[wheelspinner]

The habit of Impulse Buying
I'm sure many here would relate. I'm an impulse buyer and often regret my purchase decisions. I've impulse bought gadgets and regret the decision years later when I realise that it is now a burden for me that has no use in my small apartment with very little space. As such, I decided to purposefully delay my car purchase.

My decision about a car purchase
I live in a small city with empty roads and fairly decent transport modes. In short, there was no immediate need for a car except from a dream/aspirational perspective. So I started looking for used cars so as to fulfill this dream as the prices of new ones were eye watering.

Eventually, it turned into a longer delay as I wanted to buy a well kept used car. Unfortunately, every car I found was overpriced and was in need of major repairs. The seemingly perfect car I occassionally found got sold by the time I could reach the owner/dealer.

The other option was to impulse buy a new car out of the showroom. However, each time I walked by car showrooms I held my horses. For me, a car isn't really a need of the hour as I can avail cheaper modes of transport. It's more of a fancy and I didn't want to impulse buy something only to regret later.

I've mostly seen that people in my city (a tier 2 city in India) tend to impulse buy cars only to leave them standing in their garages. Thereafter, they use their bikes or public transport more often due to increasing fuel prices. What about your locality/city?

What about you?

Have you bought a car by impulse only to regret later that you have a huge liability?

Or, did you hit the bulls eye and the car still meets your needs in the long run?

[Pyrotek]

I bought my Tucson petrol automatic out of an impulse. But I have zero regrets. It's an excellent upgrade from my previous S-Cross diesel manual. The S-Cross was in fine condition and I could have easily soldiered on for another 5 years. But the itch to upgrade was too much to be left unscratched.

[Satkaj]

My Skoda Superb purchase was absolutely impulsive. We were in a showroom checking Octavia comparing against Jetta at that point of time. I happen to sit in Superb and asked my wife - how do you find this car? I am buying this! I would say, car purchase is a need but switching and up scaling is impulsive during the process.

[Bhodrolok]

The decision to buy a car was a need but which car to buy was purely heart over head. If I need to drive something every day for next 5- 7 years, I better be sure that I actually like it.

[cryptarchy]

I hate driving in crowded city. That is why I did not buy a car for a long time. But I got tired of arguing with cab and auto drivers, travelling in dirty cabs, getting stuffed like cattle in public buses. Looking back I made the correct decision, I got a small hatchback that is easy to drive and easy to park and it provides me enough comfort and privacy.

[revsperminute]

Both actually.

Our daily drivers are bought out of need and the finer stuff in the garage are results of impulse buying or desire to own them over their actual need in the utility sense.

According to me, more often than not, cars belonging to the >50L price bracket are bought because of a desire to own them or are impulse purchases.

[GTO]

I am a quick decision maker and usually decide on the car I'd like to buy in advance (sometimes, years in advance). I was very sure about the 1st-gen City Vtec, Civic, 530d etc. long before I actually bought them.

So in that sense, most car purchases have been planned.

On the other hand, the Thar was definitely an impulsive buy. I always loved the Thar, but had another Jeep, so there was no hurry. Late last year though, it went from merely thinking about the Thar to paying for it in a week. Total impulse buy and no regrets at all. It has given us more smiles per mile than any other car I've owned.

[heydj]

My current car purchase is a mix of need / impulse and sheer stupidity.

I needed to buy a car as I love going for drives so thought of buying Thar Petrol AT, this would have been a perfect buy for my limited weekend needs.

However I fell into the trap of asking too many people their views and before long my own view got trampled by myself and I ended up buying Tucson Diesel AT.

Now there again I would have been perfectly fine with Tucson Petrol AT but again fell into the trap of asking people for views and ended up with Tucson Diesel AT.

However silver lining in all this is that I have fantastic car i.e. Tucson Diesel AT. Every time I drive it I end up with a smile. Its just that I would have been perfectly happy with Thar Petrol AT and every time I sit in friends Thar I am filled with regret.

