Buying a car is a big decision and one of the first questions that comes to mind during the car shopping process is -- should I buy a new car or a used car?

Warranty,  Complimentary Maintenance and Roadside Assistance

When you buy a new car not only do you get a warranty, but today, many car manufacturers today have added in a couple years of roadside assistance (which includes battery jumpstart, gas delivery, flat tire service or towing) and complimentary maintenance.

 For instance,

NowCar’s best-selling brand, Dodge, includes a basic limited warranty of 3 years or 36,000 miles, a 5-year or 60,000-mile powertrain warranty,
and 5 years or 100,000 miles of unlimited roadside assistance. Chevy has taken their warranty plan a step further and offers the same basic and powertrain
warranties, five years or 60,000 miles of roadside assistance, and two oil and oil filter changes and tire rotations within two years or 24,000 miles.
For a comprehensive list of new car warranty benefits by the biggest manufacturers, click here.

 Also keep in mind, if you buy a used car from a private seller, it’s warranty may have expired. If you want to purchase an extended warranty,
it could mean another couple thousand dollars out of you pocket. you will need to pay the total cost of the extended warranty up front.
And, most likely, you would not be able to include the cost of that extended warranty in your financing.

Fuel savings

Fuel savings are a big motivator in purchasing or leasing a new car. If buying a car is truly an economic decision, buying a car that saves money in gas will benefit your pockets until you can no longer drive it. Yes, currently the cost of fuel is more affordable than it has been in five years, but that will most-likely not be a continuous trend.  

Think about this …

A vehicle that gets 30 MPG will cost you $430 less to fuel each year than one that gets 20 MPG -- this is assuming you do 15,000 miles of driving annually and the cost of fuel is $1.72.
Over a period of 5 years, the 30-MPG vehicle will save you $2,150.

And, if gas prices were to go back up to an average of $3 per gallon, the car that gets 30 MPG
will save you  $750 per year and $3,750 in five years. That’s pretty significant.

You know its history

CarFax reports are a great way to find out the car’s past history in terms of damages or major repair work, but even if a second-hand car doesn’t have a bad CarFax history, that doesn’t mean it was properly cared for or driven well. This is an especially important factor to consider when buying a truck or an SUV because towing can create a lot of wear and tear on many of a car’s most important and expensive parts like the transmission.

Safe Technologies

Technology is changing all the time, and even though there’s only a difference of one year, 2016 model year cars have a handful of more available tech-based safety features than those of 2015. Inspired by the law passed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2014, rear-view cameras are becoming increasingly popular in even basic trims and in 2018 100% of all cars sold in the U.S. will have that feature. Other recent technology-based safety features include lane departure warnings and all-around monitoring systems.

Anticipating a new sixteen-year-old driver in the family?

Car safety is even more important, but don’t worry many new cars have a feature to increase safety among teen drivers. Chevrolet has just introduced
a new safety feature called Teen Driver. What this can do is mute the stereo until all seatbelts are fastened. It also provides parents with the ability to set stereo
maximum volume and select a maximum speed between 40 and 75 mph, which activates a visual warning and audible chime if exceeded.

Currently, Teen Driver is available on the 2016 Chevy Malibu. Teen Driver can also track distance driven, maximum speed traveled, over-speed warnings
issued, stability control events  and antilock brake events. Ford has a similar product called MyKey. This safety feature lets parents block explicit satellite radio stations
and limit audio volume to 44 percent of total volume. A do-not-disturb feature blocks phone calls and holds text messages on phones paired with Sync.