I agree with Beau that 2024 will be the year of affordability, but it’s all relative and we’re not currently seeing prices continue to drop as quickly as they once did. How much of this is seasonal and how much of this is structural is an open question, that we’ll explore in this chapter of The Morning Dump.
You know what will end up being affordable? The Nissan Rogue. At least the 2023 Nissan Rogue will be, as Nissan is offering dealers extra money to get rid of the old models. You know who might be able to afford a Nissan Rogue? Japanese autoworkers, who just got record wages in their labor negotiations, though I assume they’ll be buying X-Trails.
And, off-topic, there have been some big executive moves at GM worth noting.
Nissan Offering Dealers $1,000 For Each 2023 Nissan Rogue They Move
A lot of people buy Nissan Rogues. A lot of people rent Nissan Rogues. It is a car that succeeds, not so much because it’s great at anything, but because they are good enough at enough things and they are always available and pretty much always available at a reasonable price. The downside of this approach by Nissan is sometimes they make way too many of them.
That’s what happened in 2023 and now the market for Rogues is all messed up, with too many 2023s on dealer lots. In fact, Cars.com shows almost 15,000 for sale right now. Compare that to about 8,700 of the 2024 model year, some of which probably aren’t even there yet.
This is bad. Dealers are already mad at Nissan for a number of reasons and this isn’t going to help. What’s Nissan to do about it? According to a memo seen by Automotive News, the plan is to give dealers $1,000 per Rogue if they can move a certain number of them.
This means that not only are Nissan dealers incentivized to move them, but if you can find one at the end of the month who hasn’t moved enough to get the bonus then they’ll be extra incentivized to do so.
What do I mean? Let me create a hypothetical. The way this works is that a dealer, let’s say Oxford Nissan (a name I just made up) has 16 remaining 2023 Nissan Rogues. If Oxford Nissan sells 10, the dealership gets nothing. If Oxford Nissan sells 11, it gets an $11,000 bonus (11 x $1000). I haven’t seen the memo so it’s possible that the dealership can buy the 11th vehicle as a loaner or something else, which is one ploy dealers can sometimes do when the math makes sense.
So, yeah, it’s a great time to get a good deal on a… fine car. It’s fine.
It continues to be a terrible time to be a Nissan dealer.
February Average Transaction Prices Lower, A Little
As we’ve discussed, car prices have finally crossed back below the historic highs this year as more and more inventory comes onto the market. This hasn’t been quite matched by affordability as higher interest rates have kept prices up, and automakers have continually discontinued lower-price, lower-margin cars.
The Average Transaction Prices for new cars (aka ATP) were only down 0.1% from the revised January number at $47,244, which itself is only down about 2.2% from last year and 5.4% from the peak in 2022.
That’s better, but it still sucks.
Here’s the analysis from KBB/Cox Automotive:
“While everyone may applaud that prices are coming down, even marginally for the moment, affordability is still challenging the market,” said Erin Keating, executive analyst for Cox Automotive. “Most shoppers have not seen their incomes increase as quickly as vehicle prices, so affording a new vehicle remains difficult. We should also note that despite rising inventory, which is good for consumers, the levels are muted, not alarming.”
Even worse:
In February, of the roughly 275 different models available in the U.S. market, only nine had transaction prices below $25,000 and only two transacted for less than $20,000. The Kia Rio and Mitsubishi Mirage were the two most affordable vehicles in the U.S. last month, and both are being dropped from the market.
This also sucks. I suspect that we’ll see the average age of the automobile on the road to remain stubbornly high as the lack of affordable new vehicles remains. A rate change later this year, if it happens, might help relieve some pressure.
Toyota Hands Japanese Autoworkers A Huge Contract
Union Summer is now just… the Union Present, I guess? We’ve gone from Union Summer to Union Fall and are now about to wrap around to Union Summer again. While the historic contracts were big news here, the agreement by Toyota to pay big wages to Japanese autoworkers has an even bigger impact on Japan’s whole economy.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made putting an end to the years of meagre wage growth a top priority to jumpstart feeble consumer spending. Japan’s wage increases have kept well behind the average for the OECD grouping of rich countries.
The Bank of Japan is also closely watching the results as a key data point in deciding when to end negative rates, in place since 2016.The bank, which has stuck with massive stimulus and ultra-low rates for years longer than other developed countries in an attempt to revive a moribund economy, is set to hold its next policy setting meeting on March 18-19.“The outcome of this year’s annual wage negotiation is critical” in deciding the timing of an exit from massive stimulus, governor Kazuo Ueda told parliament on Wednesday.
