Do you guys make it a point to avoid losing money on cars? Is that even a realistic goal?

I have a friend who claims that they have basically at least broken even or made money owning cars over the years. Now, this is an exaggeration to be sure considering that he does his own work on the cars and that work isn't really accounted for in this equation and neither is insurance I'm sure, but removing that sort of thing he is probably doing better than average in that he buys used for cash at a lowball price, fixes (if necessary) and uses the car for a while and if he needs to sell usually gets out at or above the cash he put into the car.

So, of course I get some E36 M3 for buying two new cars in recent years and eating the depreciation.

I suppose if I was able to buy used and spent an insignificant amount of time and money upkeeping the vehicles or that I enjoyed doing the upkeep (which I kinda don't) there is much more sense in buying used, but at the same time it certainly is nice not having to worry at all about what is going to happen with the car.

I also think I've been conditioned to think that cars are just money pits and that I'll lose money one way or another, but my friend of course disagrees.

Making money on every car is probably not realistic, but you can usually limit the amount of value that is lost. The depreciation curve is your friend

I don't make it a goal. It's possible but very difficult - you have to get in at a very low price and/or pick a car that will appreciate, or get lucky with economic conditions - like a downturn that will increase the values of all used cars. On the other hand an upturn could send used cars through the floor and ruin your plans.

Cars being money pits is the norm unless you're talking collectible classics.

Not even a consideration.

With all my project cars over the years I certainly strove to broke even, but for every one or two I made a profit or broke even on, there were one or two that became complete money pits and ended up getting sold at a terrifying loss. I'm making payments on a Honda now and feel like I should have done this five years ago.

I lost a loooot of money thanks to my automotive ADD, enough so that the depreciation on my Fit is insignificant compared to what I threw away. European cars in particular broke me. I'm looking at getting another project car before too long, but it'll be a low power Japanese car that's cheap to fix up and run.

Since I have never gotten rid of a car that wasn't A) totaled, B) worth less than $1000, or C) both - no, I can't say I prioritize recouping money from cars.

I rarely do worse than breaking even. But I don't buy Carollas and such. For instance, here in MI, buy a Miata in November and sell it in June. You get a few months of fun (snowy) driving, then a few months of top-down, then make 40%. Or buy a Forester in April, and sell in November. Stuff like that.
Heck, I bought my miata for $2400, drove it for 3 years while putting a timing belt, battery, and brake pads in it and sold it for $4200.
It's all about buying it right and knowing how to write the ad. I don't think I've ever had a vehicle for sale for more than a week.

It's possible to do but it is more work for sure!

I do not make any money on my cars, but I do not lose very much. I would say most of them I lost $1000 - $2000 and got 3-5 years of good driving out of them. Definitely cheaper than a new car but not exactly a money making opportunity.

You could probably do better by driving more common and cheaper to maintain cars. Everyone wants a Camry but nobody will buy a broken one. But then again you don't want a Camry do you?

It used to be easier to do this before Google. If you had some good brand-specific knowledge of common issues you could get non-running cars with fairly minor issues, fix them and flip them for a nice profit. RX-7s used to be my friend in this regard.

Now, the only way I'm really turning a profit is:

• If I don't count my labor, find the right deal at the right time, beat all of the other Craigslist vultures to it and manage to scrounge the right parts at the pick-n-pull at their half price days.

• Or decide to part a car out completely, which is aggravating and time consuming.

I have never met a gambler that admits to losing money. I have a sneaking suspicion that your friends cost all not fully accounted for in all their forms.

The acknowledged cheapest route to carefree driving is still to buy a two year old car for cash and sell it at five. The value proposition is the carefree three years of driving. And you are not driving a wreck. Works best with toasters like Camry or Corolla and such. Of course this also assumes you are a civilian who does not do, or want to do a bunch of mechanical work on the car.

Me, I buy them new and scrap them at 10 and consider it money well spent.

Well, for me, I realize that the true cost of a car is directly tied to each mile driven. For example, I bought an f-250 diesel (1984 model) about 6 years ago for $1650. Just sold it recently for $1800. Some might say I made money on the truck, until you realize that I probably put about 5-7k worth of diesel through the thing in the time that I owned it. Not to mention licenses, insurance, etc (about $200/year). (Also, I bet I've spent 50+ hours wrenching on the thing across those 6 years, mostly just maintenance - $3/hr? that's not what I'd call a profit). Inflation kills my 'profit' even more.

So even if I had bought the truck for $1650 and sold for $0, the cost of the truck itself pales in comparison to the running costs.

This isn't quite so true for buying new cars though.

Overall, I have made money on a few (3 so far I think), and lost a lot more than I made on another few.

