Wow! same car for 17 years, that`s epic! What is the car? Any pics?
My situation was similar. Bought my first car in 2008. 55k salary, 120k savings, the car was 320k. My dad got a personal loan for me (200k). 12.5k monthly installment for the loan.
The loan was approximately 22.7% of income. Had zero responsibilities back then, so spent the rest of the income mostly on alcohol and cruising around with girlfriend (maybe 10% savings).
^^ This is solid advice. Unless you are directly making money from a car (e.g. rent/taxi) OR using the car to help with making money (e.g. sales/marketing job) spending a larger percentage of income on an expensive depreciating asset is never a good thing.
It's better to always calculate (at least an approximation) of the total cost of ownership of a car. You may find that the total cost of ownership, over say 5 years is, is extremely higher than the actual value of the car.
People might say that cars' dont lose value in SL, but that'd
total rubbish. "අපි අවුරුදු 10ට කලින් ලක්ෂ 60 ගත්ත එක දැන් 90...." >> you see comments like this everywhere. The nominal value of 60 laks and 90 laks does
NOT mean that you made money from the car. The Rupee actually depreciated and lost value, so you cant buy much with the 90 laks 10 years later !!
Having said all this, once you have enough assets and income, the value of a normal car (not super luxury stuff) becomes nothing.
