Another thing to keep in mind is insurance. Once you have narrowed your search down to a couple of models, phone your insurance company with all the info and get some quotes from them.
A lot of it comes down to the safety factors in the car from the collision tests. Of course if you get a luxury car, you can expect to pay more than if you buy an economy car.
But if you are going with models that are all pretty well in the same classification, big differences can come into play with insurance.
For instance, the Sante Fe I just bought in June. I previously had a 2002 Honda CRV. The insurance for my new Sante Fe is around $100 cheaper than for my old Honda, mainly because of safety test results and due to past history claims put in by people on those two models.
So then when I got quotes for the 3.3L Sante Fe, the 3.5L Rav4, the Honda CRV and the Ford Escape, the two cheapest by far were the Sante Fe and the Escape.
And enough to make a big difference if you kept the vehicle for 3 to 5 years.
I pay not quite $800 per year for the Sante Fe, and both the CRV and the Rav4 would have been close to $1200. Add that up over a few years, makes a big difference in resale of those vehicles. Yeah, maybe they hold their price a bit better, but if you consider insurance and other costs, comes out about even.
And in terms of purchase price, the Sante Fe was over $5000 cheaper than the Rav4.
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