Highly individual decision and matter of personal preference and what one's budget can tolerate, I suppose. My dad gave me but two pieces of advice regarding car purchases:
1. All car dealer sales and finance people will tell you anything you want to hear to make the deal, whether it's in your interest or not.
2. Ideally, pay cash, if not, finance it no longer than 3 years.
Problem is #2 was great advice 45 years ago. Now that vehicle prices are looking more like home prices in the 70's & 80's, it's tough to come up with sufficient size down payment for many. Of course, lenders have that covered with the creation of the 'subprime' auto loan. And currently, there's an estimated 1 TRILLION DOLARS worth of them in the US that are either delinquent more than 60 days and/or underwater.
