71–80 of 340 posts
tangentially; I have always seen the premium for a nice car to be a really low value at normal income levels.
My car died, needing a new engine, so I was forced to get one in October. I usually only buy used, but prices are so inflated it didn't seem worth the premium. Used 2017-2020 Toyota Rav4's with 30-60k miles were the same price as a new 2021 model, if you could get one. I knew it was bad, but I was shocked of how bad it was. I went to multiple mega dealerships with 500-1000 cars that were all spoken for. Most had 0 ne…
I was in the same boat. I usually avoid buying new but used cars are nearly the same price as new (if you can find a dealer that hasn't done ridiculous 'market adjustments'). So we bought new. We had to buy a car that was just off the delivery truck before the dealership had it inspected. The one we'd looked at two days before was long gone and they expected the one we bought to be sold the next day. My neighbor trad…
The MSRP for my Tesla Model Y, which I got May 2020 and has 17k miles now, was ~$54k. For kicks I asked Vroom for a quote and they were willing to pay $61.5k in my area... If this weren't my only car, I would probably be taking them up on it.
Here's the flip side of that from auto lenders. They are seeing a huge recovery benefit from repossession of vehicle after chargeoff. Lenders portfolios are seeing a net benefit in chargeoffs which has hardly ever happened in recent history. Even more bizarre. https://www.yahoo.com/now/ally-financial-ally-beats-q3-12451...
How can you honestly "charge off" a debt as unlikely to be repaid, when you are quite likely to be repaid? It seems that in the case of a car loan you can usually reposses the collateral, which recently will have held value oreven appreciated in the interim.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, those are some terrible incentives. I've never had a loan, so maybe I misunderstand the experience. But I'd hate to owe money to somebody that is hoping I fail badly enough that they take my stuff and while keeping my money.
It's in the best interest of a bank not to repossess because there are operational expenses and the bank will get more return if the loan goes to completion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps you just get pickier about the jobs you take.
My mechanic does this! He loves to work on classic cars as a passion project and has a bunch of classics in his lot that he's slowly working on, however if you call him now, his voicemail says, "Please note if you are calling to inquire work on a model over 20 years old the waiting list is 5-6 months." He's a great guy- if anyone is in Bay Area and needs a good honest mechanic for foreign or domestic, shout out to Ja…
I explored trading in my car a couple months ago and got lowballed by the dealership. I wonder if it's time to try again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My SO's Subaru Outback's engine died recently. It would be $5000 to replace it. Not being able to justify the cost when it had an engine replacement 2 years ago, was already 9 years old, had 160k miles on it, and us not needing a second car, we decided to just sell it. A dealer bought it for $6500 knowing that the engine was shot. I was expecting like half of that with an optimistic estimate.
An engine replaced 2 years ago should absolutely not fail and should be under warranty.
My truck is worth more today then when I bought it 4 years ago... Crazy that automobiles are now an appreciating asset...
This is exactly what we've done to the housing market in the US. For some reason, people intuitively get why it's happening with cars, but housing... it's some kind of weird mystery why it's so expensive in so many places.
And of course that's exactly what happened.