611–620 of 1001 posts
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Regulations will make cars unaffordable which is exactly what they are pushing for
Yeah! Let's get rid of requirements for headlights and seatbelts, and brake lights, too. Why do we need all that? /s
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> If I were in the market for a new car, I wouldn't consider anything but a Chinese car. The problem with these are a few things: 1. service network. When something goes kaput with a VW, BMW, Mercedes, Ford, GM, Toyota and even Tesla, there's ample service stations available to get the car back up and running. With a Chinese manufacturer no one but car nerds has heard about? Good luck finding anyone willing to even t…
Your understanding of what’s happened with Chinese cars is 15 years out of date. They’re really good now, even better in some ways. And honestly, it’s just the push that the legacy car builders needed.
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.
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I went down this route in the early 2010's. In preparation for an over landing expedition I wanted to have mechanical knowledge to be a sort of "mechanic" on the trip so I bought a bunch of "project cars" and began tinkering. While it WAS a lot of fun and I feel smarter, it was a total waste of time. To save you all the trouble of all I went through, it was fun debugging mechanical stuff, but ultimately there is no "…
I got a fixed gear bike with the promise it'd be easily fixable at home. The reality is you need a special tool for more than half the things you'd wanna swap/change I imagine a car is x100 worse
My current toolbox for the car is:
- Socket set (£50 halfords)
- Spanners (I already had these I guess £20-30)
- Allen Keys (£5)
- Several different types of Cir-clip pliers (£20-40)
- A battery powered soldering iron (£50-100). I have no mains power where I work on the vehicle.
- A lighter (£1)
- Mole-grips (£10-15)
- Axel Stands (£50)
- A Jack. (£100)
- Fuse Pullers (£3)
- Tub of Grease / Copper Grease (£15)
- Toolbox (£10)
- Stubby Screwdrivers (£10)
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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 -…
Gosh, I didn't realize people weren't learning these things anymore, just as a matter of normal life. I'm an early(ish) Millennial woman from the suburbs, from a family with no meaningful mechanical knowledge or training of any kind, and I've done most of these things. I would have considered myself pretty ignorant about cars prior to reading your comment. Thanks for shifting my perspective to seeing myself as having…
ICE's are conceptually pretty simple. Anyone who has built a computer should be able to do basic car maintenance if they want to. The electronics is what makes newer cars more complicated, and I assume EVs even more so.
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First of all, that statement is entirely untrue. These cars aren‘t 10k in most (all?) of the EU for example. As far as I know, these 10k cars are really only a thing in china and some SEA markets (I am not sure if these cars are really that cheap adjusted to purchasing power in these markets). Beyond that, the chinese EV brands are in market capture mode right now. The competition is cut throat and the margins are ex…
American expat living in Thailand reporting in. I think the cheapest car in Thailand is the 2025 Suzuki Celerio which is a 5 seater hatchback. At the current exchange rate it's $9,800 brand new. Of course this figure is not adjusted for purchasing power (so what?). We have BYDs here and I haven't really looked at them but pretty sure a few are under $25K. If Americans can't get a new car for under $25,000 but Southea…
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but I'm guessing those are post tax prices .. While in the US prices are pre-tax So if you saw the pretax figures it'd probably be true
> So if you saw the pretax figures it'd probably be true But why would I look at the pretax figures? Who would look at that, unless you're doing a business purchase? It basically has no meaning for the average person since they'll never buy anything without the taxes anyways.
Some places that is the price of the car.
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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)
You can always get an used car for practically any amount of money. A lot of time an used car is even more reliable than a new shiny car full of useless electronic components. To me buying new cars is just throwing away money, simply because at the moment you brought the car out from the dealer the car just is worth 3/4 of the price you payed it, and when you have to resell it in 10 years it is worth almost nothing.
And a lot of time it isnt. Not everyone wants too or can afford to take that gamble. Sure, i've had luck with it, but that's because I can perform my own work upto and including dropping and replacing an engine if I need too.
On the other hand i've seen people who could least afford it end up with total stinkers that drained their wallets.
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>having a monthly car payment in perpetuity is considered acceptable. I think that really depends on what part of America. At least where I grew up around a bunch of middle class conservatives listening to eg Dave Ramsey (who has other problems IMO) most people think of you as reckless/irresponsible for doing that sort of thing.
Dave Ramsey is perfect for the type of people who need Dave Ramsey. If you’re a standard deviation or two above the median person in terms of having your shit together and being smart about personal finance you can do a few things more optimally than he would recommend, but the advice that works for that person could easily ruin most people.
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It's not like she bought a 4Runner or Suburban. She bought a Honda compact car that's been stretched on the vertical access. We all spend the 2000s listening to the "they're less safe because they roll over more" screeching broken record and while statistically that was true to an extent nothing really came of it, everyone decided that yeah they do but they like the tradeoff. You just sound like a 2020s cover of that…
Because I’m expressing myself politely and clearly without resorting to childish attacks?
These typical crossovers that most people buy are more or less a direct replacement for the sedans they used to buy. Sure they're probably statistically worse at the margin but people derive a bunch more utility out of them than the sedans they replaced, which is why the form factor is carried over as best they can to the compact and subcompact hatches (impreza, c-max, etc). You have every right to tell people they ought not to be doing what benefits them because of some nebulous change at the margin that's only visible once you apply a bunch of statistics, and I have every right to call you a moron over it. But what do I know, I drive a minivan.
