To be more specific, Dodge might have around 6,398 big problems. As we get further into the selling year the 2023 MY (model year) cars should start to fade away from dealer lots as 2025 MY cars start to get introduced. This isn’t happening at Dodge, which is stuck with a bunch of 2023 MY vehicles.
Lately, the Morning Dump has been a swing between wondering how much trouble Stellantis is in and how boned Volkswagen is. Today, we’ll get a little bit of both. After teeing off with Stellantis, let’s talk about Europe and the ways in which the government might step in to bail out companies there. Europe may also bail out Mother Earth a little bit by relaxing its position towards China, which is a weird sentence.
Do you know what would help? If either Stellantis or Volkswagen offered a regular hybrid in the United States. Hybrids are selling extremely well and both companies have been caught flat-footed.
It’s Friday. I spent all night looking at Twitter for clips of Shohei dropping bombs and… all the other stuff. Let’s do this so I can go back to sleep.
Dodge Is Still Living In 2023
I don’t blame Dodge for holding onto 2023. Stellantis was extremely profitable, the company was still making new Chargers and Challengers, and Schmigadoon! was still on the air. All good things must come to an end… unless you’re a Dodge dealer.
Cox Automotive is out with an update on inventory levels, and the big news seems to be that the market has stabilized after the volatility caused by the CDK Global ransomware attack. According to Cox, the Days’ Supply was 77 nationwide. That’s not a terrible number, although it’s heavily skewed by Lexus (30), Toyota (35), and Honda (40). Dodge is at 149, meaning that it would take more than four months to clear the existing inventory.
Why? Cox Automotive has a good data point:
While Stellantis brands, in aggregate, lifted incentive spend to 7.8% of the average transaction price (ATP) in August from 5.7% in July, MY23 vehicles are still weighing down dealers in multiple markets. Dodge was most muted on incentives in August among the volume Stellantis brands at only 5.6% of ATP, and it shows in the 22.5% of inventory of prior year models still on the ground. At the end of August, Dodge days’ supply at 149 was nearly twice the national average days’ supply.
Did you get that? Dodge has a ton of 2023 models on the lot and, yet, Stellantis was also not willing to give dealers too much money to get rid of those cars. The average discount/rebate for a new car in August was 7.2% of ATP, but Dodge dealers only got 5.6%.
Just for funsies, I went to Cars.com to check out what’s currently listed for sale nationwide. There are about 10,000 2024 MY cars for sale, about 1,600 2025 MY cars (mostly Durangos), and a whopping 6,000+ MY 2023 vehicles. A lot of these are the discontinued Charger and Challenger, though there are still more than 700 Hornets and Durangos listed for sale. By comparison, Mazda only has about 100 cars from 2023 still for sale.
This would be terrible news in any environment, but look at how hard Dodge is having to discount 2024 models. Here are your options if you go to a Dodge dealer:
- A cool, but expensive and out-of-date sedan.
- An even cooler, but expensive and out-of-date muscle car.
- A large, mostly mediocre three-row SUV.
- An expensive, problem-prone crossover
There is definitely a price at which I’d consider a Durango or a Charger, but it doesn’t seem like Stellantis is willing to get close. It’s the last month of the quarter so maybe Stellantis will make a push and you’ll get better deals. It seems like Thomas already found some.
Germany Might Bail Out Volkswagen
In talking about how screwed Volkswagen currently is, I haven’t even really gotten into how screwed Germany might be. This will require just a little bit of history.
When the Berlin Wall fell, the difference between West and East Germany was the difference between Shoehei Ohtani and, like, the 5 through 8 hitters in the lineup for the Chicago White Sox. Reunification seemed like the right thing to do, but the West German government suddenly inherited a large population raised under a paranoid, Soviet-style government with huge debt and few economic prospects. The fact that the two countries were brought together at all, so quickly and so peacefully, is amazing in retrospect.
Lurking in the background, however, was a feeling that many East Germans had about being second-class citizens. That’s a little simplistic, so here’s a deeper bit of reporting on the rise of the populist, far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) party from The New Yorker:
The dynamic was reminiscent of what I had observed while reporting on the rise of Donald Trump in the American Midwest in 2016—above all, the disconnect between voters in left-behind places and the highly educated winners of the metropolis. What sets the situation in Germany apart, in addition to the dark historical context, is the multiplicity and transparency of the rupture. In the U.S., the growing regional disconnect has been flattened under the weight of Trump’s cult of personality, obscuring the realignment under way in both major parties. But, in a multiparty parliamentary system like Germany’s, the rifts and tensions are easier to discern. They are out in the open, striations of a Western democracy under strain.
