How much should I spend on my first car?

[Chaicho]

I have a few questions when it comes to this.

How much should I spend on my first car?

I dont know how to drive, so do I go and to my test and see if I pass and afterwards buy the car or do I buy the car and learn how to drive it.

 

 

 

Should i just give up and get a bike?

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

Do you know anyone who has a car right now?

Not sure how it is where you live, but here in Sweden you can't just go and take the exam and then you can drive. You will need to practice (especially for the theoretical stuff), and in order to practice you need to drive with someone who has had their license for a certain amount of years.

[George_Bud]

3 hours ago, Chaicho said:

I have a few questions when it comes to this.

How much should I spend on my first car?

I dont know how to drive, so do I go and to my test and see if I pass and afterwards buy the car or do I buy the car and learn how to drive it.

 

 

 

Should i just give up and get a bike?

 

 

 

Go with the bike. If you live in a huge town, then maybe, but I still suggest you get a bike. You will have much more money, no polution, you will get healty, and it does not take that much space. 

But if you have allot of out of city work, then get a car. But, I repeat myself, if you dont your best option is a bike.

[79wjd]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Do you know anyone who has a car right now?

Not sure how it is where you live, but here in Sweden you can't just go and take the exam and then you can drive. You will need to practice (especially for the theoretical stuff), and in order to practice you need to drive with someone who has had their license for a certain amount of years.

In NJ, the driving test is basically a joke. 

 

You have to take a short written quiz (it's a mix of common sense questions and questions like how many points do you get if you cut through a parking lot to avoid an intersection), then you need 6 hours of instruction and then you can get your permit (allowing you to drive with an adult (>21) in the car). Then after one year, you take the drivers test (driving around a parking lot), and voila, you have a license. 

[PCMasterDebater]

That's a broad question.

 

The best way, determine your yearly income. Spend 12% of that acquiring your first car. Save for it and buy it all at once. Lets say you make $8 an hour and work 30 hours a week, by the end of the year you'll have made roughly $10000 in pocket. Take $1200 of it and buy your first car, save another $2000 for unexpected maintenance.

 

Its not recommended to finance your first car do to the risk of losing your job, or losing your home. What typically happens to people that finance their first car, they end up backwards, owing more then the car is worth which places you in a awkard position of repairing a car that's worth less then you owe.

 

Worst part is, the finance company loves to repo cars if you haven't been paying; and it looks real bad on your credit.

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

8 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

In NJ, the driving test is basically a joke. 

 

You have to take a short written quiz (it's a mix of common sense questions and questions like how many points do you get if you cut through a parking lot to avoid an intersection), then you need 6 hours of instruction and then you can get your permit (allowing you to drive with an adult (>21) in the car). Then after one year, you take the drivers test (driving around a parking lot), and voila, you have a license. 

It's a joke in pretty much every part of the world. Here in British Columbia, Canada, you have to do a knowledge test to get your Learners License. Then you have to get 1 year of driving experience in order to take a road test and get your Novice License. After 2 years of safe driving with your N, you can then take another road test to get your full license. Never liked the road tests because it's really just a box ticking exercise. Especially in Metro Vancouver where everyone (yes Asians and local whites alike) drive like idiots so really need to drive a lot to be able to predict the next dumb move another driver makes whether it's oncoming traffic blasting through a yellow when you're left turning, or an oblivious person straddling two lanes.

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

It's a joke in pretty much every part of the world. Here in British Columbia, Canada, you have to do a knowledge test to get your Learners License. Then you have to get 1 year of driving experience in order to take a road test and get your Novice License. After 2 years of safe driving with your N, you can then take another road test to get your full license. Never liked the road tests because it's really just a box ticking exercise. Especially in Metro Vancouver where everyone (yes Asians and local whites alike) drive like idiots so really need to drive a lot to be able to predict the next dumb move another driver makes.   

At least you're not literally in a parking lot.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

13 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

At least you're not literally in a parking lot.

Still didn't stop this shit from happening.

