Are there any hidden risks to buying or owning a car that someone who’s never been a car owner might neglect?
I’m considering buying a very old (ie from the 1990s), very cheap (under $1000, ideally) minivan, as an experiment.
That’s inexpensive enough that I’m not that worried about it completely breaking down on me. I’m willing to just eat the monetary cost for the information value.
However, maybe there are other costs or other risks that I’m not tracking, that make this a worse idea.
Things like
- Some ways that a car can break make it dangerous, instead of non-functional.
- Maybe if a car breaks down in the middle of route 66, the government fines you a bunch?
- Something something car insurance?
Are there other things that I should know? What are the major things that one should check for to avoid buying a lemon?
Assume I’m not aware of even the most drop-dead basic stuff. I’m probably not.
(Also, I’m in the market for a minivan, or other car with 3 rows of seats. If you have an old car like that which you would like to sell, or if know someone who does, get in touch.
Do note that I am extremely price sensitive, but I would pay somewhat more than $1000 for a car, if I were confident that it was not a lemon.)
You can explore the data yourself, but the general trend is that it appears there have been real improvements in crash fatality rates. Better designed structure, more and better airbags, stability control, and now in some new vehicles automatic emergency braking is standard.
Generally a bigger vehicle like a minivan is safer, and a newer version of that minivan will be safer, but you just have to go with what you can afford.
Main risk is simply that at this price point that minivan is going to have a lot of miles, and it’s simply probability how long it will run until a very expensive major repair is needed. One strategy is to plan to junk the vehicle and get a similar ‘beater’ vehicle when the present one fails.
If you’re so price sensitive $1000 is meaningful, well, uh try to find a solution to this crisis. I’m not saying one exists, but there are survival risks to poverty.
If you’re so price sensitive $1000 is meaningful, well, uh try to find a solution to this crisis. I’m not saying one exists, but there are survival risks to poverty.
Lol. I’m not impoverished, but I want to cheaply experiment with having a car. It isn’t worth it to spend throw away $30,000 on a thing that I’m not going to get much value from.
Ok but at the price point you are talking you are not going to have a good time.
Analogy: would you “experiment with having a computer” by grabbing a packard bell from the 1990s and putting an ethernet card in it so it can connect to the internet from windows 95?
Do you need the minivan form factor? As a vehicle in decent condition (6-10 years old, under 100k miles, from a reputable brand) is cheapest in the small car form factor.
Not spending $30,000 makes sense, but my impression from car shopping last year was that trying to get a good car for less than $7k was fairly hard. (I get the ‘willingness to eat the cost’ price point of $1k, but wanted to highlight that the next price point up was more like 10k than 30k.)
Depending on your experimentation goals, you might want to rent a a car rather than buy.
Most auto shops will do a safety/mechanical inspection for a small amount (usually in the $50-200 range, but be aware that the cheaper ones subsidize it by anticipating that they can sell you services to fix the car if you buy it).
However, as others have said, this price point is too low for your first car as a novice, unless you have a mentor and intend to spend a lot of time learning to maintain/fix. Something reliable enough for you to actually run the experiment and get the information you want about the benefits vs frustrations of owning a car is going to run probably $5-$10K, depending on regional variance and specifics of your needs.
For a first car, look into getting a warranty, not because it’s a good insurance bet, but because it forces the seller to make claims of warrantability to their insurance company.
You can probably cut the cost in half (or more) if you educate yourself and get to know the local car community. If the car is a hobby rather than an experiment in transportation convenience, you can take a lot more risk, AND those risks are mitigated if you know how to get things fixed cheaply.
Are there any hidden risks to buying or owning a car that someone who’s never been a car owner might neglect?
I’m considering buying a very old (ie from the 1990s), very cheap (under $1000, ideally) minivan, as an experiment.
That’s inexpensive enough that I’m not that worried about it completely breaking down on me. I’m willing to just eat the monetary cost for the information value.
However, maybe there are other costs or other risks that I’m not tracking, that make this a worse idea.
Things like
- Some ways that a car can break make it dangerous, instead of non-functional.
- Maybe if a car breaks down in the middle of route 66, the government fines you a bunch?
- Something something car insurance?
Are there other things that I should know? What are the major things that one should check for to avoid buying a lemon?
Assume I’m not aware of even the most drop-dead basic stuff. I’m probably not.
(Also, I’m in the market for a minivan, or other car with 3 rows of seats. If you have an old car like that which you would like to sell, or if know someone who does, get in touch.
Do note that I am extremely price sensitive, but I would pay somewhat more than $1000 for a car, if I were confident that it was not a lemon.)
There are. https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model
You can explore the data yourself, but the general trend is that it appears there have been real improvements in crash fatality rates. Better designed structure, more and better airbags, stability control, and now in some new vehicles automatic emergency braking is standard.
Generally a bigger vehicle like a minivan is safer, and a newer version of that minivan will be safer, but you just have to go with what you can afford.
Main risk is simply that at this price point that minivan is going to have a lot of miles, and it’s simply probability how long it will run until a very expensive major repair is needed. One strategy is to plan to junk the vehicle and get a similar ‘beater’ vehicle when the present one fails.
If you’re so price sensitive $1000 is meaningful, well, uh try to find a solution to this crisis. I’m not saying one exists, but there are survival risks to poverty.
Lol. I’m not impoverished, but I want to cheaply experiment with having a car. It isn’t worth it to spend throw away $30,000 on a thing that I’m not going to get much value from.
Ok but at the price point you are talking you are not going to have a good time.
Analogy: would you “experiment with having a computer” by grabbing a packard bell from the 1990s and putting an ethernet card in it so it can connect to the internet from windows 95?
Do you need the minivan form factor? As a vehicle in decent condition (6-10 years old, under 100k miles, from a reputable brand) is cheapest in the small car form factor.
Not spending $30,000 makes sense, but my impression from car shopping last year was that trying to get a good car for less than $7k was fairly hard. (I get the ‘willingness to eat the cost’ price point of $1k, but wanted to highlight that the next price point up was more like 10k than 30k.)
Depending on your experimentation goals, you might want to rent a a car rather than buy.
Most auto shops will do a safety/mechanical inspection for a small amount (usually in the $50-200 range, but be aware that the cheaper ones subsidize it by anticipating that they can sell you services to fix the car if you buy it).
However, as others have said, this price point is too low for your first car as a novice, unless you have a mentor and intend to spend a lot of time learning to maintain/fix. Something reliable enough for you to actually run the experiment and get the information you want about the benefits vs frustrations of owning a car is going to run probably $5-$10K, depending on regional variance and specifics of your needs.
For a first car, look into getting a warranty, not because it’s a good insurance bet, but because it forces the seller to make claims of warrantability to their insurance company.
You can probably cut the cost in half (or more) if you educate yourself and get to know the local car community. If the car is a hobby rather than an experiment in transportation convenience, you can take a lot more risk, AND those risks are mitigated if you know how to get things fixed cheaply.