The Car Discussion Thread

[TimeForGuinness]

The Jeep Cherokee Trackhawk is where it's at.

[CardsofSTL]

Luxury SUVs - Audi at the top?

We have a Grand Cherokee, which isn't quite in the luxury class but you get a lot of bang for the buck with the Overland and Summit trims.

I just always worry about the reliability of Jeeps.

I've driven Jeeps for years and haven't had serious issues with any of them.

[Arthur Dent]

I'm somewhat embarrassed because I started this thread, specifically, to talk about what a good idea it is to not spend money on cars.

You're still correct about that. Cars are super expensive, and the amount of money it takes to go from "gets the job done" to "nice" has a vastly better return on virtually anything else it could be used for.

How did you go from used truck vs new Accord to luxury vehicle for 2x the cost of a new Accord?

[Popeye_Card]

I've somewhat outgrown my desire to spend a lot of money on cars, in large part due to my extremely short commute. We did splurge on the Jeep, but that is basically my wife's vehicle and our long highway trips vehicle. I still drive my 2001 Silverado, which mostly functions as a work truck now. Then we have a 2008 Saab for fun, and my motorcycle. So yeah, a lot of vehicles but only one that isn't cheap and paid for.

I do peek at new trucks from time to time, but damn they are expensive and I beat them up too much to drive a new one. And I keep an eye out for nice classic cars.

[ThatGuy]

I did a pretty dumb thing earlier this year. My Mazda3 hatch was only a year and a half old (and a great car, too), but one afternoon at work I decided it would be a good idea to test drive a GTI "for fun." Ho boy. Fast forward a few weeks, and I took delivery of a 2017 GTI Sport - white with plaid seats and manual transmission. Got a pretty good deal (thanks Dieselgate!) and absolutely love driving the thing, so though it was a bit of a rash decision, I don't regret it at all.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I'm somewhat embarrassed because I started this thread, specifically, to talk about what a good idea it is to not spend money on cars.

You're still correct about that. Cars are super expensive, and the amount of money it takes to go from "gets the job done" to "nice" has a vastly better return on virtually anything else it could be used for.

How did you go from used truck vs new Accord to luxury vehicle for 2x the cost of a new Accord?

Oh gosh, how much time do we have here.

The short answer is:

Well, there is no short answer. It was a [expletive] knock down argument for months. Not like yelling and screaming, just discussing how wrong my wife was until I gave in. Kind of like i do here on GRB all the time. You know, tell everyone why I'm right and then just get tired of repeating the same thing.
Anyway, here goes:

We were thinking about having the second kid around the time my car kaputted and a larger car/truck/suv would have been nice. Mrs. AW had just been sideswiped which made her want a taller/bigger car. And, she had been wanting a new car, in general, anyway. My general attitude towards cars is to spend as little as possible. Basically, what I've always done. This meant, more than likely, not getting something reliable enough to take on road trips (and we generally take about 4-5 6+ hour one-way trips a year to St. Louis, NOLA, Houston, etc). Also, I didn't really want to spend $15k+ on a truck that was only so-so reliable. I'm sure they're tout there, but, I've never been in that market before so I wasn't really amped to start doing a lot of homework. Like I said, my attitude is/was spend $4k or so to get a car that will last 50k miles and can be junked for $500 to $1k. The cost per mile is minimal to own. So, there was a crack in my armor from the get go.

Further, it didn't make sense for me to buy a beater of a truck like my old silverado that was stolen when it was more than likely she'd get a new car within a few years as well. I suggested a minivan to accomodate more children, but she didn't wan tthat. Or a hyundai santafe. Or ANY USED CAR IN THE WORLD (preferably still under warranty). However, further complicating that is the offers of financing on new cars. If she was going to get a nearly new car, it almost made sense to buy a new one with 0% financing for 60 months as opposed to a used one with 6-7% financing. Didn't matter because she wouldn't budge. She wanted a new car.

The crux of her thinking was I put money into an investment account and had just taken out a loan to buy stock in my company. The loan was for about the same amount as a nicer new car as luck would have it. If I can borrow let's say $40k against our name, she should be able to buy a car worth at least that much....especially since it's something not just stocks.

My argument: [insert asset vs liability argument here I'm sure you all have heard it so I won't go over it again.]