After reunification, and sensing this might be an issue, the German government worked with companies to build a ton of industry in the former East Germany. The theory was that economic prospects might temper any simmering resentment. That completely falls apart if Volkswagen goes through with its threat to start closing plants, especially if those plants are in the east.
In a way, Volkswagen (which, it’s worth noting, is owned in part by the state of Lower Saxony) put a gun to the head of the current coalition government in Germany. So it’s fitting that Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck went to a plant in Emden to announce that the government will help, maybe, sort of.
From Reuters:
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Friday that he wants to help Volkswagen get through this period of cost-cutting without site closures.
During a visit to the carmaker’s factory in Emden, the minister said he also wants to ensure that personnel policy measures remain within the normal collective bargaining framework.
However, the minister said there were limits to what his government could do to support Volkswagen, adding that the structure and viability of a business was down to company policy.
The government of Germany is tighter than two coats of paint, man. They’re gonna slice off their kartoffeln to try and save their bratwurst.
EU Might Try To Stave Off Tariffs
Constructive meeting with ????????Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao.
Both sides agreed to intensify efforts to find an effective, enforceable and WTO compatible solution to the BEV case.
This without prejudice to the EU investigation and its deadlines. pic.twitter.com/8P60L3pNYM
— Valdis Dombrovskis (@VDombrovskis) September 19, 2024
The European Union is slowly starting to realize that it can’t have its cake, eat it, crap it out, and eat it again. To quote the great Ross Perot: It don’t work that way, folks.
Faced with a need to bail out its own car industry, which can’t build cheap electric cars, but also a desire to have cheap electric cars, but also without paying to lower the cost of them through extensive subsidies, the EU seems to be considering letting in Chinese cars with tariffs that maybe aren’t as onerous as the ones being proposed.
From the Bloomberg update on the ongoing economic diplomacy:
Valdis Dombrovskis, the bloc’s trade commissioner, said that he and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao had a productive meeting and planned to continue talks “without prejudice to the EU investigation and its deadlines.”
The EU made clear to China that it will continue its formal investigation into unfair subsidies for EVs made in China, but “the two sides agreed to take a renewed look at price undertakings,” according to Olof Gill, a spokesperson for the European Commission.
I think the EU is going to cave. It’s just a feeling, but if Spain/Italy oppose it and Germany comes out against it I don’t see it happening.
1-in-10 Cars Sold In The United States In July Were Hybrids
Because some no-fun automakers decided to stop reporting monthly sales amounts, we’re always at a bit of a delay in determining monthly sales trends. Thankfully, places like S&P Global Mobility can use registration data to make some conclusions.
In the above-linked S&P story on the slowing of EV adoption, there’s some interesting data on hybrid sales:
[I]n the first seven months of 2024 US light-vehicle registrations saw more growth in traditional hybrid-electric vehicles (HEV). Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have improved as well, though that solution still sees slower adoption than either BEV or HEV. In July 2024, HEV registrations were at 10.4% of the total market and volume grew to just under 146,000 units for the month, compared with about 121,000 BEVs being registered. In the January to July period, HEVs accounted for 9.2% of all registrations.
I think at the rate we’re going we might hit 10% hybrids overall for the market by the end of the year.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It seems like a good time for The White Stripes and, specifically, “The Big Three Killed My Baby.”
The Big Question
Time for some baseball talk: Did Shohei Ohtani have the greatest offensive performance of all time last night? Is he the GOAT? Is he the best ballplayer since Babe Ruth?
Top photo: Cars.com/Ron Bouchard Dodge Jeep Ram
Last week we went on a road trip and made a stop in Dave Smithville, AKA Kellogg, ID to grab something to eat. As it has been for a long time they have several storefronts though out town, along with dozens of parking lots all over town stuffed with vehicles. At one of those storefronts the entire front line was full of vehicles with a 23 sticker in the upper corner of the windshield. There were a number of Challengers and Jeeps of various flavors.
Looking at their website on the CDJR side they have the following
2025 394
2024 1,042
2023 94
Of those 2023 there are 56 Jeeps 36 Dodges, and only 2 Rams.
