[javajosh]

Why do people borrow money to buy a car? Why not save money, maybe invest in something safe(ish), and buy your car in cash, preferably used?

I get it that people get emotional about cars, but good heavens, this impulse puts you in the hole for years. It's almost as bad as cheating on your wife (and far, far worse than cheating on a gf).

[providedotemacs]

People cannot forgo having a car for the time it would take to save up the cash.

[MisterMower]

Yeah, I’m not buying it. It’s not a choice between having a tricked out 2022 Lexus that costs $70k and no car at all. It’s the choice between a 2005 beater Toyota with 200k miles on it and no car.

Once you have that beater, you can start saving for something nicer. Find a make and model with decent reliability history that has hail damage or minor collision damage. It’s not hard to do.

If you can’t scrape together $2k to buy that beater then you have no business owning a car, period.

[cool_dude85]

Ever drive a car like the one you're describing? It's a rough situation to be in to have to put 1k into a car worth 2k to keep it going, or to have your car break down and force you to call out from work on short notice. That's far from free.

[altarius]

Is it any worse than paying $650 literally every month (avg car loan payment now afaict)?

The problem is that people can't save. It'd be prudent to buy the car for $2k and save the remaining $3k somewhere to cover repairs instead of the 5k down payment.

Also, to be fair, what used to be a $2k Toyota was probably more like $5+k lately.

[danaris]

Yes, it is worse. Because if you get a new or newish used car and have to pay $650/month, each month you still have a decently working car.

If you get a piece of junk for $2k and then have to put $1k into it again periodically, during that whole period you have either a pretty lousy car, or a non-working car.

And, as noted by the GP, that will often mean you need to call out from work. Which, for many of the kind of people who would be doing this in the first place, means a) they absolutely don't get paid for that day (all hourly work, no/very little PTO), and b) they will probably get fired if it happens more than once or twice.

Also:

> The problem is that people can't save. It'd be prudent to buy the car for $2k and save the remaining $3k somewhere to cover repairs instead of the 5k down payment.

You.....really don't see the problem with this?

People can't save. Not just "people are bad at it", "people can't manage money", "people don't know what's good for them". People literally do not have enough money to both live, and save. It's nothing to do with "prudence".

[altarius]

Late to respond but I'll do it anyway.

I'd estimate about 75% of the US population would have access to an Uber when the car needs to go to the shop (and $650 would buy a few rides). I wouldn't buy a 15 y/o Fiat/Chrysler but a Toyota or Honda should be decent enough not to need repairs every month, maybe every 6?

And (another thing most people skip) that can help a lot is preventative maintenance and regular checkups that you can schedule at your own convenience that would catch a lot of problems proactively. And you'll have to bring in your leased car too lest you want to get dinged even more at the end.

A cheap car isn't just something you buy and forget, it needs some planning and care that i honestly think most people can't handle. Probably because they're so overworked as you said. But is paying be nearly $30k over 3 years really going to get you ahead, just so you to get you reliably to your job every day to pay for that car? Or is it worth the effort to plan and manage a shitty car for 3 years to save 15k?

[ehnto]

Imagine the myriad of scenarios that exist between your two extremes.

You know you need this car for 10+ years, you want it to suit you and your family, so you get a 20k loan and get the one you that will be best now. Why waste your time and money with the beater? You would spend morein the long run than the cost of the interest on the loan (essentially the cost of purchasing now not later)

Debt is a calculated risk, with a clear cost, and plenty of people are fully capable of doing the math.

[Volundr]

I don't think this advice really applies anymore. 10 years ago when the equivalent car was a 1995 you could plausibly do something like this, buy the service manual and maintain it yourself. Sure you need the time to do it, but it keeps you from sinking 4x the cost of the car you just described into keeping it running over the next 5 years or so.

Anymore though, many engines just aren't end user serviceable. I'm running a 2007 that requires partially dropping the engine to change the spark plugs, forget replacing a head gasket or alternator.

Yeah don't buy that 70k Lexus, probably don't buy any new car, but that beater you describe is probably $2k for a reason, and the average buyer doesn't have the skill set to evaluate what that reason is, and could easily find themselves needing another $2k beater in a couple years.

Best to go upmarket a bit and get a somewhat more expensive used car, and have it inspected by a mechanic (preferably one you know and trust) before buying. Don't trust the dealer inspection!

