hi,

I’m approaching the end of my Camry lease in July. After making some moronic decisions with my past 2 car purchases I want to make the best possible decision this time. I recognize that a car is not an investment as it just depreciates but I want to be conscious of the total cost of ownership as well as safety features with this purchase. I’ve saved up 17k ontop of my emergency fund which I can either use to buy out my 2015 Camry lease residual, buy a different used vehicle, or put a large down payment on a new car, preferably a 2018 CamryIf I buyout my lease I’ve eliminated car payments and have a low mileage 2015 Camry with a residual that should be just under market value. The issues are I didn’t exactly baby the car in the past 3 years as I wasn’t anticipating buying it out. Also, the car is lacking many of the safety features I wanted to upgrade to as I anticipate my wife and I having kids in the next couple years.In my head, perhaps because my father told me “never buy new” I feel like a sucker buying new as I would be the one taking the depreciation hit and would be committing to more monthly payments. On the upside I make over 200k and could easily pay it off quickly, I’d be getting every safety/convenience feature I want, and would get the benefit of the new warranty.Lastly, I’ve ruled out buying a heavily used car as I had my fair share of those in my life and am not mechanically inclined enough to identify a good/bad deal or handle repairs myselfIf you were in my position what would you do? Does it ever make sense to buy new over used with a car like a Camry?

Please help.

I did not find the right solution from the internet.

References:-
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=241254
Digital content production service

Thanks