be my advisory board
 

Hey everyone, I will be a senior in college this year, and assuming I have a decent job offer I plan on buying an RX-8 in the spring before I start working. Anyways, I hear a lot from different people about buying new cars. Some tell me that buying a brand new car is the worst thing to do, so on and so forth. So, I was wondering what anyone on here could tell me. Should i straight up buy a brand new 2005 (which mazdas college 500 cash back would play into account), buy a used 2004, or hope to find a left over brand new 2004 on a dealers lot in approx. april of 2005. Id appreciate any help anyone might could give me. I'm getting faily impatient about buying this car. I've driven three of them and well, you know the rest. Im set on this and nothing else. Now I just need to figure out what to do about buying one.


Thanks

1. Wait until you have been working at your shiny new job for about 6 months before even thinking about buying a new car. You need to have some sense of whether the job is going to work out before you saddle yourself with big car payments.

2. Even better, buy a 2nd or 3rd gen RX-7 to play with for a couple of years. If you get a sweet one and keep it well maintained, you'll have tons of fun learning about rotary engines without taking the depreciation hit that you do with an RX-8.

T.

I buy new cars for the for the warranties. Nothing worse than a car that has reached a point where $hit needs to be fixed all the time. Unexpected expenses are the suck.

But as the other person said, make sure you are going to be able to make the payments, these days jobs are not as secure as they used to be.

I would suggest you go to Edmunds.com and or other car websites and learn about invoice prices vs. msrp. This will give you some understanding of pricing. Never pay msrp .... at the end of the '04 model run you will find it easyier to get one perhaps well under invoice depending on the dealer situation and the area you live. Once you decide on the package you want .... most of the other accessories wings, cd changer, accents can be installed by the dealer .... making it easier to involve several dealers to obtain a more favorable deal.
I would urge you not to get a used RX-8 unless you find an owner who clearly knew how to care for a rotary engine .... break-in ...oil changes ect. Demos of this car from a dealer may have been abused during test drives.
Congrats on your future graduation. I attended that other school in C-ville.

I will turn into a senior upcoming fall also.
I am in a situation where I have to buy the rx-8 because my 4runner was totalled when it slipped on the pool of water and flipped over. And my dad is trying to buy me a hyundae.....
So I kind of pushed myself and now am trying to buy the 8.
I got offered $100 under invoice, 3months free gas, 1year extended warranty on power train without any deductibles on 2004 rx-8. I'm not getting a job right after I graduate because I'm going to med school 1 year after I graduate.
But after puttin down about 10 g, and with a cosigner, I can lower the payment down to about 370 a month.
Just don't go out and spend your money on drinks and girls for couple times a month, and you'll be able to make the payments.
If I can make the payment, I know you can make it too.
I think rx-8 is worth doing it.
Just my opinion as same college senior . :)

If you are financing, your apr is going to be high unless youve been at a job for at least a year. If you dont care, there is no feeling like driving a car with 10 miles off the lot. If that is the case, do your research on the changes b/t 04 and 05. Youll save a fortune if you get an 04 between Sept and Nov this year. Whatever you get, youll probaly love the car...which means you cant go wrong!

I would see if I could get a sweetheart of a deal (essentially making the dealer eat the depreciation) on a 2004 when the 2005's come out. There are not supposed to be any changes from the 2004 to 2005 models.