On the Chevy GMC website they have
2025 275
2024 210
2023 1
That sole 2023 is a Canyon.
Note Dave Smith started out with Dodge and are the #1 Ram and Jeep retailer in the US selling them all around the country. If they can’t move Hellcats at a discount yeah Dodge has a problem.
Where is my Abarth?
It’s interesting how in reading the comments one gets the impression that people only go by asking prices. I know two people that bought new Dodges recently, one a Challenger, the other a Charger, and the “asking” price had nothing to do with the actual transaction price. Both bargained hard and both got significant discounts off the published “asking” prices. Comparing asking prices of Dodges to asking prices of other brands doesn’t mean that they end up selling for the same.
In other words, if a Dodge or other Stellantis product seems appealing to you, walk in, talk to a salesperson or better yet a manager, give them your (realistic) offer and be ready to walk out the door if they don’t want to take it. You’re obviously not going to get a new car for $10k or something dumb but there is plenty of room for the dealers to move and open up a space on the lot. But you can’t get it without asking for it. The pandemic has seemed to make many buyers think that the price they see today is the lowest price a dealer will accept, it most assuredly is not that way.
Indeed. My local Stellantis place has a 2023 base-ish model Charger (it has the sunroof and also the cold weather package) for over $10,000 off MSRP and that’s the advertised price without any dumb asterisks beside it.
That would seem to be a lot of car for the money. People can scoff all they want but there really aren’t any “bad” cars anymore. Here’s a large sedan with a proven engine and transmission that’s quiet, quick, comfortable, roomy, is likely cheap to fix if something is ever needed, comes with a long warranty, is brand new, and if the advertised price is $10k off, the real negotiated price can surely be below that making it cost far less than most anything else comparable.
Dodge has so many of these in inventory (and it’s a far smaller number than it was a few months ago) not because they aren’t selling but because they apparently made a decision to build a huge number of them in order to have inventory going forward for whatever reason after shutting down the line. Perhaps it made business sense to run the line at full capacity for the 2023 model year and have inventory instead of stopping and starting it due to demand for another year. It was likely far cheaper to do it this way from a production standpoint, and besides big trucks, the actual cost to produce a 2023 Charger or Challenger if done efficiently is likely one of the lowest in the industry, I doubt Stellantis or the dealer is losing money on any one of them.
Yeah some dealers went heavy on the Challengers and Chargers knowing they were going away w/o any immediate replacement. Of course the factory was happy to keep cranking them out as fast as the could before the doors closed. The dealers were certainly expecting it to take a while to sell them all but maybe not this long. The Jeeps on the other hand are the bigger concern in my opinion.
What is nuts to me is that Ohtani is also a good pitcher. So he hits well, for power, can steal bases, and is likely one of any teams better starting pitchers. He is like a player you create in a video game.
Oh, and he was coming back from an injury this season that kept him from pitching, but apparently didn’t hurt his bat at all.
I find it hard to ever sympathize with worthless middle men car dealers who probably ripped off thousands when inventory was low. Enjoy your lot overflowing with $70k Wranglers, $110k Wagoneers, $100k Durango Hellcats, $40k Dodge Hornets, and a supply of 2023 Challengers and Chargers (and 300s) that apparently require more discounts.
Baseball is a sport of some very distinct eras, ballpark dimensions in the old days could be kinda wild, too. It’s hard to compare, especially when incorporating players from the segregated era. Ohtani is without question the best/most complete baseball player of my lifetime (I’m 51). I hate he’s on the Dodgers, but damn is he good.
Dodge’s problem is their customers are aging out. Boomers all got their big V8 bruisers and now it’s out of their systems. The few that are left are probably buying Corvettes anyway.
They need to make real world cars for real world people.
Stellantis’s shitty cars reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where he couldn’t get the stink out of his car (from a stinky valet) and eventually just drives to a bad part of town, visually drops his keys in the car in front of a sketchy person, then walks away.
What they really need to do (not just drive to sketchy parts of town) is to better predict what the hell people will want to buy and make more of them, in order to maximize profits. And when their initial predictions are bad (as they are right now), sell them for a loss and learn from it. Seems they are unwilling to admit a mistake and are happy to let dealers waste inventory space.
They tried to join the crossover craze with the Hornet but its high price and myriad quality problems solved that really fast.
