My suggestion is put down the amount you feel will give you some equity in the vehicle for at least 2 years of ownership. That way, if you decide to sell, you can at least get something back and not regret what you had bought. It always hurts the wallet when you have to pay to get rid of. Much like ending a lease early. For me, I try to make it at an amount that justifies a proper right-off since I am self employed. Therefore, 20% down seems to be the right amount. Put down 6k and enjoy low payments. At the end of 2 years, you can sell it if you wish and get some money back.

In my case, I have to pay taxes on that profit but you don't. I never buy cars cash because the only tax deduction is maintenance and mileage. Plus gas for work purpose. The only big deduction is when you sell and hopefully, you don't make too much of a profit given the market value and the price you sell it.

When I sold my EVO8 back in 2006, I had it for about 9 months. I sold it for 27,500 since it had very low miles. I purchased it for 28,000. Reason for the high used price was of the add ons. Vehicle was depreciated by my accountant and I had to pay taxes for 7k profit. However, the deductions I had for the vehicle made it an even and therefore, I owned the car basically for free.

Do your taxes, our government wants to give those 600 for doing it on time. As if 600 will stimulate our poor economy.

 

i can afford i pretty decent payment, no way i'm looking to be paying more than $400 a month.. and the main reason i'm asking really what a good sufficient amount is because i have a regular 08 lancer that i have on my credit which happens to be my wifes car...so the down payment amount really would make a difference, when trying to this car as well.

 

I'm aware it doesn't make sense, but I've seen amounts go straight to the dealer's pockets as opposed to being to your own benefit. But of course this is due to a customer not looking closely at what's going on.

Otherwise, I agree with everything everyone else is saying.

 

Unless you're completely oblivious, I don't see how that would even happen. You negotiate price X for the car. You put down Y. If the financed price isn't X - Y, something's up.

I suppose I may wrongly assume people would take a major purchase seriously.

 

if you could get 0% than don't put a lot. Anything else I would do $10k just to keep payments low.

 

wow if you are seriously asking this you have alot more to learn about money before you drop 40k into a BRAND NEW CAR (****READ: WORST INVESTMENT POSSIBLE).

Me: i dont give an F* about monthly payments. the number i look at is: if i dont pay any extra how much is this gonna cost me???? Good motivation to get your *** in gear and realize you likely cannot afford this.... Keep saving.

 

If you want about a $400/month payment, over a five year note, at 5.9% interest (average rate?) plan on putting down a little more than $10k in cash. I made up a quick excel spreadsheet that will calculate out your payments based on price, interest, time and down payment. It basically uses the same simple interest formula as the internet calculators, but the spreadsheet compounds monthly rather than how the websites do it compounding continuously. There will be a couple dollar difference in monthly payment between the spreadsheet and the websites. I put in the purchase price of my car + tax, you are welcome to change whatever you want.

I made only one payment of $30,676. Paying cash is always better for the individual. Businesses are different, since assets can be depreciated, as was stated above.

If you can get 0% then finance the whole thing.

 

Average financing is about 6.9%. It'd be nice to get a rate below 5%.

 

my evo cost me like $37g's at 6.1% i give 10g's down and my payments r $400 flat
that should give u an idea

 

alright cool thanks for all the feedback... hey socalevox what options did you get with your evo

 

i put 10k down, and my monthly payments were $426. (this is for an evo ix gsr, 2 years ago)

 

and it could help out even more if you have a car with some value that could be used towards your cash down payment

 

Pretty nice website!

 

none its the most base model u can get, im going to end up changing everything any ways

 

Put down as much money as you possiby can. Usually, every 1 thousand dollars gives you exactly 16 dollars less per month on your monthly payment. The less money you end up borrowing, the better. Since interest rates are locked in at the time of financing, you're always paying X amount of what you still owe on the car. The less you owe, the smaller the amount of each monthly payment goes towards interest and the more that goes towards principal. As the years pass by and you begin to pay the car off more and more, you'll be glad that you put as much up front as you could. About the worst thing you can do is put nothing down and go for the longest loan period possible. For brand new cars it isn't as bad as with used cars, but it still sucks. To explain further, Imagine buying a used car that is worth 15k, and you put down nothing and finance the car for 75 months. Well, since your payments for the first several years are going towards interest mostly and not that much towards principal. you aren't really paying the car off in proportion to what the market value of the car is. After 3 years, the car is then worth let's say, 9k and you still owe 13k. BAD NEWS! This is called being upside down, and the last thing that you want to have to deal with is negative equity rolling over into your next loan when you buy another car. I by no means am a financial expert, as this is really common knowledge for anyone that has experience financing things, but I just wanted to help out any young guys out there that are new to the game and are about to buy their first car. The last thing that you want to do is jump into a loan for a car that you can't aford and ruin your credit at a young age. Good luck, and I hope that someone found this to be helpful in some way.