We all love a bargain, don’t we? I’ve had some excellent deals on cars before, but my 2006 BMW 325i is likely my all-time best deal because I essentially paid for a new clutch and flywheel and got an entire car for $650. Even crazier, that simplification is discounting all the other value adds that came with the car.
Alright, so I wasn’t the first person to drive on the clutch that’s in the car, but it was done recently before purchase, and clutch replacement on a modern car can cost solid money. A new LuK dual-mass flywheel for my 325i sticker on FCP Euro for $671.99. The corresponding clutch kit costs $301.99. Add 5.8 hours of specialist book labor at $110 an hour since I didn’t have to replace the clutch and flywheel myself, and you end up with a price tag of $1,612 or so, and that’s not including gearbox mounts, which were done. Total cost of the car at the time? Once converted from Canadian to American dollars, $2,265.28.
Oh, but there’s more. The oil filter housing gasket was recently done, as were the front dampers, as was the valve cover gasket, as were the spark plugs, the gearbox mounts, the water pump, and several control arm bushings. Sure, it may have proper mileage on it, but a decently maintained sports sedan for sensible money is something great. Of course, I took things a bit further — I essentially traded the value of a rusty but trusty Infiniti G35 for it.
On the other hand, maybe you got a crap deal on a car. Our own S. W. Gossin recently bought a Nissan Juke that blew up several miles down the road, which is a rotten bit of luck in the grand scheme of car purchases. Mercifully, he was able to sell the non-running Juke and break even, but not everyone has the Midas touch like that.
So, what’s the best or worst deal you ever got on a car? Whether you absolutely stole a deal or lost your shirt, we’ve love to hear your car-buying exploits in the comments section below.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal, Stephen Walter Gossin)
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In early 2019 I was shopping for a c6 corvette for months and kept coming up dry (If I have to hear “this is somebody’s dream car!” one more time I’m gonna snap) until I went to a Toyota dealership. They had one with decent miles for 17500 in the color I wanted, but unfortunately as an auto. I took a look anyway and test drove it, and they asked what it would take to get me to walk out with that car today.
I wasn’t planning on making a decision that second, but since the price was good I just said “I’ll pay sticker for the car but I want x for my trade-in” where x was the literal private party value, its what I was asking for it online.
The salesman leaves and comes back saying “yeah we can do that.” The price of the vette itself was already really solid (about 3-5k under what other folks were asking for similar) but taking full private party value for my car made this the easiest swap of my life and I don’t know how they could have made money on my car.
On top of that, I noticed the roof separating from the frame and a faint smell of gas, they replaced both the roof (a notorious wear point in these) and the gas tank connectors (another notorious age issue) which saved me another 5 grand.
Best and worst gotta be one in the same. I bought a 2004 Volkswagen Passat wagon — the rare AWD/5-speed manual combo, complete with tons of regular maintenance and full service records — at the height of the pandemic. No shortage of issues, but it was a solid running/driving stick-shift wagon for $500 during the peak of wild car prices. Seller had owned it for 15 years and was going to scrap it, so he sold it to me for the same price the scrapper was going to give him since I told him it would go to a good home.
Of course, rather than taking the win and driving it “beater with a heater”-style until it blew up for good, I got all emotional about it and put about $8K into trying to fix it up, then turned around and sold it a year later for about a third of that value.
Best deal I got was a manual 2003 Suzuki Aerio with only about 140,000km on it for CAD$1000 that I bought about 6 years ago. It only had a bit of cosmetic rust, needed a new alternator/accessory belt and needed a brake job.
The all-in on-the-road price including tax was just about CAD$2300… A fantastic deal for a low mileage Japanese car in good condition.
The car lasted me 3 months.
2 days before XMas in the evening when it was dark, an idiot stopped at the side of the road decided to do a U-turn with no lights on, no signaling and no checking… right in front of me as I was driving by.
I stood on the brakes and held the horn…. and the idiot, upon hearing my horn, decided to just stop in the middle of the road… and I t-boned him.
Luckily I wasn’t going fast and nobody was injured and my car was still drivable. But the damage was enough for his airbag to go off, but not mine.
But it doesn’t take much to write off a $1000 car.
And my Suzuki did get written off and the insurance cut me a cheque for about CAD$2500.
