Originally Posted by Z_ealot

no offense taken here...for me personally and maybe a few others i imagine, it was more a factor of what i could afford at the time. my first car was chosen because it was cheap, cheap to maintain and easy on the wallet when it came to gas which all worked for me cause at the time i was going through school and working at a fast food joint. my second car was a little bit of a mistake as i was young at the time and let the dealer talk me into it thinking that they were going to "pay off" my first car, i didnt know anything about negative equity at the time nor did anyone tell me about it, but i thought i could afford it cause i had moved to another job at that time which paid better than fast food so i thought i could handle it. Needless to say that lasted for about 3 years until after having to drive it so much for work started leading to very expensive repair costs so i ended up having to let it go which lead to my downgrade again to a more affordable and cheaper to maintain car which was my 3rd car. This time i stuck to my guns and paid off the entire car, finished school, got a much better job, saved up for a while and then put a nice down payment on something i really wanted and it was soooo worth it