Cheap Car Buying Myths: "You'll Spend More in the Long Run"

When discussing buying cheap cars under $1000 I always hear certain myths, objections, and misconceptions.  So as an avid purchaser of cheap vehicles I just wanted to take a moment to dispel a couple of "myths" regarding buying a cheap vehicle for less than $1000 bucks.   

Myth #1: "Buying a cheap car under $1000 isn't worth it, because you'll just wind up putting tons of money back into it just to keep it going" 

Now of course there is no guarantee against a vehicle becoming a perpetual money pit, but there are a few easy ways to make sure you get your money's worth. 

1st: Buy the right car!  Sounds simple right? Well it is in most cases, but you would be surprised at how tough a choice it can be sometimes.  For example if you are looking for a solid daily driver to run back and forth to work in maybe that Fiat X1/9 or MG shouldn't be your first choice.  The key is to keep in mind what your intended purpose is going to be and search for the vehicles that were built for that purpose in the first place. 

2nd:  Can you find parts?: Half the reason I mentioned the above is, because parts costs and availability can make or break you getting your money's worth out of a vehicle.  Many cars like Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac and other "high end" vehicles don't always hold their value exceptionally well bringing them at some point in their lives to the $1000 Dollar or less price range.  Now the thought of picking up that Mercedes you wanted 20 years ago for only a couple hundred bucks can seem really tempting, but lets remember although the costs of some vehicles can drastically drop with it comes a drop in available parts.  Especially when it comes to more upscale or exotic type vehicles parts can not always be had at your local oreilly's and dealerships can be disgustingly expensive to source parts from ( in most cases) 

3rd:  Know when to let go:  A factor that is more important to consider when making a $1000 dollar or less purchase than in other vehicle purchases is time.  In other words how long do you plan to keep the vehicle?  As a rule of thumb if your trying to buy cheap vehicles and sell them for as much or more than what you paid the time frame for their use needs to be somewhat short.  There are always exceptions, but lets face it these are not new cars were talking about.  On your side is the fact that $1k or less vehicles tend to be under priced and don't really have much further to drop in value, so simply knowing when to bail and find another one is important. 

An example of my own came from one of the ugliest vehicles I ever purchased, an '89 park avenue.  Now this was a great car and came fully loaded with a digital dash, leather seats, cig lighter at every seat, the works.  However it looked like somebody bounced it off 100 light poles and waxed it with sandpaper.  I paid $300 bucks for the heap (after trying unsuccessfully to talk the guy down to $200) and my estimated time frame was 2 months.  I needed this car to drive through the nasty months of december and January and that was it.  All I wanted was a car that would start and had a working heater; I didn't even plan on changing the oil.  Much to my surprise that 3.8 V-6 really held up for about 6 months!  Finally the transmission gave up and died and I gave it to my neighbor to junk for about $75 bucks.  So lets do the math $300 bucks - $75 = $225 dollars spent on a vehicle that served its purpose just fine for 6 months!  Now of course everybody may not be willing to drive such a gloriously craptastic piece of junk (especially in public), but the moral of the story is that I used the car for what I needed it for and then some then I let it go.  Sure I could of gotten a used transmission for a few hundred bucks, but had I kept putting money into it I may not have gotten such a deal. 

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