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The $25k car is going extinct?

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#301

Post by leakycap »

harvey9 wrote: post #215
leakycap wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's accounted for at the time they bought it since it was already hail damaged.

Is it savings if you buy an item worth less and you pay less? You're just buying a damaged item at that point ... which is worth less to everyone

That isn't getting "deal" unless you plan to never liquidate... cars generally don't get used up like a can of soda, so the dent actually matters when you go to sell it.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#302

Post by gloxkiqcza »

financypants wrote: post #148
SoftTalker wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy the best used car you can afford for cash and forget all that dealership nonsense

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

People are rarely this pragmatic but I agree! Slightly beat up cars for the win!

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#303

Post by dtech »

Dig1t wrote: post #300
puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #261

You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR. The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-ro…

Isn’t your argument basically saying that people choose to buy larger cars when the government doesn’t step in and penalize people for doing so? European regulators basically just forcing people to buy smaller cars is what that sounds like. Also Europeans make less money, pay more taxes, and have less access to credit, so they can’t afford more expensive cars like many Americans. Hence the market catering more to peo…

No, US also has rules for cars. It just has much more stringent rules for smaller cars, so SUVs and trucks have an unfair advantage.

It's like if smaller cars are taxed at 30% and larger cars at 10%, of course there are going to be more large cars compared to a place that taxes both at 30% or 10%.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#304

Post by nottorp »

ml_basics wrote: post #179
tricolon wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd never seen the word "subvention" before. Today I learned it's another way to say "subsidy".

It's a europeanism. In both French and German (and probably other EU languages) the word for "subsidy" is something like "subvention" so native speakers of these language often reach for an unnatural word in English. Btw other examples include "actually" which is used to mean "currently", and "eventually" which is used to mean "maybe". Personally I'm torn whether to consider this incorrect use of the language as it i…

"Eventually" is the worst false friend I think. Because in english it implies certainty while in latin languages it only implies possibility. But since the meanings are so close, it looks legit in context 90% of the time.

"Actually" does look out of place when used in english with the latin meaning so it's safer.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#305

Post by yugoslavia4ever »

Dig1t wrote: post #300
puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #261

You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR. The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-ro…

Isn’t your argument basically saying that people choose to buy larger cars when the government doesn’t step in and penalize people for doing so? European regulators basically just forcing people to buy smaller cars is what that sounds like. Also Europeans make less money, pay more taxes, and have less access to credit, so they can’t afford more expensive cars like many Americans. Hence the market catering more to peo…

> The poorest American state, Mississippi, is richer per-capita than most European countries, including France.

GDP and its consequences has been a disaster for the human race

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#306

Post by epolanski »

puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #261

You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR. The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-ro…

> like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia

Few caveats:

- those are generally promotional prices

- those prices are generally tied to financing (you really can't buy it cash at those prices, you need to finance it through them at crazy 7/8%+ rates)

- you can wait for the car even 10 months

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#307

Post by bboozzoo »

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…

> Long story short, the entry level car now costs close to 25k EUR. [1]

Just this February I bought brand new 2024 Clio for ~17k EUR, gas+LPG. At least until July it was super easy to get even better deals on small/compact cars with ICE engine. Hybrid engines are closer to 25k EUR.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#308

Post by nottorp »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #283
zeroq wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh, and to add to your vocabulary - the word pathetic, especially around Elbonia, can be used with the intention of saying something is full of "pathos".

Are we just lying for fun now?

No it's only HNers and their lack of humour. It's a joke and the hint is "Elbonia".

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#309

Post by dagw »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #259
leakycap wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ideally you should be driving the car until the wheels fall off anyways. Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money.

Driving a car until the wheels fall off generally doesn't make financial sense. Keeping an old car on the road gets really expensive unless you have the space, time and skills to do all the work yourself. Then there is the opportunity cost of not having access to your car for days/weeks at a time while it is being repaired. Finally you have the stress of not being quite sure if your car will start when you turn the key or get you where you want to go.

From both an economic and quality of life point of view, you are better driving your car until it starts to get slightly unreliable and then quickly trade it in for a slightly newer used car. Buy a 5-10 year old car, drive it for 5-10 years, then trade it in for a 5-10 years old car is probably pretty close to an optimal strategy.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#310

Post by leakycap »

puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #245
leakycap wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all cars have turbos, all have abs/airbags/cameras... even counting the seat foam & covers, wheels, door cars... how cheap do you think a vehicle safe and comfortable for humans can be? The average car has tons of moving parts that have to be weatherproof, shakeproof, pothole-ready... stuff consumer tech doesn't dream of. It also has to be repairable, be engineered to meet all the regulations in various countr…

Almost all cars have turbos since that's about the only way to get similar performance out a sub-1L three-cylinder engine that you could get from a cheap, naturally aspirated 1.6L iron block back in the 90's. Emission and safety standards are nice, but the customer pays for it.

> cheap, naturally aspirated 1.6L iron block back in the 90's

VW sold the 2.0L naturally aspirated engine that made about 115 horsies and got a whopping low-30s mpg on the highway until 2015 in the base model US Jetta.

The same engine I had in my 1993 Jetta. Legitimately available since the 70s.

Thank goodness regulations forced that engine off the market. The only upside was it had decent torque... it wasn't even reliable after all those years!

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