For those of us who have purchased new (or nearly new) it seems that with MINI's generous factory warranty it doesn't make much sense to keep it beyond the 4 year/50,000 mi. mark. Resale value plummets and the potential for very high repair bills past that point (BMW sized) are looming. With the decent re-sale value on newer models I'm thinking every 3-4 years = new MINI. Anyone else feel the same? Open to arguments either way.

 

I am interested in a extended warranty. I plan on keeping my mine as long as possible.

 

apparently you have a different warrenty then i have or a much much better dealer. The bmw warrenty doesn't mean squat to me... All they do is not fix things and only fix things if you specifically say they are broken and even then you ahve to fight them for it.

I also don't chase retail value in cars as it's a game you are guarenteed to lose in.

good luck.

 

What do MINIs have to do with being fiscally responsible?

 

So we should keep the MINIs out of this?

 

I was out of warranty at 14 months with 50K miles. I expect to be at 150K by 4 years. Who needs the warranty except to weed out the initial problems?

Steve

 

To me not having a payment is a lot more important than having a warranty.

 

easy solution... if you can't pay cash don't buy.

 

You'd have to do an analysis of the cost to buy another one versus keeping the old one factoring in the cost of expected repairs.

Probably cheaper to keep the old one and put away some of the money you've been using for payments for repairs.... or just keep making payments on a new one.

Each scenario is a little different.

 

I agree with socking money away for possible expenses once the car is paid off. I am going to pay my car off two months from now, the warranty will expire in September, and I will be putting money aside in case my Midlands transmission decides to go belly up. I figure if the transmission lasts only another year, I will have enough put aside to cover the repair from saving my car payment.

 

That's just a silly statement. The vast majority of people don't have $20k lying around to buy a car with. Should they not be able to buy a new car then?

My car is out of original warranty and I'm planning on keeping it until it dies. I did buy the extended warranty to add 4 years and 40000 miles (almost exactly the miles I did in the 1st 4 years) figuring that any major part replacement such as a transmission would pay for the $1800 it cost me.

 

Let me see if I have this straight.

The warranty runs out. Chances are you're still making payments on the car, but if not, you're willing to start making monthly payments all over again, in the range of $400-$500 a month.

Maintenance and repairs to a Mini certainly aren't going to be monthly, and might account for a couple hundred when you need to do it.

Tell me again how you come out ahead doing this?

 

You are correct... most people feel it is silly, I disagree. Americans in general spend money they do not have. There are very affordable used cars which can be bought while a person saves money. A great book to read is called "The Millionaire Next Door". Having extra $ and large incomes do not have to go hand in hand. Anyways this is off topic...

 

+1 This MBA can't figure out the logic.

 

Agro, you've truly embraced the American spirit.
I'm one of those 'If you can't pay for it, don't buy it' people. Just start saving those 'payments' while driving your old junker, and with time and a bit of interest, voila! Alternatively, you can actually MAKE money by investing at 6+% while paying a 5% car loan, so it really depends on how you look at things.

 

This SCUMBAG* can.
While financially it may not make sense, some place a higher value on reliability/downtime than others. If you're going to lay awake at night fretting that next breakdown, it may be worth the extra expenditure for peace of mind. Some also value that 'new car smell', and in combination with the 'free' maintenance (that you pay for monthly ) and warranty, there is enough value to justify the newer car.
Face it, car purchases are rarely logical - if we were in it for the least cost, we'd all be driving late 90's Civics or (gasp) Cavaliers.

Note that I still have my 1985 CRX, as the darn thing refuses to die!


*Santa Clara University MBA Graduate

 

Ahhhh I see, I see, I see. I can SEE the logic now.

 

And a new car they cant afford is the primary reason people dont have 20k laying around!

and NO the VAST majority of people do not have the kind of wealth to throw 20k or 30k away on a rapidly depreciating asset!

The OP unfortunately seems to think paying a dealer and car company $500 a month for "peace of mind" is a better idea than seeing a local mechanic a couple times a year. The math simply doesn't work out but there are a bubch of people around here that act like they have never driven a car that breaks down in thier life ....they probably havent but I didn't grow up that rich

 

That's all well and good, but that assumes you HAVE a car to begin with. My 1st few cars were cheapies that I paid cash for, most of which died in less than a year. I still had to get to work, so I was in the situation of "I need a car NOW, this one is ok and in my budget, here's $1500".
Until I came to the States, the newest car I'd owned was a 1977 (I got my license in 1989) and most were from around 70-75.
Buying an old car has its own set of costs, the purchase price on a car is not even the biggest cost of owning a car (unless you're talking about an exotic). With an older car, rubber parts disintegrate, and other parts just break. Many repairs wind up causing other parts to fail. I had a head gasket replaced on an old hemi engine. The increased compression put a piston through the block. I just spent $150 on a head gasket, now I need another engine.

All that aside...where can I get 6% on my money? I have an emigrantdirect.com account which is paying 5.05%.

I'm rambling. I'll stop now.

 

Chapter 1:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...renextdoor.htm

 

Can't read that without subscribing.
Nevermind. You changed the link.

