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The $25k car is going extinct?

media.hubspot.com

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#441

Post by potato3732842 »

CalRobert wrote: post #405
amelius wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if you kill someone in a traffic accident, you feel shit the rest of your life.

I’m not sure, a lot of people seem quick to blame children for “darting” in to the road instead of accepting responsibility for operating a dangerous machine.

People lay the blame on children and their parents because if they choose to do their best bipedal impression of a deer there's really nothing a driver can do. One could be going 10mph and if a child darts out from parked cars at the right time you're gonna hit them. Heck, adults get hit by forklifts and other heavy equipment going single digit speeds all the time and even workplaces that separate traffic nearly completely don't eliminate them at scale.

Ignoring extremists is easier than preventing (or reducing to a point that you stop complaining) these accidents at the limit, so that's what society does. Tough luck.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#442

Post by dismalaf »

askl wrote: post #384
dismalaf wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a big part of owning a vehicle is summer roadtrips, ski vacations, visiting family, moving stuff. An SUV is simply more convenient. I've also found road maintenance is getting worse where I live, it's almost necessary having an SUV or truck just to navigate the suburbs. Also the (semi) compact crossover has kind of killed the compact car. You get more space, better ground clearance, for a decent price.

> I've also found road maintenance is getting worse where I live Well, bigger cars are a factor that makes the roads degrade faster.

I'm currently in the Czech Republic where the roads are about 100x better than my city of 1 million+ in Canada... No, it's an issue with our government.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#443

Post by sexy_seedbox »

v5v3 wrote: post #286

277+ comment on this thread when we all know the answer - cars are deliberately over priced, at full price level, so the monthly finance payments relative to depreciation forecasts look good to the buyers (renters) and there is a room for negotiations and offers. Its HubSpot Marketing that is the winner here.

HubSpot stock isn't doing so well this year, gotta get their name out there to hopefully get some conversions for their overpriced product.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#444

Post by standeven »

a_c wrote: post #431
BanterTrouble wrote: post #382

I work on my own cars now (as a hobby really) and one of the reasons the new cars are so expensive is they are much more complicated. A lot of this seems to be over-engineering IMO. This is alluded to in the article, but not explicitly stated. The cars I work on are from the early 90s and everything is very simple to understand. e.g. Electronics are normally simple circuits that aren't much more complicated than what…

Any recommendation how to start learning repairing a car? I have absolutely zero experience. A friend of mine said just learn to change a tyre first and I have been procrastinating since.

Commit to doing all the maintenance on your car yourself to start getting comfortable with it. Easy jobs to start:

-replace cabin air filter -check for even tread wear -top up the wiper fluid -replace the windshield wipers -take off a wheel and look for tears in rubber bushings or grease leaking from seals. -replace anything broken like switches, trim pieces, etc.

Assuming it’s a gas car: -replace engine air filter -inspect spark plugs -check fluid levels: brake fluid, engine oil, coolant -check 12V battery voltage with the engine off and also running -change the oil

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#445

Post by gmac »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #427
gmac wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a loan for a car seems quite natural to me. A car provides service flows over a long period, so why not pay for it over a similarly long period? In the first year or two the car's value is probably below the outstanding loan amount, but beyond that it's likely to rise above it, so you're free to sell and walk away from the arrangement. Granted, high interest rates might make this a bad deal, but the principle…

Given that the car drops nearly 50% value as it leaves the lot, I'm not sure how this every pencils out before maybe 10 years 100k+ miles...Maybe these days given how hot the used car market is (driven by the expensive nature of newer vehicles), but again this is a chicken/egg problem. Your loan is exceedingly abnormal or from a past time as the average loan % in the US is much higher on that time scale.

It loses (less than) 50% relative to the list price, which is an important reason not to pay the list price. I'd estimate that the last new car I bought lost less than 10% relative to the price I actually paid (although selling via a dealer would probably lose another 10% or so).

On the loan rate: yes, fully agreed, this was an unusually good rate, and that makes the arrangement much more attractive.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#446

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

a_c wrote: post #431
BanterTrouble wrote: post #382

I work on my own cars now (as a hobby really) and one of the reasons the new cars are so expensive is they are much more complicated. A lot of this seems to be over-engineering IMO. This is alluded to in the article, but not explicitly stated. The cars I work on are from the early 90s and everything is very simple to understand. e.g. Electronics are normally simple circuits that aren't much more complicated than what…

Any recommendation how to start learning repairing a car? I have absolutely zero experience. A friend of mine said just learn to change a tyre first and I have been procrastinating since.

build one from scratch (kit car)

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#447

Post by BanterTrouble »

a_c wrote: post #431
BanterTrouble wrote: post #382

I work on my own cars now (as a hobby really) and one of the reasons the new cars are so expensive is they are much more complicated. A lot of this seems to be over-engineering IMO. This is alluded to in the article, but not explicitly stated. The cars I work on are from the early 90s and everything is very simple to understand. e.g. Electronics are normally simple circuits that aren't much more complicated than what…

Any recommendation how to start learning repairing a car? I have absolutely zero experience. A friend of mine said just learn to change a tyre first and I have been procrastinating since.

I am still a somewhat of a novice.

Your friend is right IMO. Do something simple first. Like a broken piece of trim, replace a light bulb, change the wiper blades yourself and build yourself up. I had repaired bicycles/motorcycles before hand.

Past that. I literally go on YouTube and watch someone do the task I intend on doing. I have the service manual downloaded for the car (people dump scans of the manuals online as PDFs) and a Haynes Manual (about £20).

Over the last 6 months. I've gone from barely being able to change the wiper blades to replacing a turbo.

I bought an older vehicle(s) that have a good aftermarket parts market and are known to be easy to work on. The simpler / less refined the car is the easier it is to work on.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#448

Post by gmac »

alternatex wrote: post #414
gmac wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. My (UK) house is 125 years old. Its depreciating days are well behind it.

How can a house stop depreciating if every part of it and everything in it becomes older as time passes? The only thing stopping depreciation is regular maintenance which costs money.

In that basic sense, yeah, OK.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#449

Post by potato3732842 »

Orygin wrote: post #433
potato3732842 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a counterproductive comment in a world where the average SUV is something a lot closer in qualities to a traditional car than a traditional SUV. Ford's linup is a great example how you people harping on SUVs actively detract from the discussion. What you call the Flex, the Ecosport and the C-max doesn't really matter. They're obviously by virtue of their attributes much closer to a "car" than they are to a tradi…

Do you consider a Ford Flex to not be a SUV ? Thing's huge and most other example you provided are either clearly SUV or are bigger than they need to be to be a "normal" car.

The Flex is close to identical in form factor and size to a pre-oil crisis station wagon. Probably has less ground clearance too. It takes the honesty of a professional political to call it an SUV.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#450

Post by BanterTrouble »

Neikius wrote: post #430
BanterTrouble wrote: post #382

I work on my own cars now (as a hobby really) and one of the reasons the new cars are so expensive is they are much more complicated. A lot of this seems to be over-engineering IMO. This is alluded to in the article, but not explicitly stated. The cars I work on are from the early 90s and everything is very simple to understand. e.g. Electronics are normally simple circuits that aren't much more complicated than what…

Fully agree with what you are saying. I do have some beef with the prices of these electronic gadgets in the car. 300€ price for a new sensor or something similar? Sensor costs are usually a single digit or below. Somehow vendors found a way to inflate that price and this is destroying the repairability.

With the prices of sensors, I was astonished and I thought the garage was having me on. I looked up the prices online and the garage weren't taking the mickey (it was withing 10-15% of what they quoted me).
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