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The $25k car is going extinct?

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#271

Post by brianaker »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #138
sakopov wrote: post #135

I was in the market looking for a used SUV for my wife to haul around our kids last year. Dealing with dealers who wouldn't budge even a few hundred off the inflated listing prices, the interest rates on financing and then the insane insurance costs was not pleasant. I have an old Subaru beater that I was also thinking about upgrading but after this whole fiasco I decided to spend some money to fix body and small mec…

Subaru's have an increasingly good reputation for long-term reliability. Stick with and love the beater. I find a certain liberation in not caring too much about risks of car park dents and "curb rash" and other surface-only non-mechanical auto-maladies.

You obviously have not been following Subaru, while what you are saying was once true, it has not been true for several years now.

Google "Subaru battery", read about all of the additional electrical problems that are the result of Subaru being unwilling to fix a problem that is the end result of them selling your data.

Subaru stopped making reliable cars somewhere around 2014.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#272

Post by tim333 »

whycome wrote: post #100
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houses are debt, but are generally and appreciating asset Cars are a depreciating asset. It usually does not make sense to go into debt to get one

It’s interesting how the language allows a weird cognitive out. It’s not debt, it’s a mortgage and they ‘own’ the home.

It's not a weird cognitive out, there are major differences, legal and financial between say credit card debt and a mortgage on a house.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#273

Post by defrost »

silisili wrote: post #268
arwhatever wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasionally see pizza delivery signs atop super duty trucks where I live.

In the rural midwest, it's extremely common to see dumpy trailers with one or two 75k new super duties parked outside. I don't get it at all, and thought "well, maybe they didn't have a choice and needed it for work?" before realizing any old used truck would probably work as well(if not better). I have to say it's a status symbol, a weird one at that. I'm more in awe of rat rods and fixed up old trucks than brand ne…

There's a rural mindset some have that looks outside at the world not inside at the house.

A dumpy trailer where you sleep is fine as long as you have .. a good horse, freedom to roam, a powerful truck to tow horses, .. etc.

eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHJFfSmnCnY prefer the sky and land to a good house in the city.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#274

Post by thaumasiotes »

jameshush wrote: post #263
vel0city wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of loan rates out there for I could pay off my car tomorrow. But I'll have more money in the end keeping that cash in the bank. Why would I pay it off early?

Your logic works out fine if you don't mind a dash of risk (e.g. from a job loss). But when I ran the numbers from my perspective it didn't seem worth it. (I might be doing my math wrong). Let's say I get a car that costs $30k, I put $10k down, and I take a loan out using the numbers above rounded up just for napkin math (1% APR, 4% savings account). After one year: ``` $30,000 x 0.04 = $1,200 from savings account in…

>> I could pay off my car tomorrow. But I'll have more money in the end keeping that cash in the bank. Why would I pay it off early?

> Your logic works out fine if you don't mind a dash of risk (e.g. from a job loss).

I notice that no part of your comment actually describes this risk. What is it? Assuming you have the cash in hand, and it's earning more interest than the interest on your car financing, how would losing your job affect the situation?

The only effect I see is that it will dramatically increase the amount of that extra interest you actually collect, by lowering your tax rate.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#275

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #133
snovymgodym wrote: post #7

It's pretty simple (in the US, can't speak for elsewhere). There are 2 big factors at play: 1. Margins. Manufacturers make huge margins on expensive vehicles and very slim margins on cheap vehicles. The numbers differ, but I think even in the lead up to the 2008 crisis automakers had to sell 5-10 "econobox" cars to make the profit they made on one luxury car, SUV, or truck. 2. Normalization of debt. For many American…

My reptilian-brain logic prevents me from even considering getting a loan for car. Houses increase in value, therefore it makes a certain amount of sense to get a loan / mortgage for the purchase of a house (but mainly because no-one - in the world in which I live - can afford to buy one cash). Cars decrease in value, very quickly. Getting a loan for a car is throwing more money away than buying a car in the first pl…

It's not merely an issue of obtaining materially desirable consumer goods though; lots of folks get car loans because they can't afford to buy a car, even a cheap car, without one. So it's either, don't get a car and give up a lot of opportunities or hope you live in a place with decent public transit (which is not a given in many places in the US)

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#276

Post by mlyle »

leakycap wrote: post #165
financypants wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The small and quasi-loophole to getting a good used car deal is buying a hail damage car. I genuinely don't understand why cars were made to have shiny paint. Cars drive on dirty roads with insects and pebbles abound. Paint doesn't matter. Car washes are crazy, except to abait rust

The issue you'll face is when you go to sell it – any noticeable hail damage means you are getting 1/2 the resale value if you can even find an interested buyer.

Yes, but you also paid half the cost to acquire the car. You're just paying less in depreciation for the time you use it.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#277

Post by tim333 »

zeroq wrote: post #124

Last year we bought a car. While not being a petrol head I was still living in a lala land where you could buy a brand new car for 10k EUR. Nothing fancy, just "a car". Obviously it turned out to be not true. After some digging it turned out that in the last 10 years the price of cars went double. Literally double. Same car, like Fiat Panda, with the same engine and configuration, that ten years was worth one potato…

Yeah. It was only just pre covid, 2019 you could get a new panda for ~10k eur. I think a lot is the push to go electric.

Governments want manufacturers to sell like 25%+ electric cars and customer won't buy so many if they can get a 10k petrol instead.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#278

Post by globular-toast »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #248
jccalhoun wrote: post #95

in 2021 my beloved Honda Fit got totaled. I bought it new in 09 and only had 80K miles on it. They don't sell new ones in North America any more. So I bought a Kia Rio. They don't make those any more. I don't really like it but with the current chaos in the economy I'm not trading it in any time soon. I was in the UK for the first time last month and was struck by how many hatchbacks and sedans they have that we don'…

The UK is heading down the same path, the best selling car used to be the Ford Fiesta but it has been discontinued now. VW have dropped the Up. Skoda aren't replacing the current Fabia. The general trend is towards bigger SUV's. The second hand market isn't great because we stopped making cars during Covid so there is a dearth of four/five year old models. The only light at the end of the tunnel is EV's are now compa…

And it's even more ridiculous because we don't even have the space for these things. People driving round in these monstrosities, struggling down narrow lanes or into parking spaces. Is nobody able to see further than their nose? What are you going to do when everyone has one? I suppose demand bigger roads, more parking etc. And who's going to pay for that? A classic tragedy of the commons.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#279

Post by raxxorraxor »

Car manufacturers that cannot build affordable cars are going extinct. 12000$ for a new electric car in China. That is the real competition.

I don't care about the prestige of owning a car, it is a utility for me that will never be worth 60000$. You can pay me 500000$ yearly and I would reconsider.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#280

Post by bravesoul2 »

dingaling wrote: post #240
slg wrote: post #199

I don't know why inflation is dismissed so quickly. The article lists the industry average price increase as 29.2% and the inflation value I got out of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator[1] was 26.2%. So sure, "this isn’t just a case of inflation affecting the entire vehicle market" [emphasis mine], but it is mostly that. [1] - https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Retail inflation is based on the prices of goods, including new cars. So it's pointless to compare car prices to inflation because they are part of the basis of the measure. Hence why they track closely.

For affordability the real question is median or mode wage inflation or deflation.
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