Walk into a new car dealer and your heart is pumping and thumping.  Adrenaline rushes through your body as you see the beautiful car on the showroom floor that has every feature you want and is in your favorite color!  What should you do now???  Turn around, and walk out because you’re about to waste more than $10,000 on a new car – as if it were a 50 cent piece of candy at the corner store when you were 10 years old.  If you don’t have the courage to walk out, then read my Top 10 Reasons To Buy a Used Car to boost your confidence and help you to understand why buying a used is always in your best interests.

1. Car Dealers Are Hurting

• If you haven’t been following the news, car dealers are having a hard time selling new cars. However, cars manufactures can adjust to this change by producing fewer cars. The problem lies in the used car market. People are turning in their leased cars and not buying them back partly because dealers set the buy-back prices too high and partly because people leased more car than they could afford. You can take advantage of this trend by buying a used car at an incredible discount.

2. Certified Pre-Owned Programs

• Imagine this: you buy a two year old used car in perfect condition with 24,000 miles for $10,000 less than a new car and the warranty is extended from 3 years/36,000 miles to 4 years/48,000 miles. Sound too good to be true? It’s not – you just need to read a little more about Certified Pre-Owned cars to understand why they are an amazing deal.

3. Price

• New Cars are expensive and contrary to what a dealer might tell you, they are NOT a good investment. Tax, title, license and depreciation over the first two years on a $25,000 new car will cost you from $10,000 to $15,000. Ouch! When you buy a used car, you avoid steep depreciation and high taxes on an inflated price. Buying the same $25,000 car, but one that is two years old, will cost you about $11,000 less than its new counterpart. Thinking differently, the cost of owning a new car for two years could even buy you a very nice used car!

4. Used Car History Transparency

• Twenty years ago, we had to believe some stranger about the reliability of a used car. Today, services like CARFAX provide us with complete information about a car’s service, accident, or lemon history. We no longer have to worry about a used car’s history!

5. It’s Environmentally Friendly

• A Toyota Prius is a great car to own if you want to save on gas. However, it takes the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gas to make a new Prius. When you buy a used car, you aren’t putting another car on the road. Instead, you are trading the energy it took to make your old car, with energy it took to make the used car you just purchased.

6. Depreciation

• Cars depreciate the most during their first two years. By my estimate, a typical new car will depreciate about 40% over the first two years. However, don’t take my word for it. Check out Car.com’s great residual value tool and see how much that new car you are considering will depreciate in two years.

7. More for Less

• Are you thinking about buying a Honda Accord, but really want the Acura TL? Maybe a Ford Taurus is on the top of your new car list, but you really want be seen in a Jaguar X-Type? The great news for you is that you get A LOT more car for less money when you choose to buy a used car.  Check it out for yourself with Carsala’s online price quoting tool.

8. Low Insurance Rates

• Insurance rates are partially based on a car’s value and that car’s safety features. When you an equivalent used car, your comprehensive and collision coverage is lower. If you choose to upgrade your car type when you buy used, there may be other insurance discounts for safety features such as a better anti-theft security system, stability control, or VIN etched windows.

9. Used Cars Have Never Been More Reliable

• I’m not saying that every car on the road is reliable. However, modern cars are incredibly reliable and with cheap services like Consumer Reports, we have easy access to information about the reliability of used cars.

10. You Can Use Carsala

• Buying a used car is suddenly easy. Choose the car, model year, features, and colors you prefer and then let Carsala find the car and negotiate the price for you. They will save you up to 25% off of Kelley Blue Book and you still get to inspect and drive the car before deciding to buy it. The car industry is filled with schemes to trick you into paying too much for a car. Carsala is different because what you pay for their service is based on how much you save, not how much you spend like every other car buying service.

Do you think I missed something?  Let me know by leaving a comment!