GM Loses VP Of Manufacturing And Software Head
Executives come and go, but GM has just taken a hit with one big retirement and a big health-induced step back from a key part of the company’s future.
Again, from Automotive News:
Gerald Johnson, 61, executive vice president of global manufacturing and sustainability, is retiring, GM said Tuesday. Jens Peter Clausen, 52, who has experience at Tesla, Lego and Google, will take over the role April 2, with Johnson staying at the company until the end of the year.
Separately, Mike Abbott, 51, who joined GM in May as executive vice president of software and services, is stepping down for health reasons, the automaker said. Baris Cetinok, the company’s vice president of product for software and services, will lead the division on an interim basis while the company searches for a permanent replacement.
Here’s the LinkedIn post from Abbott announcing the move:
it’s with great disappointment to share that i’m stepping down from my role at GM. since late last year, i’ve been facing some serious health issues involving my heart that have not improved. as a father and husband, i need to prioritize my recovery and be with my family with the hope that my health will improve over time.
Heart stuff is no joke, trust us, so we’re wishing Abbott a healthy and quick recovery. The timing of this sucks for GM given the importance of getting software right, but the company has stated it feels comfortable in its bench.
What I’m Listening To As I Write This
I’m in a cafe in Oxford and they’re playing Taylor Swift. There’s nothing wrong with a well-crafted pop song and these are about as well-crafted as they get.
The Big Question
This is always a fun game. At what price is a 2023 Rogue a good deal? The 2023 Rogue SV entry-level MSRP is $27,360.
I can’t think of a number where I wouldn’t be sad that I spent money on a Rogue.
THIS!!! I’d even be angry if you tried to pay me to take one. Any amount.
Don’t let your disdain keep you from cash. I don’t want a Rogue, but if someone gave me $1,000 and a free Rogue I’d take it. Then I could sell it and have more money. Or, if I wasn’t allowed to sell it, I’d park it in some spot somewhere until I could sell it, and then have more money. Even if you hate it that much, you could take it to an outdoor firing range and shoot it with guns.
Sometimes morals are more important than money.
Sometimes having a great time shooting/bashing/blowing up a Rogue is more important than morals.
Now that is something I could get behind! But that was not the question posed. 🙂
Is today Taylor Swift Day? Both this and “the othe site” are listening to her while writing today’s morning news summary.
I think 78% of all online millennials are listening to T-Swift at any given moment, so if anything it would be statistically improbable that they both weren’t listening to her.
Matt’s not actively listening to Taylor Swift, oh no. He just happens to be in a place that’s playing Taylor Swift. He absolutely does not have an Eras Tour T-Shirt and knows none of the lyrics to “Bad Blood”.
Then he has a +1 over me. I have an 11-year-old daughter, so…yeah. 99.9% of her identity is comprised of how much of a “Swifty” she is. Thankfully, she’s a car enthusiast in the making, so I’ll forgive these transgressions against music.
I swear every song of hers sounds the same. Boring and tedious.
What price? Free-fifty. No to the Nissan CVT. If they had a fire-sale lease and I was needing a new car immediately, maybe. Only because it’s under warranty and the dealer is around the corner when the CVT checks out at 25k miles.
I must have rented dozens of cars over the years. Not all of them memorable. The Rogue stands out in my memory as the worst ever.
Can’t be worse then a dodge nitro or mittsubishi eclipse around 2008 from fox rental car.
So disappointing those cars.
“Nitro??? There is nothing nitro about this failure in execution.
“New eclipse yeay! I always wanted an eclipse in the 90s in high school. This is gonna be a siiiiick rental car!….”
Wait a second. This eclipse is less fun to drive then my zx2. And my zx2 is a POS. MITSUBISHI WHY ISN’T THIS ECLIPSE MORE LIKE A LANCER EVO????
My mom had a rental Buick skylark in the 90s. I didn’t even know how to drive yet and I was still depressed gm had the audacity to manufacture a car that lame.
If I had to I guess I could lease a Rogue. I would not buy one because I don’t want to be stuck with the check when the transmission blows up. That’s my view of most modern Nissans: Fine to rent, fine to lease if I don’t have better options, but no way in hell would I buy one.
I would not own one—but I would like to rent one with every bit of insurance I could get. Just so I could do the off-road shit I see in their commercials to see how quickly it would die.
Nissan can bite a (nonexistent) dipstick
Nissan, for when you want a Japanese car but you don’t really want a good one.