 

I've been back and forth on this same issue, esp. as I'm no longer under warranty... I think it comes down to total cost vs. monthly cost.

If I keep the vehicle, even factoring in maintenance, eventually my total cost will be lower, depending on how long I keep it after the vehicle is paid off. We paid off our previous vehicles and they served us well for several years afterwards. This includes my hated 1998 Kia Sephia, manufactured right before Hyundai bailed them out, so that car had all kinds of quality issues including speakers that only worked intermittently, real bad fit and finish, fading and peeling paint and trim, brake shoes that shattered, etc. Oh, and it liked to eat even high mileage rated tires every 20K miles or so because it was unalignable. Pretty much everything happened out of warranty because that was also before Kias inherited Hyundai's 100K warranty. Resale value on those things were the opposite end of the spectrum of our MINIs!!! I kept wanting it to die but it never did. Replacing brake pads/shoes took care of the shattered ones, and one day it decided not to run right and to my horror it was just bad spark plug wires. The biggest difference between my current car and that one is that I love the MINI and I SOOO hated the Kia. I guess that's why the little niggly issues I had with my early build MCS don't bother me that much, because look what it replaced, and unlike the Kia all the MINI's issues were taken care of under warranty, including ones I didn't even know about but the dealer found and took care of. But... I paid the Kia off, didn't have a car payment for several more years, ran the thing into the ground, and it gave me 130K miles of surprisingly reliable service before I unloaded it for $700 (that's actually pretty good for what I had, lol), and even with all the issues fixing them (or living with them) didn't come near to what a new car payment would have been.

Same was true even of our 94 Maxima which now has 235K miles, despite the fact that at around 100K we had to pay over $3500 to have the tranny rebuilt or replaced or whatever AAMCO did. We actually had more big money problems with that car than we did with the Kia that are in line with some of the figures thrown around here with the MINIs and BMWs in general, despite the fact that it's a quality Japanese vehicle, lol. But wow, those things new comparable to what we have are between $30-35K... a lot more than what we ever put into our old one.

I think for right now I'll keep what I have, especially as resale continues to outpace what I still owe on the car by several thousand dollars... I'll wait until after it's paid off or until repair/maintenance is too expensive to warrant keeping it before I purchase new or nearly-new again. Agro, if you don't mind me asking, who backs your extended warranty? I'm weighing the cost of an extended warranty (I found someone willing to sell me a bumper to bumper exclusionary for a decent price - $1600 that will take me to 100K miles) vs. what I would pay in repairs in the next 55K miles. I'm fortunate to know a local "master mechanic" as well who can literally fix ANYTHING of ANY MAKE and doesn't charge us a whole lot of money, so he might end up being cheaper than the warranty even if I pay him out of pocket, but that's assuming nothing big goes like the engine, gearbox or supercharger. We got an extended warranty on my husband's BMW K1200LT motorcycle but that kind of has to go to the dealer. I don't have as many options with the MINI as we had with our other vehicles (can't go to Walmart to get the oil changed, lol) but the cost of maintaining that motorcycle sure makes even the MINI look like a bargain. An Inspection II on the MINI is nowhere near the nearly $1000 we paid for the LT's 24K service last month. And that was just routine maintenance, no repairs since those were taken care of under warranty.

 

Pretty convincing arguments both ways. It all depends on finances and whether or not the newer model has enough benefits over the old. It also depends on how harsh of an environment you live in. Where I live very few daily drivers survive intact for much more than 8 years without major issues due to salt, road conditions, climate.

Example:

2003 Cooper Base w/sunroof/cruise/48k miles - Avg. Private Party Sale:
$15,800

2007 Cooper Base w/sunroof/cruise - Brand New From MINI configurator:
$20,100

Difference: $4300

4 model years old, out of warranty assuming purchased 1/1/2003

2003 original purchase price: $18,500

Net depreciation: $2700 in four years (pretty amazing)

 

Wow - soemone out there like me. I am about to unload my 94 Nissan and The thing I liked best about my old car was no car payments. Now I cannot wait to take a Mini to the roads for 13 more years.

Consumer Reports and others state that the cheapest way to own cars is to buy one new and run it into the ground.

For the aspiring millionaires next door, let's assume you own yoru cars for 10 years. Assuming a 4 year loan on a new car and 6 years without a car payment, if you invest that $400 car payment and get jsut a 6% return, you end up with $33K at the end of 6 years.

 

Lowb35, I got the extended warranty through the dealership. You have to do it before the original warranty is up or it gets MUCH more expensive. It is supposed to work just like the factory warranty, except with a $100 deductible per visit.

As for the sell or drive till it dies argument, the only running cars I've ever sold were 3 that I sold when I was leaving the country they resided in, my 91 Talon turbo that was going to cost WAY more in repairs than it was worth and the Toyota I bought while I was waiting to order my MINI. I am strongly on the side of buying a good car and driving it till it is no more, but if I can finance it for less than I can earn on my cash, why on earth would I pay cash? I financed my MINI over 5 years at 3.99%, I'm earning 5.05% on cash. I have no incentive to pay off the car even a day early.