My Dad is retired from Ford and I think auto industry babies are from one of two camps: Car lovers or car users.

I’m a car user. I’ve never picked out a car in my life. The two cars I’ve owned began as lease cars and I purchased the gently used vehicles through my father’s connections at work. Sure there are other cars I like better, but my philosophy about cars is “if it gets me from here to there (and now that I have kids, can transport all of the people and stuff I need to), that’s all I need.”

Needless to say, I can’t stomach the idea of spending more than $20,000 on a vehicle. But for many folks, that new car smell and the feeling of driving a new car off the lot is a powerful aphrodisiac. At least it was before the recession.

Now, Edmunds.com is seeing that more and more people are buying used. Approximately 511,000 used cars sold in the past three months would have been new car sales in a more normal economy, according to new data.

“Projecting ahead, this could represent a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of more than two million vehicles, which equates to more than 15 percent of total new car sales. In manufacturing terms, that amounts to about two assembly plants’ new car production,” said Edmunds.com.

If you were to buy a car right now, would you go used? Or would you head to a desperate dealer in search of a bargain?

There are a lot of low interest rates and rebate deals out there. Plus the new stimulus encourages new car buying by allowing buyers of new cars and trucks worth up to $49,500 to deduct sales or excise tax even if the buyer takes the standard deduction.

Minnesota imposes a 6.5 percent sales tax for car purchases.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 5:27 pm and is filed under economy, shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.