[alphabettsy]

> many engines just aren't end user serviceable.

I have yet to see a vehicle that isn’t serviceable by an end-user. Sure some require more skill but the average Civic or Corolla isn’t hard to work on at all. If your intention is to work on your own vehicle don’t buy something more complex than your skills will allow.

[Godel_unicode]

You’ve clearly never lived paycheck to paycheck, so congratulations on your staggering privilege. You should meet some people who haven’t been as fortunate, you might be surprised how crazy tone deaf this comment is.

[Underphil]

You tried buying a used car in this market? Even junk commands a ridiculous price tag.

[nunez]

unless you don't care about cars, driving the beater sucks.

[tomschlick]

If you have good credit (>760) you can get 0% interest or close to it loans pretty regularly if you wait. At that point there is no reason for me not to take on the loan and just setup autopay.

[noirbot]

Yea, for sure. I got a 0.5% loan on my first car and had a moment when I had some spare cash and realized "Wait, I'm essentially being paid money to have this loan after inflation" and there was no reason to really pay it off quicker vs. just saving/investing the money.

[seanmcdirmid]

What was your loan origination cost? Usually, when the rate is that low, the catch is that you paid $1k to $2k for the loan. This really annoys me...like, the higher interest rate with the lower loan fee would be OK since I'm going to pay the loan off quickly anyways.

[everybodyknows]

Further to that, was the price agreed to before the salesman knew how you would paying, cash or credit?

[Godel_unicode]

You get the best deal (lowest total cost) by finding out which bank pays the highest financing incentives to the dealership (by asking the dealer), financing the car through them, then paying the whole loan off immediately. It’s all part of the negotiation.

[everybodyknows]

Fascinating. Highest financing incentive suggests a commensurately high interest rate. Can we assume there's no pre-payment penalty hidden in the contract?

[naikrovek]

what planet are you on? my credit meets your criteria and I am regularly asked to finance for 12% or more by everyone, including the bank and credit union where I store my money.

[wyclif]

Did you try getting pre-approved for a car loan? If you applied, what rate did they offer?

[srvmshr]

Slightly OT: how long does it take to get a credit score of 750+ typically?

Someone I know who recently moved to US, claims his less-than-a-year credit line is already at 770. It sounds a bit dubious but I would like to hear some validation about it. For e.g. it took me 4 years (admittedly on a junior researcher salary) to get to 780, so it surprised me.

[seanmcdirmid]

Immigrants get some kind of weird break on their credit history. My wife is a new immigrant, and she has higher credit than me even though our financial history has been intertwined ever since she came here. On the other hand, I got dinged a bit for not using any American-based credit for the 11 years I was out of country: we got married when I was living abroad, and I checked our credit scores when we moved to the states.

[srvmshr]

The way I look at it, likely seems based on some autoregressive type adaptive model. So having a couple of years of not using definitely dings it down. The score flattens off to some lower value. You keep using it well, pay back on time as good kid - you keep getting higher number. You wean off credit or stop using it - they tone it down.

But without spending thousands and repaying on- or before-time consistently over few financial quarters, how do some people manage to get so close to 800?

(Then, this is either a loophole or some kind of gaming the credit system ? This would be very exciting to understand, if it is)

[wyclif]

Obviously it's because they don't have the up-front down payment money, and maybe they get a new job that requires commuting by car.

[Godel_unicode]

The vast majority of people on hn seem to genuinely not be able to wrap their heads around the idea that this is a serious possibility. It’s super weird, but it also makes for some highly entertaining comments.

[wyclif]

I had similar thoughts—it's probably down to the privilege factor. There are a high number of SWEs here on HN and many of them have likely never been in a financial position like that.

[gnicholas]

A combination of liquidity, lack of discipline, or something in the middle.

As others have pointed out below, some people don't have enough cash to buy a car when they need one.

Other people have enough money to buy a car, but wish to purchase a nicer car because of vanity or enjoyment reasons.

And other people are in the middle: they could afford to buy a low-end vehicle in cash, but they realize that the transaction costs involved with every purchase (sales tax, time spent searching/selling) are not worth buying a $5k car, then a $10k car, then a $20k car in the next 5 years. So instead they finance an $18k car and hope their job trajectory continues as planned.

[MisterMower]

We’re talking about about a guy who only has $5,000 on hand to buy the first car. Those transaction costs are dwarfed by interest payments.

