Buying New Vs Used Cars: Which is better?
QUESTION
Hi John,
I’m looking for a dual cab ute, for personal use, and find myself liking the Triton. However, I’m looking for the best bang-for-buck across the range over the past say 5 years.
I have had a Subaru Impreza RV since 2004 until now, which has been great for me; loved AWD, lacking a little power in the past and now with a family of 4, it’s lacking space. Intended use is about 80% Sydney and 20% bush and beach. I’m keen to get the kids out camping and down to the beach more.
I’d appreciate your thoughts also on second hand vs new and model interline positioning (within Triton range and or others within manufacturer’s warranty range).
I want to buy base-specs as it’s sensible and allows a budget for upgrades. For Triton as I understand it, needs bigger brakes and tyres, a 40mm lift, needs upper control arm change, an engine tune for bottom-end engine lag mitigation, canopy and roof racks x 3, tow bar, and tub liner.
Another key feature I need is phone integration when in suburbia for work, as I spend lots of time on the phone and charging it. Not too fussed about all the superfluous safety electronics, in-built GPS is not essential, rear camera is.
Appreciate your thoughts on above and happy to refine conversation.
Cheers,
Jason
ANSWER
Hey Jason,
New versus used is really simple in that new costs more, but you don’t have to worry about previous owner abuse, scams, inheriting someone’s finance debt, previous crash history or theft, etc.
Used is the reverse, so you save money, but you need to do more investigation to protect yourself.
I think you’re getting ahead of yourself on the mods. Just drive it for a while, figure out if you need to mod it to get it to do what you need it to do - then just do that. The thing that limits the off-road capability of most 4WDs is the driver, not the vehicle, but ARB (etc) doesn’t make much money telling people that.
Bear in mind that if you do all this stuff - in particular the lift and the control arm/brake change and engine re-tune - you’re pretty much voiding the remaining warranty on the powertrain and platform. The lift is also going to make it worse to drive on made roads, and wear out universal joints, etc, more rapidly. (Fine - if you really need that.)
For the phone-to-car situation - get a replacement head unit with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay - then just plug in by USB and take hands-free calls and use Google Maps for Nav. Rear cameras are cheap as chips if you need to add one of those, and the replacement head unit you fit for Apple and Android functions will have a video input for the camera. You won’t get dynamic guidelines for the steering, but hey, you have eyes.
Hope this helps mate,
JC
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