The Cellar » Car Prices

xoxoxoBruce · 11/12/2022 1:16 am

Car prices have been bonkers, between a limited supply of new cars and inflation used cars have been getting nuts.
It's just starting to come down in the last couple months.
Part of that is interest rates going up means payments will go up so people will buy something cheaper.
These guys looked at the depreciation over 5 years and a handful that appreciated over 3 years.
It think there has been a lot of flippers buying popular models to make a profit.
Hopefully things will settle down, and no more Amazon losing a Trillion dollars in value in one day.
Maybe I'll start a go fund me for Jeff.

lumberjim · 11/27/2022 1:55 pm

Half of our used car sales are lease but outs. When you buy a car, the banks need to set a value on the collateral. Most use NADA (which is now actually JD Power)

What I'm seeing is 2 or 3 year old cars with under 25,000 miles are "worth" as much or More than they were new.

Insurance companies use the same values when settling total loss claims.

Good time to total your car.... Bad time to replace it.

Clodfobble · 11/27/2022 5:31 pm

Yeah... Awhile back, Minifob sideswiped a guardrail while driving, and only much later discovered that what appears to be light cosmetic damage actually bent something enough that his passenger door will no longer open. (He never carries passengers, so we had no reason to try to open the passenger door for several months after the incident.) But we know that if we try to file an insurance claim, they're just going to total the car, and then we'll have to find a replacement which is fucking impossible right now. So we've decided it's just going to stay that way.

lumberjim · 11/27/2022 5:56 pm

Does the window still go down? Dukes of Hazzard passenger entry still possible for those that can jump?

Clodfobble · 11/28/2022 10:27 am

I assume so, though I'd be afraid that if we rolled it down it might somehow get stuck and not go back up. It's also possible for the very nimble to get in the back and climb up into the front. When we discovered the issue it was because he was driving me to the mechanic to pick up my own car, and I just rode in the back like he was chauffering me.

glatt · 11/28/2022 2:05 pm

Minfob is driving? How did I miss that?

fargon · 11/28/2022 3:52 pm

I'm getting old.

TheNeverWas · 11/28/2022 7:18 pm

glatt wrote:
Minfob is driving? How did I miss that?

That.

TheNeverWas · 11/28/2022 7:19 pm

fargon wrote:
I'm getting old.

And that.

Clodfobble · 11/29/2022 4:29 pm

Yeah, he turned 16 back in May. We went on a college visit in October.

Meanwhile, Minifobette turns 15 in April, so she'll start driver's ed in less than a year, and in less than four years, I will have no more children-children, only adult-children.

xoxoxoBruce · 12/25/2022 7:45 pm

Price increase on the Ford...

tw · 12/26/2022 3:06 pm

Trucks are made so cheaply that the average profit margin on an F-150 is about $20,000. Just another reason why Ford stopped making cars.

xoxoxoBruce · 12/29/2022 11:37 am

Yeah, the dealers/salesmen are always trying for more.
Detroit News,12-22-2022
Tesla Inc. is offering rare discounts through year's end on its two top-selling models, an indication that demand is slowing for its electric vehicles.
The Austin, Texas, company started offering a $3,750 incentive on its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV on its website earlier this month, but on Wednesday doubled the discount to $7,500 for those who take delivery between now and Dec. 31.
The move comes ahead of a new federal tax credit of up to $7,500 that's scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.
Lower priced versions of the Models 3 and Y will be eligible for the federal tax credit come January due to limits on vehicle purchase prices outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Without the discounts, the Model 3 starts at just over $48,000 including shipping, while the Y has a starting price of just over $67,000. To be eligible for the federal tax credit, vehicles can't have a sticker price of over $55,000 for sedans and $80,000 for trucks and SUVs.

footfootfoot · 3/01/2023 9:48 am

Clodfobble wrote:
Yeah... Awhile back, Minifob sideswiped a guardrail while driving, and only much later discovered that what appears to be light cosmetic damage actually bent something enough that his passenger door will no longer open. (He never carries passengers, so we had no reason to try to open the passenger door for several months after the incident.) But we know that if we try to file an insurance claim, they're just going to total the car, and then we'll have to find a replacement which is fucking impossible right now. So we've decided it's just going to stay that way.

Sorry about ur finger and all but what did you expect letting a three year old drive your car? Mini-fob is three, right?

footfootfoot · 3/01/2023 9:50 am

I've been seeing a lot of low mileage vintage cars (over 20 years) coming up lately and I wonder if it is little old lady baby boomers who are no longer driving their cars on sunday?

glatt · 3/01/2023 11:47 am

Those cars can often have lots of little parking lot scratches all over them. The little old lady slowly scraping a parking lot post. Oopsie. Rinse and repeat. Low milage, drive like gems, reliable, and cosmetically mediocre.

Clodfobble · 3/01/2023 12:36 pm

Yeah, but also... sometimes the person got into a wreck, fixed it up just enough, and sold it before their bad repair job could come home to roost.

We recently learned that my stepson's older, low-mileage, looked-like-a-super-reliable-little-old-lady-car did not have a factory-issued axle. Someone, at some point, replaced the axle with one that is the wrong size, which we discovered because it began to leak transmission fluid just a few months after the used car warranty expired.

tw · 3/01/2023 4:11 pm

What new car has an axle anymore?

TheNeverWas · 3/01/2023 7:32 pm

All of them.

TheNeverWas · 3/01/2023 7:33 pm

Brace for this:

Some have multiple axles.

tw · 3/02/2023 11:06 am

Independent suspensions and front wheel drive mean no axles. Only the worst designed suspensions still use axles. And so again, what cars are that crappy and still sold?

Diaphone Jim · 3/02/2023 12:20 pm

They have air-axles, imaginary rods that connect the wheels to the transmission and differential and make them go around, don't ya know.

tw · 3/02/2023 2:47 pm

Another of those alien technologies secretly held in Rosewell. We cannot discuss that. It is secret. The Chinese might steal it.

Last edited by tw (3/02/2023 2:48 pm)

TheNeverWas · 3/02/2023 8:30 pm

tw wrote:
Independent suspensions and front wheel drive mean no axles.

My Caddy is rear-wheel drive, has a full IRS and has two axle shafts.

And full time posi.

Cherry Bomb is front-wheel drive and also has two axles.

TheNeverWas · 3/02/2023 8:34 pm

Poor TW...

He doesn't even know that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

I suspect he may be thinking of a cv joint. Which replaces the universal joint, but no the axle.

Or maybe an old style axle housing...as in, "a straight axle".

Last edited by TheNeverWas (3/02/2023 8:40 pm)