So I will try to make this concise as possible. I recently broke my own rule in life and bought a brand new car off the lot. Essentially I convinced myself of all the upsides, especially with the high used market right now, yada yada. Anyway, the reason I am asking this is this technically I can afford it. I put $10,000 down and my car payment is 750 a month with the idea that I will just fully pay it off within two years which I will be able to do I just don’t like giving up too much liquidity upfront. However, after a few weeks of soul-searching, I just feel silly and do not care about having this nice of a car. Second reason which is a bigger problem… test driving I only did about 15 minutes and now that I have driven the car for well over half an hour at a time I’m having a lot of comfort issues in the seat and cannot figure out how to fix the issue if I was to drive for long distances. I am thinking about trading it in for a car that would cost about $15,000 less, is used and only has about 35,000 miles on it and it is a Honda. I think I could lower my monthly payments about $250 and would still be quite happy with the car. Is there any world where this actually makes sense financially to do or would it be just smarter to stick it out? I have not gotten trade-in values on it yet but I would probably lose about 3 to 4 grand on it.
Thanks for any advice
Car buying (and remorse) need advice
byu/HD19645 inpersonalfinance
Posted by HD19645
7 Comments
It would be helpful if you posted more car details and income/savings info. My advice would be different depending on how much wiggleroom that person has.
You’re going to take a huge financial hit to do that. I think this is something where you’re going to need to learn to love the car you bought.
If you have the money why not pay cash for the used one?
Personally? I think losing the money on the trade in is probably worth it to cut $500 off each month of your payments.
$750/month is a ton of money
Even frugal people are allowed to buy new cars -especially if they’re going to keep ’em a really long time. Sounds like the real issue here is comfort.
You could have bought a used car without enough test driving and be in the same position. The question really seems to boil down to: Is it worth $3-4k for more comfort? Which would take about 1 year of lower car payments (that $250/month x ~12 months) to ‘make back’.
If you take long trips and plan to keep the car for a long time, I’d lean towards getting the more comfortable car. Private sale could soften blow if it’s worth the trouble.
So basically you are going to get a new car and pay the money premium for it to then go back on your decision and burn probably 5 grand to just get a used car.
Incredibly stupid idea. You bought a Honda not a Mercedes.
Just drive it. Keep it for 10 years.
Cars are depreciating assets so unlike a house, toughing it out and paying more typically just means you’re going to lose value anyway.
If trading down increases your comfort, increases your monthly capital by reducing your payments, and you’re emotionally accepting of a sizeable loss that you’ll never actually really feel then I honestly think it’s fine personally.
This goes double if you’ll be paying the lesser car off even faster. 18 months of interest on a 50k car vs 24 months on a 65k car isn’t a negligible. Both higher starting balance and duration being longer just has you further in the hole.
All in all – you’d likely only actually materialize between 5-10k worth of a loss in exchange for long range comfort as well as a little financial relief with the required min monthly payment.