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September 19, 2023 35 mins

There’s something incredibly appealing about having the freedom to move seamlessly throughout the world in your very own car. Nowadays, there are a lot of car options to choose from and all at very different price points. 

With the help of CarTalk Editor-in-Chief Jamie Page Deaton, Matt and Molly figure out how to choose the right car based on needs and cost. Discover the best ways to calculate a budget for acquiring a car, the different types of fuel-efficient and electric vehicle options on the road, and the latest safety features in cars and how to use them. 

Plus learn about how you can avoid becoming upside down on your car loan.  

Sources Cited: 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
There are few greater pleasures than driving down an open road,
windows down, music playing, and the wind in your hair.
But for many years it seemed as though Millennials and
gen z were shying away from permanently committing to that
open road with a car purchase. Some media outlets have
reported over the years that many gen Zers are more
reluctant to get a driver's license than previous generations. However,

(00:27):
at some point, owning a car becomes more than just
a generational trend, especially in the United States, where we
are deeply entrenched in an autocentric culture. While large cities
like Chicago, New York, Boston, and San Francisco have a
number of public transportation options, there's still a large portion
of the country where people rely on cars to get
around more efficiently and safely. Take the suburban areas around

(00:51):
a lot of large cities. Sure, you may be able
to commute into the city fairly easily using public transportation,
but what happens in the suburbs when you need to
go to a further grid grocery store or get to
the doctor. In fact, in a recent survey released in
January of twenty twenty three and conducted by the auto
insurance shopping website the Zebra, sixty three percent of Americans

(01:12):
said that quote owning a car was necessary for easy
living end quote, And according to research conducted by the
Pew Research Center in twenty fifteen, eighty eight percent of
American households had at least one working car. The decline
among younger drivers in the early two thousands was not
caused by a generational backlash toward car culture or an

(01:32):
over commitment to reducing one's carbon footprint. The largest reason
for their decline in driving was due to cost. If
car ownership is potentially inevitable, where do we start and
how do we know if we're ready for a car?
Should we buy or re lease? And what else do
we need to consider when we're establishing a budget? Start
taking notes? Because this is row stuff, m Vroom, Friends,

(01:59):
and Zoo, Welcome back to another episode of grown up
Stuff How to Adult, where each episode we glow up
a little more by learning a new skill for adulthood.
And today, as you might have guessed already, we're digging
into car buying. Matt, I feel like this is going
to be just another one of those episodes where I
really reveal how little I know about being a girl,
because I have a confession to make. I have never

(02:22):
actually owned a car.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
I believe that I believe that that tracks to me.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, at this point, I have spent so much of
my life living in big cities, and I've been lucky
enough when I have needed a car to just be
able to borrow one from any various family members. And
I've had a lot of friends who have owned cars,
and when they talk about financing and car payments and
least terms, my mind starts to spin a little. But

(02:51):
what about you? Have you ever owned an automobile?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
So I'd never owned a car either, And four years
ago I bought my first motorcycle, and I think I
was just so excited about buying one, I kind of
like skipped over a lot of really important research. But basically,
like I knew that I needed to get a loan,
and so I shopped around for a loan. But when
I was at the dealership, they were able to get
me a better interest rate on the loan itself, and

(03:15):
so I actually ended up going with the bank that
they recommended.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
But other than that, I signed a lot of papers.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
I'm not entirely sure if I had room to leverage
a better deal. It does feel like I paid a
lot of money, but I was able to pay off
the loan early, so I didn't pay that much interest.
And the motorcycle has been great, especially in New York
City where like parking is hard and my wife and
I really just take it to go get groceries. But
I'm really excited to learn more about because I eventually
do want a car. What I could have done when

(03:42):
I was in the dealership signing paper is to really
make it work in my favor.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
The parking is a real challenge here in the city.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Whenever I drive around New York City in the motorcycle, Like,
why are people in cars.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Park rice Impossible?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Like they're soon they're going to introduce congestion pricing and
it's just going to be pandemonium.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah. Yeah, And it's like there was a brief moment
where I was like, Oh, maybe I'll get a car
because it'll give me a little bit more freedom to
go visit family members who aren't in the city and
like go you know, further upstate for like a little
day trip and explore nature. And then I looked at
how expensive it was to get a parking space too,

(04:22):
and then I calculated insurance and I was like, forget
about it.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
You want to have another apartment to house your car?
Like no, thank you?

