So basically,
- 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.
But… But price only go up?
The sky daddy book of economics says price only ever goes up and concentrated wealth is a good thingThis is what my partner and I call a “state’s right to what” problem. The centralized wealth says that centralizing wealth is good. Centralizing wealth is good for whom, Mr. Finance?
4 probably won’t happen. The mortgage bailouts were a bit of a special case, because the debt was rolled into securities and spread all over the place. To my knowledge there isn’t a secondary market for auto loans, so the scope is limited to individual banks.
What may happen is the FDIC guarantees all deposits like they did with silicon valley bank, which is less bad than a full on bailout.
- Government steps in to bail them out *with tax money taken from the people who couldn’t pay their car note in the first place
So either banks make money or banks take money.
Well, yes and no. It’s grey like most things in life.
Banks and credit are a means to “grow the pie” by allowing us to factor in future value. Before banks and credit, the world was a zero sum game where one person only had because the other person had not.
They do serve a real purpose but are only valuable when properly managed.
They won’t have to worry about selling the cars, some used car dealer will take them off their hands gladly. What the banks and the financiers will have to worry about is how to bundle all of that bad debt into CDOs. There’s a movie about this I think.
Don’t forget people also not being able to go to work anymore potentially
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.
I look at it as fleecing the assholes who buy those fucking things for vanity. Keep it up Ford and GM. Make them go fucking broke.
Maverick is okay, if you can find a hybrid.
I’d love a Maverick hybrid, but I just can’t find one for sale right now. They’re very popular apparently.
And also the chicken tax
They don’t sell vehicles without ABS in the US because they are required by law here.
Did you read the rest of the post where they mention a full US spec one would probably be $15-20K?
No one would buy that in the US.
I would
Me too. Otherwise, I am clinging to my '99 Silverado with 8 foot bed, single bench seat, and crank windows. (And no, it’s not my daily driver. I only use it when I need to move a Big Dumb Object, which is often enough in my line of work that it’s worth it.) I’m holding out hope that someone will finally make a usable electric work truck, but that chance was never that great and seems to be getting slimmer with each passing minute.
And before the fuckcars crowd jumps down my throat, my insurance charges me precisely $165 per year on this piece of shit, and it costs me $40 a year to keep it plated. That’s less than the cost of renting a U-Haul twice after you add on all their bullshit gotchas and fees.
My truck is a tool. It is not a vanity item or a luxury. Not only do I not need it to have leather seats, power everything, and a moonroof – I don’t want it to, because I will just break all of that stuff and it does not do anything to actually make the vehicle useful as a truck.
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.
Nah.
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.
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.
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.
Yea, I don’t think there is a dollar amount that would make my wife sell hers.
whisky wrinkles
Love it.
I have a most similar vehicle, a battered 12 year old F150 that started life as a Menard’s rental truck. The most notable feature about it is that it’s a long-bed, single cab truck that isn’t white. People who ride in it are either confused or enthralled with it’s lack of whiz-bang features. There are no power windows, no power locks, no keyless entry, no color touchscreen infotainment center, no CD player, and no carpet. It’s not driven every day because motorcycle, so it should hold up a long time.
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.
poor planing
well you got the poor part right
Buy what you can afford.
And if someone can’t afford a car, and they live within a car-centric area of the world, and they can’t afford to move?
Maybe they make a gamble and buy a car with the hope it will be an investment, and provide them with more income…
But when interest rates have been at near zero for over a decade, and now they have shot up - it could upset quite a lot of finances!
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.
I see people who can’t afford a car trying to make it using an e-bike or a cheap scooter. Where I live, scooters are allowed to get up to 32mph, and e-bikes are limited to 20mph. That can make for a long, rough commute in any place except urban settings (where you have a fighting chance at public transportation), 55+ communities where everyone drives golf carts, or resorts, where traffic is usually painfully slow to begin with.
Exactly. I like cars so it starts to suck keeping them for 10 years but otherwise I’d be in continual car payments.
