I’ve only ever bought one brand-new car in my life: an F56 Mini Cooper S, to replace our R56 after all the mechanical problems it had (“It’ll be different this time,” I convinced myself, like someone getting back together with a terrible ex who swears they’ve changed.) We also made that decision because we found some heavily discounted base models that our local dealer was happy to be rid of for about $25,000, which I thought was a very solid deal for a BMW-built baby hot hatch.
That was about seven years ago. Today, it feels unfathomable to score that kind of deal on almost any new car, no matter which one you want. New cars are priced out for all but the wealthiest American buyers. And how long can that last?
Our collective pricing grievances lead the morning roundup today, along with an update on Vietnam’s VinFast, more shakeups at Volkswagen’s software division and China’s automakers are about to conquer another market. Hop into the car you’re holding together with duct tape and prayer because replacing it would cost $48,000, and let’s get moving.
The Widening New Car Affordability Gap
At this point, we’re not telling you anything you don’t already know: The new cars are too damn expensive. A few weeks ago, one of Toyota’s top U.S. bosses predicted the average new ride would soon be around $50,000; it’s already pretty close at about $48,000 in March, according to Kelley Blue Book. The average new car payment is around $730 now.
But more mainstream news outlets like The Washington Post are starting to hit back at automakers over this too, and even the car dealers are starting to express frustration about their growing inability to move some of this metal:
Manufacturers determine which cars get sent to dealerships, and typically won’t send new inventory until the current stock gets sold. In Maryland, where Andrea White has expensive cars sitting on her lot, she said she’s “just suffering through it.”
“We have some final edition Dodge Challengers for $80 or $90K,” White said. “We don’t even want another one.”
Dealers say manufacturers are lifting prices beyond what customers will go for, in some cases leaving dealers stuck with models they can’t sell. Earlier this spring, White had 76 new vehicles on the lot of her Annapolis, Md., car dealership. At the time, she had no takers on the $88,000 Jeep Wagoneer. The $115,000 Grand Wagoneer? Not budging. Many of her cars cost between $50,000 and $60,000.
“I’ve got a few that are so expensive, I would do anything to get them off the lot,” White said. “I’m just giving people prices so that we would just break even. That’s how desperate I am to dump this expensive stuff, because it’s hurting us.”
That’s because what we’re seeing is a total shift toward the top of the market — the wealthiest American buyers — leaving basically anyone else to either find a decent used car (which has become incredibly difficult and also expensive) or to over-extend their budgets to the point where delinquencies and repossessions are skyrocketing.
Only three cars in America are now priced below $20,000: the Kia Rio, the Mitsubishi Mirage and the Nissan Versa. That’s kind of shameful. Check out these trends, also from the Post:
Even as inflation is easing and global chip supply shortages are beginning to resolve, more Americans are being priced out of the nation’s new car market, industry and government data suggests. Spending on new cars by the lowest 20 percent of earners dropped to its lowest level in 11 years. Meanwhile, spending on new cars by the top 20 percent reached its highest level on record, going back to 1984, according to the most recent data from the 2021 Consumer Expenditure Survey, not adjusted for inflation.
We know why this is happening: chip shortages, labor shortages, rising interest rates, bigger tastes for bigger cars, the need to shore up cash to transition to electric vehicles, and outright greed on the part of the car companies [Editor’s Note: One could also just call it smart business. Maximizing profit is any American company’s goal. -DT] just who run on margins and are raking in record profits. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to figure out if a bus pass is a better investment these days.
But what I wonder is, where does it end? Does it ever?
If the dealers can’t actually sell these comically overpriced cars—and the $100,000+ Grand Wagoneer is a great anecdote here—when do the automakers back off on pricing? Of course, that would mean fewer profits and shareholder returns, so I suppose it’s completely out of the question.
China Aims To Conquer Australia Next
Here’s one answer to this problem, and you might even call it a market-based solution: new players show up to take the place of the overpriced brands. And in many places, those cars are coming from China. That’s already happening more and more across Europe.
Add Australia to that list now, too. And not even with EVs—not yet, anyway, but soon enough. Here’s Bloomberg on the rise of Chinese cars Down Under:
Never mind the auto industry’s relentless push toward electrification, Chery Automobile Co. is the latest Chinese carmaker trying to win over Australians with gasoline-powered SUVs pitched at the lower end of the market.