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah yeah. I was like, I will be taking Metro North.
Thank you? All right? Cool sounds good. To help us
really comprehend what goes into buying a car and where
to start, we've asked Jamie Page Deaton to join us.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Jamie spent fifteen years as the executive editor of the
US News and World Reports Best Cars Team, where she
oversaw new and used car rankings, reviews, and awards. She's
also a member of the jury for the North American Car,
Truck and Utility of the Year Award.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Jamie is considered a car buying expert. Today, she is
the editor in chief of Car Talk. That's Right, as
in the radio show and podcast that brought us the
beloved hosts Click and Clack. Jamie, thank you so much
for joining us here on grown up stuff.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
Thank you so much for having me. This is my
absolute favorite thing to talk about, so I feel a
little bit selfish being here.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
There are a lot of considerations that we should make
before we even decide to buy a car.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
What are some of those considerations.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
Really just look at your budget because know that the
price of the car is only the beginning. You got
to pay for gas, you gotta pay for insurance, you
got to pay for parking. So make sure that you
have basically a really good car budget broken down. And
I think for a lot of people, you know, it
depends on where you live. If you live in a
more rural or suburban area, yeah you're probably going to

(05:52):
need a car. But if you're able to get around,
you know, with public transportation and a bike, and you
only occasionally need a car with a car sharing service,
go with a car rental service for those times or
where you need to go to Ikea or you need
to drive to you know, visit your family or whatever.
Because it doesn't really make sense to have a car
that you're paying for all the time that you're only

(06:13):
gonna use occasionally.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
That's why I go with zipcar, Jamie, because City bike
and good old NCAA gets me around with everything else,
and then occasionally for that Ikia trip, I just rent
a zipcar.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah, this is another mistake that I do see people making,
is buying way more car than they need. I shouldn't
malign the people in my neighborhood. But there's a bunch
of people in my neighborhood who do this. They're like, oh, well,
you know, we go on one big road trip a year,
so we have to have this suburban. And it's like,
why don't you rent a suburban and then drive around
in something less expensive? Because you pay for the suburban

(06:47):
for the entire year, and if you look at what
you're paying versus what it would cost to rent a
very big car for that week or rent a truck
to take your boat to the lake or whatever, it's
often gonna be way way way less because that smaller
car is going to be less gased, it's going to
be less expensive, it's going to be cheaper to ensure.
And if you really really want to ride around in
a suburban, great, more power to you. But if you're

(07:08):
doing it because you might need its capabilities once in
a while, I really ask yourself if you want to
pay for it year round, it's about how much car
do I need? How much am I actually going to
use it? And then are there other options? Because there
is I think kind of just in American culture, a
little bit of a knee jerk where it's like, yep, okay,
got to have a car now, and that's not always true.

(07:30):
Just don't make a pain of yourself by constantly borrowing
your friend's cars. If you're constantly borrowing their car as well,
then it might be time to get your own, right.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
I think that the piece of advice that I heard
the most about buying car before I bought my first
is that people really say that car loses value the
second you drive it off the lot. So why is
this and how could it factor into our decision along
with our budget on whether or not to buy a
new or used car.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah, so that is one h or percent true. And
the reason that it drops is because the second you
drive it off the lot, congratulations, it's a used car
and people aren't willing to pay as much for it,
and so that value just drops even if you literally
put a mile on it. It's because it's already been
registered to you. You're already shown as the owner, So
it's a used car. What that kind of traps people

(08:19):
in in a lot of cases, and why you really,
I think need to be careful when you're buying a
new car, especially if you're financing it. Is a lot
of auto loans, you don't have to put any money down,
which is great if you don't have thousands of dollars
lying around. But what happens is you finance the car,
you drive it off the lot, and you're immediately upside
down on your loan. You immediately have negative equity because

(08:41):
the car is not worth the amounts that you financed,
which is problematic if, for example, you get into a
car accident, your insurance is only going to pay the
value of the car, not the value of the loan
that you have left on it. So it's just something
to really keep in mind when you're looking at a
new car. And to be clear, the same thing can
happen with a used car as well, but that drop

(09:03):
in value just tends to be less and less every
year that goes on.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
And would you mind explaining for our listeners aka me,
what does being upside down on a loan?

