I’m generally new to cars but I do like the way bmws and Mercedes benz drives but I am only 18 earning 200$ a week from my job and I’m not sure if I should buy one or not… I just need to know if it would be stupid
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In a word… Yes.
Good luck, young man.
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Save your money. Invest some of it in mutual funds for the future. Think Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic.
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The cars you mention are not for the inexperienced or low income types. Such a purchase would be “unwise”; a used Hyundai Accent or Kia Rio would be more reliable and easier and cheaper to maintain.
I’m assuming you did not win the lottery.
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Concur with the others. A luxury car will bankrupt you if you’re only making 200 a week.
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Just wanted to make sure before I made any dumb decisions.
The insurance rates for the age 16 to 25 are really high so the last thing a new driver needs is a vehicle that will cause even higher rates.
@Snell.nathan95 Involve your parents and their insurance agent in this to find the best course of action.
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I had graduated from college when I bought my first car. I paid $75 for a 1947 Pontiac in 1962. It made the 350 mile trip to transport me and my worldly possessions to graduate school. It did take 2 quarts of oil to make the trip. You may not want to go that cheap, but wait until you have a good income before you think BMW. I have enough to buy almost any car I want and a BMW has never been on my list.
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BMW is expensive to fix if anything goes wrong.
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My son owned a couple of BMWs when he was young. He learned the hard way. Things that would cost $200 on a Toyota cost $1,000 on a BMW.
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If you buy a car, register it in your parents names. If you register it in your name, it will be a lot more expensive to insure than if you are the primary driver on your parents policy.
Skip the BMW for your first car. You don’t make nearly enough money to cover repairs or insurance for one of them.
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The OP–like almost all people of his age group–needs to learn the vast difference between “wants” and “needs”. He may need transportation, but he does not “need” a BMW, or a Mercedes, or any other European-made car with inordinately high insurance and/or maintenance costs. Instead, he should choose a used car of a make with historically low maintenance, repair, and insurance costs.
Many decades ago, when I was about to begin my first full-time job, I thought that I would purchase my own (new) car. My father–who rarely used his car during the week–told me to drive his car to my job for at least two years, and to save my money during that time period.
I followed his advice, and managed to save enough money to buy a brand-new, beautiful Dodge Charger SE–for cash–a couple of years later. And, because of that initial purchase deferral–as well as other prudent saving/investing decisions over the years–I have been able to buy every subsequent car for good old American cash. If I had followed my initial instinct–which was very similar to the OP’s desires–I would probably still be paying for car loans.
One of the measures of emotional maturity is the ability to defer gratification.
If the OP has the emotional maturity to defer his current desire for automotive gratification for a few years, it will pay…HUGE…dividends in the long run.
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There’s a name for this. It’s called “insurance fraud”. I recommend against it.
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Wrong name, @the_same_mountainbik. It is legal and recommended. See the URL below. You may be thinking of a practice called fronting, where a parent insures a car owned by their child on their policy and the parent lists himself as the main driver. That would be fraud. Recall that I said the child should be listed as the primary driver on his car.
https://www.carinsurancecomparison.com/can-car-insurance-be-in-your-parents-name/
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It depends on how much disposable income you’ve got there OP. If you have no other expenses, $800 a month would cover the monthly payments, maintenance, and repairs on a – say – 2001 BMW I expect. I think folks should buy the car they want if they can afford it, but before taking the leap suggest to do a few cost comparisons, for example to replace the water pump, using oem parts
2001 BMW 323 $130 parts cost + 4 hours labor == $430.
2001 Corolla $75 parts cost + 1.5 hours labor == $225.
Also good idea to take into account the cost difference in registration and insurance premiums.
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Read the URL. It talks about a vehicle owned by the parents. It does not discuss the owner of the vehicle being the son/daughter. If the son/daughter is the registered owner of the vehicle and insures the vehicle under the parent’s insurance as if the parents were the owners, that’s fraud.
To the OP, check with your insurance company. Better to be safe than sorry.
If I’m wrong, you save some money. If I’m right, you prevent a possible problem.
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I read it and it said that an underage driver could buy the car, register it in a parents name and his too, and then obtain insurance on the parents policy. It was all legitimate as the teen was listed as the primary driver.
Let’s get back to OP.
You are 18 and make 200/week.
Live at parents house?
In high School?
In college?
Of that $200 per week, what number is available for car, payments, insurance, repairs, gas ?
If I guess at half, that is $5000 per year. For a BMW, you should budget $2000 for repairs. Insurance could cost you $2000, leaving very little for gas and payments. A BMW just would not work out here.
But do your own numbers, so you have an idea of how much you can spend on the car.