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Used car market gets even more bizarre

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Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#151

Post by vkou »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #13
clavalle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Mechanics are about to make a killing. If you're a mechanic and already have plenty of business, I imagine it's a tough call: do you jack up your hourly rates and take advantage of the windfall, at the risk of customer loyalty in the future? This insanity will pass, after all.

Keep rates steady for old customers, raise rates for new ones.

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#152

Post by lotsofpulp »

emaginniss wrote: post #147
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS is a one-way communication. It's really no different from radio in that regard (a signal sent from far away and you have an antenna to read the signal). Unless there's also a cellular modem in your car (which pretty much every modern car has today so I'm not pretending this is unusual) it's impossible for others to monitor your location. You can simply disable the cellular modem and enjoy using GPS without anyone…

Right, but they can access your car later and see all the places you've been.

Seems like a futile effort to avoid cars with GPS if you carry a device around that is connected to a mobile network. Is there anyone that does not carry around a dumb phone, if not a smartphone?

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#153

Post by vkou »

larrydag wrote: post #64
wpietri wrote: post #29

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.

Aren't you on the hook for those operational expenses?

The bank only loses if you default early in your loan, and the price of the collateral collapses.

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#154

Post by lotsofpulp »

hermanradtke wrote: post #119
_fat_santa wrote: post #81

I bought a 2009 4Runner back in March for $15k. Back then $15k would buy you the nicest 4th Generation (03-09) 4Runner. Now days that seems to be the average asking price, most 4Runners from that generation are going for at least $12k (with over 200k miles) and the nicest ones (with low 100k miles) are fetching over $20k. That's 15k to 20k for a car that is 11 years old at it's youngest and mileage under 150k is cons…

I found a 2008 4Runner v6 engine with 4 wheel drive some years back. People ask me all the time to sell and I never will because that platform is so solid.

Does the 4 in 4Runner not mean they all have 4 wheel drive?

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#155

Post by CamperBob2 »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #38

One of the other oddities of this market is that prices for "normal" cars have increased at a higher rate than prices for "upmarket" cars. There is now some pricing overlap that never used to be there.

Someone in the market for a new Porsche can probably wait. Someone in the market for a new Kia probably can't.

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#156

Post by nostrademons »

wpietri wrote: post #29
larrydag wrote: post #4

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...

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.

Usually the bank has no mechanism to alter whether you make payments or not. Keep making payments and they can't repossess the car.

It'll be interesting to see what this does to the credit quality of future borrowers, which is the only leverage the bank has. Secured loans on appreciating assets mean that at some point, the bank has an incentive to write loans that they know are not going to be repaid, because they buy only part of the asset, receive a stream of cash payments for it, and then get the full asset anyway when the borrower defaults. It's like a call option that you get paid for instead of paying for.

Come to think of it, I wonder if this is why we got NINJA loans with the 05-07 housing bubble. Once housing prices started going up consistently enough, it becomes profitable to write loans to borrowers that you know are going to default, because you can take the house and enjoy the asset appreciation while getting a nice stream of cash flows in the process.

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#157

Post by bentcorner »

speeder wrote: post #133

Anything that depends on Silicon right now is heavily warped. For example my GPU used is seemly now more valuable than I paid for it new, I will soon attempt to sell it. Meanwhile new GPUs area crazy expensive too, people like to blame miners but even GPUs terrible for mining are crazy expensive, I actually then considered mining to pay a new GPU, only to find out that mining is not being too profitable either, the m…

I realize this is just an anecdote, but I replaced the motherboard for my PC (an HP Z420) and it was dirt cheap IMO ($50). I have no idea what a fair market price for it is but it's perfectly reasonable.

You can find tons of similar models like my PC for sale on ebay for dirty cheap and they are perfectly acceptable for home use.

No, they will not sip power like an M1 or pair well with a RTX 3090 but they will do everything else just fine.

That said, I think it's only because the demand hasn't reached this low yet. But there's still a fair amount of supply left and it's a mixed blessing that the last few years hasn't seen drastic CPU performance gains that hasn't yet been stripped away by software, so anything even a decade old could be suitable, depending on your use case.

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#158

Post by bityard »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #118
CoastalCoder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC, you're implying that that mechanic is disdainful of poor customers, and that this just provides convenient political cover. If so, I'm not sure why you'd assume that. It seems more likely to me that the mechanic is simply choosing his work based on personal interest and perhaps profitability. I don't see why we'd ask anything more than that from him.

I'm not assuming. Everyone even remotely close to the industry knows that mechanics don't like the people who want to do the bare minimum amount of work all the time and that fairly strongly correlates to "poors". Of course given the choice a mechanic would rather do an oil change on a '15 4Runner owned by some yuppie he can upsell a cabin air filter to than do a timing set on a '03 Outback for someone who'll decline…

If you were even remotely close to the industry, you would know full well that the older a car is, the more of a pain in the ass is to repair. It only takes one rusty bolt snapping off to turn a 30 minute job into a 3 hour one. When that happens, the mechanic has to eat those extra hours. They don't get to crawl back to the customer and beg for triple the price. The shop owner certainly isn't going to pony up the difference. It (effectively) comes right out of their paycheck.

I feel that the instant knee-jerk accusation of discrimination against someone you never even met says quite a bit about you.

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#159

Post by postsantum »

hyperman1 wrote: post #136
noduerme wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still won't even buy a car with GPS. Seems I'm in a vanishing minority. It won't pass, because people born after 1990 have spent their adult lives in a world with surveillance machines in their pockets at all times. Their cars are just big phones. By 2040 you probably won't even be allowed to drive your own vehicle.

To be honest, not being allowed to drive your own vehicle is probably a good thing. See e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index... . From the first few paragraphs: Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54 More than half of those killed are pedestrians, motorcyclists, or cyclists. Drivers risk other people's lives, hence, other people have a…

I am sure it would work great with the upcoming quarantine of 2038. Fellow citizen, for your own good, your car has been geofenced to your local grocery shop

Re: Used car market gets even more bizarre

#160

Post by gremloni »

dlmiller wrote: post #2

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 bought a new car about a year and a half ago. With 3 years 0% interest, I put the entire amount in an index fund and have been paying installments. At this point I’ve paid ~18,000 but because of market profits and taxes it has only been around $8000 I’ve really ended up paying.
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