How many Prius owners paid cash vs loan for their car?

Cash.

Our fourth Toyota, or fifth...the others were finananced and we had some leases when we had our business...but in retirement...no loans, please.

My dealer said yesterday they are up to a nine-month wait now...so glad I get the tax credit!!

 

I never borrow money. If I can't pay, I do without. This is partly financial, partly emotional: Interest paid on a loan is money down the drain; and a loan is like a sword of Damocles always hanging over your head: if anything goes wrong, you're screwed. Lose your job: lose your car (or your house, or whatever you've bought on credit).

j24816 makes a good point about the tax credit (assuming it really does expire - one never knows what those clowns in D.C. will do). But that only affects the first part of the equation: the numbers when all goes well. It does not affect the second part: the emotional stress of having to make monthly payments.

Americans are so brainwashed into accepting credit that it seems normal and even necessary.

Credit card companies call people like me "deadbeats." That's because I pay my balance in full every month and never pay a penny of interest. If they're calling me a deadbeat, it's because I'm the winner in the deal. The card is a convenience, and sometimes (e.g. when renting a car) a necessity. But I don't accept loans.

When I was poor I did without a lot of posessions. Now that I've got money, I can buy stuff. My sister was just the opposite: she always carried the maximum limit on all her credit cards. She always had a lot more stuff than I did, but the stress made her an emotional wreck.

My advice: save up your money and then buy the car with cash.

 

I guess I took a 'hybrid' approach... pun intended I think.

I took a loan, but only so I could get a better deal on my trade-in and get the extended warranty on the cheap. After the first month, I paid the loan off.

Salesmen are always willing to bargain and bend on price if they think they can make it up over time on interest.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wmhunter @ Aug 14 2006, 09:33 PM) [snapback]303313[/snapback]</div>

Paid cash as well - Ditto on the Tax credit. I was able to get a white, Pkg 4 in one week. I searched the web and found a dealer out of state with an unassigned allocation. My local dlr was sold out for the next 4 months. (Missing the tax credit window)

My first tank was 48 MPG with about 50 miles in Chicago traffic, the rest interstate and local highway.

My Silverado 2500 HD gets about 15 MPG on a good day with a 40 MPH tailwind.

Solution to the oil problem -

Tax the gas hog vehicles and apply ALL of the the money to tax credits for the fuel efficent vehicles - Tax based on a sliding scale of the MPG rating. People will gravitate to fuel efficiency and the engineers in Detroit may finally figure it out.

The oil problem will take care of itself!

 

Cash with trade-in.

 

Sounds like a lot of people really dislike the idea of credit. As long as you manage debt with a LOT of care and dilligence, then there's nothing wrong with it. IMO, doing without something like a house when you can afford a down payment is just palin stupid because your rent is going into someone else's equity, not your own.

The OP sounds concerned enough about the dangers of credit though, and back to that point, the question was whether they should save up for a year+1/2 or so, or finance now. I'd say if you think you can afford a large down payment now, and to pay off the car in a year then go for it. You won't be out much by way of interest, and the longer you wait, the longer you'll want to wait for the next sexy model, and the longer you'll be driving around in some priustoric clunker and kicking yourself every day

... oh and p.s. NEVER accumulate debt on a credit card. THAT is a really really bad idea. And for reasons I can't fathom, that's a bit of advice that a lot of Americans desperately need.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(loveit @ Aug 14 2006, 08:52 PM) [snapback]303290[/snapback]</div>

I will be getting my Prius (package 3) in a few days. Paid $1000 on a 0%credit card for 15 months. Put 22,900 on a 2.99% balance transfer from Citibank (it's for the life of the loan). That's the beat any financing deal I could get and I get to keep all my savings in my mutual funds. There's good and bad to this. The bad is that I soaked up the limit and I must must pay on time (I always do). The good is that the rate is 1/2 of any rate I could find. If I lose my job I can make minimum payments. I'll take the 3150 from the feds to pay the 0% loan and the rest towards the loan. Oh and I get the title.

 

What would be interesting to see, is how many people bought the car, financed the whole thing, then will get the tax credit, but not apply it to the car debt, but rather spend it on other junk they don't need.

We paid trade + cash + finance. At our 6.5 month mark, it will be paid off.

 

If the OP is nowhere near the full price of the car, I'd say save up more. By the time you're ready, you'll get the next generation Prius, which is about 2 years away. and will have better mileage, if not a plug-in option.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 15 2006, 01:45 PM) [snapback]303598[/snapback]</div>

You're probably right about what a lot of people will do with the credit. They'll treat the money as "found money" and take a vacation or buy some kind of crap. People do it every year with their tax refunds. They buy crap rather than paying down their debt.

If the only debt someone has is the car and a mortgage, however, that's a perfect opportunity to use the credit/refund to build savings. Savings account, investment, CDs, whatever. Too many people don't have emergency funds for the inevitable rainy day.

 

OP == opening post(er)

Neither loveit or Daniel are deadbeats. That laurel belongs to *me* and people like me. I collect credit cards for their solicitation gifts and 0% apr balance transfer offers. I usually have 50 - 100k of their money sitting in a treasury bond or other safe fixed investment collecting interest that I pocket. I return it before the 0% apr runs out, but they are always quick to loan me out the money again.

Besides enjoying the free cash, some years ago I was angered by a credit card company's tactics, and have spent the effort to make sure they lose money on me ever since. I cannot even remember what go my goat at the time.

 

Cash, kind of. I financed through Toyota to get the $500 off the price of the car, then paid it all off the first month.

Also, I got another $500 off the car through the ignorance of the Toyota finance. It was the first car I bought and I claimed that even though I was 8 years out of undergraduate, I still qualified for the recent student discount since I was still a graduate student. The financial people had never dealt with this, so I fast talked and got the discount!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Aug 15 2006, 04:08 PM) [snapback]303692[/snapback]</div>

Now why didn't I think of this?? :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Aug 15 2006, 04:08 PM) [snapback]303692[/snapback]</div>

holy hell, what a good idea! :lol:

maybe when i get my fiancial baseline established again (it's been a bad few months) i'll try that. i do everything in my power to make sure my credit card co loses money on me too, but every once in a great while life gets my goose.

 

Paid cash.

Considered doing a secured loan but decided since I had the money... I'd spend it!! h34r:

 

I shopped around for a good rate/term and took out a loan for my Prius. I did put down as much as I could for the downpayment. The amount I'm paying in interest really isn't that big a deal at all when you consider the fact that not only am I saving a decent amount of $ over my Saturn in gas costs each month but I'm not having to take the Saturn in every few months to get something else fixed. Plus the Prius is a far safer car than the Saturn was, so that gives both me and my husband more peace of mind.

I had spent the previous ~3 or so years paying off some sizeable medical/dental bills, so once that was paid off it freed up a pretty good amount of money on a per month basis, which more than covers the payments. My 1996 Saturn had reached the end of its useful life by the time I realized I would soon need a newish car, and the Prius was the car for me. The Prius, my husband's Accord and our home mortgage are the only debt we have. I could have paid cash outright for the Prius, but I'd rather keep a good chunk of our $ in savings for emergencies, personally.

Do whatever works out best for you financially when it comes to making a big ticket purchase like a new car. If you take out a loan, make sure you can make the payments and they fit within your budget. But don't deplete your savings to pay all cash, it's always wise to have some cash on hand for emergencies when they come up.

 

minus 6000 for a trade in paid cash.Saved almost 2 years for it,well worrth the investment.

 

I paid cash too