Chery’s mid-size Omoda 5 is selling across Australia for as little as A$32,000 ($22,000) for the base model. A colleague and I drove a high-end version around Sydney for four days. It’s stuffed with extras you’d normally find in luxury cars — think heated steering wheel and exterior puddle lights — and costs not much more than A$35,000.
Australia’s best-selling car, Ford Motor Co.’s Ranger pickup, can go for more than double that price.
Wuhu-based Chery joins Chinese rivals Great Wall Motor Co. and SAIC Motor Corp. — owner of the MG brand — in pouring relatively affordable cars into an Australian market that’s been slow to turn to electric vehicles. Chery was China’s second-biggest car exporter worldwide last year.
And yes, Australia has the same problems I listed above that we do. Interest rates are high, the market already loves trucks and SUVs and prices are through the roof. So Aussie buyers are turning to this new crop of Chinese brands—which are now apparently pretty good—such that sales of vehicles from China have increased 69% in Australia this year. Nice.
Australia’s market is now 8% EV (a little higher than America’s) and you know these Chinese brands have big plans for global electric domination. So are they any good?
How did the Omoda 5 stack up in the flesh? The car’s technology, at least in the better-equipped EX model, appears to punch above its weight. There’s a powered passenger seat and tailgate, heated front seats and an electric sunroof.
Most startling of all, a 360-degree camera system can beam onto the driver’s display a semi-translucent image of the vehicle, as if you were looking at it from outside. The trick reminded me a little of James Bond’s much-ridiculed “invisible” Aston Martin in the 2002 movie, Die Another Day.
I’m very curious about the quality and reliability of these cars, but even if they aren’t great, Hyundai and Toyota’s early efforts abroad weren’t always spectacular, either. The point is, they’re priced to compete and take over quickly in Australia.
Chinese-made cars face a steep 28% tariff in America and I don’t see that changing anytime soon; it’s part of why Volvo and Polestar are pushing for more U.S. production. But if it ever does, expect a seismic shift. You know they want in on this market.
So Does VinFast, But It’s Been A Rough Go So Far
One of the more perplexing newcomers in this space is VinFast, the electric upstart automaker from Vietnam. On one hand, its parent company Vingroup is as massive as it gets, with ventures in hospitals, hotels, smartphones, Big Data, pharmaceuticals—just about everything. And it’s flush with cash.
On the other hand, making cars is hard, as we like to say. This is a car with massive ambitions from a country that’s experience making cars beyond CKD kits is minuscule; VinFast is still the only domestic passenger vehicle brand in Vietnam. Now it wants to break into America’s EV market, not to undercut competitors but to compete with Tesla.
It’s been tough so far, as these things usually go. Here’s Anurag Kotoky and friend of The Autopian Sean O’Kane at Bloomberg to explain the latest. The story centers on Pham Nhat Vuong, the richest man in Vietnam, and his troubled entry into the car game:
Vuong’s difficulties are proving costly. VinFast, his automaker that filed for a initial public offering a year ago, has delayed plans to list in the US. Vingroup JSC — Vuong’s conglomerate spanning homes, hotels, hospitals and shopping malls — and its affiliates and lenders have deployed a staggering $8.2 billion to fund the car company’s operating expenses and capital expenditures the last six years.
The return on all that investment has been meager: VinFast sold just 93,000 vehicles and 162,000 e-scooters.
Vuong has only doubled down, lining up another $2.5 billion for VinFast, $1 billion of which will come from him personally. This month, the company plans to start delivering longer-range versions of its VF 8 sport utility vehicles to US customers.
What’s still unclear is how quickly those SUVs will catch on in what is an increasingly cutthroat EV market, with Tesla slashing prices and putting pressure on incumbents that have been around more than a century. VinFast will need to spend heavily to familiarize Americans with its brand and set up networks for distribution and retailing vehicles, not to mention overcome the growing pains Musk endured when trying to mass manufacture cars.
As that story notes, various early reviews, including ours (thanks for the link, Bloomberg) have been mixed at best. The company is burning through cash, experienced executives from Western auto brands and customer goodwill. VinFast has just 310 cars on U.S. roads now but should add another 100 soon. And the Inflation Reduction Act, which incentives U.S. car and battery production, has done VinFast zero favors.
(As a side note, who’s buying these things? If you bought a VinFast, we want to talk. Get in touch.)
This may be a venture that keeps going as long as Vuong wants it to. But the odds are long here, as we all know.
