People here seem to be interested in car deals so I thought I’d share my latest purchase. My first car was a Honda Civic 2008 I bought in 2012 for $10,500. Then we thought we needed a second car when my partner started work, so we got a 2012 Volvo S60 in 2014. That turned out to be a bad decision so we sold the Volvo in 2018 and bought a 2015 Chevy Volt for $15,600, which I’ve loved. Turned out we didn’t really need 2 cars, particularly during pandemic, so we finally sold the Honda Civic in 2021 when used car prices were really high.
Now with 2 toddlers and attendant car seats, and grandmas that visit, we find we need more than a 4-seater. We thought the Hyundai Ioniq 5 seemed cool and it won the car awards, and we have solar panels. But new car prices have turn my stomach compared to what I paid for my Civic and Volt!
Fast forward to 2024, newly retired and lower income, with Inflation Reduction Act in swing, the 2022 Hyundai Ioniq (and I) now qualify for the $4000 used car tax credit IF you can find one under $25,000. Plus we wanted the SEL version of the car because I feel FATFire enough for a little luxury. Locally, there was nothing under about $35k. So I searched farther afield and found a Buyback/lemon branded SEL with lowish miles about 350 miles away. Did all the negotiation over the phone, put a deposit down, and bought a flight using miles to the dealer’s city for 2 days later. Everything worked out and drove home in a single day. They printed me out the signed IRS reporting form for the tax credit.
Final deal:
$23,475 + $399 tinting I couldn’t get out of.
+ $352 tire/rim 5yr warranty i chose as optional.
+ taxes and document fees. Will have to pay registration fee in my state.
-~$2300 tax credit. I think unfortunately my income mix won’t let me take advantage of the full $4k but maybe you can! I’m going to have to watch my income very carefully toward end of year and then make a Roth IRA conversion to maximize this credit.
To get this deal, I agreed to finance. Apparently, some auto loan banks give the dealer a kickback and this dealer passed some of it on to me. The only condition is that I hold the loan for 4 on-time payments. But I was free to make a huge pre-payment whenever I wanted. So when I got home and the loan funded, I paid off $20k leaving ~$2000 on the loan. So hopefully my total interest over the 4 months of payments won’t be much.
I’m also required to keep comprehensive car insurance, which I normally don’t. So that’s another few hundred extra cost compared to buying all cash, but I can remove that after the 4 months also.
About the buyback/lemon issue, Ioniq 5s have had some failures of their onboard computer chip, called ICCU. Sometimes, and particularly during the supply chain shortages, it took Hyundai too long to repair the issue. So they bought back these cars as lemons in order to make the customer happy. Then they replaced the ICCU and sent the car to auction. Still has all of the Hyundai warranties that pass to second owners, though not all pass.
Pretty pleased with the car so far! The SE probs would have been almost equally good and $2-3k cheaper, if you’re looking for even more of a deal. Grandma is coming to visit tomorrow, so she will finally fit in the car!
