My girlfriend just picked up a 2002 A4
04-28-2002, 08:26 AM
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My girlfriend just picked up a 2002 A4
I consider myself lucky. Last year I met a girl on line at match.com and we went out on a blind date. I still had my 91 200q at the time. We met, she was hot, into cooking, wine, and then she's telling me about her low fuel warning light going off on her car. When I asked her what kind, she said she had a A4.....the dream woman!
She bought the car with the "prestige purchase" through audi, which means it's a ballon payment at the end of the 36 months, or she could just turn it in.
It's coming up in two months, so she went to get a new car. Over the past week, we looked at the A4's and she got a 2002 with 1.8T, bose, xenons, convience, 16" wheels, sunroof, auto. Grey with a black interior. Nice car.
They found the car in MI for her and called her. They wanted her to do another presitige purchase, but all you do on those things is pay interest, and you don't pay enough principal down over the course of the loan to pay for the depreciation. It cost her $2,400 to get out of her old car! Now she did get a $1,300 sales tax credit because she traded the car in versus just giving it back, but the bottom line is that she was not aware what she got into when she signed three years ago.
They wanted her to do one again (why wouldn't they, they get all of the commissions on all of that interest is paid). I showed her that buying the car makes a lot more sense, she ended up putting $7500 down. Of that, $4,000 went to getting out of her old car, sales tax and title fees. That means she put about $3,000 down on the new car.
However, at the end, she'll own it and have a built in down payment fund for her next car. It's sad to see that she is still paying for her old car with her new payment. The guy at the dealer talked up the presitge purchase so much, when I tried to show him how much more is costs, he would just say "the cost of money right now is so cheap". Yea, but it's a lot cheaper with an outright purchase.
Is it the new american way to make your payment so low that you pay for the interest on you car (including the residual for the whole term) and not even enough for the amount of the car you use over the term? I would much rather own the car at the end.
4 years, 50000 mile warranty/maintenance sounds good to me.
We are off to Italy on Wednesday for eight days of vacation. Life is good!
Paul
She bought the car with the "prestige purchase" through audi, which means it's a ballon payment at the end of the 36 months, or she could just turn it in.
It's coming up in two months, so she went to get a new car. Over the past week, we looked at the A4's and she got a 2002 with 1.8T, bose, xenons, convience, 16" wheels, sunroof, auto. Grey with a black interior. Nice car.
They found the car in MI for her and called her. They wanted her to do another presitige purchase, but all you do on those things is pay interest, and you don't pay enough principal down over the course of the loan to pay for the depreciation. It cost her $2,400 to get out of her old car! Now she did get a $1,300 sales tax credit because she traded the car in versus just giving it back, but the bottom line is that she was not aware what she got into when she signed three years ago.
They wanted her to do one again (why wouldn't they, they get all of the commissions on all of that interest is paid). I showed her that buying the car makes a lot more sense, she ended up putting $7500 down. Of that, $4,000 went to getting out of her old car, sales tax and title fees. That means she put about $3,000 down on the new car.
However, at the end, she'll own it and have a built in down payment fund for her next car. It's sad to see that she is still paying for her old car with her new payment. The guy at the dealer talked up the presitge purchase so much, when I tried to show him how much more is costs, he would just say "the cost of money right now is so cheap". Yea, but it's a lot cheaper with an outright purchase.
Is it the new american way to make your payment so low that you pay for the interest on you car (including the residual for the whole term) and not even enough for the amount of the car you use over the term? I would much rather own the car at the end.
4 years, 50000 mile warranty/maintenance sounds good to me.
We are off to Italy on Wednesday for eight days of vacation. Life is good!
Paul
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