I highly doubt his time spent at the tag office and at the dealer buying those cars is going to be worth more than ~$1,500, which is roughly what you’d pay in interest for a 5 year note at 3% interest.

[gnicholas]

Sales tax alone almost hits this number, at least in high-tax states like CA. The problem is that you're paying sales tax with each car purchase, so if you buy the three cars I mentioned, you pay $400, $800, and $1600 (sum: $2,800) in sales tax with those purchases. If you just buy one $18,000 vehicle, you pay $1,400 in sales tax.

Factor in the time spent selling the vehicles (or getting screwed by the dealer on trade-in value), and it's much easier to see why financing a single more-expensive purchase could make financial sense.

Of course, this doesn't apply in states with low/no sales tax.

[MisterMower]

The whole point of buying the beater is so you can eventually get the car you want. It doesn’t make sense to buy multiple intermediate vehicles to get there.

Remove the second transaction and the associated $800 sales tax and it’s basically a wash. Live in a state with sensible tax rates and it’s a no brainer.

[gnicholas]

A $5k car is probably not very safe compared to newer cars. It might not hold as many passengers as you need (especially if your family gets bigger over time). Or it might get lousy gas mileage.

As for moving to a state with sensible tax rates, I think the moving costs or proximity to family/jobs would probably swamp the tax benefit for most people. But in the long run, people will surely take these factors into account (and perhaps are already, given recent trends!).

[danaris]

This is a perfect real-world example of the Vimes Boots Theory of Economic Unfairness:

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."

- Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett

If you can afford to buy a decent car today, you'll still have a decent car in a few years, and have only put some basic maintenance into it.

If you can't afford to buy a decent car today, you still need a car today, so you're going to buy what you can afford. Then in a few years, your crappy car will have crapped out (even with more-than-basic maintenance), and you need to buy another one.

So, ten years down the line, you will have spent more on cars than the well-to-do, and you'll still be hearing a weird rattle in the engine every time you make a left turn.

[greenthrow]

Inflation has been higher than the interest rates most people can get on a car loan. So by paying cash you are losing money.

[fy20]

This is pretty much it, in the US it's cheap (low interest rates) and easy to get consumer credit. If you compare how much you would earn on $40k if you invested it compared to the cost of the loan, it's often more financially effective to take the loan.

In Europe it's not so easy to get credit, and interest rates are usually higher (in my country, even before the current situation, car loans were close to 10%). It is usually more expensive to take credit, except maybe with real estate.

[sathackr]

I can get a car loan for 0%-5% interest rate

In most market I feel you can safely earn at least an ~8% return if you invest fairly conservatively.

Why would I forego an 3-8% return on my money by paying cash for an asset that's just going to depreciate?

[discardedrefuse]

Also, cars are freaking expensive. An "affordable" new EV is nearly $50,000 USD. For most people, saving that much is impossible to do in a reasonable amount of time; Especially if you live in a place where rent is 60% of your income. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-least-affordable-state-...

[taneq]

> Why do people borrow money to buy a car?

Because new cars are nice, and people are bad at time value of money? Also I think it's partially a cultural thing, very few of my friends and family buy brand new cars but I know some people would never even consider a second-hand vehicle.

> It's almost as bad as cheating on your wife (and far, far worse than cheating on a gf).

What a curious point for comparison! Although I get your point if you just mean purely financially.

[PheonixPharts]

I sometimes wonder is I'm living in a different time line than other people.

> The CPI is up over 35% for used cars and trucks as reported by the BLS, versus new vehicles, which are up 12.5% [0]

That is, if you had wanted to by a new or used car last year and followed this advice you would have had to save an additional 12.5-35% to be able to purchase the car in following year.

Please let me know where from 2021 to 2022 I could reasonably planned to have put my money and saw gains north of 10% let alone 30%?

If you had saved for your car while I took out a loan not only would I have had started receiving value from that car a year earlier than you, I also would have saved money in the long run since most interest rates have been lower than inflation. In fact I could sell that car to you (or someone like you) now that you've finally saved up enough paying off my loan, getting to drive the car for a year, and likely still making more cash despite the depreciation of the car. Even if I had the cash on hand it would have been better to put that cash towards some non-depreciating asset or improvement.