The Jatco CVT is a no at any price.
And I drive a freaking Chrysler.
Most people here are saying they’d never buy a Rogue and I respect that but will disagree in this limited sense:
If I had a high school aged kid, I’d consider something like a Rogue as a safe, reasonably affordable, and cheap to run first car.
Not for anything like their actual MSRP of course, but I’d pay $20K for something with a warranty that I could pass down to multiple kids.
In a real sense, they’re not dissimilar to the Saturns of yore.
Yeah, great example.
An early Saturn was intended to be my HS car until a red light runner hit my mom and totaled it a few months before my driver’s test.
And like certain models of Vue, they also have a transmission that will blow up due to design flaws!
Source: My cousin, who had a Vue that had a transmission that blew up due to a design flaw.
Big caveat: GM never stated that fluids never need be changed.
I really feel for the employees, but that culture needs to die
Yeah, it seems a taken-to-the-extreme example of our “disposable” culture and how it can easily poison all the various human interactions around our products – everyone ends up angry and distrustful.
Why would you want to buy an unreliable car for your kid? The whole reason people don’t want one is because it’s famously NOT cheap to run, because it’ll explode and require big money repairs.
If it actually was safe, cheap to buy, and cheap to run, then sure.
In this exercise it’s a brand new car with a warranty. Let’s be realistic.
I think sometimes we valorize cars with a reputation for reliability beyond what is appropriate. Even the best cars will need expensive maintenance to keep them going. Likewise, we take famous failures and extrapolate the idea that every single one of them is doomed to break immediately.
For example, it’s not even a question that I’d rather put my kid in a hypothetical $20,000 brand new Rogue than whatever the best used CRV or RAV4 you could get for $20,000 is. Or for that matter, anything else you can actually buy new for $20K.
Yep, anecdotal I know, but my fiancees mom has a 2016 RAV4 she bought new. Toyota reliability, etc. It’s been generally reliable, however she has had issues with it, such as an alternator replacement before 50k miles, and some other minor faults that have cropped up. Yeah, there’s always that guy who bought a beater Corolla for $1000, and drove it to 250k with no issues. Those cars exist for sure, but I would argue they’re outliers rather than the norm.
I’m with you, if I hypothetically had kids and one of those hypothetical kids needed a car, I’d rather buy something new with a warranty than something with higher mileage for around the same price, even if that new car is a Nissan and the used car is a Toyota.
You were a highschool kid once – remember things like Neutral Drops? Nissan pulls the logs, denies the warranty on their durable as fine china/half life of Hydrogen-7/unrebuildable CVT and now you’re out for a new CVT.
I guess I don’t see that kind of reckless misuse as a Nissan-specific problem.
Also, it is worth pointing out that teenage (or probably all ages) recklessness with vehicles tends to be statistically heavily skewed by gender. So in theory, something approaching 1/2 the vehicles won’t be subject to that likely at all.
I could win a Rogue on The Price is Right today.
And I would try to flip it tomorrow.
Just say no, at any price.
Apropos of nothing here, but has anybody else seen the Nissan commercial with the “rookie stunt driver” and the “trainer who’s seen it all”? Apparently stunt driving in an Altima consists of driving in a small circle and performing a handbrake turn 200 feet away from a cliff. Even for a 2024 car commercial it’s awful.
All of those ads are the worst; I dislike ’em even more than the Chevy focus group ads.
I don’t think anyone can really stretch their imagination enough to see an everyday Nissan featured in a movie. Unless it starred Will Farrell maybe.
For my money, the last good Nissan ad was the fathers and sons Superbowl commercial.
I’m going to take it as a given that as Autopians, the Rogue is Not For Us, and rephrase the question as “at what price would you recommend the Rogue to a good friend, valued coworker or cherished relative who doesn’t give a shit about cars and just wants a midsize CUV?”
And that would have to be a lease price for someone who’s determined to lease, because Nissan CVT. So I’d say $250/mo with 0 down for a standard 36,000 mile lease for someone with average credit. Maybe $299 with insurance included.
Never, because I don’t hate my good friends, valued coworkers, or cherished relatives….
I do not want a Nissan Rogue
It will never be in vogue.
I do not want one on my street
I would rather use my feet.
I do not want one on my road
I would feel like such a chode.
Perhaps still not a Tony, but definitely a Theodore.
Do not park one at my house!
That would irritate my spouse!
Do not get me one in black!
Something that I could not hack!
Keep the CVT from me.
It does not bring me glee.