[DildorTheDecent]

Just get a heap of a yoke and sell it later on. First car to help pull the insurance down and then get a nice motor afterwards. 

[79wjd]

7 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Still didn't stop this shit from happening.

Is that supposed to be bad? I run into one of those drivers at least once every time I drive anywhere more than five miles away. 

[Akima]

7 minutes ago, DildorTheDecent said:

Just get a heap of a yoke and sell it later on. First car to help pull the insurance down and then get a nice motor afterwards. 

This. Well, it also depends where you live.

 

If you're in the UK, I would just get an older but reliable car with a good insurance reputation. Get a few years under your belt and THEN start looking for something a little fancier.

 

My first car was a Rover 214 (any Brit would chuckle at that, and yes the head gasket went) and now have a nice Octavia VRS as my daily. That's the span of about 8-10 years.

[DildorTheDecent]

12 minutes ago, Akima said:

This. Well, it also depends where you live.

 

If you're in the UK, I would just get an older but reliable car with a good insurance reputation. Get a few years under your belt and THEN start looking for something a little fancier.

 

My first car was a Rover 214 (any Brit would chuckle at that, and yes the head gasket went) and now have a nice Octavia VRS as my daily. That's the span of about 8-10 years.

A Rover...can't blame you there though. Everything nice is quite pricey for insurance. 

[Akima]

1 minute ago, DildorTheDecent said:

A Rover...can't blame you there though. Everything nice is quite pricey for insurance. 

It does get better with age, but only to a certain point and only if you have NCB. I've proper hit the peak discount rates with 10 years NCB but insurance seems to have gone up this year.

 

Added the wife to my policy and it was almost double what I would pay. She has 10+ years experience but no NCB (her NCB was built in Sweden and can't be transferred to UK).

[NinJake]

Spent 3k on a crappy but low mileage car 8 years ago. It's still running, but I ended up buying a motorcycle so I ride that during warmer weather. Better gas mileage and saves the miles on my now winter car. I definitely wouldn't spend anything over 5k for a first car though, you never know what could happen and experience is better than "looking cool".

[WMGroomAK]

13 hours ago, Chaicho said:

I have a few questions when it comes to this.

How much should I spend on my first car?

I dont know how to drive, so do I go and to my test and see if I pass and afterwards buy the car or do I buy the car and learn how to drive it.

 

 

 

Should i just give up and get a bike?

 

 

 

Find someone to go practice driving with, get your license and then look for a vehicle.  Makes no sense to have a car if you can't drive it.  As for how much to spend, I wouldn't go over $5,000 for a first vehicle.  Get a good old (something pre-1990 is perfectly fine) beater of a car (old Toyota pick-ups are great) that way if anything happens, it's not a serious loss of money.  You can also then learn basic mechanic skills on the car by performing your own maintenance.  One other thing to consider (probably start a controversy on this ) is learning to drive a Manual Transmission before getting an Automatic Transmission.  I find that driving a Manual involves having to get a better feel of how the car drives and handles than an Auto.  

[Kobathor]

2 minutes ago, WMGroomAK said:

I find that driving a Manual involves having to get a better feel of how the car drives and handles than an Auto.  

You also can't be on your phone while driving a manual (unless you're insane.)

[NumLock21]

Cars and bikes are soooo yesterday.

This is the must have vehicles, everyone wants to drive.

• Never worry about space
• Can bring all of your friends, their friends, and their friends
• Can charge all of them a fee to take them around
• Great for drifting at the race track.

 

Here is a vertical stacked up option

 

 

[WMGroomAK]

8 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Cars and bikes are soooo yesterday.

This is the must have vehicles, everyone wants to drive.

• Never worry about space
• Can bring all of your friends, their friends, and their friends
• Can charge all of them a fee to take them around
• Great for drifting at the race track.

 

Here is a vertical stacked up option

 

 

Didn't UK Top Gear race some of these a couple of years ago with great results?  

[NumLock21]

1 minute ago, WMGroomAK said:

Didn't UK Top Gear race some of these a couple of years ago with great results?  

Yes they did! Results were fantastic.

