Cars were too expensive during the pandemic years because there were simply not enough of them, and the ones that were built tended to be higher trim levels. With inventory inching up toward normal levels, consumers are suddenly facing higher interest rates. Will relief ever come? Potentially, and just in time for the holidays.
That’s right folks, get out your biggest bows because there’s a chance maybe it won’t be a terrible time to buy a car in the next few weeks.
You know what also wasn’t a terrible time, at least for President Joe Biden? Last night’s elections in which Democrats outperformed expectations pretty much everywhere that wasn’t a New Jersey train town (due, in large part, to NIMBYism). I mention this for a bit of context: Amtrak Joe should be in a good mood when he parks his motorcade at the shuttered Stellantis plant in Illinois tomorrow to celebrate the tentative union deal with UAW members and President Shawn Fain.
And, finally, I’ll close this installment of The Morning Dump with some strong Rivian earnings and a little reconciliation on the part of Renault.
Happy Honda Days To All Who Celebrate
Tentatively, it seems like the pieces are all coming into place for this year’s holiday car-selling season to not be entirely awful for consumers. There are a few factors here contributing to the potentially decent conditions.
As you can see in the chart above, the supply of new vehicles is starting to accelerate (in spite of the strike) and even used cars are pretty close to where they were this time of year in 2019, which was the last normal year in the car market. More supply generally means better pricing and more incentives.
Dealers have long complained about the squeeze put on them by higher interest rates, so news that the bond market is moving in a direction that’s more favorable for borrowers is good for consumers and dealers. Plus, consumer spending is up year-over-year across most segments.
“[On the new car side] there’s no question that incentives will be growing again this holiday season, just in time for a season to remember,” said Cox Automotive’s senior economist Jonathan Smoke in his weekly presentation. “And on the used vehicle side we continue to see above-average depreciation for this time of year, and that means we’ll see consumers who have been sitting on the sidelines finding price-points that encourage them to get back into the market and to me that spells stronger momentum as we close out the year.”
Obviously, this won’t be felt evenly across the board. Some models will continue to be popular and hard to get. On the other hand, almost every Stellantis vehicle that isn’t a Last Call Challenger is going to be a good deal based on what CarDealershipGuy is sharing online:
Stellantis is in deep doo-doo ????
Their cars are not selling. Heard this from countless dealers over the past couple of weeks.
Here’s one message in my DMs: pic.twitter.com/sgUfBnEAep
— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) November 8, 2023
While good deals are starting to creep into the market now, the general sentiment in the automotive space is that the best deals will probably come in December. Obviously, a huge increase in oil prices, a war in the Middle East, or any number of other factors could turn that around.
So, get the bow ready if you’ve been on the sidelines, but don’t let anyone in your family see it.
President Biden To Do A Victory Lap In Illinois
Can you feel the Illinoise, folks? President Joe Biden will be heading to the Stellantis plant in Belvidere, Illinois. Why there?
It’s a fairly large symbolic victory for the UAW as the plant was shuttered by Stellantis but will reopen in 2025 to support both a battery facility and the construction of a new mid-sized RAM truck.
For President Biden, it’s also safe ground as he’ll be welcomed by Governor JB Pritzker, one of his supporters, and UAW President Shawn Fain.
From the AP:
Biden will “highlight his commitment to delivering for working families and creating good-paying union jobs, as well as the UAW’s historic agreement that includes bringing thousands of UAW jobs back to Belvidere and reopening a plant,” the White House said.
Though Biden visited the picket line and publicly encouraged a deal for workers, it’s not clear how much the President’s support ultimately mattered in the negotiations. For Biden, the key piece might be the UAW’s endorsement which, though not necessarily persuasive to all UAW members, unlocks a lot of ground support in the key battleground state of Michigan. The UAW hasn’t agreed to endorse anyone yet, though it did say it wouldn’t endorse President Trump.