My goal has always been to retire by about 2035 or 2040. Be retired by the time I'm 60. I talked to Mrs. AW ad nauseum about stuff like this before getting married. We were on the same page. Towards the beginning of all this when I could see we were on separate pages, I asked her how many years she would be willing to work for the sole purpose of paying off a new car right now. In other words, if she was going to retire at 60, what age would she be okay working until if she got a new car....Her answer was what led to the disagreement. She said 20 extra years. TWENTY. TWENTY [expletive] YEARS. Totally different than anything we had ever discussed before in all the financial planning we'd ever done.

I asked if she was serious and she said yes. I just said I had to stop talking about it but we'd get back into it later. And asked her to reconsider if she would seriously be okay working from the time she was 60 til the time she was 80 in order to get a new car. And, possibly, hopefully come to a more sensible answer.

Eventually she came back and said 20 years was too long but she would rather get a new car now and work past the age of 60 or whatever to afford it. I told her she was insane and that's not how we had agreed to manage money.

Blah blah blah. At this point, she just wanted a new car and I didn't have the energy to continue to tell her how dumb she was being and I had lost my patience and ability to maintain a level course of thought. It's like my avatar. She was looking at the round peg and calling it a square. So, I just gave in. There's more to it. But, that's the gist of it.

Also, to completely screw the entire situation even more, her and I are very different when it comes to money. I'll plan and plan and plan for months, just so i can go out and order a bone in wagyu ribeye for $100 whereas she'll just go out to eat every day and spend $3. Not that we eat out, but I think that illustrates my point. I plan and calculate and she just tries to, mostly, avoid spending money.

SO, when I had given in, I at least pointed her in the directions that I thought had the best cars which of course is more than just the standard model. Terrible financial decision*. But, she can work until she's 70 I guess.

Oh, and further complicating the issue. She had just started working and loved her job. Now that she's been there for a while, I think her answer to 'how many extra years would you work' would be a lot different. I told her it would be. But, she was seeing the square shadow.

tl;dr: I can't win an argument and then splurged.

*ETA: Making the whole thing even worse is we have a lot of wiggle room in the monthly cash flow budget. We obviously have expenses like a mortgage, utilities, etc. But we also have things taht have to be paid off. Namely, her student loans. We were on pace to pay them off in a couple years until I took out the loan to buy stock. Which set us back a couple years. Still a good financial decision, but nevertheless. There was still room to get closer to albeit above the minimum payments and be comfortable. Yeah, just a bad, bad, bad financial decision. At one point I calc'd how much extra we'd pay in interest on her loans but have since forgotten what it was. Suffice it to say, it was approaching $10k. Luckily we got a good jump on them. GDI, it's pissing me off just writing all this down.

[Freed Roger]

My friends and fellow parents are mostly middle class. Surprised they are setting the kid-turns-16 car-bar so high. All got cars at 16 (that to me is a thing) and all were used, but nicer than my 04 Nissan Altima.

Used cherokees etc .but we live fairly central and close and getting a ride somewhere isnt hard. so a car for 16 yr old is hardly a necessity.

Drifter- how you handling this? /notjudging

[lukethedrifter]

My friends and fellow parents are mostly middle class. Surprised they are setting the kid-turns-16 car-bar so high. All got cars at 16 (that to me is a thing) and all were used, but nicer than my 04 Nissan Altima.

Used cherokees etc .but we live fairly central and close and getting a ride somewhere isnt hard. so a car for 16 yr old is hardly a necessity.

Drifter- how you handling this? /notjudging

She was driving my manual tranny '10 Focus with rollup windows until I revoked her rights to it.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

What'd she do?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Speaking of Nola, the first time I ever went down there with my wife was the 2011 world series and schlich stood me up for game 7 watch party on Tulane's campus in one of the greatest bars in America aka the boot. We probably rang up a 200 dollar tab and were charged 40 bucks. Between my future uncle in law ordering quadruple crowns and miss AW and her cousins ordering god knows (multipe shots multiple rounds multiple mixed drinks) what and me drinking a million beers plus some random shots after the cards won. All that for $40 with a bunch of cute little Catholic girls running around on Halloween. Great place. Schlich though I think had to meet an ex girlfriends parents and missed out. Poor guy.