[Akima]

Ask @LinusTech if he's selling his car. Gotta be getting old now..

[Techicolors]

11 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

In NJ, the driving test is basically a joke. 

 

You have to take a short written quiz (it's a mix of common sense questions and questions like how many points do you get if you cut through a parking lot to avoid an intersection), then you need 6 hours of instruction and then you can get your permit (allowing you to drive with an adult (>21) in the car). Then after one year, you take the drivers test (driving around a parking lot), and voila, you have a license. 

i gained a permit when i was still in high school. only had to pass a multiple-choice quiz and a half-semester class, which were ridiculously easy. kept that for a year or so, then took the driving test. said test was basically in the DMV parking lot, then driving out into the local neighborhood, not the actual main roads. 

 

failed the first time because i didn't completely stop at the stop sign. obviously i didn't do that on my second try, and got my license. 

 

edit:

and the evaluator mentioned that a local gang frequented here that didn't exactly liken to asians. me, being an asian, i was a bit... anxious lol

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

It's a joke in pretty much every part of the world.

It's a pain in the ass here in Sweden.

The theoretical exam is full of questions deliberately designed to confuse you, or just weird in general. It's things like "which sign do you always drive by on your left side" and then you have to pick one out of all the different signs. Or things like "how much liquor (40%) is 100cl of beer with an alcohol content of 3.5% equal to".

This is the sign by the way:

 

 

On the practical exam they rate you for things like how energy-efficient you are driving. Drive in too high gear, or break too hard when you could just let the car slowly roll to a halt? Then you might not pass the driving part of the exam.

[TopDollar]

7 hours ago, PCMasterDebater said:

That's a broad question.

 

The best way, determine your yearly income. Spend 12% of that acquiring your first car. Save for it and buy it all at once. Lets say you make $8 an hour and work 30 hours a week, by the end of the year you'll have made roughly $10000 in pocket. Take $1200 of it and buy your first car, save another $2000 for unexpected maintenance.

 

Its not recommended to finance your first car do to the risk of losing your job, or losing your home. What typically happens to people that finance their first car, they end up backwards, owing more then the car is worth which places you in a awkard position of repairing a car that's worth less then you owe.

 

Worst part is, the finance company loves to repo cars if you haven't been paying; and it looks real bad on your credit.

 

I think it's perfectly fine to finance a first car provided you do it responsibly. A $1200 car will most likely give you a lot more trouble than it's worth in the long run. I'd say you'd be much better off taking that $1200 and using it as a down payment instead. Having a couple thousand on hand for unexpected costs is a fantastic idea if you can afford to do so. In most places, when you step up to the $6000-$7000 range, the quality of car available is a lot higher; not to mention reliability is likely to be 10 fold.

 

Just as an exercise, I took a look at used vehicles within 30 miles of where I live. The 18 each $1200 cars that were available were all early 2000s cars well over 200k miles. Looking at the $7000 range, there were about 1500 cars, many of which were 2007+ year and under 100k miles. Many of which are what I would consider to be fun first cars (scion TC, honda civics, Mk1 Ford Focuses, Mazda 3s, etc). Even saw a Subaru Legacy GT for sale; although I wouldn't recommend a fast turbocharged car to anyone as a first car.

 

As far as financing is concerned, it is important to do it responsibly as it does have higher risk as you mentioned. Although if you have a reasonably stable job, financing $5500 or so of a car shouldn't be too hard. At a 6% interest rate, you're looking at $130 a month for 48 months. To be safe, I would even make double or triple payments if you can which gives you positive equity in the car and a buffer if you end up out of work or something along those lines. If shit really hits the fan, selling the car is always an option too.

 

Same advice goes to adults too. The above strategy is how I'm going to be able to pay off a $24,000 car in under 30 months.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

1 hour ago, WMGroomAK said:

Didn't UK Top Gear race some of these a couple of years ago with great results?  

Spoiler

 

Driving a bus is probably going to be on my bucket-list. Especially the 60-foot ones. Those look fun.

 

 

[NumLock21]