Also taxes and insurance get cheaper as the car gets older too, so that helps.
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.
Name a person you know who over spends like this.
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.
Lots of people over spend on dumb shit.
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.This doesn’t work for me specifically, so it’s absurd and stupid that anyone else does it.
Dude also just injected a bunch of assumptions into his post and forgot I stayed to put 20% of what your payment was into an account for repairs.
Wherever you live sounds like a shithole.
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.
He must be from New york
New York is pretty safe now.
District of Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Hawaii, Arkansas, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Delaware, Missouri, Arizona, Oklahoma, California, Montana, North Carolina, Kansas, Utah, Minnesota, Nevada, Nebraska, and VermontAll have higher larceny theft rates.
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
https://www.trustedchoice.com/insurance-articles/wheels-wings-motors/average-miles-driven-per-year/
Looks about dead average to me.
Auto industry sold the idea to Americans that their fat ass needs a compensator instead of psychiatric help.
True or not, that got a good belly laugh out of me.
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.
Have to be sure they don’t repo a running usuable car, then.
I understand the sentiment but please leave us decent cars on the used market.
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!
I bought an 81,000 mile F150 for $12k in january of 2022, it now has 100,000 miles and I’m pretty sure I could sell it for at least what I paid for it.
You only put <35k miles on it in 3 years? Damn.
12K miles per year is considered normal / average usage.
So what I’m seeing is to find any way I can to short the auto lenders so when they declare bankruptcy I can finally be able to afford a car?
“ok Google, how do I buy a short position on auto lenders?”
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Dealers are starting to call around. They’re acting confident but they know the market has collapsed… they’re all trying to sell the last NFT.
they can hear the music and see the lack of chairs…
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.
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Car payments are a poverty trap. Save and pay cash for cars, it’s harder now that used prices are absurd, but it doesn’t change the math.
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 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?
Most people aren’t making federal minimum wage.
Where exactly is that $500 to save coming from?
Not having car payments:
saving 500 a month that is less than an average payment leaves you with 7k for a better car.
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
I don’t see why they don’t just ask their parents for money?
It’s like people don’t even know how to take care of themselves.
Sure you can find a beater for $800-1500 but what happens when the transmission goes or the engine throws a cylinder?
Buy another beater. At $1500, how long does it have to last to cost less than car payments? Four or five months?
The other answer, from someone who used to buy beaters - you learn real fast what not to buy.
Right to repair laws should apply to cars, imo.
Definitely they should.
There are no viable $1500 beaters anymore. Those vehicles now cost $3000-$4000. More if it says “Honda” or “Toyota” on the front.
You gotta keep your eyes open. This was summer before last:
Okay, so two years ago. Currently the cheapest two used cars in my local market are a Civic with 348,000 miles on it for $2000, and a 2010 VW with a blown engine for $3000. Even a clapped out 90’s Blazer is $5000 if it runs. That’s what’s out there on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. Maybe I can go hang around every shady parking lot in town looking to see who’s got a lower number soaped on a window someplace, but people in the real world tend to have to work during daylight hours.
And then: Okay, so you found one 80’s Chevy Nova that might run. You got extremely lucky. If, as the other poster suggested, you’ll treat it as disposable and plan to ditch it after a few months and “buy another,” can you do it again? That’s even less likely.
Used car prices are still too insane for poor people to be able to count on reliably finding and scraping by with a beater.
And then: Okay, so you found one 80’s Chevy Nova that might run. You got extremely lucky. If, as the other poster suggested, you’ll treat it as disposable and plan to ditch it after a few months and “buy another,” can you do it again? That’s even less likely.
Used car prices are still too insane for poor people to be able to count on reliably finding and scraping by with a beater.You’re right. My experiences aren’t universal. I am aware that cheap cars have become much more scarce than they used to be.
Maybe I can go hang around every shady parking lot in town looking to see who’s got a lower number soaped on a window someplace, but people in the real world tend to have to work during daylight hours.
