My wife and I bought a Nissan Rogue in 2020 for 22K. 2020 model with 1400miles on it. We paid it off in 3 years. Today with 35k miles on it the trade in value is 23k at the Nissan Dealership. What a crazy time in the industry!
Banks will repossess vehicles to try and minimise losses
Banks will not be able to sell those repossessed vehicles, resulting in losses
Banks may become insolvent as they are unable to liquidate the vehicles
Government steps in to bail them out
New vehicle prices are not in line with their actual value, so banks are making loans that aren’t covered by the collateral. This is shit management by the banking industry. If it’s impossible to get an auto loan then vehicle prices will eventually fall as supply stacks up. Banks are feeding this cycle by being unrealistic in these loan assessments.
Yep, a properly maintained car can last you a long time. Thankfully used car prices in my country that are outside of the top 3 brands have very reasonable prices. My last car lasted me 18 years before we couldn’t use it anymore due to emission regulations.
It’s not harder. It’s not possible for a vast majority of people. You’re telling people that are delinquent on their auto loans to “just pay cash” for used cars that are thousands of dollars. Sure you can find a beater for $800-1500 but what happens when the transmission goes or the engine throws a cylinder? Those of us with auto loans don’t have the liquidity to pay outright for a decent vehicle.
You’re buying bad cars, but that aside there’s a big range between your $500 shitbox and an overpriced $50,000 penis-extension.
Fyi, beaters can usually be sold for what you paid for them. Buy a beater for $1000, save for better car. Sell beater for $1000, and get $5000 good car.
Any used vehicle has the potential to be poorly maintained and unless you have the time and experience to thoroughly inspect every car you buy, there’s a chance that the $4k 2004 Toyota Camry with 130,000mi you bought ends up with a piston rod through the bottom of the block.
On paper it looks like a steal, but you didn’t know that it had an oil leak while it was sitting in the garage not being driven for months. Mom and Dad passed away and now it has to be sold along with all their stuff, so the family drove it to their property to make sure it runs. They noticed the oil was low when the light came on so they drained it and added new oil. Now you come along don’t see any obvious signs of damage and buy it, but the cylinder wall is warped and it slips a bearing 3 months in. Engine needs a rebuild or you deal with the hassle of selling a car that no car enthusiast is wanting to rebuild an engine in, no dealer wants because it doesn’t run, and no highschool kid can use because to get it to run they need to spend $3k on a drop in replacement for the engine.
The scenario you’re painting is an infinite money glitch that doesn’t exist.
I’ve driven nothing but beaters and beater-adjacent vehicles all my life. Even though I can afford a nice vehicle now, I don’t waste my money. Good test driving and mechanical skill goes a long way.
Oil in the coolant? Coolant in the oil? White smoke? Run away.
Knock? Walk away. Lifter tick? Ask to knock the price down, flush oil. You won’t throw a rod bearing on a modern car because it was low on oil a year ago. If it somehow does, you bought a car for less than a car payment. If it lasted 2 months you’re still ahead and now you have a parts car, get another.
Always head straight to the scrappers and grab an alternator and starter, put them in the trunk for when one of them eats shit.
Learn to spoon tires or make a friend with a tire machine. Tires are a huge expense and used ones / takeoffs are nearly free. Haven’t bought a new tire in many years. Get a plug kit too.
Learn to recharge AC and identify a working compressor with no charge. Then hard ball on the price. “Broken” AC devalues the car terribly and is a $10 fix.
Standard transmission cars go for a song, especially with slipping clutch they are worthless, learn to change a clutch and you can have one for decades. My favorite beater was a 1985 Corolla I owned from the age of 16 to 26, bought for $400 sold for $600.
You don’t need to drive a beater forever. At this level cars are basically worth the same you bought them for. A year of driving a 1k beater and saving 500 a month that is less than an average payment leaves you with 7k for a better car.
Minimum wage in most of the USA is $7.25. Working 40 hours a week, 4 weeks of the month is $1160 dollars before taxes and all the other bullshit. Where exactly is that $500 to save coming from?
Less than 1% of Americans make federal minimum wage. However, despite your dumb take on the amount of money Americans generally make, I strongly agree that saving $500 a month is a complete possibility for many working Americans
Toyota is selling a basic (no ABS brakes, no airbags, crank windows) pickup in the rest of the world for $10,000. They could probably sell a version with the optional safety equipment in the US for $15-20k. But they will not sell it here and mess up the $50-100k luxury pickup gravy train.
At least they aren’t doing what the big 3 do with their trucks. A mid range XLT F-150 will cost about the same as a fully decked out Tundra, and a fully decked out F-150 will set you back over $100K, but these were sold for $50-$75K just before the pandemic, so what changed? They just decided to charge more due to greed.
My dad found a rural lot near here where a bunch of dealers are parking inventory so they can still make it look like a shortage. One dealer still has $5k markups last I checked, but also still have the car I looked at ~5 months ago.
