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Daughters First Car, serious question
Rollingrock:
Ok, need some input.
First, our daughter will be able to drive by weeks end via Permit. She is 15.
Our plan was to use the next 10 months to give her some experience driving, albeiet she has been driving by herself in the golf cart for over a year to and from the barn to take care of her house in the neighborhood.
We were going to look at buying a car for her next year but a friend and former neighbor is selling his commuter car. It is a 2013 Mercedes C250, only 58,000 miles. He wants 14K but told me I could take it for 12.5. Question is, should we buy this car now at 12.5 and hold it for a year and drive it a couple days a week for parent taught drivers ed then give it to our daughter when she turns 16 as a first car or do we pass on this deal and buy her a crossover Honda CRV, Toyota Rav 4 type car next year for basically the same price but with higher miles?
My car guy says this would be a good deal given the low mileage of the mercedes and that we could flip the car for cash roughly the same price for the next 2 years and possibly make 500-1000 on it for a trade or sell.
Discuss.
Kitzy:
--- Quote from: Rollingrock on December 06, 2018, 11:43:03 PM ---Ok, need some input.
First, our daughter will be able to drive by weeks end via Permit. She is 15.
Our plan was to use the next 10 months to give her some experience driving, albeiet she has been driving by herself in the golf cart for over a year to and from the barn to take care of her house in the neighborhood.
We were going to look at buying a car for her next year but a friend and former neighbor is selling his commuter car. It is a 2013 Mercedes C250, only 58,000 miles. He wants 14K but told me I could take it for 12.5. Question is, should we buy this car now at 12.5 and hold it for a year and drive it a couple days a week for parent taught drivers ed then give it to our daughter when she turns 16 as a first car or do we pass on this deal and buy her a crossover Honda CRV, Toyota Rav 4 type car next year for basically the same price but with higher miles?
My car guy says this would be a good deal given the low mileage of the mercedes and that we could flip the car for cash roughly the same price for the next 2 years and possibly make 500-1000 on it for a trade or sell.
Discuss.
--- End quote ---
We can get serious after the first paragraph where you inform us that your daughter has her own house in your neighborhood. Damn rich people.
Its ok. I'm the king of typos but mine are usually incoherent.
On a serious note. I know you've tied up some money lately. I don't really see much of a point to spending some more on a car that isn't going to be driven by your daughter by herself right now. She won't be borrowing your truck and leaving you without a ride. She can learn on the truck and the Acura in the meantime. Unless you feel confident that you can flip the car for the same or a little more, making it an investment, I'd say pass. No one needs to learn to drive on their future car.
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sscully:
I have to ask the burn rate question.
What is insurance on a Mercedes C250 going to cost for a 16 year old ?
- I would imagine it is more ARC than a 2010'ish Honda CRV or Rav 4.
The flip the car for roughly the same price, well that is unless she tangles with a mailbox or cow.
- She is your offspring and that runs in the genes :redneck:
Seriously, what did you do to your 1st car ?
Heck what did you do to your last F150 the short amount of time you had it. Things happen and you paid for that somewhere in the transaction.
Trade in, you are not going to get 12.5K today in excellent condition for that vehicle unless you are paying close to list for something.
As for good deal, with a quick search I found a C250 Sport at a dealer in Arlington, TX for 12.9K list with 9K more miles on it. Private sale should be lower not higher.
Have ( are ?) you going to have a conversation about cost sharing on the vehicle for maint & insurance ?
- Want to see a huge repair bill, try fixing a MB even at a private garage. The parts are an arm & a leg.
Think of it as the vehicle she is going to have until college. Don't use your vehicle ownership flip record as an indicator of what you might do in 2 years.
- I'm still on my 2nd truck since joining here, and the 1st one was 6 years old when I signed up.
Think of going and picking up something for the horse. Better to do this in a 2013 MB C250 or in a 2010 Toyota Rav 4 ?
You have nothing but time to think through this, don't jump on the 1st thing that shows up.
She won't have her license for 10 more months, and does she really need a vehicle the day she comes back from the DMV with a fresh license ?
