Hi! My name is Jessica and I live in TN.. been wanting a Prius for about 2 years now. My first car was a Toyota Corolla and I loved it and was hooked on Toyota after driving it for a year and for how reliable they are and had hoped to get another Toyota as my next car. I somehow ended up buying a 98 Malibu as my next car and it was an ok car but had alot of miles on it plus it was getting old (11 years old this year) and wanted something newer and modern and I had heard about the Prius 2 years ago and started looking for one since my Malibu was all paid off. So after a bad dealer experience I was a little discouraged and my father-in-law offered me his 2007 Cobalt LT with no payments so I took it. And it is a good car, for now anyways, but it's not what I want.. it is not a Pri. So my question(s) is/are.. since I don't have a car payment to worry about right now and I have time to save. What is the best way to go about buying a Prius? Should I have a down payment? If so, how much? What about trading a car in? (I wouldn't be trading in the Cobalt but would be trading in my husbands 2002 Cavalier).. I've heard it's prob best to sell your car to someone other than trading it in.. but basically I am just wondering how much money I should have in hand to go buy one. Also, I would probably be looking for a 2007-2009 Prius with around 20,000-40,000 miles on it. Thank you for your advice and sorry if someone has posted something like this before.. I'm just so new to all this..
Well, Jessica, I wish you luck in your future purchase of a Prius. By the way, in Tennessee, you only pay sales tax on the difference between the price of the new car and the price of your trade-in (I just did it.) So that means it is not quite as advantageous to sell your car on the open market, becasue then you have to pay the sales tax on the full price of the new car. Hope it all works out for you!
Welcome. Yes it is sometimes better to sell your car instead of trade because you CAN possibly get more out of it than a dealer would give you in trade but that might not always be the case, or it may just be extremely inconvenient to sell the car because it could sit and sit and sit before it finally sells. The most important thing I hear people say and from my experience is to make sure the salesman knows you walk out at any time. Keep the salesman on their toes the entire time, even all the way up to talking to a finance person. Don't let them fool you into thinking buying a new car is going to be really easy because there are some parts of it that aren't. If you have a family member or good friend that has bought a few new cars in their time it's probably best to see if they will go with you in all honesty. Not to suggest that you can't handler your business but it's often better to have an extra set of eyes to look at things with you.
