our Toyota Camry. So sadly we had to start looking for a new car. I consider myself to have a reasonable amount of financial knowledge, I am certainly no expert but I have learned quite a few things from others. The number one mistake people make financial is to buy a new car.

Reasoning on this is simple, as soon as you drive it off the lot the re-sale value decrease immediately. This is simply due to the markup all new cars have from the dealership. So the best thing to do is to buy a certified 2-3 year old car, or a 2-3 year old Corolla, at least financially. Well after looking into everything and test driving a Honda Fit, Honda Civic, and a Toyota Yaris we found out which one we liked. The Honda Fit.

Between the Yaris, Corolla, Civic, Camry and Fit, all have about the same MPGs (24-29 in the city with the Camry being the lowest and Yaris being the highest). The Fit came in at 27, so it was in second place. It is also a very small and light car with a small engine. So not only are MPGs good, but so are emissions. And unlike the other cars the Fit can do so much more with seat configurations. It’s sorta like a micro-mini-van-sedan, if that makes sense.

If you do some simple Google searches you will only find people stating positive things about the Fit. Couple that with Honda’s known reliability and couple that with the features of the Fit and you have one awesome car.

Unfortunately the Fit is such a damn good car no one seems to be selling any used ones. And dealers can only keep em on the lots for a couple weeks. After some more research, the dealer invoice for a Fit Sport is 15200 and the sticker price is 16700. This figure doesn’t include the shipping costs the dealer pays, but still they aren’t making much on em. So after a trade in and getting the dealer to take $300 off the top, my fiance and I got a Fit for under $16000. Then we had a down payment to apply.

I know, I bought a new car, poor financial move, etc… Yadda Yadda. But I thought about it. Used car loans have a higher interest rate than new car loans. We did have much to put down, so regardless our loan was going to be at least over $10,000. And I wasn’t going to buy a used car any older than 3 years old. I want something reliable that I won’t have to spend much money on in the coming years.

The other thing I thought about was that you really only need to be concerned with the re-sale value of a car if you plan on selling it. In my case I hope to keep it till it dies a natural death. So for me I didn’t necessarily care if I bought a new car or a used one. I had to get a loan either way, so for me I basically paid about $1000-3000 more for a new Fit. Which for the features I got, to me it was worth it.

If I could have found a used Fit in a short period of time (as my Camry was not driveable in any way, shape, or form) I would definitely have looked into it. But that was not exactly feasible at the time. And if we can keep the other POS car we have running smoothly for 3-5 years, we will then be ready to purchase an awesome hybrid or electric car.

Toyota has a new hybrid they’re showcasing at the Detroit Auto Show (and hopefully the Chicago one too as I am going to go to it ). It’s called the A-Bat Hybrid Compact Pickup Truck Concept and has some friggin cool features…

A rigid center console houses a portable power pack that offers both AC and DC for a wide variety of applications including powering tools, electrical gear while camping, a laptop computer, small appliances or assisting a vehicle jump start.

Inside the A-BAT has a retractable portable navigation unit with a seven-inch diagonal screen and Wi-Fi internet. Other advanced features include a port for portable device assistant synchronization and a hard drive for digital music.

That last part really sounds geeky and cool! And I was just talking with a friend yesterday about the lack of integration of MP3 capabilities in cars and car stereos. The other idea here that interests me about this is Toyota’s idea of integrating cool technology with Hybrids. It’s a smart way of getting people that wouldn’t care about Hybrids or the environment interested. I know of people that buy Prius’ because they are cool and geeky and not really for the eco-friendly technology or designs.

Which is what more auto manufacturers should be doing, showing the cool side of being eco-friendly…

I was sitting on the toilet (where I usually come up with some of my brilliant ideas) and thought, “I never did write a post about my car, with the rough idle.” So without further delay, here you go…

Long Post Ahead

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