Planning Ahead. Things Needed to Be Ready Before Buying a Car
This is the continuation of my journey acquiring a new car. If you have missed the original post, the journey log is all at the end of the page
3 years ago, I was working very hard towards getting my first house, thank goodness the painstaking process is finally over; so as it is like a taking care of a kid for a house, so it is the same for a car; another baby to take care.
A lot of people mentioned, "ah, get a new car, and just pay the hire-purchase so that you don't have to worry about the car for the next 5 years"
But these very same people do not mention all the hidden costs that comes with the car besides monthly installment.
Today, as I am writing this sharing my experience, this is also my logbook reminding myself how cringing I must need to be very discipline and every cent count on all expenses.
Then again, God can still extend my tent anytime, and hopefully crypto bull will return!
So what are the hidden costs that could come?
Insurance
Depending the size and the capacity of the car, especially in Malaysia, insurance coverage is very different.
Worse still is that after the major flood in Shah Alam, some car insurance have already decided no longer covering flood damages! Therefore it is very important to know what happens.On the road tax
Some countries do not have these; but in Malaysia, there is a yearly road tax. Therefore the bigger the capacity of the car, the higher the horse power, the more expensive the annual On the Road Tax will be.Petrol (gas) monthly expenses
Yes getting a bigger capacity car would be a lot nicer, but it also comes with a price! Bigger gallon compartment = more money ; not to mention a bigger car will drain more petrol (gas) fees. Even electronic cars have other hidden chargers like motherboard malfunction and repairs charges, etc.Tyre expenses
Yes! Tyres! A bigger car will require bigger sets of tyres, and even though this is an annual thing, it is something that MUST be budgeted before purchasing a car.Quarterly maintenance (especially labour charges!)
Yes. Some new cars actually have free first year maintenance, but they usually do not include labour chargers. These are the tiny little unseen expenses that usually catch you off guard.
For people who wants to plan to keep the car running for more than 5 years, then it is wise to keep aside these "future expenses" whenever possible in a compounding interest so that there are less headaches in the future.
All the costs above MUST be included as additional cash that is not spent in the other usual expenses like mortgage, utility bills, food, lodging, personal insurance, emergency funds, etc.
So before looking for a car, one must know what is the additional cash he / she can spare for the car, before even thinking of getting one
Therefore, the best way to look for a car is:
Based on the affordable monthly car instalment, look for the car that fits the instalment.
Bottom line is, big liability materials like these are like kids.... there are so much more than just paying cash over the counter / applying for a loan
How about you?
Do you own a car yourself? What did you go through before you own a car?
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Out of all the expenses you’ve listed above, miscellaneous is will probably eat your money the most. Sometimes one can just wake up and boom tire is flat or something else.
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Yeah. That's the nightmare!
It's exactly like having a kid. You'll never know what happens no matter how well you take care of your kid.
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To answer your questions...
Yes, I own a car. I am a passionate driver, so just a couple of weeks after I've got my driving license I bought my first car. Since then I always had a car, a whole variety of them. I always loved bigger cars more, and that's probably because we were a bigger family and we needed that extra space (especially for traveling) for kids and all the stuff we had to bring with us. Although I believe, even if it wasn't so, I would still love bigger cars more.
I don't have some favorable type, but I always kinda preferred those with more extra features and gadgets. Of course, that would always raise the price significantly, so often I had to lower my wishes and expectations to adjust it firstly to our budget and then to the essential needs and purpose of that car.
Therefore, through the years (I don't know if it's because of my aging or just experience) I'm longing less and less for some shiny fancy car, and I'm more interested in the car's good performances and longevity.
In the past years, I was buying new and used cars that depended on various factors, but overall I can say that Japanese cars (although initially always more costly ones) turned out to be the best as in their performance, available extra features (which in Japanese cars are often part of the standard equipment), and above all as the most cost-effective ones.
Despite that, last year I bought a new car Eastern-European production (not so ago taken under the "hat" of French Renault). Although in the last years, French cars (including Renault) turned out to be the ones that most often break down and cause some issues (according to some statistics), this one turned out to be different.
It has that somewhat robust old school, Eastern-European construction (what makes it a bit less visually appealing), but with French acquisition that was a bit improved as well as some more and modern functionality features were added. As I was driving the same type of car before (but used one), last year I decided to buy a new one because of its main advantages that are: low initial buying costs, very low if any maintenance costs, lots of space (5 seats + extra-large, caravan type of trunk), and extremely low fuel costs, as the engine goes on gas and petrol (after a full year, I still didn't empty my petrol tank as I'm driving primarily on gas).
