You also have to factor in maintenance into your "I saved a ton" comments. That and how long you plan to keep your vehicles. If you buy new and keep it for 15 years you're not far, if at all, behind buying a pair of used vehicles in that time.
Example 1: If you buy car a for 20 grand, you get 5 years of warranty and then pay an average of 1 grand a year for maintenance until vehicle death at 20. Car b you buy for 10 grand 5 years used and start spending 1 grand a year for maintenance. After 15 years car b cost you 25 grand while car a cost 30 grand. 5 more years car 1 cost is now 35 and you needed to buy another used car... Sure this is mega simplistic but there is more to it then "buy used, it's half off!"
Example 2: A new Tacoma is about 40 grand. Used a 5 year old Tacoma is about 25grand with 100k. Assuming a 300k vehicle life the new one costs 13.3 g's/100k and the used one costs 12g's/100k. You pay the same maintenance for mileage 100k-300k so really you're paying a minor "premium" of 2.5g's over 100k for a new vehicle. (I made all those numbers up for simplicity but when I bought my Frontier new vs. used was pretty close to a wash.)
As for paying in cash - there is no such things as 0% financing. You will get a better deal if you pay cash. My truck was 0% for 5 years or $5,000 back. I would have needed a guaranteed after tax return of about 5%/yr on my investment to make 0% financing come out ahead of the cash discount.
Just for fun, the TSX is up ~2,000 pts or about 20% (~4%/yr after tax) since I bought my truck. 0% financing would have been pretty close after all...
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