Stellantis does sell a Hybrid. the real question is why not a Durango 4XE? Outside of the massive price increase that goes with that system in the Jeep side, is there really any other excuse.
Supposedly they make a Hornet Hybrid as well. price starts at 41K though, perhaps the price is why I have not seen or heard much about them as well? 2024 Hornet R/T Hybrid
The Big QuestionS:
Time for some baseball talk:
The more unusual occurrence last night was that he accomplished both 50’s in the same game. And, he accomplished both 40’s in the same game, too. Not sure any of the other 40’s were accomplished in the same game.
Relatively great: To get an idea of how good Ruth was, in 1920 he hit 54 home runs which was second best to the Phillies who hit 60 as a team. Yeah, he hit more home runs than every other team that weren’t the Phillies.
Not disagreeing with the racist argument. Josh Gibson often comes up in this kind of discussion but it’s hard to contextualize what might have been.
It was 8 teams per league so 16 teams. Population was a lot less then so I consider that an evening factor. I’m not going to look up if it’s doubled since then. Guessing it has.
The median team ERA in 1920 was 3.47. That isn’t “sucked”. Best 2.32 worst 5.32. I’d be happy if my team could pull a 3.47.
Ruth averaged .343 and you some how think he’s not better than the league leader this year?
I’d say that Ruth was so far better than his peers that he should still be considered as best of all time.
PS: I hate the Yankees but love baseball so it’s not like I have a horse in this game.
Ruth was great. I’d want him on my team if I owned one in the 1920’s.
Ohtani is greater. I’d want him on my team in any era, though it probably wouldn’t have been allowed before the 1950’s.
Ohtani is pretty amazing, that’s for sure. Let’s not get too carried away though, he’s got a lot of time to put in without injury to be considered the GOAT yet. Let’s see him continue to keep this up for the next 3-4 years, then we can talk. Longevity in baseball matters (as it does in most sports).
I’m picturing a dude at their local CJDR dealer, walking over to the Durangos, and asking himself “Hmmmm, should i get a ’23, ’24, or ’25?”.
Pretty rare that a car is available in 3 different model years at one time. Usually straggler cars are from the final model year, not the third to last.
Dodge got 6,398 problems but a bewildering surfeit of models ain’t one.
Can you translate the question……?
Dodge needs to extend the outlay by dealers for stagnant old stock as credit toward new stock for the dealers. Then, place the reclaimed old stock with discount old stock dealers (or create their own) and sell them off for whatever they can recoup.
I get that the dealers are stressed now, but for awhile there during the pandemic and thereafter, they were just raking it in with their markups without even paying floor plan. Hard to feel sorry for them- they are big boys and they made their own beds.
Agree to a point, but when Dodge, in this case, has nothing to offer dealers but crap merchandise that no one wants, the dealers are kind of stuck. It’s not like Dodge dealers can go order Mavericks or F150s to get a guaranteed seller on the lot.
Even if their cars weren’t overpriced, they still suck!
Stellantis needs to go POOF! Seize the millions the “executives” made and give it to the hourly labor, engineers, and suppliers. Give Jeep back to AM General.
When did AM General own Jeep? Jeep and AM General used to be part of the same company, but that’s like saying MG owns LDV
Shohei put up truly amazing numbers, and will be the first DH MVP, however he is not yet the GOAT. He is well on his way, and once he gets back on the mound, I don’t think I can deny his GOATness. But as for this season he only played on one side of the field, and because of that he can’t qualify for GOAT status yet.
Shohei Ohtani might be the GOAT, but what I’m really rooting for is for the White Sox to officially become the WOAT. 😀
I’m going to be so disappointed if the White Sox don’t pull this off. 120 losses and you are just another really bad team but 121 losses makes you legends.
I think passing the Mets is a foregone conclusion (they’d need to go 7-2, which….lol), but they still have a chance at the lowest winning percentage since 1900.
1916 Athletics went 36-117 (0.235), or the exact record the White Sox are now.
If they finish with 38 wins or fewer, they break the record.
It does make me sad that this recent win streak prevented the 2024 Sox from finishing with fewer wins in 162 games than the 2020 pandemic Sox did in 60 games (35-25). Imagine that talking point.
This weekend against a good Padres team with a lot to play for should push them towards history. I’m a little concerned that they will overachieve in those last 6 games against a couple bad teams. The White Sox failing to become the biggest losers ever would be their biggest failure of all.