Speaker 4 (09:14):
Thank you say a question like that, Yeah, it means
you owe more than the car is worth.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Got it?

Speaker 4 (09:19):
So if the car is worth twenty thousand dollars and
you've financed twenty five thousand dollars, you have five thousand
dollars in negative equity, which means that if you go
to sell a car and you get twenty thousand dollars
for it, just to unload it, you have to come
up with five thousand dollars. Or let's say you know
Knockwood that this never happens, your car gets totaled, your
insurance company's going to give you twenty thousand dollars, and

(09:40):
then you're going to be like, I need to come
up with five thousand dollars to pay off the loan,
because your loan company's going to be like, hey, a
car loan is a secured loan, the car is collateral.
There's no longer anything for them to repossess, so they're
going to come after you like that day for five
thousand dollars. This is why I always recommend if you're
getting a new car or you're leasing a car, always
get insurance that will cover more than the car's worth,

(10:03):
so like replacement value plus twenty percent. Most car insurers
offer something like this.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
It sounds like basically everybody is upside down if they
buy a new car and they're using a loan, so
it sounds like, really the only thing to protect you
is getting that insurance.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
Not necessarily okay, if you put a big enough downpayment
down the general like personal finance rule, which I don't
think most people can handle it these days because it's
so difficult to save. But you should be putting like
twenty percent down on a car loan. Okay, but it's
hard for people to come up with a couple thousand
dollars in order to do that. And so if you
can't come up with a couple thousand dollars, you can

(10:39):
kind of amortize that kind of money by getting that
replacement value insurance because that like couple thousand dollars, and
if you're putting twenty percent down, that effectively means that
you've absorbed the depreciation of the car when you've driven
it off the lot, and so you won't have negative
equity at that point.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Okay, that makes sense, And this is a perfect segue
into how we figure out what we can spend on
a car. We all know the rule of you know
a third of your paycheck goes to rent? Is there
a rule for that in terms of your budget for
a car.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
I don't have a hard and fast rule because I
like fancy cars and spend way too much of my
budget on fancy cars. It really needs to come down
to what you're comfortable with and give yourself a ton
of wiggle room in that budget. So like, if you're
ending the month with an extra seven hundred dollars, that
does not mean you can handle a seven hundred dollars
car payment. That means that you've got to take into

(11:35):
account gas, insurance, parking, all that stuff, and you should
really be shooting for maybe a four hundred dollars car
payment because you don't want no wiggle room in your budget.
So really take a hard, hard look at your budget
when you're thinking about how much you can afford. The
smart kind of personal finance thing is to not look
at the payment, but to look at the total cost
of the loan. But given the current economy, I don't

(11:58):
think that's realistic for the majority of people who actually
need to get cars. I think you actually do have
to shop on payment, because if you're looking at total
costs alone, chances are that you have a lot of
money to put down. You might have a really good
car that you have a ton of equity in to
trade in.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
That's for people.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Who are perhaps a little bit older, more established, and
in a good financial position, and so really go through
and just go online and look up car loan calculator.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Does that factor in things like we talked about, like taxes, insurance, fuel, maintenance, parketing,
all that stuff.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
No, it'll just look at the car loan because I
mean if you're talking about like taxes and insurance and
stuff like that, that's highly personalized depending on.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Where you live.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
Honestly, your insurance is going to depend a lot on
you and what kind of driver you've been and honestly
to what kind of car that you end up getting.
So you should talk to your car insurance company and say, hey, look,
I'm thinking of getting this car, what's the monthly cost
and insurance going to be? And shop around and find
a company that's going to get you the coverage that
you need at a reasonable price. But yeah, you have

