ATLANTA — The current price of new and used cars has a lot of owners wondering if it’s time to sell or keep their old vehicle.
Vehicle owners will get a great price for the car they're driving but it’s going to be tough to find a good deal on a replacement.
Mike Dundas, Director of Finance at Carvana, said it doesn’t make sense to sell your vehicle if you’ve had it less than three or four years.
“For the first two or three years of ownership, you’re going to owe more on the car than it’s worth,” Dundas said. “When you're buying that vehicle, there's typically a lot of upfront expenses, like title and registration fees. If you're buying a car very frequently, you're kind of getting hit with those expenses.”
If the mileage of a vehicle goes beyond 60 or 70,000 miles, that’s when warranties begin to expire and expenses start to build. Zac Simmons of Carvana says there’s a big difference between selling a car with 90,000 miles and one with 100,000.
“The resale value decreases dramatically,” Simmons said. “I do think there's a bit of a psychology to that as well. We're getting to that that whole 100,000 mile marker. What are we getting into?”
If a car needs repairs, consider how much the vehicle is worth before spending a lot of money. Ask if you’re spending more on repairs than you would on payments for another vehicle.
“The maintenance and repair will continue to go up,” Simmons said. “They're always going to be something that's going to take money away and as they get older.”
Georgia is one of the states that will give car owners a tax break on a new vehicle depending on the cost of a trade-in.
Experts said the microchip shortage that has impacted the supply of new cars will likely last well into 2022, meaning vehicle prices probably aren’t coming down anytime soon.