You suck so bad that you can’t even achieve to be the absolute worst.
Hey now… their finale is against the Tigers, and they might still be fighting for a playoff spot in that series! I understand it’s been a decade since this happened, but don’t write them off already.
My apologies to the Tigers faithful.
Going 8-2 in the last 10 has changed their outlook significantly.
No worries – no one in Detroit can believe it either
Go Tigers! And you are correct. No one saw this coming!
CalTech Basketball objects to your appropriation of their WOAT title.
A lot of Stellantis prices are downright hysterical. The vast majority of their products are incredibly dated and yet they’re barely discounting them…even though a lot were overpriced to begin with! I’ll occasionally browse Chargers to see if a deal on an interesting one pops up and they never do. If you want a new, reasonably equipped (aka not rental spec) RT you’re still talking $40,000+ and most new 392s are still in the 50s or higher.
They’re not competitive at that point because they’re going against luxury sports sedans. Unless a V8 is your only requirement (and to be fair, I respect you if that’s the case) I genuinely don’t know why you’d buy one. An RT makes sense in the mid 30s and a Scat Pack makes sense in the low to mid 40s. Durangos are similar. If you want a new 392 it’s like $70,000, which is downright hilarious. Like…that’s X3M or Macan S money if you want a sporty SUV or X5/X7 money if you want a nice hauler.
That being said there are some deals on Challengers if you look around. I recently found a new manual RT with the upgraded interior for just under 35 and that’s a lot of car for that price. Whoever bought it got a good deal and is going to have a great time. Anyway it’s the same with Alfa and Maserati! I’ve checked on Tonales and Grecales to see if they’re giving them away yet and they’re not.
The best discounts you see on them are like 5-7%, which more or less puts them at what the original MSRP should’ve been. All of it is hysterical to me. The corporate hubris at Stellantis is absolutely delusional. They’re like “pay more to get less. Deal with it, idiot”…and they’re getting what they deserve.
Yeah, I think we’re seeing this with a lot of consumer goods, not just cars.
There seems to be a pervasive attitude lately that if they just wait it out people will get used to the fact that discounts aren’t coming back.
These company’s leaders don’t seem to realize how the market and competitive forces tend to work out for the ones that refuse to play.
It might be possible to hold out that way if there were something about these products that were unique or superior in some way. The fact that the opposite is indeed the case with Stellantis just makes it more bewildering.
I think many companies are still desperately trying to ride the Covid price gouging wave. Fortunately for consumers it’s not like that anymore. They could get away with charging whatever the fuck they wanted when the items they were selling were scarce…but most things aren’t scarce anymore, so now people can and will continue to shop more discerningly.
This will be a boon to companies that are selling good products at fair prices, like Toyota, Hyundai/Kia, etc. It’s a nightmare for Stellantis, which is continuing to sell products that aren’t competitive at premium prices. I mean “selling inferior products at superior prices” is great for as long as the gravy train will roll but it never lasts forever.
I’m a guitarist and Gibson is dealing with similar issues. They’ve spent the last 20 years selling an inferior product at an inflated price because people would pay for the name/there weren’t a ton of alternatives. Now there are dozens of companies that will sell you a better guitar for way less money and they’ve spent years circling the drain trying to do the same shit while hoping for better results…
“ Like…that’s X3M or Macan S money if you want a sporty SUV or X5/X7 money if you want a nice hauler.”
This exactly. If someone had an X5 and a Challenger in front of them and the only context was “they’re the same price” I can’t imagine the take rate on the Challenger would be high.
I always liked the current durango with its mercedes underpinnings and available hemis. Yeah, it feels cheap inside…but its light years ahead of the absolute trash that the first two gens were.
The first gen was fantastic. Yes, most of them rusted away prematurely (well, it wasn’t like late ’90s and early aughts was a fantastic era for most American cars) but they were solid. Styling was good, they were competitive. Not sure why you’d consider them “trash”.
I have a first gen that I quite like. I’m not saying fit and finish was impressive when it was new by any means, but overall, I quite like the first gen durango. The second gen was such a HUGE step down from the first gen in quality, appearance, interior, all of it. I really do not like the second gen vehicles. I like the look of the third gen enough, I like the 5.7 well if you disable AFM stuff, so if its better than first gen, I could be quite happy with one.