More Upheaval At Volkswagen’s Software Division
The Volkswagen Group just can’t catch a break on the software front. In December I wrote about the long-stewing effort at VW to overhaul its in-house software division, now called Cariad. The goal was to unite what were previously disparate, every-brand-does-its-own-thing software and infotainment system strategies under one roof in order to prepare the entire conglomerate for a future of connected cars, subscription services, over-the-air updates and advanced autonomy.
It’s not hard to understand why that’s crucial. Given everything that’s coming, it doesn’t make sense to have, say, the Volkswagen brand doing its own thing on the software front and Audi and Porsche doing a different thing. Unifying this stuff is the only way to make it scale.
But things are still not going great at Cariad, according to Reuters. Such that a bunch of people there could soon get fired:
Carmaker Volkswagen is set to dismiss all but one of the executive board members at its software division Cariad next week to try to resolve development problems, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.
The unit – set up under former VW group CEO Herbert Diess -has exceeded its budget and failed to meet goals, contributing to Diess’ departure and replacement by Oliver Blume last September.
Cariad’s supervisory board is expected to sign off on the dismissals in a meeting next week, the source said on Saturday, adding that only the unit’s head of personnel, Rainer Zugehör, might stay on.
A VW spokesperson said the German company was analyzing Cariad and its projects.
One big reason for the frustration, apparently, is more delays for crucial future EV products like the Porsche e-Macan and Audi Q6 e-tron. That’s interesting because last year, software issues pushed those same cars back to 2024. I guess they still haven’t figured it out, and that’s a big problem because it needs those Tesla-fighting EV crossovers like yesterday.
Anyway, this morning Reuters also reported that Bentley’s production chief Peter Bosch is due to take over. Here’s an interesting tidbit from that story:
[VW Group CEO Oliver] Blume is not planning to shift gears completely with the new leadership, sources told Reuters on Monday – but he does intend to place greater emphasis on partnerships to get the carmaker’s software plans underway, rather than going at it alone.
“We will certainly make some changes, but this is not a 180-degree turn,” one source said.
The VW Group’s goal is generally always world domination; don’t just make cars, but Make All The Cars. If it wants this future at all it has to get the software right, but now it looks like it will turn to some outside help to get that done.
Your Turn
What’s your solution to new car pricing woes? When was the last time you tried to buy new, and how much did you pay?
Here’s one idea: just be rich! That’ll solve any new car-buying woes you may have. Have you tried being rich, or even better, being born rich?
Top Photo: Erik McLean/Unsplash
I’ve NEVER bought a new car. But, I WANT to! I’ve always bought used, even rebuilt salvage. I have the skills and the tools to fix them, and keep them going. But, I’m getting to the age (turned 50 last month) where I would prefer to do that because I WANT to, not because I HAVE to. The Mrs. puts 25,000 miles a year on a car, I’ve never seen a lease that allows that much. We’re looking at taking out our first car loan, just to get something with a warranty that I won’t have to deal with regularly. She wants an SUV, but prefers something with a “squared” look (when I married her she drove an 83 GMC 1/2 ton diesel!), which I don’t see anymore, that is affordable. We both like the Maverick, but would prefer AWD and Hybrid (are you listening Ford?).
I know you don’t want to hear this, but get a used 2nd gen prius. They drive pretty decent, far better than an SUV, and they get like 45mpg without even paying attention, and they’re used as taxis because they can go 400-500k miles without almost any issues. They’re huge inside, comfortable, and if you get one with the JBL sound system they sound awesome.
The car will hold value and won’t continue to depreciate, and you’ll save so much on cash you can afford to take more vacations, or blow it on more project car funds. Almost every car guy I grew up with has a prius or hybrid daily, they got used for under 10k, and just drive the heck out of it to stack paper for our project budgets.
I have a 3rd gen and I really think they are the “ultimate transportation appliance”. Not meant as a bad thing.
They’re not too expensive, they’re reliable, they have got to be the cheapest gas powered vehicle to operate per mile: fuel economy, brake pads last 100k miles, 15″ tires don’t cost a fortune to replace. I can fit 10′ lumber in it and have stuffed it full of countless other things. Fine for a road trip, PWR mode gives you a surprising amount of merging power when you don’t have much room.
Three words: certified pre-owned. Let another sucker take the depreciation.