Rivian Doing Not So Bad
There’s a little bit of grading on a curve you’ve got to do with startup electric automakers, few of which see profitability quickly. Rivian, in its latest quarterly filing, seems to be in pretty good spirits.
The electric truckmaker upgraded its guidance to 54,000 units, and it’s only losing $30,600 per vehicle produced (as Automotive News points out, that’s an improvement over the $139,300 it lost per vehicle produced in Q3 2022).
Listen to how good things are from their report:
We generated negative gross profit of $(477) million for the third quarter of 2023 as compared to $(917) million for the third quarter of 2022. Gross profit improvement was primarily driven by ramping production and our continued efforts to drive material cost reductions through commercial negotiations and engineering design changes.
That’s how it is with startups. Ask me how I know.
Renault Now Owns Less Nissan, Making Everyone Happier
The original marriage of Nissan and Renault was a desperate and hopeful move for both parties, with the relatively stronger Renault grabbing a lot of control over the Japanese automaker. Other than a brief honeymoon period when then-CEO Carlos Ghosn helped turn Nissan around, it turned into a Mrs. Casaubon situation really fast and neither the execs in Yokohama nor the Japanese government particularly loved this arrangement.
As the two companies worked together to try and find a way to live in a post-Ghosn world, this unequal merger is finally being healed with the Renault Group’s transferring of shares to a new trust, meaning that both Nissan and Renault have equal voting rights in the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance.
Here’s the press release from the Alliance laying it all out:
As a result, Renault Group and Nissan now have a cross-shareholding of 15% with lock-up and standstill obligations. Each of the partners is able to exercise the 15% voting rights attached to its own shareholding. The voting rights of Renault Group and Nissan are capped at 15% of the exercisable voting rights, and both companies are able to freely exercise their voting rights within such limit.
Renault has transferred 28.4% (out of 43.4%) of Nissan shares into a French trust, where the entrusted shares will be voted neutrally, subject to limited exceptions. Renault Group continues to fully benefit from the economic rights (dividends and proceeds of share sales) from the entrusted Nissan shares until such shares are sold. From now, Renault Group may instruct the trustee to sell the entrusted Nissan shares, but it has no obligation to do so within a specific pre-determined period of time. Renault Group has all flexibility to sell the Nissan shares held in the trust, within a coordinated and orderly process with Nissan, in which Nissan or a designated third party benefits from a right of first offer.
In addition to chilling everyone out, Nissan (and to a lesser extent Mitsubishi) will invest in Renaut’s EV unit Ampere.
The Big Question
Growing up did you celebrate A December To Remember, Toyotathon, Happy Honda Days or something else? Being a Texan, I primarily grew up celebrating Truck Month, which somehow started in February and lasted until November.
biden riding on others’ coattails. what a surprise.
Someone sounds salty about the drubbing the Trumpublicans took at the polls yesterday.
Can we PLEASE not turn the Autopian into a political site? This is a home for automotive discourse, general discussion, and geeking out about car culture. I, like everyone else around here, needs a break from the R and D bickering…
Amen. We’ve got a good thing going, let’s not ruin it with politics.
I’m with you. Using cars as an excuse to push a political view is what drove me away from Jalopnik. Even though I agreed with them, that wasn’t the place for it.
Thank you for the reminder. Exactly why this site is sooo much better than Jalopnik, with their politics, and thinly veiled hatred for cars.
Absolutely automotive friend. May the dinosaur juice gods be forever in your favor!
