A Guide to Buying Your First Car

A Guide to Buying Your First Car

Hoping that you have learned a lot from previous articles about the differences between new and used cars, you have now landed on this page to start your search to buy new car. Researching about that new car is indeed easy as 1, 2, 3 because of the internet, but in a report by Autotrader; there is about 78 percent of searchers use third party sites than the 57 percent that directly search using dealership sites—and there is the 36 percent who go for OEM (original equipment material) sites.

There is nothing wrong with this. However, it is always the customer’s choice on which process to take. But since sharing is caring, here are some pointers to help you in the decision of buying your first car:

1. Budgeting and Finance Option
There are many ways to which you can have your first car, but the cheapest way to buy it is by paying it outright with cash—the car is yours, no strings attached. But for some, financing is better because it is cheaper but could take you 3-5 years to pay for it before actually “owning” it.

Consider factors such as monthly finance payment, insurance premiums, gas costs, maintenance and repairs (for used cars), and registration fees (depending on your location), and so on.

2. Choose a Seller
There are two main ways to look for a car seller: a car dealership and private car sellers. The convenience with a new car dealership in San Diego, for example, is that you can choose from the wide selection of cars that they have and check-out financing terms available. However, negotiation is tighter since they strictly follow the standard operating procedure.

With private car sellers, the main advantage is negotiation. Privately sold cars are more often easy to acquire because prices can get a bit lower than the original selling price–they are often highly motivated to sell them to buy a new car or get rid of a vehicle they do not frequently use.

Test driving for both car dealership and private sellers are of course applicable on a different term—of course.

Here is an infographic of more information about buying your first car.

buy new car