I had a rental Rogue with 75k miles on it for a bit. It died on the side of a California highway with what I assume was a complete transmission kablooey (warning display said something like “shifter failure” or the like). Took me three months to get the cost of the uber back to the hotel taken off my rental bill.
Hard pass, no matter the price.
Honestly I’m shocked the transmission even made it to 75,000 miles.
It was one of the good ones not made on a day ending in “Y”.
Whatever the Rogue’s pros and cons, I give it both thumbs up for having one of the best color options: Sunset Drift ChromaFlair. I saw one in a grocery parking lot glowing in the morning sun. Gorgeous! I don’t want a Rogue, I just wish for the return of exciting colors.
Is that what many would call ‘copper’? That is the only thing I approve of about Nissan: it catches my eye every time. And gorgeous is the only word for it.
Sort of between orange and copper.
I do not. Public transport in the US is atrocious, but the Nissan Rogue is a great argument for improving it or at the very least putting up with it. At least your dignity will still be intact.
A Rogue is a good deal if you literally pay me to take it off your hands. I know there are some car publications out there (not this one) that are desperately trying to make it a thing. Car and Driver in particular has slobbered all over it repeatedly and I even saw a paid partner post with Nissan they did to promote it even further the other day.
But it’s a fucking Nissan. I don’t care that it’s cheaper. I don’t care that it’s well equipped. I don’t care that it looks halfway decent. I am not touching the Jatco CVT/VC Turbo combination. Ever. These things shit out transmissions at a ridiculous rate and the VC Turbo engines are already having catastrophic issues that could lead to mass recalls.
The money you save up front will absolutely come back to bite you when you need a completely new transmission at 60,001 miles. You also have to deal with the stigma of driving a damn Nissan. Big Altima Energy is real, and it applies to the Talltima as well. These things are rolling death machines and I remain somewhat convinced that the cars develop a mind of their own that leaves them permanently at 25 over the speed limit.
Friends don’t let friends buy Nissans. Even if a Rogue is a great deal you’d be better off saving your money and getting the damn CRV or RAV4. The low ownership costs will more than make up for the initial price delta anyway. If you’re someone who’s credit challenged and Nissan is the only manufacturer that will finance you (as they often are) just pay cash for something used, work on building your credit back up, and revisit in a few years.
Seriously. Do not buy these damn things. I know 3-4 different people that have and the goddamn transmissions have left this mortal coil every single time. Add in the dubious VC Turbo tech and you’re just asking for pain. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Find your way into a CRV. The end.
This exactly. I don’t care about the price, I care about the warranty because I KNOW something will break as soon as the warranty is up. 3k off MSRP doesn’t matter to me when I know a transmission is due before 100k miles. This is why I’ve been keen on Hyundai and Kia, a 10 year 100k mile powertrain warranty is incredible. Yeah they’ve had some stinkers for motors recently, but with a warranty that good, you’ve got a bit more reassurance for a while.
You buy a Nissan, and all the same fears stay overhead, as does the equally not great depreciation, but with basically half the warranty. Nope, nope and more nope. As much as my mom liked her 2015 Pathfinder (despite my dad and I aggressively petitioning against it) she’s been far far happier in her CX-9, which is by all accounts a better vehicle in every single metric
I daily a Hyundai. You don’t need to tell me about the goodness of that warranty. And while they’ve had their share of reliability pants shittings in recent years mine has been problem free and I see Veloster N’s with 6 figure mileage listed pretty frequently so I think the high output 2 liter is pretty robust.
Oh yeah I’ve heard the same. I was more just agreeing with you that the Kona N is a great option, as is any Hyundai/Kia product over any comparable Nissan product regardless of what the stigma is. Honestly got close to going down that route, but I’m too in love with current Mazda’s that I ended up with my CX-30 Turbo instead, but I’d be lying if I said the Kona N wasn’t up there on my short list.
The best thing I can say about Nissan over the last decade or so is that the Hyundai/Kia stigma has basically transferred to them.
Which is pretty impressive given they went from world beating cars (Z32, 4th Gen Maxima, B14 Sentra SER, etc) in the 90s while Hyundai was making the Pony and the Excel… Oh how the tables turn
The CX30 Turbo is like a Kona N that went to finishing school. It’s a great product. I love Mazdas too. We’ll be looking at the CX50/70/90 for my wife’s next car.