You know Chrysler’s cars suck when they can’t sell them even in a pandemic when nobody else even had cars to sell LOL
For 2024, Rivian stopped offering their cars in yellow, and now they don’t let you get the green interior with blue or red exterior. Previously, you could get a red, blue, or even yellow Rivian with a green interior. At least some people did order a yellow-on-green R1T. It’s fucking awesome.
https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/here-she-is-compass-yellow-r1t-delivered.7775/
https://s00n.rivianstories.com/posts/has-anyone-seen-an-r1t-or-r1s-in-compass-yellow-with-forest-edge-interior-how-does-it-work
Growing up we “celebrated” whenever my dad got a wild hair to buy a new vehicle whether we needed one or not. Those were Chevy trucks for his construction business, and Oldsmobiles for my mom (until there were no Oldsmobiles to buy). Sometimes he would take a vehicle in for an oil change, and return with a new one. When I was 7 years old, I was with him when he decided to trade in our dark blue with a dark blue leather interior ’88 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo, for a new ’89 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo. It was also midnight blue with a matching blue leather interior, but it had four more options than the ’88. Even as a 7-year old, I knew he was in deep shit when we got home and Mom found out what he had done.
I have been daily driving the same pickup truck that I bought new for the last 17 years. He has owned four Silverados, an Express van, and a Tahoe in that time.
If he gave it a little longer til the ’90 was out it might have at least been more justified for the larger bodystyle
True. Although I never cared for the round-butt ones though.
I meant to throw a ! on the end there, because it sounds like it would have been only marginally less of an issue, lol.
Usually my dad is the opposite, shopping semi-casually for weeks or months.
I remember when I was 8, my parents had shopped all summer for our first van, finally I went with my dad when he picked out a Grand Voyager that ticked their color/equipment preferences. The next morning we were watching TV when my mother came in and clarified if it was a long or short wheelbase van, she thought the former. She walked out of the room annoyed and then I never heard any more about it.
Oh, my dad is way too impulsive for that. He goes to one dealer, and rarely more than one visit. Zero research. He just wants a new shiny thing. He just traded a ’20 Tahoe with 18k miles on it for a ’23 Silverado High Country with an eye watering sticker price of $72 THOUSAND dollars. He asked me if he should buy the rust proofing for it, and I laughed and said, “What for, you’re only going to keep it for three years!?!”
“Even as a 7-year old, I knew he was in deep shit when we got home and Mom found out what he had done.”
So it was basically an ‘SNL December to Remember’, eh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcEylCwkSxE
I mean, without the unemployment and drinking in the morning, but yeah.
I’m too late for Trucktober, so I don’t think we’ll see deals this good til Truckuary or Trarch.
Aww, I was hoping for a Truckcember to Remember.
But sh*t gets real when Truly comes around, right?
They could get Green Day to do a commercial “Wake me up before Trucktember ends”.
This was a reference to the Ferd Fteenthousand (some mildly NSFW humor):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8P5vGcf-NU
No Truck November is the best time to trade in your truck for something else, though.
Meh… CARtober and CARuary is better… as is Carch…
Sort of celebrate, not by buying, but the local car show put on by dealers were suspiciously all around November(still are!), and I’ve always tried to head to the local convention center and kick the tires. I’ve been to the NY one a few times in the spring but the local ones right before Thanksgiving have a more relaxed vibe.
Looks like Toyota/Lexus hybrids are still missing in action on the lot. I guess if I had to buy something tomorrow, I’d just have to settle for mediocre fuel economy.
Yeah hybrids are still pre-sold months out
I’ll at least be happy when they are pre-sold months out, but without market adjustments being added.
I’m more of a “do all of your shopping on Christmas eve” kinda guy. And, that is typically at the mall, Walmart, Target, or all three! Never owned a new car or an automatic, and I can’t see that changing in the next 10 years.
The only car-related holidays I specifically remember us celebrating were Oh Crap The Beetle Is Dying, What’s The Cheapest New Car We Can Get?, and That Goddamn Diesel You Made Us Buy Froze Up Again.
Oh sweet nostalgia. I’ll never forget Family Vacation Is Cancelled Because the Minivan Died Again. Good times, good times.
That sounds so close to my favorite Here’s a Hammer Go Hit the Starter While I Turn the Key. That was a winter holiday so bonus fun with snow on the ground.
Physical discomfort is part of the experience!
