Anyone who buys new is a chump.

Flat out.

Depends on how you value the shit it comes with.

Me? I agree.

Which is why I buy used

For someone who just views a car as an appliance and just wants it to go from A to B in the least inconvenient fashion possible, new cars make sense (as long as it's not an FCA car).

To someone who wants a fun car with excellent gas mileage, but also has customization opportunities available, and also offers the chance to learn how to work on cars without my ride to school/work being in jeopardy?

Slightly used cars.

I mean there are plenty of people using 20 and 30 year old cars as point A to B cars who are not car enthusiasts, just because they don't see cars are something you need to dispose of or replace after an arbitrary amount of time.

And that's fine.

They also value cars a little differently than people who see them as appliances but always want the _best_ appliances

In fact a non-enthusiast who isn't that into cars is probably less likely to replace one.

Unless it's a soccer mom who sees cars like purses

My mother, for example.

She wants _new_, because the _new_ Beemers have the _new_ shit, Goddamnit

What I don't understand and haven't seen you really explain is this arbitrary 10 year cutoff, what lead you to decide on that?

if anything newer cars offer more hurdles for modifications and learning mechanics since they often end up with trashy design bullshit that makes things unnecessarily difficult and less reliable

That was my dad's suggestion, actually

I had no idea.

Well what is his reasoning for it?

"It doesn't make you a chump to buy a new car"

*defines a chump*

@Matt Sorry, was taking care of something. The reasoning was that, after ten years you start getting more appreciable risks of cars with parts wearing out, cars beaten to death by their owners, and cars that generally just have less life in them.

It was never _really_ a hard limit, but I wanted to draw the line somewhere, and after searching a bit for cars of the type I was looking for, I decided ten years was as good a place as any to draw it.

That will likely change once I graduate and have more money available, of course.

But right now, with the kind of car I need, ten years old was a pretty good place to draw the line.

Plus, ten years old was about where insurance rates kind of bottomed out for me.

And cars got less efficient.

I mean honestly you can't use age to verify a cars past; a 25 year old bmw 3 series with a couple of owners and signs of them having looked after it is probably a better buy than a 5 year old car that was owned by a rens first few yearstal company for it

uh thanks laptop

I mean honestly you can't use age to verify a cars past; a 25 year old bmw 3 series with a couple of owners and signs of them having looked after it is probably a better buy than a 5 year old car that was owned by a rental company for the first first few years

I wouldn't have gotten a BMW anyway

_Maybe_ I would if I was buying now.

like I would never touch an ex rental car cause I know how I treat them when I'm driving rentals and it's not good, I also know that rental companies are shitty when it comes to maintenance

But at the time my standards were: no luxo brands, no sports cars (of the high hp kind at least), no FCA _at all_, avoid Shitsubishi if possible, no more than ten years old, under 100k miles if possible.

the first time I was in the US I had two different rentals, a malibu and an impala

the impala had an oil warning on the dash saying it was overdue

I called them and they said "it's fine it had an oil change before you took it out"

out of curiosity I checked on the dipstick and it was black, like pitch black

I honestly figured the oil was the same it had from new

cause it was only a 15k car or something I think