Ohtani reminds me of Bo Jackson in the effortlessness of his skill. He’s unbelievable and I hope he stays great for a long time. I also hope he’s able to pitch again. I get sick of teams like the Dodgers buying players but I hope he wins a few World Series rings.
How else does a team win the WS? Lucky enough with their draft picks, though that is more by the skill of being a very bad team for a very long time?
I don’t follow the sports, but Babe Ruth was an overweight guy that smoked and couldn’t run so this new guy is probably better.
As for the VWs, I’m curious what a government backed VW would look like nowadays, cheap Rabbit compact hybrid crossovers for everyone? Bring back the Beetle as an EV? If they help out enough VW could compete with China on it’s own terms.
See but that adds to the mystique. Babe Ruth is cool BECAUSE he was such a schlub. The dude was an unhealthy, overweight, hard drinking smoker who looked like someone you pulled out of a local dive bar on wings night. And yet he could blast a baseball to the moon.
To me those folks are way more interesting than all the workout warriors, specifically because they’re relatable. You look at Babe Ruth, Bartolo Colon, etc. and go “lol how hard can it be if THIS DUDE is doing it? Maybe I should do dust off my glove.” And you know what? It’s a great time!
Watching Bartolo Colon hit and run bases is definitely one of the most delightfully strange things I’ve had the opportunity to watch in professional sports. The outliers and weird nonsense are often what makes sports compelling.
I read a story once about how Babe Ruth was HAMMERED one day at game time. They had to dress him, and he could barely stand.
So he teetered out to the plate, wobbled a little on his feet….and sent the first pitch he saw into the stratosphere.
I can’t say Babe was the best ever because comparing eras in any sport is a mug’s game, but Ohtani has done something immensely special. I doubt that he could repeat it while pitching too, but we will see.
It’s also rare that a player puts on that kind of show AFTER getting the big contract.
He was the John Belushi of Major League Baseball.
Note that this is mostly true of his later career, during his earlier years in the MLB, Ruth was in reasonably good shape. Obviously, he smoked and drank a lot, but it didn’t start showing until much later.
To get an idea of how good Ruth was, in 1920 he hit 54 home runs which was second best to the Phillies who hit 60 as a team. Yeah, he hit more home runs than every other team that weren’t the Phillies.
My local Dodge dealer has a serious inventory problem. They’ve still got two ’74 Dart Swingers and a ’75 Charger SE.
Is that 75 Charger still at 75 pricing?
No, but it does come with Lean-Burn (R).
Since it’s from that far in the past now, wouldn’t it be called “Ye Olde Leane Burne”?
Any Plymouth Lasers out in the back?
No, but there’s a Caravelle that somebody bought and then forgot to pick up because it’s a Caravelle.
Poor thing. I’ll take it.
I mean Scooter Gennett had 4 HR’s and 10 RBI’s in on game on June 6th, 2017 before the larger bases and pitch clock.
As a bigger baseball nerd than car nerd this cracked me up.
I can’t answer the sportsball question but I’ll ask a question of my own. Who would buy a brand new but technically 2 or 3yo car? My current car is a 2018 which I bought in Feb of ’19 and I got a decent discount because of it. Mostly because I was worried what that would do to resale value since anyone sorting by year will assume my car is 1 year older than it actually is. I’ve had it 5 years at this point so I guess it really doesn’t matter anymore but most people don’t keep their cars that long. Are normal folks going to be repulsed by the thought of buying a ’23 model in ’25 without some sort of discount?
I bought a ’13 new in 2015, but did get a large discount from sticker in order to do it.
I imagine the same is going to be true now.
I did the same thing, buying a 2019 Golf in 2020 at a price that could be described as “Please, please PLEEEEEAAAASE buy this!” It’s been trouble-free so far, a joy to drive, and my spouse and l will drive it into the ground (or until the turbo goes kablooey) so resale value isn’t a concern for us.
Which is even better in retrospect given the horrible state of Mk8 interior ergonomics and design. the Mk7/7.5 has such a lovely interior for the money.
The secret to turbos not going kablooey, never miss an oil change and try to let the engine run a minute or two after hard acceleration to let the turbo cool before cutting off the engine. Do those 2 things and you should be golden, like ponyboy.