Best: 2017 RAV4 Hybrid. Bought off-lease with 24k mileage. My wife and I bought this in 2020 right in the beginning of Covid. We were the only people in the. dealership. Dealer honored my trade value of my MDX ( had two separate dealerships give me offered earlier that day). That plus a nice large down payment ( plus first responders discount- my wife is a nurse) equaled an easy, enjoyable experience. Dealership tried to buy my car back by upping their offer numerous times but the RAV4 is perfect for my wife.
Worst: 1999 Ford Ranger XLT 4×4 with the auto/3.0 slow engine. Overpaid for a rusty frame ( formally from Vermont) . Numerous electrical gremlins, paint peel problems. . I’ve had 3 Rangers in my life but this was the worst car I’ve ever bought. Traded it in (at a steep loss) to help my daughter get her first car. Glad it is gone
Worst: $500 1993 Ranger XLT with the 3.0L V6. The previous owners were dumping it right after the extended warranty expired, and instead of foreseeing my impending doom, I focused on how mint of a truck it was with only 61,000 miles for $500! The crap 3.0L was constantly breaking in expensive ways. I found out that the truck spent almost a year at the dealership before the owners dumped it on me, having had the top end rebuilt three times by the dealer in those 60,000 miles.
Best: $800 1995 Ford Explorer XLT that replaced that crap Ranger. It belonged to my neighbor’s deadbeat son who abandoned it after someone broke out a window and stole the stereo. After three years of sitting, my neighbor wanted it gone, so we paid him, pushed the car 30′ to in front of my house and popped in a new battery, changed the oil, flushed the fuel system, and the 4.0L OHV started right up. $300 for new tires, $70 for a new radio and window from a salvage yard, and I drove that thing for years without any further issues. It wasn’t fast, but it was comfy, absolutely dead reliable, and began my path towards owning four more Explorers. I ended up trading the thing in on one of those future Explorers, and got more for the trade-in than I had put into the thing the entire time I owned it (sans fuel costs).
Whoops, forgot to note that the Ranger cost me thousands of dollars in parts to keep running for the two years I had it before it was totaled out. The wreck was determined to be an act of God (weather) and I only had liability insurance, so I got to pay $200 to the tow truck to haul it to the salvage yard. In the end, I only drove it for a few thousand miles before it died, so I spent well more than $1 per mile during my time of ownership.
I got a good deal on my car because I bought it right before the pandemic started. I bought my 2019 mk4 Focus st-line for about 20000 euros, nowadays all the ford dealerships in my area are asking 28000 euros for a 2023 model with the same options as mine.
A friend of mine bought a 1993 seat cordoba a couple of years ago for 500 euros and was in (almost) brand-new condition, a shame that an idiot in a 318d oblitarated the car
Hmmm….
Brst Deal: Probably my 1989 Thunderbird Super Coupe 5 spd. I paid $3200 for it and drove it for about 3 years. The only issues I had were a bad MAF, a bad idler pulley, and the clutch lines rotted, leading to a borked 3rd gear synchro. I sold it for $3250.
Worst: My 1997 540i6. Paid $14k for it, and sold it for $2k after putting in a lot of wrenching hours and thousands of dollars for the stuff I did not have the time/place to do myself. Part of me wants another BMW, but every other fibre of my being screams that that small part of me is dumber than a bag of idiocy.
Probably the ’98 Cavalier we bought in 2012 with 214k miles on it for $800. By the time it met it’s end in 2017 after a valiant and successful fight (albeit sustaining mortal wounds) against a fire hydrant, it had almost 260k miles.
I put plenty of work into the car (the most being replacing the entire front subframe in 2013), but it was easy to work on and parts were dirt cheap.
My wife’s Highlander ended up being a great deal bought at the best time. So, it’s early 2020 and we had our first kid. We knew we wanted more and also just got a boat we were towing regularly. On top of that, she was driving a time bomb – a 2015 Ford Focus with the craptastic powershift that had already been cracked open once under warranty. It was a fight to get her into a new car, but I insisted on it. I found a good deal on a 2017 V6 AWD Highlander with 23k miles coming off lease at the Honda dealership my bro-in-law worked at for $25200. A couple of months later, the pandemic is in full swing driving car prices through the roof. I have never timed anything so perfectly. She’s got 40k on her now, and still worth at least what I paid 4 years ago!
Best deal? Buying my dad’s 92 Accord for 4 hours of my labor moving him to a new apartment.