Lots are full where I am. I asked about one car a few months ago and they wouldn’t haggle. Tempted to call back and ask when they car’s lot birthday is so I can bring a cake.
Lots are full where I am. I asked about one car a few months ago and they wouldn’t haggle. Tempted to call back and ask when they car’s lot birthday is so I can bring a cake.
Shit, entry-level cars still run you $20k or better in the US, and that’s without any options. I just had to price a new car last year and literally nothing new was on the market in my area for less than $25k. Your old Toyota Tercel that you bought for $6k in the 80s doesn’t exist anymore. That brand-new Camry that’ll run for 30 years and only costs $12k is now double that, at least.
I got a 2023 Hyundai Elantra Limited with all the options for $27,000 earlier this year and that was brand new. The standard/base Elantra was several thousand less. There was another model below the Elantra for even less. I also didn’t haggle and took the price as marked, so who knows. Perhaps someone more charismatic than myself could have done better on it.
I still over paid, don’t get me wrong. The same car with all the features before Covid would have probably been around $22-23k.
The shift towards massive vehicles (SUVs) and trucks loaded to the tits with tech junk is to blame. Auto industry sold the idea to Americans that their fat ass needs a compensator instead of psychiatric help.
It’s poor planing and over spending that is the issue. People who lease cars are on an endless cycle of never owning anything and always laying a premium.
Just actually buy a car you can actually afford.monthly payments on and drive the car into the ground. Every car in have owned has made it at least a decade and a 150k miles. Once you are done paying off take what the monthly payment would be and out it into two banks account split 20/80. Woth the 80% being towards a new car and the 20% being for repairs.
That’s one of the big problem with unwalkable cities, yeah. In Amsterdam, if you’re poor you don’t have to buy a car. Bikes are way cheaper than a beater car.
In the US, we’ve decided to design nearly all cities and towns to make life impractical if you don’t have a car. Just another way we fuck over poor people.
Ten years and only 150k? Must be nice to work from home. A home located in the south where they don’t salt the roads.
Must also be nice to be able to afford to live somewhere where your tools don’t get stolen every time you leave the house. Because of course you are going to need tools to maintain your car to 10yrs and 150k… unless you are one of those really rich people who can afford to have someone else fix your car.
At my last place where we live for over a decade we had nice patio furniture and garden tools out on the front lawn and the only time something was touched is when a neighbor borrowed it for a day. Never had so much as a little kids toy taken.
You should hop in your car and move someplace where people don’t steal your shit. It’s easier than you think to set up in a new area ( I’ve done it multiple times in my life with less than $100 in my pocket. ) people only think they are stuck and it become a self fulfilling prophecy.
I live in NJ and my last car before this had a 100mile round trip commute on it. Last I checked they salt the roads. I don’t do any maintenance on my car. I take it in for service at the dealer during the finance period and then a local shop near me for larger repairs. I take it to a valvoline for oil changes. Last car I retired needed a total of 6grand in repairs over its life that weren’t regular maintaine. That is why I said to take 20% of the payment and put it in a bank account for repairs. You should read another person’s posts before making a bunch of self serving assumptions to make your self feel better
Yup. We run two cars since we both commute for work but one is fully paid off and the other one is almost done. They payment for the first one is now going into a repair account for it and a down payment account.
The reason we haven’t paid off the other car is because we had 0% financing. So the money going into the ally account is making us money vs the bank having it.
We also have a gm card and both cars are gm. So we should have several thousands to redeem on that towards a new down payment.
My wife’s Honda has over 300k and still runs fine and doesn’t use oil. We put $10k aside for an emergency down payment, but every month it keeps going we are a few hundred dollars wealthier.
that’s what i’m hoping for with my 1st gen yaris, 100k and no signs of wear besides the 3 previous owners fucking up the clutch and synchronizer gears.
I laugh at my buddies who constantly need to have new vehicle.
Too many see their car as a measure of their worth.
Funny thing is my wife bought herself a beat up 1980 squarebody pickup for hauling stuff around the farm and you cannot take it out anywhere without people stopping to comment it and she only paid 4k for it… Hell, we have near weekly offers from strangers to buy it off of us at a premium. I want to emphasise it is not some pavement princess it has whiskey wrinkles from past owners and plenty of rusty bits.
I have a similar truck. It’s great for hauling junk around. I’ve had it since college. It used to be my daily driver. Now I have a commuter car, but I use that for errands. The thing is a tank. I also get notes on it all the time. I paid $500 for it 10 years ago. People have offered me $10k. It’s very tempting, but I love that truck.
My brother in law and sister in law. They have two brand new leases and a house they can’t afford and have been borrowing money from my in laws to keep afloat.
Lots of people over spend this way. I had a friend who was making $700 a month payments on a used Mercedes suv as a new teacher.
People in power will squeeze and squeeze. They’ll crank up the interest rates. They want you to default on the equity. Take your payments and your car. That’s how they make their money.
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