US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans • Hacker News Board

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#141

Post by potato3732842 » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:12 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #129

rayiner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely privileged viewpoint. Even in Tokyo, people in the bottom half of the income distribution do not live close enough to popular transit lines to be as mobile as someone with a beater car in Dallas. They spend a lot more time commuting (and they can’t “just do some work on the train” because they have real jobs). Even in Tokyo, their commutes are crowded, they’re subject to the weather. Being tied t…

Isn't America literally the country with longest average and median commutes to work? Like, that was always an American thing - the long commute. Also, you cant do work in car either. You have to drive and actually pay attention. You cant (or should not) just listen to podcast or loosing yourself in the music. You dont get health benefits of walking a bit or of popping int the store on the way to buy food quickly. My…

>America literally the country with longest average and median commutes to work? Like, that was always an American thing - the long commute.

Miles? probably.

Time, lower than a lot of europe IIRC.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#142

Post by Terr_ » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

crdrost wrote: post #79

Terr_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as someone who barely cooks, I can't fathom the apparent popularity of DoorDash etc. versus the extra cost you have to pay.

I mean they hide it as best they can. Big restaurants like Applebee's you'll see "2 for $28" not priced at $28 so you can guesstimate the squeeze but otherwise you kinda have to go straight to Starbucks or McDonalds using a mobile app to order your "usual" to compare "here's what it looks like if I use DoorDash, here's what it looks like if I go myself," to find that the actual delivery fee is some $20-25 per order.…

> it'll be called Kourier or something

I'll be disappointed if it isn't like Snow Crash (1992):

> The Deliverator, in his distracted state, has allowed himself to get pooned. As in harpooned. It is a big round padded electromagnet on the end of an arachnofiber cable. It has just thunked onto the back of the Deliverator's car, and stuck. Ten feet behind him, the owner of this cursed device is surfing, taking him for a ride, skateboarding along like a water skier behind a boat.

> In the rearview, flashes of orange and blue. The parasite is not just a punk out having a good time. It is a businessman making money. The orange and blue coverall, bulging all over with sintered armorgel padding, is the uniform of a Kourier. A Kourier from RadiKS, Radikal Kourier Systems. Like a bicycle messenger, but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#143

Post by mgh95 » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #123

mgh95 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what people are saying here (the USD is weakening at an alarming pace! Americans are going Weimar Republic!) isn't borne out in the data. We aren't seeing the USD weaken against other countries in an independent manner. That's the point; not to prove that we are seeing a stalwart dollar, but that we are seeing roughly "business as usual".

There are concerning scenarios when all currencies lose, or gain, spending power at a similar rate.

Sure, but I think we are seeing the US's future more in France at the moment than a secular decline against all other developed nations. There are very real questions about how society is structured that need to be resolved, but the US is far from alone or the worst in that regard.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#144

Post by kotaKat » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:14 PM UTC

olyjohn wrote: post #76

micromacrofoot wrote: post #43

Also worth noting the average new car is now $50k and the average new car loan is $40k+ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/17/50000-new... Starting to find out the risks of a car-centric society in a slow-burn economic crisis.

Yeah the average is high, that means there are cars cheaper than that. People are spending big because they either are doing no researchand getting suckered, or they are buying nicer cars for vanity reasons.

No, the average is high because we've lost a lot of our cheap 'new' cars.

10 years ago you could go onto a lot and buy a brand new Dodge Dart for around $17,000.

Today, the cheapest Dodge is a Hornet SUV/CUV for $31,000+; the cheapest Jeep is $27,000.

We just don't have new car choices under $20k -- we're all forced into extremely high loans for 'new', or extremely screwed rates for 'used'.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#145

Post by carabiner » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:16 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #85

carabiner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've got an insane bubble right now. Quantum computing stocks are valued at $50b market cap with 0 revenue and no substantial finished products. Just research.

Oooh any public ones? edit: OMG. I will be shorting these.

All of them: https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/10/17/ionq-rgti-qbts-qub...

It makes no fucking sense for any of these to be trading above $10.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#146

Post by master_crab » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:18 PM UTC

watersb wrote: post #135

SeanAnderson wrote: post #45

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCLACBS consumer loan delinquencies up a lot in the last couple of years, tapered over the last year, low relative to historic norms https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS credit card delinquencies are similar https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRSFRMACBS home loans delinquencies look amazing right now, to the surprise of noone, since everyone is sitting happy having locked i…

> Right now, commercial rents are locked into untenable rates because the loans are contingent on those rates Let me get this straight. A landlord cannot lower the rent, because they took out a loan on the property which promised to the lender that the rent is a particular amount? > which is resulting in 30%+ unused commercial space in areas like downtown SF. The loan prevents the landlord from lowering the rent, so…

Yeah loan covenants lock you in like that. But banks don’t want to manage or sell big commercial properties. If it gets dicey for property owners, they’ll work out a deal with their bank.