Our 30s something household is comprised of a 2004 Acura TL and a 2006 Buick Rendezvous, the Acura just over 200k but rust free and I’ve replaced various parts over the last 5 years as needed (plus still love the 6 speed manual in it). The Buick was a gift from wife’s grandmother and only 130k, but fairly rusty as from Maine and basically running on mostly original parts still – it would be “average” for rust by northeastern standards, but we are now in South Carolina and all mechanics that see it are horrified!
We would love to at least have one “good” car in the household, but with the way of the new and used market, we definitely fall into the “let’s just give it another year…” camp
Rewinding back to our last new car purchase rather than used: my wife’s 2018 Forester. $24,200 for the base model plus the alloy wheels and roof rail package. 0% financing over 4 years. Feels like another lifetime ago.
I am rich. If you place my income on the scale of global incomes, I am rich. But, I am VERY far from buying a $50k car. I am NEVER going to buy a $50k car, and I can technically afford one.
China will not stop. China will not stop. China will not stop.
China is not beholden to the shareholder. That is your answer, and is the SOLE reason why China will win this war. And, yes, it’s a war. China realized 20 years (40 years??) ago that waging a land war was pointless, and instead they could simply take over the world economically via Communism, which does NOT car about anything other than the ruler at top.
Remove “obligatory” dividend payouts, and you are just beginning to claw back some of our relevance, cause it’s basically gone at this point.
The world acts with their wallet, period.
China is communist in name only. It’s essentially a turbo capitalist oligarchy much like the US but without the human rights considerations we’re supposed to be abiding by. Im not even saying this to try to defend communism either, I don’t think it’ll ever be a viable economic model. I just think that looking at China and being like COMMIES BAD is super dated, leftover red scare nonsense.
China defines itself as a “socialist market economy,” but has been described as state capitalism as well. It’s not COMMIES COMMIES COMMIES (to paraphrase Douglas Adams). I think “turbo capitalist oligarchy” sums it up pretty well, Nsane.
China’s economy isn’t entirely communist where it matters.
I bought a brand new Ford Fiesta ST in 2018 and got it our the door for $19,500 – in California, land of massive sales taxes and registration fees. There’s something to be said for buying something nobody else seems to want, especially when that car is as awesome as the FiST has been for me.
If I had to buy new at this very moment I might be able to talk myself into the Prius Prime, but everything out there just gives me wicked sticker shock. Otherwise, I’m just hoping the Fiesta and the Suburban last a long time and don’t get wrecked and I’ll pay what it takes to do mechanical repairs.
Ordinarily I would never shop for a new car, but high used prices has made new more compelling. Unfortunately new and used prices just seem a bit out of reach for me right now. The wife and I would love to upgrade at least one of our vehicles, but it would mean essentially doubling the car payment that we’ve been comfortable with for the last few years. At some point we won’t have a choice, but for now we’re keeping the two we’ve got for as long as we can hoping this weirdness will subside sometime soon-ish. It would be nice to see someone come in and disrupt the market, but I don’t want a Chinese car. I want to be able to afford the usual cars I’ve pined for like I used to be able to not very long ago.
It’s crazy to see how quickly things have changed. Back in ’18 my wife was in the market for a Mazda CX-9 which had debuted in ’17. There weren’t many used ones on the market and those that were available were priced not far from new, so it didn’t make sense to buy used and we ended up buying a new one – the first new car purchase for me or my wife. That definitely wouldn’t happen today.
On the flip side I’m looking for a used car for a daily driver. I’ve been looking at ’14-’18 Mazda 3s and an acquaintance of mine has one so I asked him how he liked it. In the course of conversation it came up that he paid $16K for his ’17 Mazda 3 when it was new (admittedly it was a stripper model with a manual trans, so about as cheap as they get). That was pretty depressing to hear because 5+ year old used examples with 50K+ miles on them are now selling for the same price as what he paid new 🙁
Regarding the CX-9, now with the CX-90 hitting the market the CX-9 has become very reasonable. A neighbor just got a Premium Plus or such (not the top level, but one down) with venti-seats and all the safety features and sunroof for $37k. That’s a lot of car for today’s money. Another neighbor got a Hyundai Elantra Hybrid Limited for $30k. That’s an impressive little vehicle as well.
I bought my wife’s car new ~3 years ago, just before things became truly untenable. Needed to do it too, since she totaled the last one. It was actually fairly straightforward, partially because the dealer we used was great to work with (and a Kia dealer at that!), and partially because we did our homework, knew pricing, and knew what the dealer was offering was fair.