I inherited the cheapskate gene from my dad, and I like cars, so I do that sort of thing for fun.
It’s still cheaper than 30k$ new car over 5 years. It’s like two payments for used vehicle and couple more for fixing it right up. Also, pay a good mechanic to inspect car you like prior to buying. Saves money in the long run.
that’s not the point. the point is that there are people who can’t afford to save money in the long run. not like metaphorically can’t afford, like literally mathematically cannot afford.
they are trapped by their existing financial burdens which they already cannot meet and which are getting larger every month thanks to compound interest.
inflation, which normally has the effect of reducing the value of debts over time, is instead making their financial burdens effectively larger too. as inflation drives up the cost of living, wages stay the same and they have ever less of their income available to make debt payments as a result.
I’d hazard a guess they are in hard financial situation due to their lack of self-control and poor finance management. Adding on top of that 30k$ and contract for number of years exacerbates the problem. If you can’t afford 1000$ used car, you can’t afford 30k$ new car in 200 installments either.
62% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
Don’t play this ‘they’re not good with their money’ libertarian bullshit. People aren’t being paid very well and essentials have shot up in price.
Saving even $800 is beyond many people’s reach.
Am not playing anything. It’s like someone doesn’t have food to eat this month but decide to buy 60$ game. That person has issues prioritizing and managing money and even if they had more money they’d spend it on stupid stuff.
But you are right, things are more expensive while salaries have remained the same. There’s no question about it. However managing your finances is a required skill, even if you earn a lot more than you need. I’ve seen far too many cases where people who had good income still ended up in debt. You need not look further than lottery winners. Huge amounts of money and most of them end up bankrupt or dead.
Its funny how all you have to hear is “someone is broke” and you already have ideas about their moral character.
If you are broke then you don’t buy a new car. Simple as that. Whole argument here is new vs used car. Original commenter is a proponent that car payments are a trap and that used car should be preferred, followed by counter argument that many people can’t save up for used car to be paid in cash and payment plans of 200-300$ a month for 2 years are a better idea. My comment to all of that is if you can’t save money for used car, you shouldn’t be buying a new car and you have bigger problems to worry about. That money should be used to dig oneself out of debt first, then work on getting car. Has nothing to do with morality.
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.
I’m not saying that it’s not possible, but it’s not good life advice for the majority of people. You’re an enthusiast who knows what they’re doing around a car. You seem to spend a lot of time fixing things that go beyond normal garage shop fixes. Rebuilding a transmission requires time, skill, space, and most importantly tools. Two more things, not everyone is going to have the storage space for a parts car like you’re suggesting. In fact, lots of American towns have ordinances against sitting cars. And second, I don’t trust people to change their tires at the right time. Half the accidents during the first couple of freezes are from people that are essentially driving on belts. Do you really think I should trust people to properly seat their own used tires?
I’m glad that you are able to make this work for you, but it sounds like you have the requisite knowledge, tools, skill, and time to make it work.
Lol. You’re buying bad cars.
Okay, and your average person doesn’t have the knowledge to buy ‘good’ cars. Google can only take you so far, and RNG will still fuck a significant number of people even with knowledge. If your system requires people to have fairly in-depth knowledge in a field they don’t work in just to not get absolutely fucked, then your system is shit.
How exactly would an engine “throw a cylinder”?
Typically it’s a rod but you’ve either never heard the term before or are being pedantic.
some engines have cylinder sleeves that can be pushed out. Although, as another commenter already mentioned, they actually meant “throwing a rod”
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.
The best option is to ditch the car entirely… buy an ebike instead for the price of 1 car payment, or move to an area with ample sidewalks/mass transit…
Definitely a big task, but is certainly more viable than buying a car with cash… (it most certainly was for me at least…)
No, remortgage your property at super low interest rate below inflation and then buy with the cash you got. This way you’re saving crap loads of money.
That’s even worse. Now you have your house on the line for a depreciating asset. It’s the depreciation that makes financing cars such a bad deal.
