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The $25k car is going extinct?

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#841

Post by conductr »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #80
Glawen wrote: post #24

Aka how to shoot yourself in the foot and hand over the market to Chinese manufacturer. In Europe, only Renault created a low cost brand (Dacia). Once chinese brands become commonplace everywhere, tradional carmakers will have a hard time taking back market share. In Europe they closed or are closing the last HCOL factories, killing any remaining brand loyalty.

The sad thing is it'll be a slow death. As American / German / Japanese still hold cultural cachet over Chinese/ Vietnamese cars, the companies will delude themselves into going off a cliff till a new gen comes and doesn't care about that cachet and just cares about price

In the US, if they were allowed and priced as low as I hear they can be (without excessive tariff, etc) then I'd expect it would only take 5-10 years. Assuming they are in fact similar on quality/reliability to what we're used to. The people willing to take a risk to save money or get more for their money would start the wave, word would spread, then people who can afford any brand will jump on board as they've heard it is not really risky as they expected.

Problem is, we'll probably never let Chinese vehicles in as it is an existential threat to the US auto industry. It's odd because we allow Japanese, Korean, etc. but we have political beef with China as a global power rivaling ours.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#842

Post by slackfan »

monkeyelite wrote: post #714
tlogan wrote: post #577

This is a great example of how factually incorrect narratives - so long as they align with a preferred agenda (which is that things are not affordable any more) - it gets upvoted. Reality check: - In 2025, there are 12 new car models available under $25,000 - In 2005, there were around 10 new models under $15,000 (25k adjusted by inflation) So the premise that “cars used to be much more affordable” is not true. This…

- boomers like classic sports and muscle cars. They feel nostalgia towards them because those are the cars high school and college kids used to actually drive - people who are looking for affordable cars buy used. That market has evaporated. I remember in the late 90s-2000s the newspaper had a junker section where you could get cars (that started) for $100. Imagine what you could get for $2000 - when inflation goes u…

Cash for Clunkers was a hell of a program.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#843

Post by brandall10 »

usefulcat wrote: post #159
lispisok wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked into that when I was buying a car in 2020 and I found the price discount wasnt nearly as big as I thought it was going to be plus the car was out of warranty plus all the parts now had 10k miles of wear on them. A new set of tires is like $1200. I was able to spend a few grand more for a brand new car of the same model.

It can also depend on the popularity of a given car in a particular area. In 2012 we wanted to buy a lightly used Honda Fit, which were quite popular in our city. But, possibly because of that popularity, the prices of used Fits weren't that much less than a new one, so we ended up getting a new one instead.

Following on my original comment - I saved about $4k over the next cheapest option (which would have still been a very good discount vs. new) simply by expanding my range from 150 miles to 500 miles and finding one in the middle of nowhere. Having the salesperson/owner drive the car over to a mechanic to do a CPO-like audit of its condition greatly reduces the risk of a more remote purchase.

A one way ticket from San Diego to Vegas was $180, and a 2 hour shuttle from there to St. George (mistakenly said Odgen above) was only $20. The salesperson from the dealership picked me up from the bus station and after a brief test drive and some paperwork I got on the road for the 450 mile drive back. I left home on the train to the airport at 9am, and was back at home with my new to me car at 11pm that night.

Considering we're on "Hacker" News, it's very much a worthwhile process to hack considering the cost savings vs. actual effort.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#844

Post by potato3732842 »

Schiendelman wrote: post #554
ekianjo wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, why not. Those are features people consider valuable and we'd continue to have them.

Save perhaps rarely if ever used seating positions (middle rear of the super stripped down V6 Mustang they make like 10 of so they can advertise a starting MSRP or some other comparable niche) I don't think seatbelts are going away anywhere they matter.

Ditto with headlights and tail lights, drivers find them useful. Perhaps we'd see a delete option used by fleet buyers who intend to equip the vehicles with alternative lighting.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#845

Post by ethagnawl »

dismalaf wrote: post #502
CalRobert wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the child darts into the road without space for you to stop, not even you driving a subcompact can save them...

