Dad wants to offer me his car

[Ftao93]

OK my frugal friends, I need a bit of advice.

The scenario:

A few years ago we bought my wife a 2001 Toyota Corolla.  It's cosmetically a 18 year old car, but has good tires and is in excellent mechanical condition.  Total cost @ 4k.  140k miles

My daily driver is a 2009 Honda CRV, also about 140k miles.  We have a small payment on it that I pay extra when we can.   

My Dad has a 2009 Infinity g37x, 85k miles.   He's going to buy a new car at some point this year, and would like to offer us his for cheap.  Cheap=$3k.  He could sell it/trade it in for more, but he'd rather offer us a leg up if it makes sense for us.

The insurance if I do full coverage for a while on the infinity is $200 more per year.  We carry liability only on the Corolla.  Gas mileage is roughly the same.  It would be a nicer car, but maintenance would be arguably higher.   I'm pretty sure we could get $2k back out of the corolla with little effort, and have the savings to pay the rest to Dad.  He's not concerned about 'when'.

I also try to commute on my paid off motorcycle when the weather is nice, cuz it gets 70mpg instead of 20.   Sadly that's not a year round thing in CO, or I'd try to not even have a 2nd vehicle.

Is this a completely dumb idea? A decent price on a 8 year newer model?

Your sage advice is appreciated.

[Car Jack]

You're getting a much newer car with half the miles.  Personally, I would take the G37, but that's me.  I would keep liability only.  You run the same risk with the G37 as you do with the Corolla if it's totaled and your fault.  You simply lose the car and have to buy another one.  The Nissan 3.7 engine is used in everything.  Price them at junkyards.  They're 1/6 the price of a Subaru engine and likely 1/2 the price of a Corolla engine.  Nissan uses this in the G37, in mini vans, in pickup trucks, in everything.  You might find more repairs are necessary but if you're handy with the internet to find what to fix and youtube on how to fix, you can do the repairs yourself.  My son had a 350Z and while I'm the one with mechanical skills, he was able to figure out problems with his phone.  Most issues are well known and can be fixed cheaply.  For example, cam position sensors go out pretty regularly (passenger side one).  New ones are everywhere and auto zone had one for about $20.  Power seat switches are known bad parts.  Looking on the web, I found a dealer where I could buy an OEM switch for $60 delivered and renew full power seat functions.

[FactorsOf2]

The insurance if I do full coverage for a while on the infinity is $200 more per year.  We carry liability only on the Corolla.

Agree with the previous poster: You should not carry comprehensive insurance on a car *just* because it is more expensive or nicer.

When you buy insurance, the insurance company uses a sophisticated model to predict how much money they will have to pay out to you over the lifetime of the policy, then they add on all their operating costs and profit margin, and *that* is the final number you pay them. The average person will pay more to the insurance company than they receive in pay outs.

The point of insurance is to protect you from scenarios where you could not bear the costs incurred by the insured event without significant hardship. The classic example is someone living paycheck to paycheck with terrible credit and a job that they can't get to without their car. If this person totaled their car things could quickly spiral out of control and they could conceivably wind up homeless. Thus they need comprehensive and not just liability insurance.

But it sounds like you are not in this kind of situation since you carry only liability on your wife's current car.

[2Birds1Stone]

@Car Jack, Nissan uses the 3.5L VQ in everything, the 3.7L not so much.

That being said, I love my g37s. I have a 2008 that I purchased 3+ years ago, put on 30k miles with nothing but oil changes so far.

It will be pretty awful on gas. I tend to average 18mpg combined, and it takes premium gas. On long highway trips, I've gotten as high as 24-25 mpg average. With the awd on the X, it might be a little worst.

[Ftao93]

@Car Jack, Nissan uses the 3.5L VQ in everything, the 3.7L not so much.

That being said, I love my g37s. I have a 2008 that I purchased 3+ years ago, put on 30k miles with nothing but oil changes so far.

It will be pretty awful on gas. I tend to average 18mpg combined, and it takes premium gas. On long highway trips, I've gotten as high as 24-25 mpg average. With the awd on the X, it might be a little worst.

Good to know.  we're averaging 21ish on both cars currently in the city.  Not my favorite, especially since we previously both commuted by scooter for 80+mpg :P.   The corolla and CRV both take mid-range gas :(.

[Ftao93]

You're getting a much newer car with half the miles.  Personally, I would take the G37, but that's me.  I would keep liability only.  You run the same risk with the G37 as you do with the Corolla if it's totaled and your fault.  You simply lose the car and have to buy another one. 

The reasoning behind full coverage at current is that we don't have a garage.  There are enough drunken morons that come sailing down the street, and frequent enough hail, that I would probably keep comprehensive for a few years.  I'm not worried about the MY FAULT coverage, but rather hit and runs/weather damage.   Mostly the former, as it's super common.  If we didn't depend on them to get to work, that would be a different scenario.

[Dancin'Dog]

The G37 sounds good.


Since your dad is doing you a favor, why don't you ask if he'll take your old car as partial payment?  He can use it for the trade in on his new car & you won't have to deal with the hassel of trying to sell a $2K car on Craigs List.

[Ftao93]

The G37 sounds good.


Since your dad is doing you a favor, why don't you ask if he'll take your old car as partial payment?  He can use it for the trade in on his new car & you won't have to deal with the hassel of trying to sell a $2K car on Craigs List.

Hrm...there is a thought.  he might get more allowance out of it.  Would it work out to trade the title tho?

[AlotToLearn]

I used to own an 09 G37 and the primary reason I sold it was the awful mpg. Fun car to drive but I needed a part time job to keep gas in it haha.

[Reynolds531]

I work at an infinity dealer. Take the g37. Look after it. Never give it back.

[Ftao93]

I work at an infinity dealer. Take the g37. Look after it. Never give it back.

Word.   Well, I think we'll go visit him in the next couple of weeks and get it done then!

[2Birds1Stone]

Success?

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