Guys looking to get a Accord or Camry. Is there any benefit in getting a new car vs a certified pre owned car? Right now I am looking at it A new Accord is about 22k -2014 A certified pre owned is about 16k - 2011- 50k miles. What do you guys think?
6K in savings for a car thats 3 years older, and has 50,000 miles from a driver or two whose driving habits you have no idea about. CPO cars I think are better when you are buying luxury cars where you get more savings. IMHO.
It depends on what you value more - long-term savings or what strangers at the stop sign think about what you drive. I bought a $6,000 2005 minivan with cash last year that only had 67,000 miles on it. My reasoning - the average car payment equals $6,000 a year...so if I drive this vehicle for 5-6 years and spend 2K-3k in repairs in that time..then I've saved well over $30,000.
I have to disagree. Pre-Owned is the way to go, expecially for a Honda/Toyota. The fact of the matter is a new car will immediately depreciate its value as soon as you drive off the lot. But if you buy a "fairly-new" car it has already gone through that depreciation and the value will not plunge as much as buying a new car would. However I do prefer a 1-2 yr used car than a 3-4 yr one solely due to warranties Also If you buy one with low enough miles than you can also get a car still covered by factory warranty which allows you to address any issues that you may find. You also don't have to worry about the previous owner missing regularly scheduled maintenance because at that point all that should have been necessary is a few oil changes. Also in many instances if you buy certified preowned you can get the warranty extended.In many cases the CPO cars have just come off lease so the mileage isn't too high and they've had the regularly scheduled maintenance done. As part of the CPO programs the dealers typically replace any item on the car that has more than a certain percentage of wear, usually 60% or so, as a part of an inspection that covers most of the car. Certain CPO programs are better than others. Lets not also forget the fact that used cars generally come with more features while a new car will almost always be barebones (unless you pony up for a premium package) Here is a little information i found on the web that might help your possible purchase.
Nothing wrong with pre-owend but if you're going to buy pre-owned, I'd stick with 1-2 years old. 50k miles is a lot of miles. Stick with less than 25k or so.
2011 Honda Accord and 2014 Honda Accord are different beasts. Have you tried test driving both of them? For me, hands down I would go with the 2014. All new redesign with a slew of new features the previous generation didn't have. If you don't care about those features or prefer the beauty of the 2011, go with that. Btw, I helped a friend purchase a 2011 Accord roughly six months ago. I think it had about 40-45k miles and we were able to get it for $13.5k for a LX-S? model. I recommend Russell and Smith, try contacting their internet department to see if they can beat the current deal you have. No I do not work for them.
My take on this is I like new always. I like to trade in for new every two or three years. I view it in my budget as a constant, fixed payment item, like a subscription. Once you work the payment into a budget, I just like to keep doing it. I have little interest in paying off the loan vs having a new car regularly. And even less interest in dealing with out of warranty repairs. I call this Subscription Ownership to include maintenance and upgrades. Maybe it's the commercial software developer mentality in me.
Like chow_yun_fat said, a 2014 vs. 2011 Accord are two different cars. If you don't care what the differences are, just buy used. I like sports sedans and always go for new vs. used simply because I have no idea how abused the used ones were before they were sold or why they were sold. I have a co-worker who bought a CPO Lexus ES 350 used with 20,000+ miles on it and got a pretty good deal on it at the time. Within the first 2 or 3 weeks of ownership he had oil or transmission fluid dripping all over his garage, a dead battery, wipers that didn't work, and a sunroof that leaked (I think), and I don't know what else. Lexus did take care of him, though, to their credit, but I have no intention of driving my car back and forth for repairs every month when I buy a car - I've got better things to do. Well, actually, I don't, but whatever. Goes back to waiting for the Acura TLX prototype to be released next week and being disappointed ...
In our family we have bought 6 new cars. I just bought a CPO sports car (3 yrs old, 40K miles). 8 months later when I went to get an alignment, the guy asked if I knew about the oil leak. I said what oil leak??? Turns out it was probably there during the CPO process. The transmission is also little flaky..I need to go get it checked out. CPO is not what it used to be. Sure Honda claims it's a 126 pt inspection..there's no guarantee your deal did all of it. In fact most dealers know that if you CPO a car, you get more from the customer.
from the spy shots, it's basically a mini-RLX But Honda is a very reliable brand OP. Bought 2012 Accord new and 60k in 2.5 years and no issues at all (knock on wood). So goes with what you want.
I like Acura's as much as you do, own a 2012 Tsx right now and sold my 2013 Brz a couple of weeks ago. I'm curiously waiting for the TLX reveal as well. Will it turn out like the 2014 Accord or the 2014 RLX? I prefer the Accord. Another option is the 2014 IS250 or 350 if you want more power. I'm debating between the 2015 IS250 (if they have a i4 with turbo 240hp at least), 2015 TLX (if it turns out to be nice) or a Bmw 328i in a year. I keep telling myself the latest car I buy, will be the one I will keep for at least 8 years, but I can't do it. I trade them in or sell them every 2-3 years =/
I'm still driving my '04 TL that I bought back in '03. I just hit 233,000 miles on it and it's running like a champ. I've decided I'm going to buy new cars and drive them for at least 150,000 - 200,000 miles or 7-10 years at least, if possible. The only exception to this is if I buy a 30's Ford or something. I've got the itch to buy a classic. My favorite vehicles are Duesenbergs from the late 20's and 30's, but I doubt I'll be owning one of those anytime soon. lol. I've looked at the Q50 and it's got too many issues with its steering and electronics, so I crossed that off the list. I looked at the ATS, and it's still on the list, but it's got random issues here and there with reliability and also with oddball variable mileage from different drivers. The IS 250 is worthless to me because it's $40k for a car with an anemic engine. The IS 350 is still on my list, but the gas mileage is horrible. BTW, Acura will also be showing off a TLX GT race car next week, too.
go with the redesigned 2013 and newer accord. the previous model sucked in terms of reliability that honda is known for.
I'm not sure if you keep up with Lexus vehicles, but this is something they did with the GS as well. They did a full model change, minus the engine/drive train for some odd reason. A year or two after the full model change, they'll update the engine/transmission. There are talks that they will be using the new engine (i4 turbo)/drive train from the new 2015? LF-NX suv. Btw, have you seen the digital instrumentation cluster on the 2014 IS F-Sports? S E X Y/
Thanks for everyones input. I think I am going to go with a new car. I just can't shake the feeling that someone might have glossed over a few things when they were doing the inspection and that would cause a lot of trouble for me. Like some of you guys said you don't really know how much abuse other drivers do to the car. Also I don't have a regular mechanic that I can take it to, to go get it checked out. I think if I did that might sway my decision to get a CPO. Once I get the car ill post some pictures up. Now its time to haggle these guys down in price.
Generally, buying a two year old car means getting it for half the sticker price. My last car I bought a Land Rover with a sticker price of $58,000. I bought it when it was two years old and with just 23,000 miles for $24,000. I'll never buy new again. Also, be sure to check used cars in Dallas, Austin and other Texas cities. I was able to save about $8,000 driving to Dallas.
I bought pre-owned 18 month car. Got a good enough deal that I was getting offers from other dealerships to buy it back for more than what I paid for it. I loved that it felt like new and didn't give me mechanical issues for the years I owned it. If you have 4 months to burn, do your research, scour craigslist, and pounce on an opportunity where the car is worth a couple grand less than bluebook/edmunds. Sometimes a good deal is a matter of timing.
CPO is great but like others said I would keep it around 1-2 years old. It'll be under warranty and likely be the newer body style. And 2 years is when most of the depreciation is happening.