Sounds like a character building experience.
Fk. When our van got wrecked a few days before Christmas, the parents threw us boys in the back of the truck for the 8 hour, 34 degree drive to Grandma’s house. We had a camper shell on the truck, but it still sucked frozen donkey balls coming and going. My parents did NOT believe in renting cars cuz that’s what rich folk did. Plus we didn’t have the money.
My mom’s car routinely died within a week of Christmas (part of our family lore known as the “Christmas Curse” where something tragically expensive breaks or someone ends up with a lifetime chronic ailment) so we were often in the market for a new $800 beater at that time of year now that I think of it.
Cars purchased during this time of year included an Olds Custom Cruiser (in the mid 90’s, lol), an ’86 Escort (easily the worst of the bunch), an ’88 Subaru GL wagon, and finally, the car that bested them all, the Volvo 240 sedan. Pretty sure that car broke the curse.
I hate when I’m at Advance and they wish me a “Happy Holidays”. Back in my day it was just Toyotathon. We wished each other a Merry Toyotathon from Avalon to Supra. We gathered around the 2J-tree and sang songs of reliability and practicality. We put out oil for Santa Cruiser. It was a simple time. Now, you never know when you run into a VTEC worshipping woke cashier!
Vote Honda! VTEC for the people! Toyata wants to drag us all into the right lane!
As a 2012 Prius v driver who feels like his loaner 2023 Corolla is a little peppier than he’d like, I resemble that remark.
You hypocritical Toyota fanatics like to forget that you just appropriated your holiday from the Pontiac Solstice.
Please use the proper Toyota Way name, Solara*. Toyota didn’t just-in-time manufacture your consume goods for you to use such language.
This is good Autopian.
mr regular’s burner account?
I thought the SNL take on December to Remember was pretty funny, and probably, . sadly accurate too December to Remember Car Commercial – SNL – YouTube
This was hilarious. The bloody ear piercing to impress his son’s girlfriend killed me.
Was thinking and posted the same thing!
“YOU BOUGHT A FUCKING CAR??? WE CAN’T AFFORD THAT!!!”
This won’t be a December to remember at least not in a positive light. The Fiat 500e coming to the US has stupid electric only door handles (with mechanical emergency door latches on the inside only), which takes it off the list of new cars I want to buy. The Cybertruck being the only other automobile on that list will almost certainly end up with electric only door latches which will remove it from my list as well.
I got till the end of 2026 to find a new production automobile sold in the US that I want to buy or I’ll have to leave the mass production automobile market. An amendment to defund the mandatory “Advanced Drunk and Impaired Driving Prevention Technology” that will be in all cars new cars sold in the US after 2027 just failed, and funnily enough one of the two Democrats that supported the amendment was AOC (honestly good on her for that). (Trying not to be political but it’s a literal law about cars that’ll most likely make cars more expensive, less reliable, less durable, etc.)
I don’t drink and drive, I don’t even drink hard liquor even in mixed drinks. The only substance I am on (if at all) when driving is caffeine and I still refuse to buy a new car with this tech.
*edit to fix a spelling error, a grammatical error, adding parentheses, and an elaboration at the end of a sentence.
I’m with you on the door handles. I got excited when I saw the Ariya had normal door handles, but it’s just…not a great choice for many other reasons.
Does the Ariya have mechanical door handles? The Fiat looked like it had mechanical door handles then I watched a review video and sure enough they’re electrically latched and unlatched.
Admittedly, because there were so many things I didn’t like, I didn’t verify, but they felt like they were actually mechanical when I took a test drive.
Capacitive buttons instead of physical ones was my biggest dealbreaker.
Thanks for the info, if they felt mechanical they probably were mechanical.
I am still anti push button start, but that is getting damn near impossible to avoid.
I’m good with push-button start, but you are right. If you want keyed ignition, you have to forgo almost every available feature, and even then it’s iffy.
