One of the biggest items you waste money on is cars.
Everyone wants a nice flash one buts lets stick to important facts regarding cars.
In order of importance
Biggest loss of $$ is depreciation/resale value - how much are you going to loose on this make/model whenever you go to sell it, few years later or 5 or 10, go out and see what older ones of same make/model are selling for.
Maintenance - you want a car/make/model that mechanics see often and know how to work on them, regular problems and general familiarity with them.
Hand in hand with this is parts availability and pricing, more common models generally have cheaper parts and more readily available.
Versatile vehicle - life changes over time, you younger want to look cool in a sports car, you have kids, you move profession, now your hands on whatever. Point is you don't want to be flipping cars constantly, why, well you loose money everywhere, on the depreciation, getting the RW cert done and most over looked is the transfer fees. Especially transfer fees as cars are worth more in $$ every year, even old clappers.
Sometimes its better to have an extra vehicle that fills a more versatile role, that anyone in the family can use if needed, the added advantage of this is if your primary car breaks down or is in an accident, you don't have to rush and pay plenty to get it on the road fast. It allows you to shop pricing for parts, order them online, get mechanic quotes, hell you can be like me an get your hands dirty and give some easy jobs a crack yourself. Point is you have that back up car in the family its bloody handy.
Don't chase or look for tax deductions, yeah you can claim part of a new car on tax, yeah you can claim it as a business expense and all that, I know it all, but fundamentally there are better things to do that piss good money up the wall on a vehicle and look the part.
In summary ideally you want to keep vehicles longer, buy good makes/models, get a little hands on, keep on top of maintenance spend a little more often its cheaper in the long run.
You will find ALL Euro cars depreciate like a rock and are expensive to fix, so to me they are out, anything chineese has zero re-sale value, tesla or anything electric is the same worth nothing second hand.
The Japanese engineer for reliability first, looks/design are way down the list, hence generally they are better.
Good make/models my thoughts, but it all comes down to a blend of the above.
Toyota are great - Landcruisers - 100 series/200 series, any of the 70 series, prado's are great as well.
If you need a ute or a cheaper family run around FG falcons are great value for money, hell even go LPG cheaper fuel costs, though not ideal in country areas.
If you need a cheap run around, plenty of older toyotas from early 2000's. Rav 4, corolla, camry.
Timmy
