The Nerd's Eye View

a Hybrid! It would say "Yes, I am a swauve Engineer for Big Business, but I also dig trees." It would speak to the many sides of Mo. And they look cool and have 4 doors.

Lo fat bro,
It's due time you rode around a vehicle worthy of your ego.

The benefits of a Porsche 911 Carrera 4s go without mention, but given the recent INTC crash, methinks you'll be saving that idea for your midlife crisis.

Since you seem to be all about distracting yourself with your iPod while driving, you may enjoy a bimmer with built in iDock.

Like everything else in life, it's all about the benjamins. I ended up drawing the "justification" line at $20k on my recent purchase, which ruled out the Subaru WRX STI and the Infinity G35, but I'm pretty happy with my '04 Accura RSX-S.

You had to go and get me started about cars! Warning: If you don't want to hear a long rant about cars, go to the next comment. You've been warned...

Car payments are a racket. Here's what I would do in your situation:

A professional, single, healthy, 29 pushup-doing guy like yourself should be able to save $1000 a month. Start having it electronically drafted from your check.

Next, buy a $400 hooptie and only drive to work and the grocery store for the next year -- you can be creative about getting to other places. Don't make any repairs beyond basic maintenance. If the car dies in six months, buy another $400 hooptie. If your current repair is around $1000, then keep your old car. Either way, the more you can save per month, the faster you can ditch the hooptie.

With the money you are saving, take the first $6000 and put it into a 6-mo CD at 5.5%, and the next $3000 in a 3-mo CD at 5.0%. This way, you can pocket an extra $300 (after taxes) versus a traditional savings account.

Thirteen months from now, walk onto a car lot, find a $15,000 car, haggle them down to $13,000, then tell the sales guy and his manager "if you bring it down to $12,000 I'll pay cash today." Use the last $1000 to pay for tax, titles, etc. Drive off with a new car. Take your extra $300 and buy a satellite radio receiver and a iPod Nano with car accessories.

You do have to make it through a year with a hooptie, but think of the payoff: You'll have no car payment draining you every month for the next 5-6 years (instead, take that cash and invest), you won't have paid $20,000 for a $15,000 sticker car, you won't buy a car that's beyond your means, and the minute you don't like the car, you can sell it and recoup some of your investment.

I will NEVER have another car payment in my life if I can help it. Substitute my current car-payment racket for your hooptie, and this is exactly how I'm going to buy my next car.

I agree. Car payments are a waist. Only get a good car when you are ready to pay cash for it.

You realize of course that you sound like the type of guy who can be found around the bus station telling anyone who will listen that the aliens are behind Three's Company getting cancelled.

Having just purchased a new Honda Accord, I will share what I can of my infinite wisdom in this appallingly finite space.

First, I agree that paying for the vehicle outright is best by far. You’re already going to lose money on the car once you drive it off the lot, so paying extra in interest on it above that is just nuts.

I called and e-mailed every Honda dealership in town, and specifically spoke to the Fleet Managers there. Fleet Managers are magical creatures. They offer you a price very close to the best you’re likely to get from a sales person out in the main building (the guys that come hassle you when you go to the lot and start ogling cars), and do so right from the start. Articles on the internets will try to tell you it is not possible to haggle with the Fleet Managers. This is what we in the car buying field refer to as “a lie”. I played the different Fleet Managers against one another over the phone, telling them what I wanted and that I was prepared to bring a cashier’s check in for EXACTLY the amount we agreed to over the phone as an OTD (Out The Door) price.

All of this assumes some research on your part ahead of time. Find out what cars you are interested in, and go test drive them. Then, look up the invoice price and if there are any incentive moneys the dealerships are being offered currently (this is the amount of wiggle room you have below invoice, generally). Edmunds.com and MSN’s Auto area are excellent resources for research, as are the dealerships’ own websites.

From my research, I determined that I wanted a silver Honda Accord, and that invoice on an automatic was $17,800 and MSRP was $19,600. A manual is about $800 less, but I wanted an automatic. In Arizona, a good estimate for the amount tacked on from taxes, title, registration, etc. is about 10% of the invoice price. Hondas are peculiar in that there are generally not much in the way of dealer incentives or rebates being offered (this is part of why their resale value remains so insanely high compared to other manufacturers), so my target was about $200 below the price of invoice plus all the extra fees, bringing my OTD target to around $19,500.

It took a week of conversations with different dealerships and researching, but I found a Fleet Manager at a place very close to my house that had the exact car I wanted and agreed to sell it to me for about $19,400 (it was a bit less than my goal because I got money back from my old registration with the state of my Crown Vic, which recently went to the big scrap heap in the sky). I brought in a cashier’s check for precisely the agreed upon amount, so they couldn’t try to sell me junk I didn’t want/need or have surprise extra expenses on the vehicle. The total time of the actual transaction, including all paperwork, was about an hour and a half, which is damned lickety-split in car-lot time.

Did I mention that my Accord had 42 miles on it when I drove it off the lot? You should look for a car with that feature, definitely.

Oh, so the reasons I bought an Accord are its safety record, the amount of car you get for the price, the resale value, and the quality that Honda has come to be known for. The fact that all Hondas now come with side impact airbags standard was impressive, and the mileage was pretty great for a car its size (I’m averaging around 26-28 driving around the east valley).

How about a manual transmission? Hehe.

I come from people that don't believe in new cars. That doesn't mean that we drive cars into the ground and then get another $400 hoopte. Cars depreciate so much once somebody drives it off the lot, so why not let someone else eat depreciation and buy somethings 3-5 years old.

I love my suburu. It is reliable, functional, and has sentimental value for me. BMW 500 series, Mercedes 230 compressor coup, and anything made by Porsche is going to be a sexy car, but do you really want your car to say "I have so much money and want to impress you so bad I'm going to put it all into this car?" That being said, the cars that get good gas milage makes financial sense, and tells everyone else you are smarter than they are.

Who knew this would cause so much controversy? I am glad though that I sparked a lively discussion.

While I am definitely not going to go for the $400 hoopte, neither am I going to go with a brand new Jaguar XJS with $400 down and 15% APR financing or something.

The best thing may be the rolling around town test driving cars I can't afford while I do research on sensible cars I can afford.

What's weird is I'm going through the same crap right now. It's time I let ol' pigpen go and buy a new car. sigh. We're getting old Mohamed, old i tell you.

Karen, you're right. I think we should both get Volvo station wagons with bumper stickers that say "my child is an honor student at Gleam in My Eye High School"

I think I might buy a midlife crisis type car and go get a MINI.

I thought about the MINI too but not enough trunk space. After my folks visited earlier this month, I realized that I could barely fit their luggage into my car as it is.

Any car that discourages passengers is a car for me. But my family doesn't visit from as far away and they usually make me come to them.

Minis get surprisingly poor gas mileage. I vote for a hybrid. Both the Prius and the Honda Civic have been low-to-no maintenance. The best advice I can give you is when you go to the dealer, don't let them talk you into anything extra.

Intriguing, but what with the six month wait for a hybrid around here that may not pan out.

Behold! Auto-Manna of hippies turned mid-life demi-sellouts* everywhere!

The Mercedes Diesel Sportscar!

*well, you could potentially use biodiesel in it...

The SLR McClaren is worth it ... sooooooo worth it. The gull wing is just a triumph of design!