Need assessment: Understand why you need a car and what duties it will perform. Accordingly, choose the body type, passenger capacity, cargo space, safety, features, and power requirements. Build a list of options depending on what the vehicle will do 80% of the time.
Budget: If you’re financing your car, limit your monthly payments to 10% of your take-home pay. Block another 8 – 10% for fuel, maintenance, and insurance. Ideally, get preapproved for a loan, so you know your budget before stepping into a dealership.
Lease vs. buy: Leasing required less money upfront and lower monthly payments. But you won’t have a car when the lease ends. Buying costs more, but you can drive the car for years without mileage limits if you maintain it well.
Class comparison: If you already have a car in mind, we recommend that you consider other cars in its class to ensure that you’re not overlooking a better option. Go online and use car finder tools to look for the best car in the class you’re considering.
Ownership costs: Some cars are cheap to buy but expensive to live with. While other vehicles are expensive to buy and cost nothing to maintain. Understand the details like depreciation, insurance, maintenance, etc. and run all the numbers before you make a final decision about which car to buy.
Availability: Search for cars online before stepping out. When you find something you’re interested in, call the seller and confirm its availability and all its vital information before scheduling a test drive.
Test-drive: Get a shortlist of three cars and schedule back to back test drives on a weekday morning. Take as much time as you need to examine all the details of the vehicle. Try and recreate the situations and conditions the car will have to experience every day with you.
Choose: After several test-drives, you should know which car you want. If you don’t want any, repeat all the steps from the start until you find a car you’re willing to buy.
Close: Once you have that one car that works for you, it’s time to close the deal. Figure out your finances, and long term needs so you can choose to buy or lease.
