How much car should you buy?

Article written by soccer kits 2014 

When it comes to buying a car, many of us go after our dreams regardless whether we can afford it or not. This is a true statement for many young car buyers but not so much with older buyers. Is there a rule that everyone should follow when buying a car?

The Internet is full of those rules to follow. One rule that took my attention says that you should follow 20/4/10 rule. Down payment of 20 percent, finance it for no more than four (4) years and don’t exceed the total cost of the car including insurance exceed 10 percent of your gross monthly income. Not bad advice. Average price of a new car today is around $32,000. Sales people are trained to sell and they will try their best to add other bells and whistles. But many sales people will also try to entice you with lower interest loans and longer repayment period to suit your monthly budget. This is where many of us get into trouble with buying a car. Do your homework and understand your financial limitations before going to a dealership. Do not borrow money to pay the down payment. Both loans can burden you to a breaking point.

Dealer options to skip when buying a new car

Should you sign up for some of the options promoted by sales staff at dealerships? Here are some of our thoughts on few of those options.

  • Fabric protection: It is a spray that the dealership will add on to the top of the existing fabric and promoted as protection coverage. It could add $100 or more to your purchase price and cost them next to nothing. Many do not like adding more chemicals to whatever we touch, so why pay more for it?
  • Rust-proofing: Be aware of this. Certain auto makers may void the factory corrosion perforation warranty if the car is undercoated by a third party. Today’s cars come with factory coated rust proofing. Undercoating provided by the dealer could add $200 to $1,200 to your bottom line. Rust proofing may also be bundled with some dealer options known as environmental protection package. You don’t need this.
  • Paint protection: They may call it year around environmental protection for your car and can add up to $200 to the purchase price. Vehicles of today are designed to take washing and polishing well. Some European car models come with more than several coatings. This is another sales pitch you don’t need.

How Automakers Make Everything Shiny and Chrome

Automakers have a unique challenge. They must not only design a car from scratch, which requires a variety of materials and a lengthy manufacturing process, they must produce cars people want to drive. In the case of muscle cars and speed racers, that typically involves lots of chrome. Manufacturers use a PVD coating process to get that shiny metallic finish, but that’s not the only thing it can do.

Take a peek under the hood and you’ll see quite a few parts that have undergone some form of metallization. Metallization is a process that coats one object, say plastic, in metallic substances like aluminum or copper. It is also used to give a uniform finish, like the chrome tail pipe on a motorcycle or classic car.

PVD systems have seen a surge of use in the past thirty years, especially when it comes to high-performance parts.

Chrome Parts

Anything with a chrome finish probably received PVD coatings. Chrome is very different in appearance from brushed metal, which undergoes an intense sanding process aimed at smoothing the metal. Brushed metal can look attractive too, certainly on the interior of cars or on accessories, but chrome has a kind of uniform sheen to it that other metals can’t really match. That’s because chrome is applied through the metallization process, which evenly rotates the part (engineers call it a “substrate”) to receive a uniform coating.

Metalizing Plastic

In high-performance vehicles, like a NASCAR speedster, some parts are actually made of plastic. It’s because the engine is driven so hard, plastic makes more sense economically than using all metal parts. The metal parts will break down just as quickly, and they cost significantly more than coating plastic in metal.

This is similar to technology already used in the cockpits and hulls of jet liners for the aerospace industry.

Advantages

The biggest advantage has to be cost-savings, but there is a hidden advantage too. Cost savings happens on the manufacturer side because fewer materials are wasted during the manufacturing process. Parts are cheaper to produce, and fewer materials are needed to finish the job.

Finally, the materials themselves have completely different properties. Metallization makes plastic much more resistant to wear and heat, which means that cars are cheaper to produce and they last longer too.

Don’t forget that this technology is not limited to metal alone. Windows can be treated with anti-glare coatings, and various finishes can be applied using the same process.
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With clients in the United States and China, Denton Vacuum, LLC specializes in the manufacture of thin-film technology.