*edit, I meant to say ‘all cars new cars sold in the US by 2027′ not “all cars new cars sold in the US after 2027”
I’m just here for the Sufjan reference.
I came here for the George Eliot reference but I had to look it up. Does that count?
It almost wants me to get one of those giant ass bows, keep it in the basement, and then just get a ridiculous Turo rental every Christmas to throw it on, just so I can troll the hell out of the neighborhood.
A person around the corner from me apparently bought into Happy Honda Days. They’ve got a new Passport with paper tags and a big ol’ red ribbon on the rear window. It’s been on there about 3 weeks now.
the paper tags might be on there come next year too. That is the trend anyway.
I hope and pray that we will not be celebrating any of these holidays for the next number of years. If we were practicing again though, I would likely be decorating for Toyotathon.
Does Stellantis sell anything anybody wants besides the Ram truck or Wrangler? There are Gladiators with $11,000 on the hood. Yikes, Stellantis seems to be in a pretty bad place.
Turns out never developing new products or updating existing ones hurts sales.
Oh, hey! There’s the new Dodge Hornet!!
Just messing with you. It’s a new-to-us version of some European car and it looks to be another sucky soon-to-be-forgotten Stellantis gnome car.
The craziest thing is a car brand in 2023 announcing that they finally have a compact crossover that’s actually trying to compete with others in one of the highest volume segments. It took them until 2023! Unless you consider the Journey, which was more or less a substitute for a small minivan. Which of course has been off the market for 3 years.
If the dealers should be mad about anything, it’s that Stellantis keeps removing models without having a replacement. Charger/Challenger/300 gone. Three models replaced with… a concept car? Yikes. The Chrysler brand is literally a van. Dodge is now just the Hornet (brand new and it seems like no one knows it exists yet) and the (13!) year old Durango.
If Stellantis really wants to be more than Jeep/Ram in the US, they need to either axe Chrysler, bring the van to Dodge again as the Caravan, bring back a modern Challenger and Charger, etc. Or go for broke (probably) and bring a bunch of Peugeots over and rebrand them as Chryslers. I like that idea the most personally, but not because I think it’ll be successful.
As a late-blooming Mopar guy (I came into the fold in the early/mid 2000s), Sergio Marchionne was a blessing that turned into a curse. His first act was to immediately commission new interiors and exterior refreshes for every extant vehicle, which gave the lineup a new lease on life. Then he went hog-wild on Dodge performance, and unleashed Ralph Gilles on styling.
…And then he spent 8 years searching for a merger partner, during which time there was almost zero development on new product. The most obvious gap was the aforementioned compact & midsize crossover segment. They poured everything into overpriced Jeeps, while the Journey was left to wither on the vine. Meanwhile, they had the modern similar-sized China market Jeep Commander right there! That would’ve been perfect to bring here as a “Chrysler Aspen” or the like, and it could have been built at Belvidere.
Maybe the failures of the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 were the last straw for Sergio in terms of North American investment. But regardless, FCA/Stellantis missing a mainstream compact CUV for that many years has to be the biggest whiff of any modern-day automaker. Oh well, at least Sergio finally got his merger, if only post-mortem.
Good points. Sergio did a great job fixing the interiors and appearances of those awful Daimler/Cerberus era designs. But the investment stopped there, sadly.
Plus the whole ‘Ram-Brand-thank-you-ma’am’ thing was stupid.
The trucks should never have been split off from Dodge. Trucks are part of Dodge’s heritage right from the start of the brand.
And again, they only did that to make themselves a more attractive merger or acquisition partner. If some prospective partner wanted just the profitable trucks and not the legacy Dodge cars, then having them as separate divisions would make it easy to keep one and ditch the other.
Now that Stellantis is one big unified organization, there is no reason why they couldn’t rejoin Dodge & Ram, but I doubt they will.
Just remember all the enthusiast clamoring for the Gladiator. There was so much of it. Then they really didn’t buy it, and neither did anyone else.