If I own a car for less than six months and don't try to do any performance enhancing mods, I typically break even or better, true.
Miata last year, bought for $300, replaced battery, rad, re-did belts, patched holes in top, sold for $1900

But anything that I buy with an eye towards 'improving' past OEM or slightly better levels, nope, I'm losing money.
Mister Two, bought for $500, replaced exhaust (oem), added konis and bushings, redid one hub and timing belt, lost a few hundred on.
But I got to check MR2 off my list, and learn that bushings are a pain but not terrible, so I call it a win.

Breaking even is a more realistic goal when you are operating in the realm of "not worth anything to begin with". All of these were with normal maintenance only (oil, belts):

• $600, drove 1 yr, sold $450.

• $500, drove 5 years/75,000 miles, sold for $500.

• $500, drove 6 months, traded along with $400 cash for another car, sold for $600.

• $1800, drove for 3 years, sold for $1200.

• $1600, put about $300 into it, sold for $1900

• The worst so far, $3000, drove for 2 years, sold for $2000. Was a Miata bought with undisclosed crank issues. Is in fact still running with the new owner but sale price was obviously affected.

We're talking net losses of hundreds of dollars spread across years. Essentially zero loss. Cost to own is gas, oil, insurance and taxes. Now we've got three 'normal' cars with buy-in prices of $3400, $3400 and $2800. They've gone 45,000 miles, 15,000 miles and 20,000 miles respectively. We'll see how it goes when selling.

On each car, no way. On the grand total, I'm probably about even over the years, but that's buying and selling over 130 cars in my lifetime.

You'll always loose on a new car of course.

i don't even think about it very much.. and i don't count things like insurance, gas, or general maintenance items on the cars i drive towards whether i make or lose money on it because those are just the cost of driving and would be basically the same no matter what i was driving. if i buy a car for $500, drive it for a year with only basic maintenance and sell it again for $500, i consider that a wash.. hell, even if i sell it for $400 i consider that ok, too, because it only cost me $100 to own that car for a year.

I'm pretty sure I have never made money on the sale of a used car. Fortunately, I don't do it very often.

I strive for this as well, at least with my "toy" cars. For instance, I bought my GTO for $10.5k and sold it a year later for $11.2k. Bought my E36 M3 for $6500 and sold it two years later for $7400, I think. Similar story with my Miata, my 951, my convertible Mustang, etc.

Now, am I actually making money? No. For one thing, I've put some money and usually quite a bit of time into fixing whatever was wrong with them (because there was always something). And I've had to insure them and put gas in them. The latter I don't really count, though, as I'd be putting gas into something anyhow.

I do it because I enjoy it. I enjoy the hunt, the poking around Craigslist looking for deals, educating myself about the foibles and quirks of a particular model so that I know what to look for and what to pass on. I enjoy the refurbishment aspect, bringing a car back to good condition that's been neglected. Detailing has become a major hobby of mine, and the skills and tools I have can add a few hundred bucks to a used car value in a day. And I like to think I'm pretty good at selling them, too. Detailed ads with lots of pictures and full honesty seem to work well for me. In particular, I've sold a lot of cars to people from out of state who wouldn't be willing to make the time commitment if they weren't pretty confident in what they are getting.

For me, it's a way to drive and enjoy lots of different cars without impacting the family budget too badly, and sometimes not at all. It satisfies my auto ADD in a much less expensive way than I used to, which was by trading in new cars every couple of years. Do that often enough and you end up paying $1000 a month for a base Focus.

Cheap daily drivers i normally make money not counting my time. But not always. Depends alot on the vehicle, if the body is in decent shape its easier to make a profit then a car thats mechanically perfect but ugly. My goal is to never lose too much. Last time i lost was a bit over 500 because the paint was ugly and the local market is saturated with cheap 2wd 3/4 tons.

As a whole I might be ok, but only because I held on to a couple of a/c 911s - although I'd rather have them back than any monetary gains - and now I'm not sure I can afford to buy one . I also did ok on a challenge car - bought for 1600, put 300 in it and sold for 2200 and used it for a DD for six months. More often get my ass handed to me like the e39 bought for 4300, drove for a year, had an accident and recouped 750.

I go through a lot of cars. If I can break even and support my hobby (habit?) over the long run, then I'm doing well. I make money on some and lose money on others. It's about getting to play with the cars I want and can realistically afford. Buying or not buying a car only considering resale saps the fun out of it. Be informed, but buy what you want.

One of the best ways to mitigate total cost of ownership is to be patient and pay a slight premium for an example that has a logbook of recent maintenance. Enjoy the car for a while and sell it before you have to do all of that maintenance again.

over time i like to think that I am about even on what I have put into my cars, in the last ~5 years my cars have gone as so:

in 2011 I bought an 97 Audi A4 for $3000, traded it for a 91 Land Cruiser, traded that for a 99 F250, traded that for an 01 Crown Vic, and then sold it in Dec. 2014 for $2700, then bought a $1000 96 Volvo 850 and sold it 2 months ago for $1500 after doing nothing more then changing the oil. so basically over ~5 years I have made $200 on all my cars and they never needed more then just maintenance.