Worst? Dropping $4k on a 2004 Corolla that my sister in law was selling. After purchase, found it was on a second engine after she never changed the oil and threw a rod in the first. Second engine had issues with spark plugs, mass airflow sensor wasn’t reading properly, and throttle body looked like it had sat in the grease trap outside a waffle house and then been dusted with gravel. Idle air control had to be replaced as well. After replacing all plugs, idle air control, & cleaning throttle body and mass airflow sensor, it still rough idled and stalled when stopped in traffic or at lights. It was so bad, I wouldn’t let my wife drive it, and she drove my 08 Civic until a 16 year old texting while driving used his Passat to put the Corolla out of its misery.
I bought my 2006 GMC Sierra 1500 crew cab brand new for under $22k out the door, including tax and an extended warranty. It’s a 2wd model with a locking rear end and the tow package, so it was exactly what I wanted, and nothing on it I didn’t care about. I am still daily driving it to this day, and it has never let me down. Other than when I got the rusty rocker panels redone, it has never had a repair bill north of $600.
2007 Honda Fit for $500. it had about 165k miles and a tiny bit of rust above the rear wheels. My aunt bought it new and the dealer offered her $500 to trade it in when she bought her new fit (last year they were available so she decided to upgrade before they were gone) and she offered it to me for 500. its over 220k miles now and going strong – only reason to buy consider buying something else is for something more fun or so my wife can drive it (Fit is stick…)
Employee lease/purchase deals. When I worked for Toyota, I did an employee lease on a 2011 Tundra 5.7L 2WD, which I needed to tow my race car. While the truck was delivered and serviced at a dealership, the lease was directly with Toyota. It included unlimited miles, INSURANCE, maintenance, and consumables(!) other than gas. It was CHEAP. But, here’s the best part…
After 1 year into the lease, you could buy the vehicle out for 1% off our program price for every 1000 miles on it, or black book value, whichever was less, up to 30% off. Well, I put 30k miles on the truck that year and bought it for 30% off our program price (probably 35% off retail), which was well under what a 1 year old, 30k mile Tundra was worth. I drove it for the next 5 or 6 years and sold it for $500 less than I’d bought it for.
Best deal: conversion van (Econoline-150) my parents bought while I was in high school that I ended up getting for myself once we all moved out of my childhood home. (…but realistically, a mixed bag. Maintenance nightmare.)
Worst deal: by process of elimination, the only other car I acquired, my 2012 Prius v. Bought late 2019 for ~$11,500, 6-year loan at 5.15% for $187 a month, because I was just starting my first post-college job and needed low payments.
The resale value over 2021-2022 appeared to have peaked at just over what I bought it for, but that’s behind me now. But no plans to replace it. Subwoofer, Android Auto, dashcams, 1.5″ lift, tinted windows. Wish I could think of some cheap aesthetic mods that would have no impact on legality or fuel economy to make it more distinctive, but I’m not a bumper sticker kinda guy and I don’t have any other ideas yet.
Favorite bumper sticker in Alabama.
JESUS LOVES YOU BUT, EVERYONE ELSE THINKS YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
A fitting plate, because like many of the people, it is only nominally Christian while not actually standing for what Christianity is supposed to stand for.
Best: I bought my 2008 Tundra in August 2008 when gas was near $5/gallon. Sticker was about $32k. I waled out of the dealership multiple times, but eventually left with the truck for $28k inclusive of taxes, registration and fees. I sold it for $12.5k 15 years later.
Worst: Not sure, I don’t feel that I really got taken on any of the car’s I’ve bought.
I got a 2018 Chevy Colorado WT out the door for $22k. That’s unheard of in the post covid inflated world.
It had a 4 cylinder engine and a limited slip rear differential, 2wd. It served my needs adequately
Best would probably be the Volvo 240 I bought for $250 and then traded for a 1985 Nissan 720 pickup truck which I owned for 7 years before passing it on to someone else for $250.
Worst would be my current Jaguar F-Type. It’s the best car I’ve owned by far and I will likely own it for many more years, but if there is a “typical” F-Type problem, I have experienced it. Maintenance and repairs have been remarkable.
