How to Buy a Car - Assignment Example

The paper "How to Buy a Car" is a good example of an assignment on finance and accounting. I had a budget of $12,000 to buy a personal car. I made searches and settled on a Toyota Camry LE because it was within the limits of my budget. The car was going for $ $11,980 at cars.com. The Toyota Camry LE 2007 edition is one of my favorite cars and I have been saving to purchase the car. I got a recommendation from a close relative who owned a similar car and had given me so much praise about the car. The relative had traded in a Cadillac for the 2007 Camry LE and noted that he had incurred very little expenses in repairing his Camry. I dislike cars that make one spend a lot on repairs and that was the main reason that I settled on selecting the 2007 Toyota Camry LE (CCH Tax Law Editors, 2008).

            The car boasts of unique features such as reliability, comfort, and cost. Ratings from previous owners of the car are amazing. According to ratings from cars.com, the comfort, performance, exterior styling, interior design, value for money and reliability are rated 4, 5, 4, 4, 5 out of 5 respectively. These are incredible ratings that got my attention. The fact that owners were giving good ratings for the 2007 Camry LE made me choose the car (Munroe, 2008). The car was also voted the Motor Trend Car of the year based on features such as performance and fuel efficiency. This is the type of car that many middle-income earners dream of driving given the fact that there has been a rise in the cost of gas and fuel.

            Kelly Blue Book provided three different prices for the 2007 Camry LE including $11,980, $13,735 and $12,915. These prices were based on the different mileage of the cars quoted in Kelly Blue Book website. I noted that the prices had a significant variance despite the fact that the cars had different levels of mileage. I compared the prices quoted in cars.com with Kelly Blue Book and discovered that the latter was overpricing its car. It was only one of their suggested prices that were similar to the one quoted in cars.com while the remaining two prices were higher by a significant margin.

            The differences in the prices of the 2007 Toyota Camry LE can be explained by a number of factors. As mentioned earlier, mileage is the main factor that accounted for the price differences. The mileages for the car were 96,402, 89,743, 96,705 and were priced $12,915         $11,980 and $13,735 respectively. The other feature that may have accounted for the differences in prices may have been the color of the cars. The highest-priced car was black in color whereas the other two were red in color (Munroe, 2008).  

.           I was surprised to discover that the car that I had selected in cars.com had higher mileage than all the 2007 Toyota Camry LE listed by Kelly Blue Book. I was of the opinion that the higher the mileage the lower the price and yet the car that I had selected had a mileage of 107,000 and was priced at $11,980 (Landsburg, 2008). A car of a similar amount listed by Kelly Blue Book had a mileage of 96,402.