All in all, and especially considering all the purposes for which I need that car, I am very satisfied.
In the end, there is one little trick that I learned through my experience that might be of some help to you, especially if you are considering buying a new car.
Car dealerships always have those so-called showroom cars. Sometimes they just stand in the showroom, but sometimes they also use them for test drives. On average they change them every 6 months or at most a year. You can get those showroom cars with an extra discount (in my country it usually ranges around 20%). Not to mention that those showroom cars usually have those extra features you would love to have but would cost you a significant additional amount of money as they are almost never part of the standard equipment. 😉 So, if nothing you might get an extremely well-equipped car for the price of the core standard version.
You just have to be aware that such a car wouldn't come with zero mileage (but usually not with more than 10,000 km /about 6,200 miles or at most 15,000 km /about 9,300 miles/), and its official production year might be one year older.
If you are a wise negotiator you may get a great deal this way! 😉🙂
Wow! Thank you so much for such an extensive guidance from your valuable experience!
Really missed our long extensive chats on comments and PM!
Yes. I am actually looking into asking a little more about "refurbished" / showroom cars and see if they are in available, and see how long have they been running on the road as some of the staffs that handles the test-drive cars actually treat it as "company car" (they will drive to-and-fro between work and home). There ARE however some slightly dented cars during transfers and they had to fix the dents and then they become "refurbished" cars. I had a friend who got that from Toyota before (yes Japanese car) for 10% cheaper.
I love Japanese cars too, but they are out of my budget range.
Furthermore I need to trade in my 15 year old car for some discounts. I am not certain are these "discounted cars" are in the range. That, I have to see if I can negotiate with them or not haha.
Do pray that HIS favour is upon this decision making!
Regarding those dealers that use the showroom cars as company cars, I know exactly what are you talking about as we have such smart asses here too.
However, the point is that when entering such negotiation you have to be smarter than they are and not to appear truly or very interested. And the most important thing is to find, as much as possible, the true or alleged shortcomings of that car so they would keep lowering the price. In short, it's best to play stupid and keep grumbling about everything you can find as an issue, and anything you can think of. 😉😄 (My blond hair served me very well while playing that role.) 😂
And last but not least, I'will pray for you that Holly Spirit "shower" you with the wisdom to make the right decision at the right time, so that everything may turn out according to His will and the best for you! 🙂
hahaha - 😄 - I told you, it's important to play stupid.
A friend of mine once told me, "You know we are stupid! We are two stupid blondes! And you know why, just because we are showing the world that we actually are not stupid. Wise women are doing smart things and achieving their goals by playing stupid. We are doing it the hard way as we don't want to appear stupid as we are not. Wrong!"
I laughed like crazy when she told me that but, in fact, she was right. I'm still learning that lesson and still failing, but I am way better than I was before.
As time goes by, I am more and more convinced it's a skill that should be taught and learned. Unfortunately, our parents didn't teach us that as it probably appeared to them as some sort of dishonesty, and we are thought to be honest, rightful, caring, sincere, to educate ourselves to be smart, and so on.
And I am fine with all of that. I'm just observing that "play stupid" thing a bit differently now, like a wise way of not showing all my cards on a silver plate at once, as some situations and some people really don't deserve it. Of course, there would be situations when we should act entirely opposite, but unfortunately, the world we are living in will bring us 90% of situations in which we would encounter people that actually "demand" us to play that "stupid" role.
Just called on the car dealer shop and showroom shop, apparently all the showroom cars are already taken; and the refurbished cars are not advisable to take as they could be from the recent massive flood suffered in Malaysia.
So I probably got to still go with a new one; but then again, not a single brand new car is available now because of late production from lockdowns and the massive flood.
Which means, I have a bit of time to work hard and write more!
To me, it only means that your perfect car is not ready yet, and besides that, the Heavens sent you some additional time to organize your finances to lower down eventually possible bigger frustration in the case in which you might rush into the buying because of your current excitement about it.
In short, I see it as a good sign with extra time for consideration and exploration.
You will just see how at the end it would turn out amazingly well! 😃
I do hope so! But I actually did place a booking fee just now. After much calculation and consideration, with the possible of insurance discounts due to the fact of my low accident track record, the car that I least want to pick, that was picked by Almighty to "force" me to test drive it, is the car I would be driving probably for the next 15 years 😅
https://peakd.com/hive-141359/@littlenewthings/my-test-driving-experience-perodua-bezza