(12:59):
to look at kind of the total budget of the
car and not just the car payment, not just the
car price.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, and I will say there are I think gas
Body does some really great things in terms of like
calculating how much your gas might be. I know they
do it on a trip basis. I've used it for
that before. I think there are some tools there that
might be able to help in terms of figure out
how much your car will need for a year or
something like that.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah, and Fuel Economy dot Gov. You know, it's the
EPA site and they will go through and say, you
know how much you're likely to spend on gas given
the model of car that you're looking at, and they
even I think have some maintenance costs and things there too.
So all of this information is out there. Take an afternoon,
build a spreadsheet, and you'll have a good sense of
what fits into my budget.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
There are a lot of costs to calculate when buying
a car, and all of these additional costs just seem
to go up and up each year. According to the
latest research from Triple A, the average yearly cost to
own and operate a new car in twenty twenty two
was about eight hundred and ninety four dollars a month,
and that calculation includes the cost of insurance, maintenance, registration, depreciation,

(14:08):
finance charges, and gas prices, the ladder of which is
currently up to three dollars and fifty six cents a
gallon as a national average at the time of this recording.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
When you're deciding what kind of car to buy, budget
needs to be number one, but The other thing that
you want to keep in mind, especially if you're not
able to put a down payment down, is is this
car going to last me through the next couple phases
of my life. Don't just get the car that works today.
Look for a car that's gonna work for you over
the next couple of years, especially if you have goals

(14:39):
and things you're looking at. If you're like, hey, man,
in a year, I'm gonna move to Chicago and you're
currently in Florida, maybe go ahead and get a car
with all wheel drive, even though you don't need it
in Florida, because you're gonna need it in other places.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Oh for sure, Jamie. You just keep perfectly segueing into
everything we want to talk about, because I do want
to discuss about how we find the right car for us.
How do we determine personal must have features, Like you
had mentioned all wheel drive, if you're going to live
in a place like Chicago or Minnesota or anywhere where
there is lots of snow. I mean, it.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Really really kind of comes down to, like, how am
I going to use this car? If you're like, I
am going to use this car to drive to the
grocery store and I'm going to use it to drive
to work, and then I'm going to use it to
drive to the beach three times a year. You can
probably get away with something really small, but if you
need a little bit more space, you know, look at
a compact suv and just kind of work your way up.
And the thing is you can absolutely go to dealers

(15:37):
and look at these cars. All you have to do
is just be prepared to repeat I am not buying today.
I am not buying today. I am not buying today,
I am just researching. The other thing is if you
have friends, neighbors, family members who have cars that are
similar to what you're interested in, ask them like, what
do you like about it? What do you don't like
about it? The really nice thing about most new car
and honestly most use cars now because the technology has

(16:00):
been around for a while, is that when it comes
to like the interior stuff like your infotainment system, it's
really easy to find systems like Android Auto and Apple
Car Play, and I absolutely recommend that you get those
because rather than having to learn a brand new infotainment system,
when you get a car, you plug your phone in
and it's your phone, right and you know, how to
use it, and you can use the navigation app that

(16:21):
you like. That's the one feature that I really recommend
people look for in terms of the interior. Beyond that, Yeah,
if you live in Wisconsin, go ahead, you know, look
for heated seats, get the all wheel drive, but really
start with this size. Make sure it's a size that
is going to work for you for a couple of years,
even if plans change a little bit, and then just
kind of go from there.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Okay, So asking for a friend, it's a friend, it's
not me who has had many accidents in reverse, mostly
in the early years of their driving. Again, it's not me,
it's somebody totally different.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
We'll call her Holly.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Holly.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
You've told me about Holly before.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, what are some of the safety features that are
now standard? Like, I know there's lane departure again for
this friend, not me. Is the backup camera standard? Now,
let's talk about one of those standard features that are
coming in cars now.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah, your friend Holly can rest assured that backup cameras
are standard now on Newsark God and have been for many,
many years. So the vast majority of used cars are
going to have them too. And get this even if
your friend finds a car that doesn't have a backup camera,
you can get an aftermarket backup camera. Okay, so it's
really really helpful just if you continually have those types