This is why we don’t get brown, diesel wagons with front bench seats and column-mounted manual shifters anymore.
I don’t think this is quite fair, the Gladiator really did sell pretty well at first.
The problem is there’s a limited audience for such a compromised vehicle, and once they’ve all bought one, what do you do?
It’s worse than a Wrangler in almost every way, but not very good as a truck to compensate.
Yeah, the people who love it are Wrangler fans who wanted their Wrangler to be a pickup…and that’s not a massive audience. Everyone I have known with one loves it, but they’re a very specific sort of buyer.
To be clear though, I’m 100% in favor of companies building weird vehicles for very specific types of buyers (I’m usually one of those people). I think in this case FCA just overestimated how many people it would appeal to.
Absolutely. I’d much rather see weird vehicles I don’t want so that weird vehicles I want have a chance of being made. Seems like every manufacturer offers 1-3 crossovers in each hyper-specific size category, so anyone offering something outside of those is a breath of fresh air.
New Jeep FC FTW!
Think about it, it should be sold as a pickup (2 or 4 door), as a sweet looking van… (oops I mean bad ass SUV that really is a van, just call it an suv to have better sales appeal
Sadly while I’m sure enthusiasts would love it, I suspect sales would be even lower than the the gladiator
I wonder if the gladiator would sell better with IFS as standard and a Dana 60 as an optional FS? This would give much better handling characteristics and let’s be honest for all the “tough / manly / offroad” looks, most people never leave paved roads let alone gravel or actual off road & for those the do… they could buy the optional Dana 60
FWIW, the Gladiator is pretty popular in northern Nevada, so it did find an audience among some. “Compromised” is an excellent description of the vehicle.
I went with a Gladiator after cross shopping various midsize trucks. To me it wasn’t much of a compromise (if any) over other midsize trucks. Now if you consider the mid-size truck segment a compromise in general that’s more true
You didn’t find the Gladiator’s on-road manners significantly worse than competitors?
I’m as sick as anyone of the fetishization of the Ridgeline among journalists for seemingly no reason besides ride quality, but it really does seem like the Gladiator is a step down in refinement/ride quality/handling vs anything else in the segment.
Of course, I have an F350 with snowplow springs, so I completely understand overlooking ride quality in favor of other virtues.
Signficantly worse?, no. from a ride quality standpoint it seems to soak up bumps as well or better than the rangers and tacoma’s I have driven. From a handling perspective, I’m sure it gives up something relative to IFS trucks and a skilled driver can probably get one of those around a track a little quicker, but it’s a difference I’m not skilled enough to exploit. As long as I can keep up with normal traffice on twisty roads, I’m fine. It’s probably worth noting, I bought the vehicle for its off-road capability (among other reasons) and had I gone with a competitor I would have either gotten it with, or quickly added, an all terrain tire with as much sidewall as possible, further narrowing the handling gap.
While this was about last spec on my mind when purchasing the vehicle, this is what I found on a quick search from car and driver.
Gladiator Rubicon Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad*: 0.72
Tacoma TRD Pro Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.70
Ford Ranger XL (likely street tires) 0.77
Skidpad performance is hardly the end all be all metric, but it puts context to the differences between an IFS and solid axle truck when you are looking at off-road oriented setups.
I will concede the solid front axle is less tolerant of lack of maintance, tire rotations, alignments, and component replacement will need to be more frequent to maintain the reasonable handling, but that’s not a big deal to me.
With a hard top and the linear, the NVH in the cab is as good as anything else (in the segement), with maybe the exception of a little wind noise at 75+, the pentastar is no power house but perfectly adequate, and the ZF 8HP is wonderful for an auto. The interior is comfortable, well layed out and the switch gear feels very solid.
Obviously I’m biased, YMMV.
you have to ask why, and the answer is simply the price. screwing a useless bed onto a lengthened JK frame and calling it worth a 10K premium is why they don’t sell more.
