I don’t get it. You get a company car AND an $800/month allowance? Or you get one or the other? If a choice between the two, it would depend on what the company car is.

How many miles do you drive for work? What conditions?

That's a damn nice car.

Take the money and start logging your miles.
You can itemize and claim millage on your taxes unless they give you $800+millage reimbursement.

been back in usa for a while

currently driving my late grandfather's '98 mercury which is of course quite the chick magnet - in all seriousness, i don't mind it but it spends more time in the shop than on the road these days (can't even lock the doors) and even if it holds up and doesn't give out i should be getting a more reliable vehicle

i'm holding off for now because this is the worst time to buy and there's a good chance i move to nyc and wouldn't want one then but am definitely looking at getting a car

ideally i was thinking of getting a used volvo as that's what i drove in college (the last time i owned a car lol) but family has been

this is my old car (not this one specifically) and I loved it



also looking at getting a lower end tesla

open to getting new or used

my family is trying to talk me into getting a subaru

would like to drive something that is inexpensive, really don't care too much, but nice enough that i could show up to a meeting in it to meet investors or date high expectations women and not have it reflect poorly upon me (i can only get away with "I just got back and hence why I'm using this vehicle" for so long)

needs to comfortably fit a tall guy, i'm not huge but at 6'2" my head hits the ceiling of several models of car

thoughts?

Don't ever give out tax advice professionally.

Yep, I don't really know what all the rules are. Millage might be something to look into though.

rickroll,

I got an Outback this summer, really like it. It will fit you fine, drives well and is reliable.

Can't comment on the investors and dates part though.

So failing O2 sensors will mostly lead to worse fuel economy and failing emissions tests. Not super urgent to deal with as far as I know.

Failing/ed cat is a bit worse but for naturally aspirated engines isn't too terrible. Worse emissions, reduced power output. On a turbo charged engine, the increased back pressure can cause premature wear and failure of the turbocharger.

If you live in CA either of these will cause you problems in renewing registration or selling the car. Outside CA unlikely to be huge problems, but be honest when selling.

It's a pretty terrible time to buy a new car, so if you can keep your current car going without putting a ton of money into it, that's probably your best bet.

Thanks. Your last sentence kind of sums up where I am on this. I don't even really want a new car, but I do think that sinking 2K+ into this car is a bad move. It looks like I've got some time before this is really going to be a problem, so I think I might just start looking for a new car now so I'll be ready to jump in when the car market cools down (or I have no choice).

I'm almost 6' 4" and can confirm the Outback has no head space issues. Beware the 12-15 week lead time, and the lack of negotiating power we have.

I totally luckboxed the lead time. Saw one online marked "In Transit". Called up and asked if that meant it's being delivered for someone, or for inventory.

The guy looked at it, said it's for inventory. Went up that afternoon, drove another Outback to make sure I liked the model, put a deposit down. A week later, I had a new car.

Not sure if I did ok on the price; I'm the worst at negotiating (~$32K for Premium, but bottom of that trim). Put the VIN into kbb.com, it was dead on with options and sticker. Offered kbb's median or fair price or whatever that's called, they accepted.

No idea if that starting point is inflated from historic Outback prices.

Anyway, looking for vehicles being delivered for inventory might be an idea for car shoppers.

Nice. We're getting the Onyx cuz we want the horsepower, the dealer told us their asking price and we got a whopping $0 off. Initially I asked for 2k off, then the cost of documents or w/e (about $700) and both times just told nope

That would irk me. I’m all about the haggle and hate that this market is so hot and inflated, no haggling is allowed. I’ve walked from a deal over half a percent in interest before and they called me back two days later to offer an even better rate. It always feels good to make a deal but for now it’s their way or the highway.

It's a math problem.

I've got a math problem.

Wife and I bought a 2016 subaru crosstrek limited together 2 years ago where she paid half up front and we financed the remainder at 4.34% so that I could build my credit (hooray poker). Great vehicle for us that we had planned to drive forever. Fast forward 2 years and the car was deemed a total loss after it was hit while parked on our street.

Good news is that the actual cash value of our car now is more than what we paid + interest on the loan. Bad news is we still need another car in this market. After insurance pays off the remaining lien on the car ($6.8k) we'll have ~$17k to put towards a new newer crosstrek with an expected $8k-$10k gap to cover after taxes+fees that we can either pay in cash or take out another loan.

Question is does it make sense to take a new loan now (assuming similar interest rate, although quick internet search indicates slightly higher rates for used cars currently) or just pay the remaining balance in cash, given that my credit rating is no longer non-existent (750 now) and that we can spare the cash to pay, and also given the inflationary environment the USA is currently in.

Other question that might be better suited for the Credit Thread is do I want to keep a loan on my books for the purposes of maintaining and improving my credit score? Only other credit items are four credit cards that I pay off every month.

You don't say if your loan would be through the dealer or a bank.

Not sure about used, but I got a new Outback in July, financed through Subaru, at 1.9%. My score a bit higher than 750, though. Might be worth checking with them.

FWIW, I think my credit profile is similar--cards get paid in full each month, auto loan is the only other debt. For a couple months, my score dropped (balance 5 of original principal too high--no kidding!), but it's rebounded, back to right around where I was. So, I'm not sure that having an open installment loan that you make payments on does that much for you. But, it's only been since July, maybe the bureaus just haven't gotten significant enough data yet.

Had a friends dumbass wife parked behind me at a football game and she smeared my car in the most dumb way ever. Moved my car and left it at a friend's house on same street. Came back in the morning and some other dingus had backed into my driver side door backing out of his driveway.

This all happened between 10pm and 8am on Friday. Wtf even is that? 1k and 2800 respectively to fix, good job shitheads.

I'm assuming I'd do it through a bank. The place we bought the first crosstrek from was a major operation with a campus of dealerships for all the major auto makers and had us go through a local credit union.

This time, the majority of cars we've found are through carmax since apparently local dealers are off-loading most of their used car inventory to auctions given the inflated market. The available inventory is very limited for what we're looking for, 2017/2018 crosstrek limiteds - ie leather seats, heated seats, keyless entry, rear-view camera (ie parallel parking for advanced players) - but we really like the make/model for what we need the vehicle to do and it's a car we plan to keep for as long as possible. Neither of us use the car to commute to work and averaged 6.2k miles/yr.

anyway, carmax financing would for sure go through a local/national bank.

Did you go through insurance or just pay out of pocket for that?

Earlier this year somebody, likely a delivery truck of some sort, hit and ran/nicked our front bumper off resulting in $5k worth of repairs. Auto-shop found some other damage to the front-end of the car frame behind the bumper they were able to include and since our $1k deductible was already met I was happy to have to do the work.

The most recent incident was the result of a college kid 'losing control of their vehicle trying to change lanes' and side-swiping my parked car and the car parked in front of mine. According to the police report a witness heard the crash, went to check wtf happened, and found the driver passed out but breathing. Kid was taken to the hospital apparently.
The impact shot my car up over the rock curb a good 5 feet on the sidewalk. It's a two-lane one way road with street parking on both sides where it's really hard to get over 25 mph unless there's not much traffic. Honestly I just assume every accident nowadays is caused by people staring at their phones