Put the 12K in a 12 month CD so you won't spend it. If it is not a cash tranaction, why pay the juice on a 3rd car you don't need for a year.
Rollingrock:
--- Quote from: Kitzy on December 07, 2018, 08:08:58 AM ---
--- Quote from: Rollingrock on December 06, 2018, 11:43:03 PM ---Ok, need some input.
First, our daughter will be able to drive by weeks end via Permit. She is 15.
Our plan was to use the next 10 months to give her some experience driving, albeiet she has been driving by herself in the golf cart for over a year to and from the barn to take care of her house in the neighborhood.
We were going to look at buying a car for her next year but a friend and former neighbor is selling his commuter car. It is a 2013 Mercedes C250, only 58,000 miles. He wants 14K but told me I could take it for 12.5. Question is, should we buy this car now at 12.5 and hold it for a year and drive it a couple days a week for parent taught drivers ed then give it to our daughter when she turns 16 as a first car or do we pass on this deal and buy her a crossover Honda CRV, Toyota Rav 4 type car next year for basically the same price but with higher miles?
My car guy says this would be a good deal given the low mileage of the mercedes and that we could flip the car for cash roughly the same price for the next 2 years and possibly make 500-1000 on it for a trade or sell.
Discuss.
--- End quote ---
We can get serious after the first paragraph where you inform us that your daughter has her own house in your neighborhood. Damn rich people.
Its ok. I'm the king of typos but mine are usually incoherent.
On a serious note. I know you've tied up some money lately. I don't really see much of a point to spending some more on a car that isn't going to be driven by your daughter by herself right now. She won't be borrowing your truck and leaving you without a ride. She can learn on the truck and the Acura in the meantime. Unless you feel confident that you can flip the car for the same or a little more, making it an investment, I'd say pass. No one needs to learn to drive on their future car.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
--- End quote ---
hmmm...good points. just to be clear, it's not like we have this bucket of cash sitting here to be used...we have to budget for a third car and have till Oct of next year till she is 16. The car I had my eye on was the Subaru CrossTrek, somehow in the past 5 months they have gone up in value and no longer a car of reasonable pricing. They are now out of our budget.
If we were to buy this car we would have taken the cash from our line of credit then paid it back monthly...buying the F250 wasn't in our plan, it threw us for a loop and costs us out the ass to have, we've had to make some adjustments in other places to have it. it sucks b.c my F150 was cheap to have monthly b/c of all the equity I had from the jeep in it but trading it after 1 year really hurt the amount of equity I had....like in half so we lost some on the trade. Robbed Peter to pay Paul. Then Paul turned around and robbed us again. That bastard.
I think we are going to pass on it for a whole other reason. We've managed to raise a good kid and she was actually embarrassed when we talked about it I don't blame her, I wouldn't want to be that kid either, I told her that I have seen their parking lot at high school and there very nice cars in the lot that are not driven by teachers. Still, if anyone knew what the cost of the car was, they wouldn't be as judgmental. It's the optics of the mercedes that makes it look bad, I get it.
She wants a "normal" car and doesn't want to draw any unwanted attention to herself, when we had this talk yesterday she kind of smirked when we showed it to her as a possibility, I could tell she loved the car.
I am torn, hate to walk from a good deal and know that in 10 months for the same price we are going to be looking at 75-85K miles Honda's and Toyotas that will be beat on for the same pricing.
ugh.
Kitzy:
The repair bills are something I didn't think of. Insurance as well. Insurance is a must. As for repairs, you have to be prepared for them just in case. Cassie's sister has a BMW X5 and everything on it is ridiculous. They broke the driver seat plastic, near the seat adjustments, and the dealership wanted an amount in the thousands to fix it. The brakes have a sensor that needs to be replaced if you allow the brake pads to go low enough to trip the sensor. I never base decisions on "what if I get in an accident." But the little things that can happen that are self inflicted or just general maintenance are always considerations. With the insurance, I just wouldnt want to pay it on a vehicle that's not necessarily needed in the first place. That's money you will never get back no matter what.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
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