This problem applies not just to the Gladiator, but to much of the rest of the (non-ancient part of the) Stellantis lineup as well. Have you priced a new Grand Cherokee? A great car but not competitively priced at all. The Gladiator is a cool niche product over-priced by five figures.
The gladiator lists for about 2-3k more than the equivalent 4 door wrangler for that difference you also get additional payload and towing capacity. The bed is the same size as similar midsize trucks.
It usually seems more like a 5-10K disparity. Maybe prices have more aligned since the last time I shopped one? And of course the rear overhang on the Gladiator is a negative for many jeep folk.
I was one of those people. I assumed they would sell every Gladiator they could make. Mopar fans had been vocal about wanting a modern Jeep pickup for so long, that it became like a mantra. So when it finally arrived, I figured the decades of pent-up demand (plus the perennially hot market for trucks in general) would carry the Gladiator.
I mean I guess it did do pretty well in the first couple of years, but once all the enthusiasts bought theirs, the price was a barrier to everyone else. I think if they sold a really stripped-down model at a lower price, and/or a [gasp] 2-door version, they could really pick up some new business.
well this year they sold the crap out of Challengers and Chargers. Next year the hornets may get eaten by all the crickets in the room. Guess we shall see if the ICE TT6 or BEV challenger will be accepted or not. Certainly they need to do a lot in a very short time to avoid a very huge loss next year.
If “December to Remember” was analogous to Christmas we’d have been celebrating Festivus at the local junkyard.
We weren’t usually buying new, so we didn’t pay much attention to any of the sales events. Unless the local Ford dealer had some decent deal, car shopping involved going to the city and checking out all sorts of lots until we found something worthwhile. We weren’t going to go and check out each sales event as it happened, just whatever was going on when we needed a car.
I’m glad to be in a position to shop around at a leisurely pace now.
Used cars are rapidly coming back down to earth. Depreciation is on a tear right now…I’d know, I own one of the heaviest depreciating cars on the entire market. My Kona N is currently worth a nearly $15,000 less as a trade than it was brand new. With all of 10,000 miles. Fucking YIKES. I love my car but I’m never buying Korean again. I didn’t expect to make money on it or anything but I didn’t expect it would be nearly this dire.
I’m lucky I’m not underwater, because most Kona N owners are and they’re none too happy right now. We’re about to start looking for a new car for my wife and we aren’t considering a single thing that isn’t Japanese. Not passing go. Not collecting $200. It’s going to be a Toyota, Honda, or Mazda.
I’m still kicking myself for not getting out of my Niro at the peak of used pricing. I could have gotten more than I paid for it after 3 years. Now I’m looking at a lot less than that, but I didn’t know the Kona N was worse.
That sucks, and I hope it works out better with your next one.
Yeahhhh, we as a family were big Hyundai fans for many years. But a number of us have recently been screwed by Kia/Hyundai products so that enthusiasm has been all but extinguished.
Kia-Hyundai, I recommend you get your shit together.
It sucks because the Ns are great. I love mine. But knowing what I know now I wouldn’t have bought it. I would’ve kept dealing with the GTI’s numerous issues until I was in a place financially to buy a CT4V BW, IS500, or Integra Type S.
The question I have is why not the Stinger over the N? I am kind of happy about the depreciation as I can get a 3.3T G70 for what seems like a steal.
The Ns offer a level of driver engagement that the Stinger/G70 don’t. I wanted to get out of my 2020 GTI because of what a headache it was/the fact that the market was so crazy. I loved the Elantra N but the wife’s compromise was that I had to get the CUV. I’d started the process to get a GR Corolla but became disillusioned with what a shitshow it was.
It’s a super fun and useful car, and not to sound like a dick or anything but it’s also way under what I can afford to spend. I really enjoy the cheap thrills and don’t ever feel guilty driving it like a maniac because it’s…you know, a Hyundai lol.
