Two car accidents within two months!
Although you are very fortunate that neither of your girls were injured in the tow different car accidents that totaled their vehicles, you do not feel all that lucky having spent literally hours looking into the pricing, financing, and warranty options for new trucks and cars. And though both of the accidents were very different, the end result was the same. You were faced with a situation where you needed to find another good vehicle option within a pretty short amount of time.
Your 16 year old daughter’s accident happened first. She was coming home from school when a distracted driver turned right in front of your daughter who was driving a new vehicle that you had only been leasing for five months. She was not hurt, her car was totaled, and you were left struggling to find another vehicle. The trick was that you had spent months looking for the car that she was driving and had found one of the best lease deals you had ever had. With a short window to try to find a replacement, your main goal was to keep a monthly lease payment that was in the price range of what you had been paying. Fortunately, just a few hours before you went in to sign a lease that cost more than you wanted to spend, your husband saw a Saturday morning newspaper ad with a better deal. It was a Ford Edge and your daughter had been driving another kind of car, but in the end the change has worked out.
Your 20 year old daughter’s accident happened next, a month later than your younger daughter’s. Going to college 12 hours from home, she was not injured either. And while she was not ticketed in the accident, the police report indicated that it had been her fault when she rear ended a car that slammed on its brakes in front of her. Instead of driving a new car, your older daughter was driving a 16 year old F-150 extend cab truck that her Grandpa had given her. Although she loved this truck that had more than 120,000 miles, it was only valued at $5000 and, as a result was totaled. And while you would have loved to have been able to find her another truck to drive, the fact of the matter is that the new trucks were far out of your price range and you found it difficult to trust the miles that were on the used trucks on the lot.
Finding the right car on a short time schedule after an accident can be a challenge. Knowing the previous owner or trusting the dealer, however, can be helpful.
The sale of new cars and new trucks is expected to grow given that so many of the vehicles on the road today are getting much older. For instance, IHS Markit research indicates that more than 20 million vehicles on the road in 2021 will be over 25 years old. Fortunately, 43% of consumers see the dealership as a place to learn, so when it comes time to replace a current vehicle many of us have at least one dealer that we trust to give us not only a good deal, but a trustworthy vehicle.
