[Shotimes] Back on the list

[BJamesjr@aol.com]

> I've been looking at new cars for the past 3 months, but I can never make
> up my mind.  


A lot of this is a question of how much money you want to spend every month 
and how much work you can do yourself.

You can lease a new car for 3 years, and during that time all you will have 
to do is put oil and gas in it, and make the monthly payment.  This is the 
least fuss but most expensive transportation you can have.  You can buy a 3 
year old car and drive it for another 3 years, for less monthly payment but 
the car will be old enough that you will have to put things on it like 
battery, new tires, brakes, maybe other repairs.  There's always the risk of 
a major breakdown also.  However you will miss the majority of the 
depreciation and the difference in your purchase price and resale price won't 
be that high.  The last scenario is to hunt around and find a 6 year old car 
in good shape with moderate mileage.  You can buy this car for fairly low 
price and drive it a lot, but you willl certainly have to put money into 
repairs.  You can get your cost per month way down this way, but you will be 
driving an older car, you will have to spend more time repairing it, and it 
may reach a point where you don't trust it for long trips.  I've been through 
all of these scenarios to some extent.  My current situation was to buy a 97 
SHO with 63k miles on it, which I can have faith in and drive at least 
another 60k miles.  The previous owner(s) probably spent 2 to 3 times my 
purchase price in their depreciation for their 63k miles.