I need a new car..I really don’t know where to start…?
I have a JUNKY 98 Ford Taurus. I definitley bought a lemon. Now I need to car shop but I am kind of clueless when it comes to it. I want a Honda CRV or a Toyota Rav4…something small suv-ish. The problem is that I can’t afford more than about 0/month. I don’t need a brand new 2009 car- but I also don’t want a 2000… any suggestions?
Tagged with: car shop • clueless • ford • ford taurus • honda • honda crv • rav4 • toyota • toyota rav4
Filed under: Ford Taurus 2008-2012
if you can’t pay more that 150 a month you are not going to find the cars you want for that. check this out, its a calculator that you
put how much you wanna pay a month and how long you want the loan.
http://autos.yahoo.com/car-finance/affordability-calculator.html
try autotrader.co.uk, its where i got the best idea of where to look and prices i’m looking at!
honda and nissan have 2008 cars for under 200 dollars a month..
To get a something at that price you could probably look for a private seller since theyre usually a whole lot cheaper than car dealers. Then go get a bank loan to pay for the car.
You could get something second hand, you can get good deals on very good vehicles. In the UK we have a site called AutoTrader. Don’t use ebay though as the cars on there tend to be a bit overpriced.
Think about getting.
Ford Mondeo
Vauxhall Cavalier
Or maybe something small like a Vauxhall Astra
good luck
Sounds like your best bet is to go and speak to a bank and see how much you can afford, that way you get a true to life idea. Monthly payments are one thing, but term length is another - you don’t want to go too expensive because you don’t want to still be paying it off as the car begins to need further work and costing on top of it. My own attitude is that I won’t pay off a used car for more than 3 years, and I won’t pay off a new car for longer than the warranty covers.
Those two cars you are considering are very reliable and anything from the early to mid 2000’s will be reliable and should meet your budget. Buy private, bring someone who knows how to haggle, be prepared to walk away from any deal, and make sure a mechanic looks at it first.
There’s so many solutions to your problem here that it would be impossible to list them all, but I can give a few suggestions:
If you have a checking account and a fairly descent credit rating, you can find a car you want that has a good price and apply for an auto loan at your bank. They are usually pretty lenient when it comes to small personal loans and the rates are usually low.
Places to look for used autos…I’ve become a big fan of craigslist.org and have used the site for many things including buying a car. I had $500 to spend and didn’t want to buy some completely junk car. So I went to craigslist and found several cars in my area in my price range. Found one I could tolerate (at that price you can’t be too picky! lol), and was driving it home that evening!
The list of vehicles there was huge and covered all price ranges. I think it would greatly benefit you or at least give you somewhere to start looking for a solution.
Also keep in mind that you are going to be paying insurance for that vehicle which is going to bring your monthly budget up. If you finance a car, you are typically required to get full coverage which can be rather spendy!
Hope that helps some
The financing all depends on down payments and what you can get a loan for. First start by talking to your personal bank, and seeing what kind of loan you can get from them. Make sure you know where you stand before heading to a dealership. When there, negotiate the price before negotiating how much you want to pay.
Here is a search on autotrader for you. Lots of small pretty reliable suv’s from these companies. I set the limit to $10,000 which if all of it was financed would be around 200/mo, so it would depend on the downpayment. You can change the zipcode in the modify search button to get results closer to you. Also I set it to 2004-2010 models so they are all on the new side of things. Check them out, see if there is anything else that you know you want, different options, four wheel drive, better gas mileage, leather interior etc etc, and go from there.
I hope that is a good start for you, and good luck.
http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/searchresults.jsp?num_records=25&search_lang=en&page_location=findacar%3A%3Aispsearchform&search_type=both&distance=0&address=36115&marketZipError=false&style_flag=2&body_style=SUV&make=HONDA&model=&make2=TOYOTA&model2=&make3=NISSAN&model3=&start_year=2004&end_year=2010&min_price=&max_price=10000&seller_type=b&transmission=&engine=&drive=&doors=&fuel=&max_mileage=&color=&keywordsrep=&keywordsfyc=&keywords_display=&sort_type=priceDESC&body_code=16&certified=&advanced=&highlightFirstMakeModel=&showZipError=y&default_sort=priceDESC&awsp=false&systime=&rdm=1248790018504
I’m mainly worried that, with your $150 budget, a dealer will write you up a 60 month quote. Don’t let them do that. The best bet may be to talk to a bank or directly to a auto finance company about what kind of car loan they can give you and at what terms.
But the bad news: $150/month for 36 months at 7%, with a $500 down payment, gives you a budget of $5,357.
(Anyway, for model suggestions, the CRV and RAV-4 are good for small SUVs, but small SUVs tend to be more expensive than compacts. The best bets approaching that price range would likely be used Corollas, Civics and some others. Off the top of my head, a good quality, "under the radar" car approaching your budget would be a Mazda Protege.)