Only if you want to sell your house in a few years. If not, it’s a money printing machine.
American banks fucking the world once again.
I don’t understand how people buy new cars. They cost like 1/4 of a house.
Debt that they can’t afford. You can get approved generally for more debt than you can feasibly make payments on. Easier for a working class schmo to get approved for a $90K truck than a $500K house.
Who the fuck pays $90k for a truck?
Anybody willing to do that deserves it.
Lots of people. I don’t get it either, but here we are.
I mean it depends on what you’re looking for. For some the ability to have all the features they want and not have any small issues are worth the premium. You can choose what you value.
I think it’s a different argument where people buy products outside their means.
A lot of people earn a lot of money. Especially in the US.
My wife’s head gasket went and we had to decide do we get a new car or replace the entire engine and the fact the engine was the better option these days is just wild. Those new monthly payments are wild
I mean, that kinda makes sense? An engine should be cheaper than a whole car, shouldn’t it?
Ya but usually to justify doing large jobs like these you gotta weigh out how much your repairs are annually and if you put more work Into a car a year than the cost of a car payment per year it use to be betrer to just get another car.
Replace the entire engine over a head gasket?
Yupp. New HG for a subaru is nearly the same price as an engine and once you’re in high miles it just saves time and money doing the entire engine. The engine takes about 4h to do vs a head gasket which is about 12h. It’s stupid.
Head gaskets, plural, on a Subaru boxer engine! One on each side. The procedure for that job basically starts with step 1: Remove engine.
So at that rate, if you have a new crate motor on hand you can skip all the shit in the middle and proceed straight to step 2: reinstall engine. It doesn’t surprise me the parts cost for an engine outweighs the labor cost for removing it plus taking it apart twice.
I’m not sure it’s possible to get the heads out of a modern Subaru without pulling the engine. An older one where there was more room in the engine bay, maybe. But there’s too much shit in the way and the unibody and wheel arches are like 1/2" away from the tops (sides) of the heads. I’d doubt you could get a wrench on all the bolts, let alone snake the head bolts out which are like 10" long.
And what happens to the old engine? Does it get refurbished somewhere slow&cheap and become a crate motor for step 2 a few months down the line? Or thrown out?
Depends, but most likely it is either parted out or sent back to be refurbished. Failing that, it will certainly be recycled. There is a shitload of aluminum in any vaguely modern engine (like, from the 1990’s onwards) so even the shadiest of shadetree mechanics will have it melted down for cash before just chucking it in a landfill.
Same thing happens with transmissions. It’s nearly impossible to buy a new transmission for cars that are more than a couple of years old – they’re all remanufactured by Jasper or whoever.
Where are we on the whole used car market thing? This could get wiggly if tons of people can’t pay their car note, but for at least the first few they might actually be able to sell and turn around some money. Not a ton, mind, but until recently it was a given that your car is worth less than you owe on it.
We were in the market for a new car about 6 months ago. I wanted to buy used, but a used version of the exact same car (except a year or two older, obviously with mileage) was roughly the same price as the new car on the lot. Needless to say we bought the new car
I was looking at the amount of bad debt that Americans are in with mortgages, and with the moratorium over on student loan repayments, earlier this year it looked like another 2008 on the horizon. I never considered though that it would be the car payments getting defaulted on.
People should stop buying 40k vehicles and get the shitty econbox then 🤷♂️
Yes, it sucks you can’t get a free loan and stretch your $700 to 6 years.
Shitty econboxes don’t exist anymore
*in the US, because we’ve all got tiny-penis trucks
Shitboxes are the bread and butter of car companies in modern countries
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.
$6000 in 1980 is equivalent to over $23k in 2023.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=6%2C000.00&year1=198001&year2=202309
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 last gen Aygo was 10K€ new.
the current gen Aygo “X” crossover SUV replacement is 16K€.
i would have bought one.
sad to see toyota of all companies to stop making small cars.