You ever see the King of the Hill episode where the car salesman convinced Hank msrp is the bottom dollar they can take?
No. And to be honest, I have never bought new cars. When I delivered pizzas, dealerships were just the worst. Very demanding, little or no tip, and treated you like you were dirty. I haven't shook that impression they left. Wasn't just one. Wasn't just 2. It was several.
Some people just do not care. I don't get it, I mean I understand for a special model or something like that obviously, but ADMs are out of this world for mundane everyday traffic type cars. I read the other week where a dealership in California had a(top of the line, admittedly) Rav4 Prime for sale for an eye watering 90k! Pre Covid that would have gotten you into a Lexus LC500(gorgeous car, mmm)! It's broken, but the sad thing is I don't see it getting fixed. The used car market will fill in the space for the mortals while the upper class continues to pay more and more money for less and less car.
Do you think part of the crunch is that the rate of attrition is greater now than it has been for used cars? I.e. the cars of the early 2000's have "died" at a greater rate than the cars of the 80's had 20 years ago?
Possibly. And they really aren't dead, per se. It's just that most people lack the knowledge or tools or desire to keep them on the road. They're more finicky to keep running in some cases but people had gotten so used to sidelining cars for simple reasons and getting a new car. Some youtube-ing and in some cases some special tools and a lot of cars from the 00's would be good to go. I helped my dad change a solenoid on an auto transmission last year in a mid 00's Nissan Altima. That was something that was a daunting task when you looked at a Haynes manual, but when you look at a 30 minute youtube video it becomes a lot more doable. Earlier this summer I helped my neighbor change the starter in his 06 BMW and that thing is TUCKED underneath the intake manifold, which doesn't come out easy. Desperation keeps a lot of these cars on the road, but a lot of them are sitting in backyards and junkyards because of faulty sensors, jammed solenoids, bad starters and the like. And a lot of these jobs could be done in a day or two in a carport or driveway, but it seems people would rather hop into a $500/60 month auto loan than figure it out.
My wife's Hyundai we just got rid of had 300,000 miles on it and ran like a top and the body and interior looked new. Only reason we got rid of it was the front end was getting squirrelly and we didn't want to chase good money after bad to fix it An 80s and 90s car would have been on its second engine and the body would have rusted away
And it’s not just cars either. My tractor is 4 years old and and has a few hundred hours on it, and I could sell it for 6-10k more Thani paid for it. batwing rotary cutters are [uck fay]ing crazy stupid right now. Did all of this stuff go up or did the value of the dollar just go down. and thankfully we’re American and get the tallest midget on the fiat currency
I saw a mid 2000's Ranger for about 8.5 and laughed. Then looked online to see that that number is "reasonable" now. Pretty wild when your could drive a fairly well equipped one off the lot for 17 or 18 out the door brand new.
Stumbled across a 2006 Ranger with 86,000 miles for $13,500 today. Cars.com listed it as a "good deal".
Oh my bad. Yeah it’s pure insanity. I have to think it will come back to Earth somewhat in the next year.
