searching

The car search goes on.

We own an 8 year old pickup that is very nice, but gets 16 miles per gallon average. I bought it when gas was a little over a dollar a gallon! The other is a 20 year car that gets almost twice as many miles out of a gallon of gas, but is showing it’s age.

I bought the last 3 vehicles new. Buying used is a hugely different deal.

I heard of a people making fast decisions about these thing, but not me this time. I comb Ebay. I look on Craig’s List. Edmonds.com has become a regular visit, as has fueleconomy.gov. Did you know that there was once a Geo and a Pontiac that were made by Toyota? I learn stuff like that.

My spreadsheet calculates the actual cost of a vehicle, including maintenance (Edmonds will guess for you). I calculate which car might save more than it costs. For some reason I compute that on an 8 year clock.

I found a beautiful VW New Beetle in Florida that would be a fine ride. It will get around 50 mpg on a gallon of higher priced diesel. And there is a beautiful Ford Focus (bright yellow) in Spokane. There are others that look really good, but to many fit my criteria.

My spreadsheet tells me that the VW would be good, that mileage is great, but the VW costs a lot more to buy and Diesel cost more than gasoline, and because that 50 MPG is in demand the newest I might afford is 11 or 12 years old. The Focus, on the other hand, is only 5 years old, and though it gets less MPH, my spreadsheet tells me it is a better buy for me.

So I analyze and hope I am making the right decision for the right car.