1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. Listed on CL for $400 and openly noted the engine was toast. My wife and I were newlyweds and through an unfortunate accident where her car was totaled while parked we needed something badly. I went down with a flatbead trailer and confirmed that yea it had a rod protruding through the block. I dropped the trans pan and it looked clean so I took it and brought it home. Bought a Dakota engine from a junkyard that had 80k on the clock and all-in had $875 on the swap. My wife drove that Jeep for 2 years and we sold it for $2,500. Other than the fact that it was the full-time 4wd version (sorry David I can’t remember the numbers like I used to) that allowed us to get about 11 mpg it was a super fancy and strong vehicle that served us well. My only gripe was the incredibly annoying “information center” at the bottom of the center stack. I swear I didn’t know you could blow so many third brake light bulbs…The center was sure to alert us to every little darn thing that happened in the most annoying way possible.
I bought my 2006 Sierra 1500 right before the GM bankruptcy in 2009. Paid 14k for a three year old truck with 31k miles. It was worth more than I paid for it for years afterward, and even now is probably worth half. It towed our travel trailer nearly 50k miles, up and down mountains, and for years was super reliable. It’s a bit long in the tooth but not used up. My 18 year old kid gets it next. By far the best deal I’ve ever gotten on a vehicle.
Not a vehicle, but it has to be towed by an suv so that counts right? Bought a small travel trailer in August 2020 for $2200, took it on a few great trips, sold it in 2021 or 2022 for $6400.
Definitely my Subaru STi.
I bought it for $6000 Canadian and spent a few hundred fixing it up. I enjoyed it for 3 years, then the engine spun a bearing. I didn’t have money to buy a replacement engine or time to do a rebuild the broken one, so I sold it to a Subaru mechanic for $6000 Canadian.
I got my ’89 Montero SWB manual V6 about 10 years ago with my tax returns, $1,600. It ran but needed work, had 218k miles, and looked like it just needed a little TLC to get it back up to top shape. Low and behold it sparked right up once I refreshed the suspension components and cleaned it up a bit.
It has over 300k miles on it now and I could definitely make a tidy profit selling it if I got some of the bodywork cleaned up. But I would rather keep it as a proper 4 wheeling rig that gets use and still gets to Cars and Coffees.
I bought a 2004 Subaru Legacy with 244,000 miles for $2,400 from a newspaper ad my mom found. Ten years and 100,000 miles later it’s still my daily driver and the most reliable car I own. That’s probably the best deal I’m ever going to get on a car.
Another good deal was a 1996 E350 7.3 Powerstroke van that I bought with one of my friends for $600 from a guy who was living in it. We proceeded to cut the exhaust off at the down pipe, put a sketchy tuner on, and do burnouts. We sold it a few months later for $2,200, with dead batteries, bad brakes and never having even changed the oil. However, we did put hood pins on it because the hood latch didn’t work. It could have been a better deal because we sold it right before the van life thing took off, so today it would probably be worth like $5k even in the terrible state it was in.
That sounds f’n awesome. I had something somewhat similar happen…my parents bought my ’97 Econoline-150 conversion in 2012ish for $7k but needing a new catalytic converter and after dozens of minor maintenance problems in 2019, I sold it for $1800.
I’ll spend forever wondering if the increased insurance costs would have eliminated any chance for profit if I’d tried to keep it as a second vehicle from then until peak prices.
It’s getting harder to find used conversion vans in good condition…
It was pretty awesome… although I should clarify. It wasn’t a conversion van. It was a regular passenger van with the seats taken out. The guy who was living in it spray painted the windows black. It also smelled horrible. So it was real scuzzy and rapey looking. All that being said, I still sometimes wish I kept it. Ultimately I just couldn’t afford another big truck like that at the time (I also had/have an F250 with a 7.3). The time of both cheap vans and cheap 7.3’s are certainly behind us.
I do agree about conversion vans, I always find myself browsing for them but they’re so expensive for a decent one and the bad ones are REAL bad.
I got a Lada for free, not sure if best or worst deal
I’d have to say the 1993 Saab 900 Turbo Convertible WITH a 5spd manual was probably the best deal we’ve (my dad and I) ever gotten on a car, at least as far as BringATrailer goes. We ultimately won it for $6,900. It had just over 96000 miles at the time of purchase, and had a brand new convertible top, essentially brand new tires, replaced turbo tube, clutch master cylinder, and a new battery. Everything worked exactly as it should, including air conditioning (which is honestly better than my 2016 Ford Focus), heated seats, cassette and CD player, convertible top, antenna motor, all the lights, everything. Cruise control is still kinda questionable, but I’ve gotten it to work before. And sadly the little headlight wipers don’t work. But as far as quality goes, we paid way less than anyone else would’ve for something of the same quality.