I also traded my motorcycle which I had about $1000 into it for a 01 Xterra which is worth 2-3x that.

its all just about finding the right deals, which is usually just a waiting game.

I'm usually pretty good at making money off of cars when it's time for them to go. It's a fun game!

-1964 Buick Skylark, bought for $400, spent about $250 in repairs, sold for $800

-1987 Mercury Cougar XR7's, bought two for a total of $500, spent about $400 in repairs, sold both (at different times) for around $1300 total

-1989 Maxima SE, Bought for $800, spent about $250 in maintenance over a few years, got $2500 from insurance when it got totaled in an accident

-1983 Z28, Bought for $250, bought about $150 worth of parts for it, sold car for $350 and parts for another $350

This one is my best one so far...

-1979 Trans Am 10th Anniversary Edition, Bought for $500 with a ton of spares, let it sit for 7 years without spending a dime on it, sold for $2000 + partial trade on some parts AND I kept all the spares the car came with!

The one car I would lose my shirt on if I ever sold it is my other Trans Am, so I'll be keeping that forever.

I was thinking about this the other day and how I have recently changed my outlook on what cars I buy, what I do with them once I do buy them, and for how long I keep them.

It's probably a combination of getting older, and my underlying frugalness, but I find myself choosing more and more what cars and projects I want to tackle based on how much I can expect in return when I go to sell it later on.

Which is completely opposite to how I operated a while back. I used to buy cars with the intent of keeping them forever. I had my SAAB for 4 years, I didn't really think of selling it, and when I did, I certainly did not expect to get a profit or break even from it. Hell I even bought my Camaro with the sole intent of turning it into a racecar, something you historically never make a profit on when it comes time to sell.

I think the change happened when I got my GTO. It was the first car I didn't want to keep forever. I liked that car, but I guess the automotive ADD bug had bit me. I realized I would never be able to buy and collect all the cars I wanted to drive in my lifetime and actually have money in my bank account for retirement.

The next car I got, I got for the sole purpose of driving for a little while and then selling on. That was the Blue Celica, a car I always wanted but could never afford when they were new. And that's where I'm at now. I won't buy something unless I think I can make a profit down the road.

It's a two edged sword though. One one hand I get to drive and own cars I wanted, and I get to make money off them to continue buying new cars to drive and try. On the other hand I'm not really free to do crazy projects I come up with and want to try. I don't allow myself to buy that '96 Cutlass, take a 3800SC engine and shove it in the middle for a poor mans NSX. I mean really? Who's gonna buy that for more money than I put into it?

t25torx wrote: On the other hand I'm not really free to do crazy projects I come up with and want to try. I don't allow myself to buy that '96 Cutlass, take a 3800SC engine and shove it in the middle for a poor mans NSX. I mean really? Who's gonna buy that for more money than I put into it?

As if you don't want to meet the freaks that would be interested.

You could probably trade it straight up for whatever insane car they themselves cobbled together.

Codependency: it works.

Interesting thread. Since my other big toys over the last 30 years were boats, I can't complain about the cost of my cars. When your boats average getting two or three gallons to the mile on Diesel and you're paying $20K plus a year for their upkeep not counting depreciation, when you do the upkeep yourself, cars are a really cheap hobby! It was a real eye opener until the recent oil glut to buy 590 gallons of diesel and know you're probably good for 300 miles or 15 hours, if you don't run it hard!

I remember a couple of guys where I worked suggested the three of us make a boat trip to see Jimmy Buffet live at a waterfront park. I said I'd provide the boat if they provided the fuel & we could live aboard and not pay any hotel costs. They agreed happily.

One of the two finally got around to asking me what the fuel might cost. For a 200 mile round trip I guessed about 400 to 500 gallons, depending on how much hard running and how much we cruised around when we got there. At that time fuel was maybe $3.50 a gallon. So I told them if they bought the first $1,300 worth of fuel and the beer, I'd cover the rest of the costs for our three day weekend. No, we never made that trip!

But then again I know other boaters, private pilots, destination snow skiers, destination golfers, and a lot of other hobbyists, who think we car guys get off really cheap. If you're happy, keeping your retirement and insurance funds going, and still paying for the roof and the food, I wouldn't worry about little things like hobby profits and losses.

And yes, my wife and I decided that if I ever wanted to retire I had to quit boating. So I sold out the summer before I retired on New Years Day. I miss the boat, but I'm really too old to keep it going anyway.