(17:31):
of accidents or you know, you're just parking in tight
spaces all the time. But there are a ton of
active safety features available now, talking about like you mentioned
lane departure warding. What that does is the car beeps
at you if it senses that you are veering out
of your lane. In some cases, the car will also
have lane keeping assist, which means that the car will

(17:52):
kind of steer itself back into the lane. Or if you,
you know, attempt to change lanes without signaling, you're going
to feel a little bit of resistance in the steering
wheel as you do it. Yeah, as kind of a reminder,
because the car is going to be like, you didn't
tell me you were changing lanes. Now you're veering out
of the lane. What's going on?

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Also, it's just being like dump be an asshole, like
tell people you're changing lanes. Okay.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Yeah, it is actually a really good trainer. So you
turned your signal on so you don't have to wrestle
with the steering wheel. There's also forward collision warning, often
with automatic braking, so if you're in stop and go
traffic and you might hit the car in front of you,
the car is going to be like pay at dungeon,
and occasionally you know, if it comes with automatic braking,
it's gonna slam on the brakes. Some available cars will

(18:31):
have this tends to be optional, not standard, but it's
out there. Rear collision warning with automatic braking, so if
you're gonna back into something, the car will stop you.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Holly would love that, Yes, she would enjoy it.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
There's also blind spot warning, so if there's somebody in
your blind spot and you're like, I'm gonna change lanes,
the car is gonna be like, I'm gonna flash a
light at you, so you know somebody's there. That is
particularly helpful if you've packed your car full of stuff
and you can't see in your blind spot, so this
way the car will look out for you. So there
are a number of these active safety features. Though I

(19:03):
hesitate to call them safety features, the best way to
think about them their driver assistance speetures, because they help
you drive better. Some cars now can get like super
nannying about it too, where you know, if you've been
driving for a while and it detects that, like you're
getting sleepy, it'll be like, hey, why don't you pull
over have a cup of coffee? And I'm like, you're
not my mom, shut up, no, like I'm going to

(19:24):
keep driving.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Wait really how does it do that?

Speaker 4 (19:27):
So there are a number of different systems that do this,
but first it's going to look at like how good
you are at staying in your lane? And this is
super creepy. There's scanners in the car that are going
to be looking at your eyes. No, and if your
eyes are not on the road or like Subru has
this where it's been like look at the road, Jamie
and I'm like, okay, mom, Subru like but it's like

(19:47):
this is helpful.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
I mean, let's be honest, if any car was a mom,
it would be a super Let's be real for trake, Yeah,
for sure.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
You can also get cars now with active cruise control
and not calling itself driving, because I think it's very
important for everyone to understand that there is no self
driving car on the market right now. The best you
can do is a car that lets you take your
foot off the gas and your hands off the wheel,

(20:14):
but you still have to sit there and pay attention
and step in if something happens that the car cannot handle.
And so that doesn't mean you can be on your phone.
That doesn't mean you can watch movies. It definitely doesn't
mean you can sleep. But just know that there are
these features out there. You're going to have to spend
to get them, but when you have a car with them,
the best way to think about them is that they

(20:36):
don't exist at all, because these are systems. They're really
meant to save you from mistakes, not save you from
kind of making the mistakes. So drive like you don't
have these features, but they will step in and you'll
be happy that you have them if an accident happens
or something like this.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
We'll be right back with more grown up stuff how
to adult. After a quick break, and we're back with
more grown up stuff how to adults. We've talked a
lot about identifying what you need a car for and

(21:15):
then using those points to choose the right car for
you and your needs, but a major point of interest
for many car buyers comparing makes and models is a
vehicle's MPG or miles per gallon it seems like every
few months the price of gas just keeps rising. Perhaps
this is one of the many reasons why purchases of
electric vehicles or evs increase in the US by two

(21:36):
thirds in twenty twenty two, According to data published by
JD Power. During that time, EV's accounted for five point
eight percent of all new vehicles sold that year. In
twenty twenty one, that number was just three point two percent. Plus.
With growing concern around human caused climate change, evs or
even hybrid models offer car shoppers seemingly greener options for

(21:59):
their everyday transferation. I want to talk a little bit
too about evs and hybrids. You know, millennials and gen
z like I think a lot of us are very
environmentally conscious, and we're trying to think about, Okay, if
we do have to buy a car, how can we
find a car that has a lower impact on the environment.
What are the differences between an EV and a hybrid?