I bought my last car in August. I had to because Carvana was in it’s final push to give people stupid money for their cars, and offered me $3,500 more than anyone else even attempted. I had just paid it off, and I couldn’t say no. So it was on the hunt, which was tougher for me since I’m a hell of a lot more picky on my own car. Found something that made sense in both my use case and pricing. I’m comfortably below the average new car price and payment, however that would have been a lot more difficult to do if I didn’t have the cash from my previous car.
Market forces will eventually fix the vehicle pricing problem. There will be a Mini, a Beetle, a Civic, a Corolla, or some other car that will hit the correct downmarket formula and become popular enough to become fashionable among the upper crust. Remember when movie stars all drove Prii? Same principal, albeit different motivation. For now the fashionable choice remains Main Battle Tanks for a run to Starbucks, but that will change (some day).
I’m still confused about my last new car purchase. I bought a new F250 in May of 2021. I spent 6 months stalking dealer inventory within a 50 mile radius. I had 5 appointments to test drive/buy a truck (usually set for later that day or the next morning) that were cancelled because someone bought it before I could get there. I saw a listing for my truck at a dealership 10 miles from my house. It was for sale for 2 months, so I assumed it was an add they forgot to take down. I sent them an email and ended up buying it the next day for 10% less than MSRP. I also got an extremely high trade in value for my Wrangler ($14,000 for a high mileage JKU that broke down in the parking lot of the Ford dealership).
I still don’t know why they sold it to me at that price or why it sat on the lot when others were sold within hours. It is an XLT (second lowest price) 4 door diesel, which is a popular configuration. Again, I’m still confused as to why I got that deal. I’m not complaining, though.
> JKU that broke down in the parking lot of the Ford dealership
Allergies?
I’ve typically bought 2-3 year old cars that were coming off a lease in the past, but 2 years ago, times were stupid and used trucks were almost the same price as a new truck, so I bought a new 2021 RAM. It was really pricey, but at least the interest rate on my loan was 1.75%. This year, I leased an SUV for my 20 year-old son because I couldn’t find anything with 4wd that was used and still pretty dependable that was cheaper than leasing him a car. He’s far away at college in the UP of Michigan and I need something dependable that can handle the snow and that he can get serviced locally there. This year I did a 2-year old used car for my wife, but the killer is the 5.5% interest rate. That means almost an $4000 increase in the money going to the bank over a 5 year loan of $40,000. It’s an unseen extra cost of these high prices that you are getting no value for. We were really spoiled with cheap borrowed money for many years.
I used to do the 2-3 year old thing, but the company I work for now has a 4 year age limit for mileage reimbursement, so I’ve got no choice but to buy new
Wow, I’ve never heard of that. It’s not like the IRS mileage reimbursement has kept up with the cost of cars. I certainly am not covering my costs when I’m driving for work using my newer cars.
It’s a bizarre rule, I encountered it once before about 10 years ago at a soft drink company I was interviewing for, and turned down that role in part because of that (there were also other reasons), but with this company, it was initially explained to be as an optional program I could use if I wanted, but, as I got further into the job, I found out it wasn’t actually optional beyond the early orientation period and they really did expect me to buy a newer car to get in compliance with the rule
We’ve had a 6 year old SUV at the dealer waiting on a part since mid-December. The idea of just buying a replacement crossed my mind, but with the market adjusted prices and lead time, on new vehicles, my wife and I just decided to drive their service loaners and borrow my father’s truck from time to time.
Can’t get existing vehicle fixed and cannot/will not pay for a replacement. Stuck between two crappy situations. Heck, I’ll probably just buy my father’s 7 year old truck off him (he doesn’t drive anymore) and forget about buying new for the next 5 to 10 years. Half the cars my wife and I bought in our lifetime have been used anyway. Had some really good used deals over the years, but now even used is $$$$.
My one and only new car purchase was a 2002 Mazda Protege, a base DX model, manual, no options except air conditioning. $13,200 if I remember right, and that felt extravagant at the time. No way in hell I would pay $20k (or more) for an equivalent Kia (or whatever) nowadays.
I just inherited a very nice 10 year old car with only 60,000 miles on it. I’ll run that one up to 200,000 and then see where the market is.
How long did the clutch last on your Protege?
Mine (’03) got spongy at 119k and I dumped it since the cost to put in a new one wasn’t worth it by 2015.
