Tips on Buying Cars: Buying first car as college student?, high interest rate, full time job

Question
QUESTION: I've never owned a car my entire life so I am completely new to this subject. I am 19 years of age and a freshman in college. I am looking for an affordable car that is pretty sleek looking and performs pretty well and reliable. What kinds of brands / car makers should I be willing to buy for?

I am probably wanting to get a 2-seater car assuming its cheaper. But yah walk me to the process of buying cars. Will I need a credit card? Do i buy the car in full? etc...



ANSWER: You need to research all cars before deciding what kind of car you want. A sight I like to use is edmunds.com. Couple of questions, can and how much cash do you have to buy a car with, what is your situation as far as credit scores or credit in general and what kind of payments can you handle, which is usually 16% of your monthly income?  Look at the first answer of mine from previous questions and you will get some insight of what you have to do to get best price. Pls get back with me and I'll walk you through the rest.

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QUESTION: I don't have any cash currently to buy a car with. I'm hoping to work over 6 months of making about $12,000 in that time period considering everything comes into my favor. I do not have a stable job because of the current economic crisis but once I hit a stable full time job I should be earning around $1,300 a month. 16% of that is $208 which seems like a reasonable price.

My credit score is pretty much nothing. i just got a credit card a month ago.... again I am totally clueless about getting a car and I need a direction on where I may further pursue my research such as forums or maybe a website like you mentioned.

thanks

Answer
You have some work to do, you are going to need a strong down payment being a 1st time buyer with no credit score. Your probably going to get a high interest rate as well. If you have a cosigner it would change the equation considerably? Go to Edmunds.com or any other sight and they have a payment calculator, play with that awhile using 20% interest and you will see how much car you can buy to be at $200 a month. Then look up the cars that you like and see how much on average they are asking for them, then you will have a good idea of how much car you can buy and what kind of down you will need. When you have all this together, get back with me and then we will discuss going to a dealer