(22:20):
What are the things we need to consider when deciding
between these two options. You know, what's the advantage of
buying one over the other? Are there tax advantages for
buying one over the other?

Speaker 4 (22:30):
Yeah, So, first you have what's known as an ice car,
which is an internal combustion engine, and that's a car
that runs on gas. Okay, then you have a hybrid.
There are a number of different types of hybrids. In fact,
most gas cars now or not most, but I'd say
a sizable minority are actually technically hybrids. Really but okay,
they're not the kind of hybrid that can drive under

(22:52):
electric power alone. They generally and this cracks me up
because a lot of times their performance cars and they
throw in an electric motor so you can go fast.
So it's using the technology to burn more gas. But
when you're looking at a hybrid, the two main types
that you're going to look at are a hybrid and
a plug in hybrid. A plug in hybrid is a
hybrid that you can plug in. And so what happens

(23:15):
is with let's say a regular hybrid, is it's got
a gas engine. It also has an electric motor and
some batteries. On a regular hybrid, those batteries are going
to be charged. This is really interesting. Every time you break,
it recaptures the friction from the braking to charge the battery.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
I've seen that battery.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
The electric motor is going to allow the gas engine
to turn off while you're at a stoplight, and it's
going to assist the car, so it uses less gas,
but it's really not going to allow you to drive
on electric power alone for any kind of distance, really
over a mile. A plug in hybrid, on the other hand,
is a car that you plug in and you charge
the batteries with electricity, you know, from your house or

(23:52):
from a charger, and then it will also regenerate some
of the power, you know, from the breaking. These you
can generally drive about twenty to thirty miles on electric
power alone, and then when you're out of electric power,
the gas engine kicks on and you're good to go.
I really really like plug in hybrids and recommend them
for almost everybody, simply because the charging infrastructure in a

(24:14):
lot of areas is not so good for evs, and
if you don't live in a house with a garage
or an apartment complex that has dedicated chargers, you're going
to have issues charging your car, and so a plug
in hybrid you don't have to worry about that. You
can just go to a gas station and drive normally.
The EV takes it a step further. It removes the
gas engine, so you are only on battery power, and

(24:35):
depending on how much money you spend, you can get
anywhere from like one hundred to over three hundred miles
of electric range with evs. The thing to really consider
is not only do I have access to a charging
facility regularly, but also what type of charging facility is
it and how quickly can my car take a charge

(24:57):
from that type of charging facility. So they're different levels
of charge, you know, A level one charge is basically
like I plugged it into the plug at my house.
And then there's level two chargers, which is basically like
I plugged it into the kind of outlet that a
dryer would use. You sometimes see a lot of these,
at least where I live. There are a lot of
level two chargers around like grocery stores and stuff, which

(25:18):
is great. You pull in, you charge, but they charge
really really slowly because they're not at a level that
like shoots out lightning. A level three charger is kind
of the equivalent of shooting lightning out into your car,
but still depending again on how much charge your car
can take and how quickly it can take it.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Kind of the holy grail that a lot.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
Of automakers shoot for is that the car will charge
to eighty percent in twenty minutes, and so that's something
you really need to think about. That said, pere evs
tend to have more tax incentives, which is really really
nice interesting provided that the right percentage of the car
has been assembled in the United States and has American
made car parts.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
These rolled out last.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
Year, you can get up to seventy five hundred tax credit.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Here's what's really neat about it.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Though.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
It used to be that you could get a huge
tax credit you with a hybrid, but you had to
wait until you filed your taxes, and for a lot
of people that was a pain, and that credit was
non transferable. What you can do now is you can
transfer that credit, say to the dealer, and get that
seventy five hundred bucks as a discount on the car,
which is really nice. I should say it's up to

