Category Archives: Autos

How I Made Money on a $371 Visit to the Mechanic

Written by in Autos
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Two Wednesdays ago, I brought my car in to the Hyundai dealership for some maintenance and they ended up doing a whopping $371. Um, ok, I guess, there’s not much that I can do about it, right?

On Friday, I finally picked up my car. I got in, turned it on, and I see that the same maintenance light was on. So I paid $371 and they didn’t even fix the problem? That’s no good. After waiting a few minutes, they said they’d need the extended weekend (and what turned out to be the entire following week) to take a longer look and fix it, so I immediately got worried about my trip to San Francisco over the Christmas weekend.

It’s kind of hard to go without a car, and bringing my car in a few days later wasn’t a realistic option, I made specific plans for Wednesday-Friday and lining up something similar the following week would be difficult. I was pretty annoyed because all they had to do was turn on the car to see that the problem wasn’t fixed and the maintenance light was still lit.

The guy asked me if I needed a loaner car, so I said, “If I can bring it to San Francisco,” thinking that putting about 1,000 on a loaner car wasn’t a realistic possibility, but surprisingly, the guy said it was ok, so I got in and drove away as fast as I could before he could change his mind.

Then, I got to thinking about just how much having a loaner car would help me.

A trip to San Francisco was going to be at least 900 miles, so not having to put those miles on my car was definitely welcome. And there is obviously a cost to driving a car, and the IRS agrees. The IRS says that driving your own car for business uses can be deducted at a rate of 55.5 cents per mile.

That includes the cost of gas, so it was pretty easy to figure out the total cost of my trip:

1,048 miles x 55.5 cents = 58,164 cents or $581.64. Wow, I thought we’d be saving money by driving, but that’s more than the cost of 2 plane tickets! Of course, we still did have gas expenses ($138.13), so the final savings from not having to drive our car was a whopping $443.51.

So I saved over $443 by not driving my own car for about a week. The repairs cost me $371, so I was able to save over $72 on my trip to the mechanic. How many people can say that?

I did not plan to get a loaner car (I didn’t get one from Wednesday-Friday because I didn’t even know it was an option), and I certainly didn’t plan to not have a car on my trip (in fact, I brought it in so that I would have a healthy car for my big trip).

But, I got a little lucky, so I’ll gladly refer to this trip as the one where I made $70 bucks from the mechanic!

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Saving Money on Gas Isn’t Always Worth It

Written by in Autos, Money Stories, Saving
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There’s an ARCO gas station right by my office that has the lowest advertised prices in the area. It’s always at least 2-3 cents cheaper than the next best place and a solid 7-9 cents lower than what I can find close to home.

The funny thing is that even with the great price, the ARCO station is not my first choice when I fill up at.

Why?

It starts with the 45 cent charge for using a debit card. That sucks and adds another 3-4 cents per gallon each time I fill up.

So why not just pay in cash and get the best rate? Because remembering to take cash out of the ATM each week just to have a bunch of change in my car does not appeal to me!

Even when paying with cash, I still think the smart move is to avoid the station. I’ll use an example to show you why:

At the ARCO station, gas is $3.69 (and 9/10ths of a cent, everyone seems to forget that that means the price is much closer to $3.70 than $3.69) while the 76 station 3 blocks away sells gas for $3.71 (and 9/10ths).

Paying with cash for 12 gallons at the ARCO station costs $44.39 while the debit transaction at the station costs $44.84, a true rate of $3.736, so about 3.5 cents more per gallon.

At the 76 station, 12 gallons cost $44.63, which is better than the cost of using a debit card to pay at the ARCO station.

But there’s one more advantages to going with the 76 station: you can use your credit card, which for me means 1% rewards (and maybe more for you!).

When factoring in the rebate I’ll get, the price drops to $44.18 for a true price of $3.68, even cheaper than the cash price at ARCO!

There are two lessons to be learned here:

1. We’re talking about very small amounts of money. It’s about 15 cents, so maybe a dollar a month at most. Not really a budget buster in my book. Don’t sweat it, choose the station that’s most convenient.

2. Be aware that things aren’t always the way they seem. Sure, cheap gas is great, but guess what? Advertisements aren’t always so cut and dry. The “cheapest” gas wasn’t really so, and when you add in the hassle, it’s actually a much worse deal!

Readers, do you always go with the cheapest option for gas? Would you pay in cash to save 20 cents or is the hassle not worth the savings?

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Used Car Buying Tips

Written by in Autos, Spending, Tips
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I am so glad that my used car buying process is over. While necessary, it was time-consuming and exhausting, so I hope I don’t have to go through it again for a long time. I went in to the market looking for a car as a relative newbie, so I had little guidance as to what to expect. My brother had a better idea, but in the past 3 years, the used car market has charged significantly, so we pretty much had to start again from scratch.

