Why have I renounced buying a brand new car?
I was about to. But the technological debate that lies ahead is far less complex than the purchasing process itself and the insatiable hunger of the dealership's finance branch.
Many people do not think about a car until they have to change their own. I am one of those. At home, we have two vehicles, the one we bought as soon as my wife and I started dating almost two decades ago and the one we bought when our second child was born and we no longer all fit in a Citroën C3.
Owning a car is a trap. Once you finish paying it, the race begins to make it last as long as possible to improve your amortization. If I change it, the price/month ratio for my 17-year-old C3 -bought for €18,000- would be under €90 without counting repairs, tires, and fuel. So I have incentives to keep it working. And I still believe the 2008´s C3 is a gorgeous car.
That could make the reader ask: "why do you want to change your car?" Because I need to change the rearview mirror to make the air conditioner work (I swear), and the original piece has a price tag of €300. My repair shop of choice (Midas) is still searching for scrap yards to see if they can find the item in question at a reasonable price. But meanwhile, the seed of change has sprouted.
What if it's time to dodge those €300, which add up to hundreds of euros more and more? What if I prevent the car from leaving me stranded, which will undoubtedly happen one day, I save the cost of the mandatory review in Spain (ITV), and I start over with a vehicle that pollutes less?
Time to search
From there, I went to the car search phase. And after a quick look, I realized that a good fix could be a Dacia Sandero Stepway, a car decent enough to attract my attention, tall enough to fit me, and cheap enough not to feel like an idiot. In addition, it uses a combination of gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) that accredits the ECO label. If I buy it right now, to sweeten the deal, it can mean a €3,000 bonus offered by the Madrid City Council to purchase this type of vehicle. The dealership manages it for you.
After requesting quotes from the different dealers through a portal dedicated to that, I see that Gabella Motor offers it to me in the most equipped version of the car that interests me for just under 17,000 euros. It seems reasonable, and the web calculator tells me that I can get it for around €138/month, with a down payment of €3,200 and a final installment of €10,353.
Well, it's time to go to the dealership. The car is just as expected, nothing to complain about, and the shopping experience, not so much.
Let's start with the good stuff. For years, I didn't understand the ads with the message of "pay very little per month" with the small print of "with a deposit and a very high final fee." They've always made me wonder who would want to buy anything like that. But it turns out that things are very different. As the commercial explained to us, the whole objective of the brand is that you do not keep the car. You return it or you change it for another. You are more useful paying hundreds of euros a month all your life than reaching a time when you do not have to continue paying them because the car is finally yours.
The dealer agrees to return the amount of the last installment or even value the car for more money so that you can put that extra as an advance payment for the following vehicle and face the next cycle with a smile. In addition, they allow you to leave the Dacia brand and buy any Renault vehicle in a few years. Assuming that technology advances as I hope, this Dacia Sandero could become our new family Grand Scenic in some years. Any combination seems possible. Not bad. It is flexible, although no one guarantees that this final valuation will be more than strictly the minimum guaranteed value to which the contract binds them. And you can return the car at the end of the period, so everything in operation becomes a simple renting.
Then the problems arise.
Tricky web
The brand is tricky on the web. It lets you configure the car but afterward, when you calculate the financing model, you realize it doesn't do it based on your previous configuration and the chosen model. It gives you the price for a cheaper model. Thus, the commercial that makes the bill for you at the dealership has a fundamental problem.
The first budget he gave me was pretty terrible. He calculated the price for five years, with an entry of €3,200 and a final commitment to repurchase of just under €7,000. The total cost was about €25,000, including five revisions and the insurance for the first year of the vehicle. The interest rate they charge you, about 10% APR, makes it unfeasible.
At three years, it is much cheaper. The total cost is about ten grand, with a final installment of another ten grand. It is more like €200/month, to which I had to add the insurance for the second and third year, which the commercial didn't count.
The account came to be something like €3,200 entry + €7,980 installments over three years + €1,200 of insurance without franchises for the second and third year - €800 for the appraisal of my current vehicle - €3,000 of the City Council (in case they give it to me, in a few months, and without guarantees). That leaves me at around €238/month, not counting fuel. It is a car with less fuel consumption, but I won't do a lot of kilometers. Would it be better to pay for it in cash? Yes, but I would lose the advantages of flexibility that were what had initially attracted me to the operation. And, if I know myself, I would be driving a Dacia for 20 years.
If the idea was to wait for technological change, I should keep my current car. It has a B label and can circulate in Madrid. Does it pollute more? Probably, manufacturing a new vehicle and scrapping the old one has higher environmental costs.
If my C3 blows up and the ideal car comes to the market, I always have the alternative of leasing. I have seen the prices, and they come out more or less the same monthly payment that I was getting at the dealership if counting insurance and everything else. Even cheaper, in some cases. They do not have the excuse of a hypothetical future property, but they are much more "all-inclusive."
I know that all this is complicated and that no one is interested. But it has made me think about the underlying reasons for the automotive fleet in Spain being so old. Of course, I understand the idea of "car as a service," but the tremendous interest rate and the lack of transparency in the purchase process have scared me. A little overwhelmed by my questions, the salesperson admitted that the websites were pure bait and they are obligated to close operations that have nothing to do with what you calculate at home. You can deceive many people, but it's much more difficult to agree if you consider the process without the normal urges and illusion of buying a car.
To make matters worse, they must be selling many cars because I felt that the commercial had no actual margin to offer me anything. Where is the classic insistence of the seller? He did not even throw me the double bottom for the trunk that I insinuated I wanted. And, to top it off, the delivery time is hypothetical due to the supply crisis. He told me it would arrive by the end of June, but I felt that it would be much later. Ok. I change my car because I don't have air conditioning, and I risk not having it until I don't need it.
Of course, all this sh*t may work with many people. But I will wait for my car to fall out of age, and then, depending on the evolution of technology, I will make the decision that suits me best. I don't know where I'll be working in two years. Maybe it will be somewhere more convenient for me to use public transportation. Or a bike, even! But if the only one who seems interested in buying a car is you, and the only thing they can offer you shitty revolving card interest, you have to look for a better plan. Or wait.