(26:25):
seventy five hundred bucks. Again, depending on the type of
car that you're getting and how much of it was
made in the United States. You should also always check though,
because localities often have incentives for buying electric or hybrid cars,
so check those out as well, because that can save
you a significant amount of money. If your town, city
or state also has some incentives there.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Amazing, wasn't there a recent legislation that was signed through
where there will be more there's a certain number of
EV stations. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
Yeah, I mean, the thing is this infrastructure is not
going to change without government support, Like it's just not.
And so there've been some legislation that has been pushed
through to really help build out a national EV charging network.
But as private companies see that there is profit too
made in this end, you know, government subsidies to be
made in charging networks, there will be more of them available.

(27:17):
The other thing is Tesla has the best charging network.
The smartest thing that Tesla ever did was build out
the charging network as they built out the cars. And
they are now allowing other evs to use their chargers.
So I think Chevy and Fords can now use the
newer Chevy and Ford evs can use Tesla superchargers. Those
are really fast chargers. They're all over the place. It's

(27:39):
not a big deal at all to drive cross country
just on the Tesla supercharging network. So really look at
you know, if you're thinking about an EV, you have
a whole nother day of research to do on what
kind of charging network you're going to need, what's available
in your area. There are apps all over the place
that can help you figure this out, tons and tons
of businesses devoted to it. It's also very easy if

(28:01):
you just like google the name of the car you're considering,
and then forum. You're going to find a lot of
owner forums and you can ask your questions there from
people who are actually living it, and they're always super
passionate and super helpful.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Hybrids and evs are a great option when you're looking
at buying a car, especially as the infrastructure grows for
charging stations. But gas versus battery mileage is only a
small factor we should consider when choosing a car. We
want to know that whatever we buy it will be dependable,
that will get our money's worth and not end up
with a lemon. But what's the best resource to determine

(28:38):
the longevity and reliability of a car.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
So here at Coronum Stuff, we are big believers in
getting what you pay for. So let's say, you know,
we thought about the size of the vehicle. Let's say
we thought about the features that we want, and we've
thought about buying newer used.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
We've got it narrow down.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
To a couple of models of cars. With that in mind,
what are car reliability scores? Where can we find them?
And how can we use them to determine what kind
of car we should buy?

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Well, a car reliability score is like an index of
the data that the car reliability company has gathered on
that particular year, make and model. It's not very specific.
It just gives you kind of a ballpark. It can
help you kind of eliminate a car if the scores
are very very different. The other thing to remember, too,
is if you're looking at a car that's like less

(29:28):
than three years old, there's not going to be good
reliability data on it because not enough of them will
have broken down. That makes sense, So that's going to
be a little bit of a question there. There are
a number of sources about car reliability. None of them
are perfect, but you can kind of aggregate them and
get a sense. So JD Power is kind of like
the gold standard of automotive dependability and maintenance scores. They're

(29:52):
not perfect. So the way that JD Power gets their scores,
they have the initial quality study, which is after you
buy a car and like This is pretty cool. If
you ever buy a new car within the first three months,
Jdpower might send you a survey and you get a
dollar if you fill it out. I've done it, and
it's such a thrill to feel like you're contributing. But
the initial quality study just really looks at things that
have really gone wrong in the first thirty days. Then

(30:15):
Jdpower also has the vehicle dependability study, which they do
after the car has been on the road for a
couple of years, and people fill out the problems that
they've had with the car, and so that is a
pretty good data point. The only thing that I would
just caution people about is that all of the problems
people have with their cars are given the same weight.
So somebody's like radio not working is given the same

(30:37):
weight as somebody's transmission falling out on the highway. So
take that a little bit with a grain of salt.
Consumer Reports you have to pay to access it, but
if it saves you money and maintenance in the long term,
consider it an investment. Just get like a month worth
of Consumer Reports to go look at their car dependability ratings.
They tend to be really, really good. And then this

