Hello Clark! I’ve been a listener for literally decades. Your advice has saved me untold thousands of dollars and made my financial life better in so many ways. I want to tell you about my Clark Smart car purchase of my first new car ever in 40 years of driving. I took your example of battery EV driving to get one of my own, though I didn’t choose a Tesla, sorry!
As you advise, I always bought used cars. In 2016 I bought a Toyota that was 2.5 years old, and I drove it 7.5 years and 75,000 miles. The Ford dealer offered me $14,000 in trade in, which I tried to negotiate up but due to the “high” milage of 120,000, the sales manager wouldn’t offer more. The salesman suggested I try Carvana. I remembered your positive experience selling a car this way and got an offer of $18,000! The sale was quick and easy, and I had the payment in my bank account in 2 days. Getting 55% of the Toyota’s cost back after almost 8 years is a pretty good outcome!
My timing was excellent for buying a Mustang Mach-E this month. After Tesla lowered their prices, Ford lowered their BEV prices in turn, plus Ford has a lot of unsold 2023 inventory they are offering $3000 incentives on, and further I scored a $500 first responder discount. The icing on the cake is I had a Ford “A-Plan” pricing code from my brother-in-law who works for Ford. The A-Plan gave me discounts on the MSRP, the dealer prep fee, and the extended warranty. Speaking of warranty, I also took your advice and considered only the Ford extended warranty and NOT the third-party warranty offered by an insurance company. The A-Plan amounted to $3000 more off the bottom line! The one suggestion from you I didn’t follow was the financing term. Since I qualified for 0% APR financing from Ford Credit, I decided to take a 72-month loan. I figured it’s better to add $18,000 from the Toyota sale to my emergency fund money market earning over 5% interest. Because I keep cars for a long time, I’m not too worried about potentially being upside-down on the loan.
Thank you, thank you, thank you again for your service to the financial health of our country and to myself over the years. You and your team are the best!
PS: I asked the sales manager about a lease because Ford was passing on the $7500 federal tax credit in 2024 that is no longer available to purchasers for this model. Because I wouldn’t have the A-Plan and 0% APR the lease option didn’t save anything over purchasing.
I would tend to agree somewhat if it were an ICE car. To me there are too many complicated systems on an EV that I’d prefer not to be paying for when the warranty runs out, which is long before 8 years for everything else than the battery. Check out the brochure for the Premium Plus EV plan. It lists the systems covered. I tried to upload the brochure but it won’t take pdfs. You can find it with a web search.
It’s your money and your choice, but the average BEV drive train has about 20 moving parts vs up to 2,000 moving parts in an ICE car engine & drive train.
Brakes last many times longer and stuff like climate systems are much simpler.
The suspension, body and the rest are about the same. I’ve owned a BEV since 2022 and have spent zero on service and maint.
I have owned 2 BEVs since 2015 and covered about 120-130k total miles. I have only changed the air filters and tires. Once you get good at using the regenerative braking…you don’t use them much.
Welcome to the EV owner’s club! I have both an EV (2023 Nissan Leaf I bought new) and an old Corolla, which I’ll probably trade-in later this year for a 2nd, longer range EV. I love charging at home for a tiny fraction of what I used to spend filling up with gas. If some of the Chinese manufacturers start selling their EVs here, we could see some incredibly cheap EVs available for consumers. They have lots of smaller ones that sell between $5,000-$10,000 brand new.
Congrats, Shepherd! I agree with your strategy of taking advantage of the 0% financing. Just be aware that if your car was totaled or had a loss for whatever reason, the insurance companies will only give you the current value. That may or may not have anything to do with what you paid for it. You might look into gap insurance. That should cover a difference if, for example, you owed $30,000 but the insurance only gave you $20,000. No matter your APR you’ll still owe the balance.
Because I wouldn’t have the A-Plan and 0% APR the lease option didn’t save anything over purchasing.