So my limited need turned into impulse buy purely because of my own stupidity of not sticking to my first decision. Hopefully will get to buy Thar soon and put this matter to rest.

[S.MJet]

Looking at my last two cars I fall in impulse buyer category.

Fiat Punto in 2012 and the current ride Seltos 2019. In both cases I fell for the design, test drove both, found nothing off and got them home. In both cases there was no immediate need of a new car.

Had/have some disappointments with both them, Service availably of Punto and poor/harsh ride & safety rating of Seltos.

[SixPistons]

My i20 can be qualified as an impulse choice. Feb 2023, I was looking for a 4/5 year old beater in 3-5L budget. But since I couldn’t find a good petrol hatch in that budget and all options explored for about 6 weeks were overpriced for the course, I ended up going for a brand new i20 N Line DCT.

Regrets: No.
Could I have chosen better: Financially speaking, yes. Probably if I had searched and waited a bit, I could’ve got a better deal on a pre-used option.

[R4m4kr15hn4n]

In, what one would describe as a bizarre turn of events, I ended up making the most impulsive decision of my life till date.

30th Dec morning, random talks with family members about upgrading to Carens from the current car. 3 hours later, booked the only available variant of the car. Am yet to take the delivery of the car, but the only twinge of regret I have is that it’s a July manufactured vehicle. So missing a few upgrades via-a-vis the Oct-Dec manufactured ones, but I can assuage myself by the fact that I got a hefty discount for it.

Hence, a gentle request to all, kindly don’t berate me for this decision.

Cheers and Happy New Year!!!

[Sahil]

This may sound like an oxymoron but I am ONLY impulsive when it's a steal deal. Whether new or used.

If I have to quantify "steal deal":
For new car it needs to be 20% + off ex-showroom price.
For used car it has to be sparingly used less than 3 years old and available at half it's current new car price. Could also be looked at as getting a used higher segment model for the price of a lower segment model when new. For example: Getting a 7 series used for the price of a brand new 5 series.

My value side (head) does not let my impulsive side (heart) cross its line. But if the head’s criteria are met then the heart will follow promptly and impulsively.

[YashodhanGanu]

One fine rainy day (8th August) 2023 while I was seeing a youtube video of the Tiago EV, my father peeked at the screen and asked me a question - " Gaadi chaan ahe! Kiti chi aahe?" Which for those who don't understand Marathi means - The car looks good! How much does it cost?

I casually give him the answer and the next thing I remember is him asking me to arrange for a test drive.

I kid you not, the sales person was at our door within 15 minutes and after the test drive my father handed over the cheque to the sales person who was stunned.

All this happened in a space of 45 minutes. Took delivery of the car on 31st August.

[tazmaan]

Calculated Impulsive yes !

I fell in love with Pick up trucks (UTEs) when I was studying in Australia.

During that time only available option in India was Tata Xenon but could not convince myself to buy one.

When the Isuzu V-cross was launched in 2016 bought one from the initial batch itself. It was impulsive since I had no plans or a need for a car at that time.

Fast forward to September 2023. After all the hype about discounts on Hilux, I decided to visit a showroom near my house. Idea was just to window shop and check for the deals available. Within One hour ended up buying the Hilux At and sold the V-cross a week after the delivery.

The purchase was impulsive but I had already done a lot of research on Hilux, while waiting for the launch of all new V-cross.

[sheelapratosh]

Twice.

When XUV500 was launched, I booked one before seeing the car in person. Something about the XUV! Sure, I followed the thread in Team BHP for a long time. The last few images posted in our forum were a bit scary(due to camera angles). But I just booked it before even seeing one. I loved the car till I upgraded to a Jeep compass. No regrets.

When a 2022 Polo TSI AT was available in the market recently, I made an impulse buy within a day. The car was 1.5 years old, single owner, 9000km driven, mint condition. However, my height is just not setting well in a polo. I developed some lower back pain. This one is something I regret- as I installed some fancy music system&unable to sell it now-as the cost is not agreeable to potential buyers.