There’s a big loss in value of a new vehicle as soon as it leaves the dealer’s lot, and the capital or payments on a loan could be put to better use.
Not that there are thrilling returns in the stock market either, and plunging rates of exchange of the dollar to other currencies is eroding purchasing power.
Meanwhile the Fed and the Treasury are still spending more than they own as if there’s no connection to the market. They don’t need to worry about value in a new car purchase.
I’ve always been interested in cars and have a pretty good awareness of the models available. Is it just me or is the choice of new vehicles particularly boring at the moment?
If I think about a new car I cringe at the thought of spending over $40,000 for a computerized shopping cart, with high insurance and kilobuck servicing charges. And I hesitate to consider the funky slew of micro compact cars when I might be trying to drive on the freeway with a thundering herd of 18-wheelers all around me.
One possible scenario is a used car that has features I’d like but not the price tag. And that brought me around to those fleets of rental cars that get turned over frequently and often have low mileage.
Companies like Budget have car sales of their rent a car fleets when the car companies pay them to take on a new vehicle for the publicity, or sometimes when it’s the only way to absorb production. These cars are usually not the most exciting, but they are safe, economical and come with the features rent a car customers and I expect.
However they are not usually the upper end of the model range and often don’t have the extra options that make an ordinary car pleasurable. Still I think I’ll be looking into what Budget car sales has on their lot pretty soon.
