Everyone says it's financial dumb to buy a new car, okay makes sense...

Everyone says it's financial dumb to buy a new car, okay makes sense, but what is the financially ideal age to buy a car? 2 Years old, 5 years? What is it?

2 years old is probably best. Depreciated after the sale, but probably a long time until expensive repairs

2-3 years. Should still be under warranty, can pick up a deluxe trim package for cheap.

Nice question

ex leasing car, 3-4 years old...this year alot of them come to the market after their first lease which will increase the offers / amount of 3-4 year old superb condition cars which leads to a price drop

wtf, why are 2 year olds doing buying cars, baka kids these days are so spoiled

Or you could learn how to fix cars, pay a few thousand once for the right used 15 year old honda and drive it for the next decade without going a single dollar in debt. The trick is knowing what you're feeling when you test drive it.

Depends on brand. I love german cars but they need expensive ass repairs after the 4-5 yr mark. With unlimited money, I'd just 3yr lease a german car one after the other.
Personally I had a 5 yr old japanese car which held its own with no repairs for a good 6 years. If you want long term value and don't care about style, they're great.

Forgot to mention, after 5 years, if you keep the car in good condition, it barely depreciates.

Family has owned a mechanic shop for 35 years. Car age and mileage doesn't matter, just yesterday I bought a solid fucking car with 188k. Do your research on make & models, cars have certain model years you want to buy.

The # 1 factor that will determine whether a car will be a money pit or not is if the car has been maintained well. If the car has been driven like a fucking race car and has not had regular maintenance, it will fuck you in the ass. My personal daily driver has 270k miles.

this. Any car will go well over 200k miles with proper maintenance. Combustion engines have been around long enough to be reliable.

assuming you dont care about aesthetics, get a honda/toyota 120-150k miles for 3-4k and drive it till the wheels fall off

Young people are usually idiots about their cars, they choose one that stands out rather than one that blends in. That gets you targeted by criminals AND police. One way to choose a dependable vehicle is to look at which older cars you see a lot of, because most of them are still running. So here, you're killing two birds with one stone when you get that subaru legacy or toyota camry, trouble overlooks you twice. Things like this are how you build your own luck.

You can even research which engines the model you're looking at came with, to see what kind of maintenance you're looking at, for example 90's subarus came with a 2.2 liter or a 2.5; if the timing belt breaks on the 2.2 you just need a new timing belt but if the 2.5 breaks a belt, you need a whole new engine usually.

Spot on.

The perfect car has about 20,000 miles, 1 owner, no accidents, non smoker, no pets.

That's a winner baby.

If you want to go ultra reliable you will get an engine that has a non-interference timing belt. Meaning if the timing belt snaps, your valves don't get bent and your engine doesn't get destroyed.

>tfw don't know anything about cars
But I need some way of transportation outside of the city
But I don't know how to buy anything

ye get some Toyota corolla after year 2000 with a decent mileage best choice you can make

a car is a car, it's made to get you from one destination to another, no more, no less. unless you're a car freak or overly rich, don't buy a new car, settle in with old ones.

The problem with buying a low mileage used car is that somebody got rid of it early for a reason. I would be worried about getting stuck with a lemon.

honestly dude it depends how many miles/years you're planning on putting on the car.

Yup. I got a new jap car I intend to drive until it dies. With maintenance it would hit 10 years easy

If you want something that gets you from A to B for a year or two, get a 10y/o japanese car that you can sell for basically what you bought it for, youtube on how to do maintenance yourself and it'll cost you next to nothing.
If you want a something nice to drive till it dies, get an ex-lease driven by a private person, not a ex company car that was kicked to shit.