“ I dream of owning a Ferrari/Range Rover/Lamborghini/Maserati one day”
Aside from a house, purchasing a car is the second-biggest life decision that you’ll likely have to make, so it’s important to always do a reality check before doing so. In the automotive world, it’s easy to be drawn to what’s shiny and new; that is why luxury cars exist. However, it can quickly become a disturbing wake up call when it comes to the true cost of ownership.
With great prestige comes great responsibility. What do I mean by this?
Whilst it’s really novel to own a vehicle that is rare. While you own it – but can u think (and swallow) these 3 considerations:
1. Loss of value of the car, as depreciation hits every car, and even more so for a luxury/rare car as it suffers from lower demand. Why? Because there’s a larger market for Toyotas and Hondas than there are for Maseratis and Range Rovers, per se. Get ready to take a loss.
2. Servicing a luxury car and finding car parts (especially post warranty period) can be tricky on repairs and parts are likely to cost more and not for the faint hearted, especially for foreign luxury models.
3. Last but not least, if you want to sell it, or URGENTLY need to sell it for whatever the reason – Good luck finding a buyer as your market is quantifiably much smaller than your typical “common” vehicle.
Do not be too surprised to observe the car value drop each year/month and it may not be able to yield a value to cover the outstanding car loan (and you will find your self topping up the balance). Unless you plan to keep the car forever, this is something you will have to consider that will impact your financial situation.
If you are thinking of buying a rare car – you can actually quantify how rare the car is by looking at JPJ database https://data.gov.my/dashboard/car-popularity . Yes there is some cool data extracted from JPJ on this! I have screenshot the most popular car vs a luxury car for comparison.
So do you really want to be the only 30 owners in the country to own a rare luxury car?