1023 N Broad St
Rome, GA 30161
1023 N Broad St
Rome, GA 30161
We sell used vehicles, so treat this as an argument rather than a neutral report. Here is the honest version anyway, including when new is the right answer.
Three things, and it is worth separating them because people usually want one and pay for all three. A factory warranty, which is genuine peace of mind. A finance rate the manufacturer may be subsidizing, which can be worth real money. And the exact specification you chose, in the color you chose, with nobody else's history attached to it.
If what you want is the second one, it is worth checking properly. A promotional rate on new can occasionally beat a higher rate on a cheaper used vehicle once you run the total cost. That is arithmetic rather than opinion, and it sometimes lands on the side of new.
Somebody else's first year. Depreciation is steepest at the beginning and flattens afterwards, which means a two or three year old vehicle has already taken the largest single hit it will ever take. You get a current-generation vehicle, with modern safety equipment, at a price that reflects a loss you did not have to absorb.
Ex-lease vehicles are worth knowing about here. A lease usually requires servicing on schedule and returns the vehicle at a defined mileage, so they tend to arrive with the maintenance done and a predictable amount of use behind them.
Ask how long you intend to keep it. If the answer is ten years, the first-year loss spreads thin and the warranty and the rate start to dominate; new deserves a serious look. If the answer is three or four years, you would be buying the steepest part of the curve and selling into the flat part, which is the wrong way around.
Then ask whether you need a specific build. If you want a particular engine, trim and color combination, waiting for the right used one is a real cost in time and you may not find it. If you mostly need a dependable vehicle of roughly the right shape, the used market gives you far more to choose from at any given budget.
Most of what we carry is late model, and that is a deliberate buying decision rather than a coincidence. It is the part of the market where the depreciation argument is strongest and the vehicle is still current. We would rather stock fewer vehicles in that band than fill the lot with older stock that is cheaper to buy and harder to stand behind.
If after reading this you conclude that new is right for you, that is a perfectly good outcome and we would rather you worked it out before spending the money than after.
It depends on which problem you are solving. New buys you a factory warranty, sometimes a subsidized finance rate, and the exact specification you want. Used buys you the same vehicle after somebody else has absorbed the steepest depreciation. If you keep vehicles a long time and can get a low rate, new can make sense. For most buyers, a two to three year old vehicle is where the value sits.
Enough that it is the single biggest cost of new-car ownership, usually more than fuel and servicing combined over that period. The exact figure varies by model and by how the market is behaving, but the shape is consistent: the curve is steepest at the start and flattens out. Buying after the steep part is the whole argument for nearly new.
Generally yes. It is old enough that the depreciation has slowed and young enough that it is still a current-generation vehicle with modern safety equipment. Many are still inside some portion of their original powertrain coverage, and the ones that came off a lease have usually been serviced on schedule because the lease required it.
When the manufacturer is offering a finance rate you cannot match anywhere else, when you need a specification nobody has ordered used, or when you plan to keep the vehicle for ten years and the first-year loss stops mattering spread across that long. Those are real situations and we will tell you when you are in one.
No. We are an independent used lot, so this page is not a neutral document and it would be silly to pretend otherwise. What we can honestly say is that most of our stock is late model, and the reason we buy that way is the same reason this guide recommends it.