I have a friend who can afford a coach but chooses to not own one. But that does not stop us from discussing them and it does not stop me from teasing him from time to time with links to some of the coaches that are for sale.

Because he is not afflicted by MPD he looks at these from a unique perspective. He is not emotionally attached to buses so he can make objective comments. Today he nailed it in my opinion.

He is a technogeek and loves the latest and the greatest in all things so I sent him a link to a well equipped H3. I knew it would get his attention. I was right that it did, but not the way I expected. He flipped out when he saw a coach that cost a bunch of money had depreciated to less than half its purchase price in 4 years. So I sent him a link to a similar H3 only one that was 2 years older. It was down to about 40% of what it would cost to replace. It blew him away. So I sent him a link to another similar H3 that was 10 years old. While the 10 year old coach was not as well equipped with the latest in high tech gear, it had all the same appliances and devices, but now its price was on the order of 25% of replacement cost.

So we discussed this further and realized that getting any older the coaches had systems that were at least one or maybe two generations away from current systems and the coaches were expected to be needing repairs or upgrades, somewhat offsetting their cheaper price.

He defined the 8-10 year old coaches as being in the sweet spot with respect to value for the dollar. I have never looked at a coach in that respect. I know we take it in the shorts when we start getting closer to the build date, but never saw the curve as clearly as he saw it. The fact that he is a PHd and taught this type of analysis gives credibility to his comments.

Lest my remarks about him and his observations seem harsh to folks that have bought a coach outside of "the sweet spot" you have to consider this friend thinks anybody that buys a bus is brain dead and that instead of buses we should all have second homes attached to the ground. So now you know he is not to be taken seriously.