Recently I read an interesting article in the Washington Post about the increased cost of buying a new car. Today, it is common for consumers to pay $1000 a month to buy a new car. With the average price of a new car now at $48,000 and used cars around $28,000, you can see why monthly payments are between $700 and $1000 a month. The Post article goes on to talk about what a bargain it can be to repair and maintain your current older car.
I mentioned this article to Brady, one of our service advisors at BA Auto Care. He told me that since COVID, he has seen more and more customers looking after their cars and repairing them. He also said he has seen them spend thousands of repair dollars over the actual value of their car.
One of the most important roles of a service writer is to help a customer choose between repairing or replacing a vehicle. The old “rule of thumb” used to be not to avoid spending more on repairs than the value of the vehicle. However, we have seen a significant change in the repair-buy equation as our long-time customers start to spend more on repairs. Sometimes the decision to repair it is more difficult, especially when a vehicle needs a major repair along with a shopping list of other repairs and maintenance items. With careful inspection and estimate of the outstanding repairs, keeping your current car can still be worth it.
Sometimes, just the simplicity of driving an older vehicle, free of all the new tech, is the major reason that our customers want to keep their car.
