Warren Buffett Didn't Buy a New Car for Years — Here's Why You Might Want to Wait (Even With Looming Tariffs)

Americans are scrambling to buy new cars as President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts are expected to drive up prices. Data from Cox Automotive shows that new car sales in March rose 17% from the month before and 12% from March 2024. Some analysts estimate the tariff impact to range from $2,000 to $15,000 per vehicle in the U.S.

However, before you panic and rush to buy a new car for no solid reason, take a lesson from Warren Buffett.

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It's common to come across billionaires bragging about their luxury car fleets, huge mansions and private jets. But it's rare to find someone like Buffett—one of the five richest people in the world, worth $158 billion—driving the same sedan for eight years.

Buffett is known for not spending needlessly on new cars and for avoiding any purchases he doesn’t need. Buffett once explained why he dislikes going car shopping during a public event:.

"I’m not ready for that. It’s another car. I look at that like anything else. It would probably take me half a day to go through the exercise of buying a car and reading the owner’s manual and all that, and that’s just a half a day I don’t want to give up in my life for no benefit," Buffett said.

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"Totally Happy" With Existing Car

The billionaire, 94, said safety is the top feature he looks for when buying a new car, adding that he does not "like to" trade away his time for a new vehicle because he's happy with his car.

"I’m totally happy with the car. I just don’t want to trade away the amount of time I’d have to spend fooling around to get familiar with the—and get title to—and do all the things, the rest of the things, pick one out, saw a new car," Buffett said during the event. "But if there’s a safer car made, I’ll be driving in it."

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Check for a New Car in "30 Seconds"

Buffett added that he would write a check in "30 seconds" if he could find a better car than his current one.

The Oracle of Omaha famously drove his 2006 Cadillac DTS for eight years, until General Motors GM CEO Mary Barra in 2014 finally convinced him to upgrade to a newer, better model. And it took way more than 30 seconds to convince the billionaire. Buffett asked Barra what made the new Cadillac models better:

“She told me about 50 things that were better," Buffett told Forbes in 2014. "By the time we got to lunch — and it’s only five or six minutes — she sold me.”

The billionaire traded in his 2006 Cadillac for a 2014 Cadillac XTS.

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