(30:57):
is another just kind of google hack, Google the year
model of the car that you're considering, and then problems
and what will come up is a lot of those
owner forums and you can kind of scan through and
see the issues that people are having and what it
costs to fix.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Car.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
MD is another place that they do a vehicle health study.
Theirs is just based on code readers, So those are
the things like when your check engine light comes on,
the mechanic plugs in a code reader, so again it's
not going to capture everything, but it's going to capture
a good chunk of it. And then here is a
little like hack that I absolutely love, love a hack,

(31:33):
and I am here to talk to you about your
car's extended warranty. What you can do is call up
an extended warranty company, give a fake name so they
don't call you back, and say, hey, what's the cost
for an extended warranty on this year, make and model
of a car? And what you can kind of tell
because these extended warranty companies they're going to make money

(31:54):
on that warranty. So if it has a super expensive
extended warranty, you don't want that car. That means it's
going to break a lot because they want you to
pay a lot in case they have to back up
that warranty if it has a cheap extended warranty or
a relatively cheap extended warranty. And just be clear, I'm
not saying you get the extended warranty. I'm saying get
quotes on the extended warranty. So you know, it's a

(32:15):
little bit of a backdoor way to figure it out,
but there are a ton of resources out there. But
just bear in mind, especially if you're buying a used car,
the previous owner could have just totally messed that car up,
so it's always going to be a little bit of
a gamble.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Well, car buying is not currently in the near future
for me, I do feel more equipped to figure out
when I'll be ready and how to find the right
car to fit my needs when that day does come.
For all of you who are thinking, wait a minute,
that's all you're going to talk about in How to
Buy a Car episode, please do not fret. Jamie had
so much great information to share about car buying that

(32:54):
we quite literally had to split this into two episodes.
But here's what I've learned from Jamie in this part
one of car buying grown up stuff. For starters, figure
out what you actually need a car for. Don't decide
on a huge, expensive car that you're really only going
to need maybe once or twice a year. Rent that
car instead. You'll end up saving money. Make a budget.

(33:15):
Determine how much you can afford on a down payment
and for monthly payments. But don't forget that this has
to include things like gas prices, maintenance for the car,
and insurance payments. Being upside down on a car loan
is bad news. This happens because the second you drive
off the lot, your new car depreciates in value significantly,
and if you've used a car loan, they only care

(33:37):
about the value you paid for the car, not its
current value. Ways you can avoid this a higher down
payment or get car insurance that will cover more than
the value of the car. There are a lot of
great safety features on cars today, including backup cameras, but
remember these should not be so heavily relied on. Think
of them more as a safety net if you make

(33:59):
a mistake, not a replacement for good driving practices. While
traditional hybrids run on both gas and electricity, they can't
go significant distances on battery alone. A plug in hybrid car, however,
can generate power from breaking like a traditional hybrid, but
you can also plug them into charge as well. These
types of hybrids can allow you to go twenty to

(34:19):
thirty times further on electric power alone. There's a lot
of ways to figure out how dependable or reliable your
new car is going to be. You can always check
out JD Power for free dependability ratings. That's all for
today's episode. Okay, Matt, Now, I know I ask you
at the end of every episode what's up next, but
I actually know this time what's up next because we

(34:40):
have more car buying guidance.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Jamie Page Eaton is joining us for part two, where
we will talk more about financing, compare buying new versus used,
and share tips for negotiating at a dealership.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
I love to haggle in any setting, so give me
all those discount car tips.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
We'll find out for sure in two weeks on the
next episode of Growing Up Stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
How do adults?

Speaker 1 (35:01):
And remember you might not always be graded in life,
but it never hurts to do your homework. This is
a production from Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Our Executive producers are Mally Sosha.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
And Matt Stillo. This episode was engineered by Matt Stillo.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
And written by Molly Sosha.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
This episode was fact checked by Casby.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Bias additional editing by Cierra Spreen.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
We want to thank our teammates at Ruby Studios, including
Ethan Fixel, Rachel Swan, Krasnov, Amber Smith, Deborah Garrett, and
Andy Kelly.
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