Now that I’m a seasoned pro, take these used car buying tips the next time you’re searching for a new vehicle:

Not All Dealers Are The Same

I visited several dealers, all with similar cars, but their prices and customer service all varied. Some were more forceful, some would do anything to get me to test drive, while the ones I liked were the ones who showed me lots of different options that fit my needs and told me to look online at their full inventory. Both the dealers I was most interested in let me leave without forcing anything on me, gave me a business card, and said be in touch.

The ones who had me sit on a room for even a minute and made me uncomfortable in the negotiating process never heard from me again, even though the prices weren’t out of my range. What was worse was the dealer who told me to come down to look at several cars only to tell me when I got there that they weren’t available and that we should look at a car I had already seen and turned down.

Set Limits Before You Hit The Lot

I went with some vague idea of what I wanted. Basically if it drove, I was interested. What I should have done is limit my options earlier by setting limits on the number of miles already driven by a car and my absolutely maximum price, including all fees, of which there were many. I wasted a lot of time setting soft limits. I ended up test driving a few cars that I wasn’t really interested in. While it gave me a taste of what to expect from dealers and what the process was like, it wasted time that I could have spent in better ways.

Be Aware Of Fees

The price on the sticker is far from the price you’ll ultimately pay. Fees, taxes, and licensing can throw your whole equation off. In California, the fees totaled around 11% of the price, so a $10,000 car quickly became an $11,000 car, which was well above my budget. Knowing what the fees would be can help you revise your budget or aim for a lower car to start with the even with fees, you won’t have to dig into your savings (or spend an extra several months making payments). In a week, you’ll be thinking, “how much is my car worth?” so don’t overspend now!

Know Your Financing Options In Advance

I opted to pay for my car in cash, and boy am I glad I did. Each dealer came back with a whole complicated math problem for me to solve. With an $X down payment, I could pay just $Y per month, and it made it very difficult to compare. By knowing your financing option in advance, you can avoid the tricky math and focus on the total price. That way, you don’t have to worry about the details and can focus on the big picture when buying a car. All I cared about was the final price (what do I care which portion of the price goes to the dealer and which portion goes to fees?) so I tried to make the process as straightforward as possible.

Car buying isn’t always a ton of fun. However, it’s not unbearable if you have the right tools and know what to expect. Use these tips and you’ll be about two weeks ahead of where I was when I started.

Readers, what other tips do you have for when buying a used car?

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Is Your Insurance Company Charging You Too Much For Car Insurance?

Written by in Autos, Insurance
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If you chose your car insurance policy the way most people do, there’s a good chance that you are overpaying for it. The fact is that the majority of drivers select an auto insurance policy after only checking out one or two different companies. Since each insurance company uses their own formulas for assessing driver and vehicle risk, each quote that you will get from them will be different insurance quotes for the exact same amount of coverage. But since drivers don’t do the sufficient amount of research, they end up choosing a more expensive policy even though a cheaper one exists.

The First Part Of Finding A Less Expensive Car Insurance Policy Is Getting More Insurance Quotes

If you signed up with the very first insurance quote that you got, how could you possibly know if you are getting the best deal? Would you do that with a car or home purchase, or would you take the time to shop around and make comparisons? Yet for some reason too many drivers fail to do this with auto insurance. The more insurance quotes that you get, the more confident that you can feel in knowing that you are getting the cheapest auto insurance rates possible. With one quote, you may or may not have the most affordable insurance policy. However, by getting 10 quotes, you now have the ability to compare them against each other and select the one that makes the most financial sense.

The Second Part Of Finding A Less Expensive Car Insurance Policy Is Getting Multiple Premium Discounts

Auto insurance companies love working with safer drivers. Drivers that get into fewer accidents and those who own safer vehicles that don’t get stolen as much increase the likelihood of the insurance company being profitable. To entice these drivers into staying with them as long as possible, insurance companies will generously give premium discounts when these drivers can prove that they are less risky on the road. Most people can generally qualify for at least one discount, if not multiple discounts.

Some common discounts include:

- safe driver discount for those individuals who have not been involved in a traffic accident in the past 5+ years.

- defensive driving course discount for those individuals who can document that they have taken and passed an approved course

- anti-theft device discount for those vehicles that have an alarm system or some type of recovery device

- a good student discount for those drivers who are still in school and are able to maintain at least a B average

There’s a very good possibility that you are currently paying too much for your car insurance. Ensuring that you are getting the best deal involves a two part process. In order to know for sure if you are getting a great insurance rate, you need to increase the amount of insurance quotes that you are getting. The second part of the process involves finding and qualifying for as many discounts and reductions in premium prices as you can.

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