Remember Getty:

If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem.

If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#147

Post by potato3732842 » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:22 PM UTC

linguae wrote: post #121

ryandrake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just do it yourself. At least oil changes can be done entirely oneself with a very small number of non-specialized tools. You don't even need a house with a garage, you can do it in your driveway or even on the street if you only have street parking. As others have pointed out, tires are somewhat more complicated, but not entirely out of the realm of the home shade tree mechanic, if you're willing to invest in a f…

Unfortunately, there are some apartment complexes, HOAs, and city ordinances that prohibit people from working on their cars, which means either needing to find a legal place to do your own repairs or paying a mechanic. I’ve lived in apartments my entire adult life thus far, and every lease I’ve signed has prohibited me from repairing my cars on apartment grounds. I have no choice but to either find a friend with a g…

>legal place

You know you can just break the rules when it comes to petty stuff like that, right? If you're not being unreasonable or thumbing your nose at them they typically don't come after you.

>and every lease I’ve signed has prohibited me from repairing my cars on apartment grounds.

This is a direct result of the clean water act and knock on laws.

The clean water act mandates stormwater management. The solution needs to be maintained in perpetuity. The HOA is the entity saddled with this. There's various engineering calculations that go into pollutant load which impacts the size of the stormwater bullshit engineered ponds you need. In order to make the solution they are forced to build cheaper, the developer puts "no wrenching" (and a bunch of other things) in the initial HOA covenant.

The city ordinances are mostly the same. They're putting that shit in their so that the engineering numbers are better and their stormwater stuff can be cheaper.

That's not to say the snooty jerks don't like those rules for their own sake.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#148

Post by chneu » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:26 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #60

gensym wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks that you need to own a car to get anywhere in most of the US. When my wife and I moved to Southern California from Chicago, we had a single car and tried to make that work for a while, but it was just not doable. We have a grocery store 2 miles away, but any other services are further than walking distance (and even the grocery store requires walking on the shoulder of a busy arterial road at a couple points…

Exactly. This is going to come off as incredibly privileged, but I'm not a huge fan of car loans. In fact, I'm not a huge fan of leveraging to afford any asset unless it's appreciating in value or generating income. I buy and drive old, nearly junker cars because I can't afford a $40K new car. I can "afford" the monthly payments on a $40K car, but it's just a terrible financial idea. Totally nutty. A $750 monthly pay…

Americans finance things to keep up imagery.

This country is insanely ego and pride focused or fixated.

Capitalism exploits this in advertising.

Americans throw money at everything and then wonder why they're broke.

Or in the case of cars, people finance a new car and throw money at repairs instead of doing what folks like you and I do. Buy a reliable older car that's cheap to work on. But that takes "learning" and most Americans are convinced that learning is a waste of time, just throw money at the problem.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#149

Post by ants_everywhere » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:28 PM UTC

potato3732842 wrote: post #131

ants_everywhere wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Vietnamese and Cubans were funded by the Soviets trying to expand their empire. They were proxy war fighters for a nuclear power. Sure they were kind of rag tag but only because the Soviets considered all soldiers to be disposable.

The out of work tradesman going into the Fairfax VA or Berkley CA Whole Foods (IDK if either of these places have Whole Foods, but they seem like they could) in the year 2030 and dusting the avocados with anthrax won't care whether the anthrax is funded by China or Russia, just that it winds up in the lungs of the people who've run his country into the ground.

While I think terrorists should care who is using them and why, that wasn't my point.

My point was that the parent comment's examples weren't of a difficult to defeat determined population. They were warlords helping imperialists establish nuclear bases so the Soviets could project power. Everything else is just a fairy tale.

They tell all sorts of fairy tales to get soldiers to march into certain death and have throughout history.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#150

Post by jrs235 » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:28 PM UTC

dinobones wrote: post #31

harmmonica wrote: post #15

As if I need to make another comment about a, or multiple bubbles, but something has to give and here it's of course the consumer. New and used car prices are at all-time highs (nominal it sounds like, but tell that to someone whose wages haven't kept pace (i.e., almost everyone)). Housing prices are at all-time highs (in terms of price:income so no qualifier needed there). Tariffs are not being 100% eaten by the pro…

On paper, nothing will happen. The wealthy in America will continue to get wealthier. Real estate and stocks will soar in value. In reality, the dollar's true value will plummet. The FED is starting to lower interest rates again. We are likely going to undergo brutal inflation. Crashing the economy is obviously very politically unpopular. The left/right will do whatever they can to keep this charade up, even if it me…

>Crashing the economy is obviously very politically unpopular.

But not something one worries or cares about if one doesn't worry about having to be elected and/or is willing to use the military to suppress dissent...

So tanking the economy is a way to keep and maintain power...