“Trouble with those two little paid-for beaters is that they require repairs at random intervals, that can be expensive. Sometimes you can ignore those repairs (most people don’t care about suspension repairs unless the car is unable to move), but dead alternators, transmissions, transaxle shafts, blown heater cores (very expensive to fix), tires, etc, can be expensive and random. At least with a payment, you have a set amount every month that you’re paying, a known quantity, so that you don’t have to come up $1,500 out of your pocket on a Tuesday afternoon.”
With cars like that the combined payments are going to be $800-900 every month. With savings like that one could afford a pair of new transaxle shafts every 3-4 months, a bi-annual valve job w/ tune up and new tires and a heater core once a year. Just put some money away for it. JMHO, but I drive junk, and I could pull $1500 out of my backside any day of the week.(because I don’t have a car payment)
Whenever someone says to me “My car payment...” I hear “I have a car I can’t afford”. They always think they can “afford” the payments until something goes wrong.
My sister drives a 2010 Ford Escape with a monthly payment and she works part time. She bought it to avoid a $1200 repair on her old car. That was 4 of her car payments. She has now become “payment poor” from all her monthly payments. Luckily she will soon be covered under Obamacare.
I have a 2003 Chevy Cavalier(paid $3k for it) with no car payment and I make 3X what she makes.
If someone is truly worried about the reliability of buying a beater, buy two of them. You still come out way ahead.