Your Car Buying Experiences

[civiclx]

Feel free to use this thread for sharing your car buying experiences and stories. I might add some questions to this OP but for now...

[Bigdog]

My advice is if you are looking into buying right now your window is possible closing, well depending on your finances and what you want to stomach for loan rates.

I don't know if you are one of these doesn't pay attention to what is happening in this country right now people, but things like getting loans for anything are about to become far more expensive with 2 more expected rate hikes to interest rates before the end of the year, and overall banks will start becoming far pickier to who they choose to lend to.

Imo if you have not bought a car in the last year or two any opinions will Imo be kind of void and invalid as the market right now is just a mess! This is what sucks, prices for new and used are far overvalued right now but waiting for the correction, is waiting for the collapse that is no doubt coming in the car market. Getting a loan unless you have cash to buy will be far more difficult and costly.

Sorry to confuse you here but the last thing you kind of want hanging around your neck, heading straight into a recession, is a high interest rate car loan.

[civiclx]

Originally Posted by Bigdog

My advice is if you are looking into buying right now your window is possible closing, well depending on your finances and what you want to stomach for loan rates.

I don't know if you are one of these doesn't pay attention to what is happening in this country right now people, but things like getting loans for anything are about to become far more expensive with 2 more expected rate hikes to interest rates before the end of the year, and overall banks will start becoming far pickier to who they choose to lend to.

Imo if you have not bought a car in the last year or two any opinions will Imo be kind of void and invalid as the market right now is just a mess! This is what sucks, prices for new and used are far overvalued right now but waiting for the correction, is waiting for the collapse that is no doubt coming in the car market. Getting a loan unless you have cash to buy will be far more difficult and costly.

Sorry to confuse you here but the last thing you kind of want hanging around your neck, heading straight into a recession, is a high interest rate car loan.

Thanks for the info. I don't think you confused me too much but maybe that's just because I'm too ignorant on these economics issues

I was looking at a Mazda3 Sedan. The last time I bought a car was in 2014 and that was a six-year old Honda Civic. My last new car was in 2004 and that was a 2005 Mazda6. I don't have a lot of experience purchasing vehicles and I'm not much of a haggler. I found a Turbo trim (7 of 8 trims) in the Bay Area and it's just over $36,000 OTD. Right now I can put about half down and in another few weeks or so, I could put down $20K. My credit isn't too good right now so I'm not getting any nice APRs on financing. I've given a little consideration to buying a used car but I'd really like a new car.

When is the last time you bought a car and what did you get?