As the title says, I am finally giving up on living without a car and have decided to buy one . I am very inclined to go for an i10, Hyundai's new small car based on my research. What I wanted to share were a few key things which I have realized during this process.
First, is the financial part of it. Based on my calculation, a car is a negative investment. Compared to the next best alternative of taking a taxi to-and-fro to office, I would be saving but still not enough to recover the complete cost. Hence, as the wise men have said, do not spend too much on car or atleast first car. It is a depreciating asset and does not pay for itself. Related to this is another financial aspect which I will talk later.
Now, that I was not thinking about big cars, I started with the most basic car which I could get and explored the options of buying an Alto. Somewhere I gave up on it after reading tonnes of reviews at Auto car India (http://www.autocarindia.com/new/default.asp) that amongst small cars the new i10 is the best. I checked out with a couple of office colleagues(who have been having a car for some time) and they were all positive about it. My family also endorsed my choice and the icing on cake was CNBC-TV18's auto show. The quote which pretty much made me inclined towards an i10 was "If you are willing to stretch your budget a little, go for i10". Yes it is a bit on the expensive side for a small car, but seemed like worth the money after feature comparison with nearest competitors. I am yet to test drive one, but hopefully I would not have to change my mind.
Now that I have decided on one, finanicing it seems a tricky thing. The interest rate on financing options suggested by the sales man seemed to be high. He was quoting in a range of 14%(plus minus another percentage) p.a. rate which is very high.(the best fixed deposits are paying 8.5% p.a interest). This further proves the point that as far as possible one should take the least amount of auto loan as possible and not buy a hugely expensive car. Don't get trapped in the temptation of owning a car just for the sake of it.
To top it all, one has to produce quite a lot of documents like - 2 address proofs, bank statements and pay slips which pretty much made my option to get an auto loan bleak. So, while I am still looking to furnish these documents the process needs to be kept in mind if you are thinking about getting a car loan.
Now that I have shared my travails, let me know what do you think about my choice and any other thing which I can manage better to ensure having the fun to ride. Or ways..of managing without a car in Gurgaon ;-).
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
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2 comments:
If you can 'stretch' yourself a 'bit' further, you can think of swift :-), and 14% looks like a reasonable interest rate for car loan, think about getting it leased by your company and you will be able to save some tax on it.
i bought i10.its a good car.went for Era.Cost me 4.2.try to negotiate loan from the bank wher u have salary a/c..may get a better deal
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