You’re right it is a long term investment, just wish I could have found one in the two months I’ve been looking. I run a painting business and I can’t manage it anymore in a sedan, I need something to move material around from jobs so I’m really hurting for one right now and have been putting it off as long as I can while I look for something I like. I did find one that was quad cab v8 and nicer interior that had 3k miles on it but after car fax I found it already had 4 owners and damage to the under carriage at some point. Was super bummed i was almost ready to pull the trigger on it.
IIRC, I looked for a pre-enjoyed truck for more than 6 months before looking at deals on new trucks from the previous year. It made no sense to me to not buy new because saving $3-$5K on a 2-year-old truck with 20K miles or more is ridiculous. Obviously, prices vary by location.
Just a crazy thought, would a 30-day rental for work make sense? You could try to compromise on the rental if it meant saving a buck and after you're done with the short-term rental, it's no biggy if it wasn't perfect whereas more time to find the right truck for you, for the long haul, would be advantageous.
This might remove that background stress you might carry associated with needing to find that new truck yesterday. Just spitballing.
I know up here at least, a vehicle rental can be claimed as a business expense on the tax return. I would expect you can do the same with the IRS.
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