Hello, I have been reading up a lot on these amazing cars and have test driven a cherry 99 LS 400 and will be driving a 95 tomorrow. I am selling my 350Z and would like to ideally eliminate a car payment by buying a 95 or 96 with the cash equity from Z and my savings. Prices in my area are about 4-5k for a 95 with about 170k miles. The afore mentioned 99 is my other option, it has 93k miles on it and rides like brand new.
So here is my dilema, do I buy the 99 for the lower miles, more options, features etc and presumably better reliability and keep a payment (z payment and insurance runs about 375 a month, LS payment would be shorter term but would still run about 320 total) I can get the 99 for between $10-11k depending on my bargaining skills. OR
Do I hold out till I sell my Z and buy an older, higher mileage car outright but have little to nothing left for repairs. This will be my daily driver. My wife has her car but she works full time as well so might as well consider it my only car.
My concerns,
With the 95 - 1. That it will need work right away before I have had time to put back some repair fund money and I am stuck with a broken car and have to take a loan out to get it fixed.
2. Downtime with repairs. No car, no work and cost goes up and up with lost income.
3. That I will wind up paying so much to recon and repair a 175k-200k mile car that I should have just got the newer model with lower miles.
With the 99 - 1. I will still have a payment, which is ok but I am looking to reduce expenses if possible.
2. It's still an 11 almost 12 year old car and approaching 100k miles and may need repairs or even 100k type maintenance that would cost just as much as the old 95 which would hurt a lot more in the wallet since I would still be making a payment too.
So what are your thoughts, does the price of the newer car with half the miles offset the risk of the older cars? Or is it worth it to own outright and take my chances with the repairs?
This is all assuming that both potential cars check out with lexus used car buyer inspection and my own inspection using the buyers check list here on the sight.
