QOTD: How Much Will You Pay for a New Car?

Last week, we told you that Americans are paying more for new cars than they’ve ever paid before while enjoying record-high incentives. Car buyers are able to spend more in large part because the payment terms are longer than ever before.

The average new vehicle purchase now requires a $32,900 expenditure, made possible by incentives of $3,550 per car and a loan term of 69.3 months. The average payment is now $517 per month.

But how much would you pay? What’s your maximum price, your maximum payment, your maximum term length?

The easy answer: it depends.

Perhaps you’d be willing to spend more on a pickup truck than a midsize car, or vice versa. $50,000 sounds like a lot when you’re talking about a Volkswagen Touareg, but it doesn’t sound like much when you’re considering a Porsche Cayenne. $57,045 for the Shelby GT350 Mustang, the type of car for which you’ve always dreamed, is a scream of a deal; $33,450 for a basic no-options BMW 320i is not.

“It depends,” however, doesn’t answer the question. We want to know where the typical TTAC audience member sets its max. Are you simply unable to justify spending more than $10,000, essentially limiting yourself to a selection of pre-owned machinery? Or do you have $40,000 burning a hole in your Impala-loving pocket?

Or you can forget the MSRP from the equation and talk payment plans instead. Would you be willing to spend $517 per month for a new vehicle?

And if you were spending $517 per month, for how long would you be willing to pay? Three years? Four, five, six? What about the 96-month term that pins you down until July 2025?

[Images: Nissan, Ford]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.