RE: South Africa Car Sales For May Shows Legacy Auto Brands Back In The Game
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Funny thing, Ford sold last month 208,274 vehicles in USA, which is almost as much as all of these that you have on your list combined...
The last two vehicles I bought in US were actually brand new leased cars. BMW X5 in 2018 which we still drive and will probably keep for another 10 years and Toyota RAV 4 a few years later which I sold half a year before the lease was up. Those were the times when the interest rate they put into the lease was around 1% and I calculated that buying a brand new was cheaper than 3 year old off lease vehicle. And I did the full accounting and after driving for 2.5 years RAV 4 I was basically break even on that and I made money overall as when I sold it I had to report a $6,000 capital gain on my taxes... So yeah that was definitely a good deal.
Yes the SA market is small in comparison even though Ford has an assembly plant here which they supply locally and export to Europe. You definitely got a good deal and good to know you pay close attention to the figures. This is why I will buy a repossessed car with low Km/miles with service pan and warranty. Banks just want to offload them and they can be up to 40% cheaper than book value, but I tend to work on 60% as an average. I nearly bought an X5 a few years back that only had 6000Km on the clock and had not even had it's first service yet. That vehicle went for less than 40% of book value as at auctions the higher the prices the better the deals due to limited buyers in attendance with the funds. The cheap vehicles have loads of buyers haggling and as soon as you pass the $15K budget mark you could be the only one.