The only downside to warranty work on my Kia is that the Kia dealerships are terrible at performing the work. It took several trips and a bunch of extra hassle over the course of three months for what I’m still pretty sure was actually just a bad solenoid. They did better on the bad O2 sensor that popped up as I was driving it out of the service bay from the last trip for the solenoid, but I was super frustrated with them already by that point.
Oh yeah I know I’ll be in for an adventure whenever something comes up, don’t worry haha
I had one of these as a rental for a week. It reminded me why I don’t like CUVs.
Years ago they used to offer an option for a third row in the Rogue. it was more of a jump seat, but still usable if you wanted to tote a couple extra critters to the baseball game or home from school or something.
They eliminated it mid-year one year and since then I’ve never seriously considered one. I don’t think price is the issue for me.
I wish this kind of logic extended to a Charger or a Ram, but alas Stellantis transcends economics.
No one actually WANTS a Nissan Rogue, some people are just willing to settle for one. You probably won’t find many of those people here.
It definitely attracts a type. Rogue’s are just as guilty of Big Altima Energy as actual Altima’s. Seriously, I see a Nissan on the highway and my guard goes up. I know I’m about to get tailgated or cut off. The plus side of that is that they make great cop bait. Go ahead and do 90 in a 60, now I can comfortably do 70 knowing if someone’s getting asked for license and registration, it’ll be you.
The Talltima is even scarier to me than Altimas because they’re bigger and less stable. They’re closer to unguided ballistic missiles than they are cars in the DC area. When I see one of these damn things barreling down on me with a driver who’s inevitably texting or on social media I get the fuck out of the way.
Seriously. I yield to Nissans as a general rule of thumb. More often than not whatever maniac they’re driven by has absolutely no regard for their safety or the safety of anyone around them.
If you’ve even googled Altima you wouldn’t buy one so Altima owners are people who bought something as expensive as a car without bothering, caring or being smart enough to first Google it. That says a lot about their decision making capability.
I am absolutely stealing Talltima. Brilliant.
The Rogue is sneaky because from the side you could mistake it for a Lexus RX. That’s what I thought it was the other day until I had to slam on the brakes when it rolled past a stop sign to turn left right in front of me. It all made sense once I saw the Nissan badge.
Maybe it’s because they don’t interest me but I think a lot of SUV’s look the same. It’s as if there are only a few shapes and window configurations to choose from.
It’s not just you. With a very few exceptions like the Bronco Sport, mid-size crossovers all share a lot of overall design principles. It’s not like I can’t tell them apart, but from a distance they all have basically the same silhouette.
The profiles are similar and this Rogue had a lot of chrome on it. I don’t know if it came like that from the factory or if the driver decided to tart it up at Pep Boys. My brain immediately said “Lexus” and my right foot said “Oh shit it’s a Nissan brake now”.
I’ve actually grown accustomed to this sort of behavior. The city I live in is the closest big city to a lot of small hillbilly towns. If you go 10 minutes outside of the city in any direction, everything is covered in a disgusting layer of chewing tobacco spit and half of the children are smoking cigarettes. I call them hillbilly shit holes. These hillbillies often come to the city to shop. A lot of them have no tolerance for other people existing in their vicinity and have no patience for waiting on traffic or sitting at red lights. Every day I see at least one in my rear view mirror at an intersection all red faced, angry and throwing a tantrum because the light is red.
I’d almost argue it’s less the price thats the issue, but more the warranty. New Nissan warranty is 3yr/36k bumper to bumper, and 5yr/60k powertrain, which is fine. It’s just fine. Based on experience I’ve had with Nissans both new and slightly less new, ever since the Renault merger, build quality and reliability is atrocious, and I wouldn’t touch one new with at LEAST a 2yr/24k extension to both warranties.
Anecdotally, my parents had a 2015 Pathfinder they got new. From the jump, interior trim and carpets were not properly routed, overall fit and finish seemed meh, and it was eventually traded in on a new CX-9. In only around 6 years and 70k miles, exterior trim was falling off and making noise, the rear diff was leaking, and interior touch points were degrading badly, as well as other things I can’t remember off the top of my head. Oh and the CVT on that was the noisiest bit of sluggish garbage I’ve ever had the displeasure of driving, even compared to a misfiring 2010 CVT Versa, at least that didn’t handle like a total pig.
I have tried and failed to find the Median Transaction Price for new cars. I think that would be really interesting.
I’ve never seen anyone report it and I’ve never found a data source that I could calculate it from.
I was assuming the entry level Rogue was in the low 20s. Almost $30K for such a meh car seems insane to me. I must be out of touch.
I do not want a Nissan Rogue, it would make me sad.