I genuinely love it and will probably keep it for another 5-7 years at least…but getting out of the GTI and into the N was an objectively stupid financial decision that I’m not going to make again. I had $8,000 in equity as my downpayment and I somehow got an interest rate of 2.75%…so it’s a cheap car to own/run, especially with the relatively low insurance rates and gas mileage that’s…not GREAT but definitely passable for something with around 300 horsepower.
But knowing what I know now regarding depreciation and our current financial situation vs our 2022 one, it would’ve been a much smarter decision to keep dealing with all the GTI’s issues while it was under warranty and wait it out a little longer…because if I had I’d probably be looking at purchasing an Integra Type S or a CT4V Blackwing in 2024.
It is what it is, sometimes you just need to get a car out of your system 😉
I wonder if the theft issues figure into higher depreciation for HK vehicles.
It absolutely does. The fact that there’s an all new Kona does too. All last gen Konas have plummeted across the board, even the Ns.
I don’t know your situation of course, but I kinda feel like we’ve all forgotten what actual deprecation on new cars looks like. If your N was 35k and is a year old, the old rules would say its retail value should have dropped by 20% or so. That’s 7k. Remove another 20% for the trade-in value (the dealer resale profit margin), and you’re at 14k. Factor in some additional penalty for the model changeover and it seems like you’re kinda right where you should be, at the absolute most painful part of the depreciation curve.
The solution to this problem for me has generally been: 1) don’t buy brand new cars, 2) keep my old one for a reasonably long time, and 3) never look at the blue book until I’m ready to sell!
I never really pay attention to the marketing commercials except for the stupid ones. There are a lot of stupid ones too. Looking at you Nissan
“I know this looks like a trailer for an action film, but it’s really just a Nissan sales ad.”
What a stupid way to lead into your commercial. Instantly telling your customers not to bother paying attention.
I’m thankful when they say that. I get a fair amount done during those commercials.
Happy Honda Days, for Jesus did not speak for his own Accord that he got great financing on after toppling the finance manager’s desk.
… as part of his Civic duty… making him a Legend…
Growing up, I wasn’t buying cars, so no.
The December to Remember music will be stuck in my head until my dying day, but I would not call that “celebrating”.
I’m currently undecided on whether I’ll buy something this winter, but leaning towards it.
I don’t remember the “December to Remember” song but I can never hear “Happy Holidays” without changing the words to “Happy Honda Days.”
The accursed melody is rattling around my brain right now, so consider yourself lucky. I’m sure it’s available on Youtube if you want something to torture your enemies with.
I actually almost traded my car in yesterday for something else…Until I saw the interest rate of 8% compared to the 3.29% I’m paying now. Oof. Payment would have been nearly $100 more even though amount financed was very close. I couldn’t pull the trigger.
On the odd occasion that I actually have traded in my car for something else I have been quite annoyed to find that I needed a car to get the something else home in.
I actually had a dealer play that card when he tried to lowball me on a trade-in. “Sure you could get a better deal at Carmax, but if you take this offer you’ll have a car right now and avoid the extra hassle.”
I’ve been dipping my toe into the housing market lately and it’s depressing to run numbers through a loan calculator. If I financed my current house using today’s rates my monthly payment goes up by something like $500 a month. That’s more than 50% of my total monthly payment today. Having lived with low interest rates for so long I had forgotten how much they affect affordability of things you finance.
I’m actually kicking myself today. I should’ve pulled the trigger and now the car is gone. I’m gonna be thinking about this for weeks. Being a car guy sucks sometimes.
I remember buying my car in 2018 and being cheesed-off that 3.3% was the best rate I could find anywhere. Cut to today, and…yeah. That’s why I’ll still be driving my 2018 car for a while…
Poor Renault. Less Big Altima Energy. Sad.
Every month is Truck Month, except for October, which is Trucktober.
In Texas, can confirm.