If there are low interest loans for anything you need, especially in a time of high inflation, it almost always makes more sense to finance it then pay full cash.

Having more and more of consumer spending being credit based is a well known problem in our current economic environment but it's hardly the result of a moral failing as you paint it.

0. https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/inflation-and-rising-...

[justin66]

> Why do people borrow money to buy a car? Why not save money, maybe invest in something safe(ish), and buy your car in cash,

Financing for new cars is often available at rates that are so low, you'd be completely foolish to pay cash.

> preferably used?

Yes, the amazing financing is certainly one of the incentives for buying a new, rather than used, car. That's why the manufacturers offer it.

[seanmcdirmid]

Car financing is a good way to build credit before buying a home. I regret that my credit score actually went down when I paid off my car loan early. The rules are really weird here. Using some credit is better than using no credit if you think you might need credit in the future (mostly to buy a house).

Also, buying a new car is much less of a hassle than buying a used one. The price difference between used and new ATM isn't so much to cover the extra hassle for many buyers. You want the car to be something that doesn't cause stress in your life, like many want a spouse/partner who isn't a constant drain on their emotions.

And then there are the many conveniences that are nice if you can afford it, but only if you can. It is purely a lifestyle upgrade, and not important to everyone, but it definitely makes some people happier, especially if they drive a lot.

[thesausageking]

> Car financing is a good way to build credit before buying a home.

I've heard people say this, but it's never made sense to me and sounds like something the loan industry has convinced people of just to sell more loans. Is it actually true?

Every time I've gotten a mortgage, they seem to just care about my income and whether I've had any missed payments on credit cards or other bills before.

And credit scores aren’t everything. Even with an >800 and money in the bank, after my startup was acquired, I couldn't get a mortgage because I didn't have any income I could show them.

[seanmcdirmid]

I went through buying a house a couple of years ago and it was really true. That my credit score got dinged because I paid off my loan early was a real head scratcher, but it was on the credit reports I pulled.

Ya, not having income is a blocker, but you also need to take care of your credit score. I basically had no credit score because I was out of country for 11 years (and..unlike new immigrants, they don't give Americans a benefit of the doubt here), so credit cards and an auto loan was really important when I came back (not having had a car for 11 years made my insurance premium go up, also).

[toast0]

Past (Good) payment history on an installment loan is a reasonable indication of likely future payment on an installment loan.

For sure, current income is a more important predictor of future income and future sufficient income is a predictor of future payment.

Installment loans are a decent part of credit scores, but mortgage lenders look into the details, so credit score isn't everything to them like it can be for smaller loans.

[noirbot]

I mean, that seems somewhat sensible? Why would they give a loan to someone with no income to cover the loan payments? Unless you already had the cash to just pay for it in full, but at that point I'd assume they're worried about why you're asking for the loan if you have more than the value of the loan in liquid assets.

[mcone]

I tried to use cash to purchase a new Honda CR-V from the dealership in 2019 but they wouldn't let me. When I spoke with the manager, he explained that the dealership made more money off the loan than they did from selling the vehicle. Maybe things have changed since then though.

[theflyinghorse]

> Why do people borrow to buy a car?

Cheap financing close to 0%, and long term contracts. In fact, financing on new vehicles is far far better than financing a used vehicle. Why would anyone vinance a used vehicle? Because even used they cost more money then most have in their bank.

Used cars require repairs, meaning they require a place to do these repairs or extra income to cover a mechanic. Also how does one recover from vehicle related downtime in a car centric society? These things should be priced in.

So, how much money does one need to get into a used vehicle and how much safety net do they require? Mind you, during covid car market flipped on its head, new cars were (and still are) 3-6-12-24 months wait, and used car market saw a massive increase in prices.

[pbuzbee]

If you finance the car and invest your money in something with a rate of return higher than the interest rate, you'd end up with more money than paying cash.

...though of course many who finance cars aren't choosing to do that. The car you drive is both a status symbol and a personal luxury. I think many people would rather take on debt than get a vehicle they could only pay cash for.

[phendrenad2]

I did it to grow my credit score. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with a high credit score once I get it though.

[nunez]

do you have a thing that you really like spending money (or lots of time) on?

if you do, imagine that, but for a car.

some people (myself included) hate driving old cars and don't mind the monthly cost of paying for a car loan.

[gnu8]

It's impossible to have a job without a car.