“try to let the engine run a minute or two after hard acceleration to let the turbo cool before cutting off the engine”
Is that necessary on a modern turbo? If so I’m surprised all modern turbos don’t have separate electric pumps that keep oil and coolant flowing for that time after shutoff. Those were a thing even in the ’80s, maybe earlier. Or just add small reservoirs that gravity feeds the turbo till its dry, then refills next time the engine is on.
People that buy them tend to be the ones that don’t care too much about depreciation due to expecting an extremely long ownership period, or are looking for the best value new purchase possible. Either getting 10-20% off MSRP of a new car that’s identical to current model year, or even higher percentage and slightly outdated, but can benefit from better new car financing rates and incentive, new car warranty, but lightly used pricing.
That’s generally speaking of course. The answer to you’re question with respect to 2023 Grand Wagoneers is nobody. Nobody would, or is buying them, despite 20k+ discounts.
To answer your question, yes.
If the vehicle was cheap enough and problem free enough I’d definitely do it. The cheap part meaning some heavy discounts. I keep my vehicles fairly long now. But it does tank the worth as soon as you buy it though.
At the beginning of 1990 my dad bought a new ’88 RX-7 Turbo with a 33% discount. The ’90 Turbos had 18 more horsepower and was slightly restyled, but given that he went in looking for an n/a car, I think he was fairly happy with the car.
17 year old me was completely flabbergasted.
OTOH, lower miles for the model year might be a bonus to resale, especially when some model years come out so early in the calendar year. I suppose it might average out more if every model year is older over the product cycle. But for some average models maybe less so. For example Honda’s had 2025s out for some like the CR-V and HR-V since the spring, Pilot even earlier. Could have nearly a year’s worth of mileage on the odo by the time the calendar year rolls around.
My miles are about 10K less than the average ’18 model.
One problem I’ve run into when I find a previous model year vehicle is that even if it’s heavily discounted, they’re often very strange configurations. Like they’ll have the leather seat option but not the heated seat option or they’ll have tow mirrors but no trailer brake controller (I’m not sure it’s possible to actually find either of those specific configurations, but you get the idea).
Of course, in the Stellantis case I suspect it’s more a problem of overpriced MSRPs that mean even heavy discounts aren’t that good a deal, and a lot of people being burned by their lack of reliability in recent years. I struggle think of any recent Stellantis product (so I’m excluding stuff like the Charger, Challenger, and Durango that were designed a decade+ ago) that doesn’t have a reputation for spending more time in the shop than on the road. And since they won’t pay their suppliers, parts availability is a problem (ask me how I know…). It seems like the “legendary” Fiat and Alfa reliability has infected the rest of the company.
My wife bought a 1976 Fiat 131 in 1978. It was a great car at a great price.
Regarding Ohtani:
I did not realize how rare a 10 RBI game is (his was only the 16th in MLB history, rarer than a perfect game).
Given the stakes (50-50 season and clinching a playoff spot on the same night), I’m comfortable saying this was the best regular season offensive game ever.
Call me biased as a Twins fan if you must, but no individual performance will ever top Jack Morris’ 10 shutout innings in Game 7 of the 91 World Series.
Regarding Stellantis:
I wonder how many of those Chargers and Challengers were marked up and held on to by dealers as “Last Call” or something.
I wonder how many of those will be sold at Mecum or Barret Jackson 2035 with the plastic still on the seats
I’m guessing a lot of people think they will try that but underestimate how many Chargers/Challengers are being saved in garages.
I’d like to read that statement with “Garages” as the businesses that repair them to keep them running.
I’m not really a baseball fan in much of any way. But as a native of Atlanta, everyone was swept up in the Braves that year.
Sadly, I remember that game quite well.
My condolences
in the 1959 World Series, when Don Larsen threw a perfect game against the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. That’s gotta be close.
As a Pirate fan (wasn’t alive then) I’d put light hitting second baseman Bill Mazeroski’s game winning HR in the 1960 World Series over the Yankee’s as the greatest individual performance.
Edit to add: Yes you are biased. That’s what being a fan is.
Don Larsen’s feat was 1956 and definitely near the top of the list of game performances of all time, beating the top team in the NL that year. Yes, better than Jack Morris, but not by much.
LAD won the WS in 1959, setting attendance records that will not be matched (LA Coliseum).
I noticed that with the 300C special edition or whatever it was. They got marked up, and now I still see them showing up in new inventory. Some are back to sticker or discounted. Sorry Crazy Larry’s Chrysler Dodge, you misjudged the market there.