Kuching Car Buying Guide (For new lower medium class people)

This guide is based on my own experiences of purchasing so far 3 cars throughout my life and current intention of selling the 3rd car and buying the fourth car (I hope your not confused). The guides are as below:

1. Understand yourself truly to know which car is suitable.

-Are you a new driver? Yes? Then the best option is to buy a cheap small reliable car (possibly new if you don't know heck about cars). There are a few reasons why, first of all, that is what you can afford for the time being if you want to save your money from depreciation, interest, initial cost, operation and maintenances cost. Depreciation is when you buy a new car and the car value drops 5% to 90% (Depends on the brand, car condition, market, etc.. even if its still new and you have just drove it for a meter the value will drop at least 10%). My first car is a new car worth RM 44k and I sold it off after 2 years for RM 33k a trade in with a second hand recondition Japan car for RM 50k and I didn't get anything back. I was lucky then (at least i thought so at that time) as i did not need to add any money to trade in (it is very common to add money nowadays as the value of second hand is worse now due to the market condition). Interest is where the bank charge you for borrowing their money to buy your ride.

(Example:

X, Loan amount = Rm 50,000.00 (car price OTR) - RM 5,000.00 (Downpayment) = RM 45,000.00

Y, Interest = 3.8%

Z, Loan Term = 5 Yrs

How much you pay INTEREST ONLY = RM 45,000.00 x 3.8% x 5 = RM 8,550.00)

So think twice before you decide to increase the values of the three variables X, Y and Z.

To be continue...