When cars that should cost $20-30,000 now cost $40-60,000, that’ll happen.
That’ll happen as long as people keep buying them.
It’s less the demand and more the greed of car companies and the shittiness of the products.
Companies are, and always have been greedy, that’s the point of their existence. They didn’t decide one day to become greedy. They will always maximize profits, always. You should more blame inflation than anything, it’s by far more damaging to your spending power and savings than anything else.
That’ll happen when the Federal Reserve prints more money and devalues the currency every year.
More of their cars are underwater than ever before, too.
Speaking of that, be prepared for a whole lot of cheap used cars to hit the market in six to twelve months. These will be flood cars, and Carfax may not tell you that. It can definitely be worth it to pay for a title search service that allows you to plug in a VIN and then returns everything that’s ever been attached to that vehicle’s title.
You do not want to buy a flood car.
Be wary of titles with salvage too from certain time periods. Salvage cars can work out depending on its situation. I had one that lasted years written off by the previous owner’s insurance because of a bent frame that wasn’t a big deal. Flood is no-go though, way too many things in modern cars that water immersion will damage in short and long term, and hard to detect until it fails.
I would avoid salvage titles in almost every situation. You don’t know why it was a write-off, you don’t know who rebuilt it, and you don’t know what kind of job they did.
If you’re already into turning wrenches, and it’s a “special” car, maybe. If you are buying it from the person or company that did the reconditioning, maybe. But most of the time, the write-offs go to auction, somebody buys them, rebuilds them, sends them right back to auction. Then your local fly-by-night used car lot buys them and sells to unknowing retail customers.
It is a big “caveat emptor” flag for sure. I had a bit more info on the car in question than a blind auction, and I’m experienced enough to work on my own stuff. Good additional point, it’s not for everyone.
Can confirm. Went to look at a car and it had mud in the undercarriage.
Checked the Carfax in the car and it didn’t mention flood damage.
Bought my own Carfax and found out it had been in a flood.
Lesson: Always buy your own Carfax
Are you telling me that people show up to dealerships and pay to trade in a car? The repo man will come to your house and pick that pile up for free.
I thought the car lease was the worst deal on the lot.
Yeah it’s crazy. Traditionally leases are a bad financial decision. I’m currently in the market for a midsize-large SUV and prices are crazy so I’m not targeting the vehicles I actually want. I’m afraid to buy car now and end up underwater on a loan if and when prices settle down and I’m in a position to upgrade to something bigger/newer, so I’m considering a lease so at least by the end of the term I don’t owe money to the bank.
Now think about the housing market. Rental nation. Just throwing away money. No generational wealth for our kids. Keep pumping out slaves to capitalism.
Car dealer has been begging me for my Tacoma since I bought it just pre-pandemic and with how low mileage it is.
I enjoy the calls, lol.
I bought my car at the end of 2018, and I get flyers in the mail maybe twice a month from the dealership trying to get me to “upgrade.” Since I work from home I barely put miles on it.
I’m fortunate in that I have paid it off, and the flyer is like, “We see you have paid off your car loan, we can get you into a new car for $300/m!” Yeah no. That’s not the deal they think it is.
Ngl, submersible private automobiles sound badass enough to actually convince me to get my license.
More than 24% of all trade-ins toward new vehicle purchases had negative equity, and 22% of those with negative equity owed more than $10,000. Two other contributing factors to the rise in this type of loan: many consumers are taking out longer-term loans for cars to reduce monthly payments and people are increasingly trading in their cars before it’s financially smart to do so.
Car dependency is a gift to the auto/oil cartels but a curse on the planet and its inhabitants.
