New Car Buying
 

Is spending thousands of dollars for a new car worth the expense to get
all the latest safety features and a increase on my insurance premium at my age of 82 yrs.?

Not possible to answer this. A personal decision financially and a Financial Advisor would require much more information to help.

Of course, you’re about to receive quite a few opinions here….

In my opinion, yes, as long as you can afford to pay cash. Note that, when I traded in my 13 year old vehicle for a new vehicle about 5 years ago, my insurance premium actually decreased because of the extra safety features. Although, I have a very high liability limit.

We just did this,
Pre-Collision System with Pedestrian Detection
Dynamic Radar Cruise Control
Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist
Lane Tracing Assist
Road Sign Assist
Automatic High Beams
Proactive Driving Assist
It was a no brainer

My father purchased his last new car at age 94.

It was one of those life enjoyments for him.

He put less than 10,000 miles / year on his car.

Buy one and enjoy.
(don't rely on safety features in order to keep driving)

All depends upon the value you assign to those safety features. For me, it's a definite yes, as those safety features could potentially save my life.

If my current car was working well I would only look at a new car because I felt the safety features would help keep me safer than the old car. For example a self drive car might be a lot safer for local travel than some one in poor health driving.

We also bought a couple of years ago for safety features, same as yours - well worth the cost if it saves a life.

Both my and I and my stepson bought new vehicles within the last 2 years and we all got LOWER insurance rates, not much lower but lower. In both cases this was due to the additional safety features.

We added a second car two years ago.

Was driving 2011 Camry went to 2021 Camry with safety features.

Saved me from an accident so answer is yes.

[QUOTE=Michael G.;2270357]Is spending thousands of dollars for a new car worth the expense to get
all the latest safety features and a increase on my insurance premium at my age of 82 yrs.?[/QUOTE
There are a lot of reasons for "car buying" your the judge, but given the current supply /demand situation one could make a good argument for putting off the purchase , if you can. Certainly a auto dealership is there to make money and right now are less inclined to make a "deal" without a market adjustment heavily in their favor, I will try to add a graph from FRED of domestic auto inventories

Buying a car, house, boat, swimming pool should not involve a financial advisor unless you are buying something over a million dollars, actually you shouldn’t need a personal advisor at all. At our age, every transaction at our age should be based on wants and needs.
If you want a new car buy it. Get all the new safety features as you can afford. Also, at our age, you have to think about getting stranded somewhere because a used car broke down, you have a better chance of not breaking down in a new car.
Do your homework before buying new or used to see if there is a trend in problems/class actions against this car. I actually got rid of a newer car years ago because this manufacturer had issues with their cars/trucks just coming to a stop out of the blue. It happened to us. They told us they fixed the problem. When I went out on the web and investigated this issue, thousands were having this same problem but the manufacturer wouldn’t classify this as a recall. I didn’t want my wife stranded somewhere so I got rid of the truck.

What car did you buy

yes a no brainer

Yes, because you are older and live in Florida. Many older drivers that should not be driving and the state is the leader in insurance fraud.