If nothing else, they'll roll up and off the hood of a typical subcompact instead of be pancaked by the 60" vertical wall that is the front of most modern trucks and SUVs.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#846

Post by Loudergood »

system33- wrote: post #605
potato3732842 wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy POS 30yo car and just start getting it in shape to be daily drivable. You can typically screw things up three times over before it'd be cheaper to pay someone. All you really need is the internet. China tools via Amazon are "fine".

Not disagreeing, just elaborating, about “fine” Chinese Amazon tools. I needed safety wire pliers to assemble some brake rotors. The metal in the ones I got on Amazon was softer than the metal wire they came with such that the cutting edges got little wire-sized dents in them and increasingly useless the farther I got along in the job. Returned those afterward. Junk. But there’s other stuff I’ve gotten from RANDOMLET…

The saying goes Harbor Freight is probably good enough for any tool you can afford to have fail. If your physical safety depends on it or if you use it so much that failure would cause a lot of downtime, you should probably spend a little more.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#847

Post by teslabox »

alerighi wrote: post #432
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…

Yes, if they would make a basic car like in the past I would buy it. Everyone has to sell you too much, I want a simple car, I don't want either the stereo, I will add my own later (I can put it one that is better than the factory one for a cheaper price, but in a modern car replacing the stereo is almost impossible). There are a ton of useless sensors, the sensor that tells you if you have a flat tire (I think I can…

I agree that there are lots of useless things in cars, but the tire pressure sensors on my base trim 2013 Honda recently saved me a big headache.

I recently pulled out of a business and the "low tire pressure light" turned on right away. "Hmm?" My next stop was 1/4 mile away, and it still felt okay. At the next parking lot I checked all the tires with my gauge and found one was 10psi low. On closer inspection the nail was right on top. Sure enough I'd picked up a little nail. It was a slow leak, and I wouldn't have heard the hiss. If not for the sensor I might not have noticed I'd gotten a flat until I got on the freeway.

PSA: Check your spare's air pressure. Mine was supposed to be 60psi. It had 40psi, which was good enough to get me to the tire store. I checked the spare when I got home - the tire repair crew had bumped it up to 55psi.

My dad was leaving on a trip recently. Because 'spare tire psi' was on my mind I checked his spare - it was only 25psi.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#848

Post by Loudergood »

MisterTea wrote: post #542
a_c wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Theses kinds of questions have no easy answer. Ive done a lot of my own auto work including an engine swap with a friend years ago. This stuff comes with experience but it helps to grow up with an engineer father with a machine shop. It also helps enormously to have gear head friends and have a life long interest in mechanical workings. Repairing a car these days is not the same as it used to be but I would start wit…

It is not incredibly different once you pull off the plastic engine cover and get a cheap code reader.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#849

Post by Dylan16807 »

bumby wrote: post #823
lan321 wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, you really don't want a car without ABS, though. For motorcycles, I kinda get it since you can't do some stunts with ABS, but on a car, it has zero benefit nowadays. Mandatory ABS, seatbelts and airbags would be the big things for me, followed by sexy, modern ESP, TC for powerful RWD cars and collision warning beeper (no autobrake at high speed, that shit's deadly and I hate that it can't be permanently disabled…

My point is that the features are there because a regulatory body has made it a requirement. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad requirement.

Then I think your point is wrong for ABS. Yes it's required but in almost all cases I bet it's not there because it's required.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#850

Post by potato3732842 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #825
pif wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars have much more functionality these days, and it is good. But too much of that functionality is mandatory, and this is bad.

What's new on the mandatory list? Electronic stability control doesn't sound like it adds any meaningful costs over ABS. Backup cameras are a cost but not a huge one. What else is there?

ESC in effect mandates the same hardware as the highest end ABS systems and adds throttle by wire on top of that.

Pretty much every AWD car can do "dumb" ABS that uses pedal pressure to run with just the sensors the AWD system uses (front axle speed and rear axle speed) but you need an expensive ABS system with a pump and a throttle by wire system if you want to be able to have the system do stuff when no foot is on the brake.

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