$13,200 in 2002 is $22,500 today.
The attitude of “I hope the car mfrs get what they deserve” is a bad idea, you’re talking millions of blue collar and white collar jobs, and if those go away this whole country’s economy goes in the shitter.
I also don’t see a new car purchase in my future, our last new car purchase was in 2009, and I’m directly in the middle of the boomers who supposedly are driving all the horrible things wrong with the current economy. It’s far more economical to repair what we have than buy something new – even for major repairs like engines and transmichigans…..I can put $5k in a new engine and still have a good running, economical car…….that’s $500/mo for 10 months vs $1000/mo for 8 years!
The attitude of “Ill just buy a gently used car” is fine, but where are those cars going to come from if people can’t afford new cars? Because if it’s that painful to get into a new car, you sure aren’t going to be trading it in with low miles and in perfect condition a couple years later…..folks are going to hold onto them. Look what happened to used car prices during the pandemic.
Car mfrs are caught in a rough space right now – they need to move volume and they also need to start building electric cars and trucks – they’re bleeding cash to do that so they’re making it up in the prices of the last gasoline powered cars they can build. It’s a no win deal for them too.
The top brass should frankly pay for the transition to EVs out their own pockets, since it’s because of their shortsightedness that we’re in climate crunch time.
The car manufacturers are making a butt load of money. Every GM employee got a large bonus last year (good for them BTW). So I’m not buying that sob story.
I’m about to take delivery on a new Ford Bronco. The main reason I’m moving forward with it, is that I’m getting a smoking deal. With price protection and incentives for waiting almost 3 years since reservation, combined with the dealership giving me $2k off invoice, I’m looking at ~$6k off of current MSRP; less than $30k before factoring in any down payment.
There’s no way I’d buy one at current retail, and ADM is out of the question. Which touches on the larger problem with the market: basically, NADA. There are stories from dealers of every carmaker about 5 digit ADMs over the already sky-rocketing MSRPs. I’d rather watch the economy as a whole burn to the ground and hitch up a wagon than pay that.
For under $30K, I’m assuming you got the base model. The Bronco really does not need all the fancy options on the higher trims.
Agreed. At that point you’re getting away from the ethos of the car.
I agree, but pretty much everyone is getting a Badlands with Lux pkg ($50k+).
Yeah, getting a Manual 2 Door Base with a couple options. I was going to spring for Sasquatch, but with the transmission surcharge, and an extra $2500 incentive from Ford to drop it, I really didn’t need it that much. All I wanted was the rear locker, which isn’t a standalone option on the Base. So, I’ll just have to use some of the unfinanced money to make up for that loss.
Bought a 2016 Porsche Boxster Spyder, making sure I’d have the allocation in mid-2014, and took delivery of my order about 15 months later in November 2015.
There was a stop order on the carbon buckets for Spyders and GT4s at the time, so I was given $1000 off MSRP for the car. So actually paid under sticker. Yes.
I started saving towards that in 2010. Put nearly 80% down, paid it off in 18 months.
Unless the upcoming Spyder RS (looking like reveal will be at Goodwood in July?) has a manual — there is a chance! — I’m done. Nothing I want anymore. I plan on driving the Spyder another 40+ years unless an RS replaces it. Might put something alongside it, but all the candidates are at least 7 years old.
I was excited about the ford lightning, it fit my use case perfectly. It was on the high end of my budget but I could swing it. Dragged my feet on ordering one because every dealer I talked to was adding markups.
The price increases and lack of lower end models priced me out. I am no longer in the market and not interested in a Maverick because it doesn’t fit my use.
My last new car purchase was a 2018 model that I bought in Feb of 2019 so I got a decent deal on it. I spend cash on my cars so monthly payments aren’t a concern but the overall price is. A $30K car takes a while to save up for, a $60K car would be an ambitious but possibly achievable goal, but an $80-100K car might as well be make-believe for me ’cause I ain’t rich.
I bought a new car in 1976. That was the last. When it got totaled (unbelievably not my fault) I bought used cars — a couple were very used — and fixed them up. That, plus press cars, kept me mobile.
Fortunately, there’s nothing I really want on the market today, and that’s leaving out the price-gouging. Looking at stickers tells me why the manufacturers are piling on the SUV/CUV/”crossover” bandwagon. More sheetmetal and more gadgets = more profit. And I am interested in neither more sheetmetal or more gadgets.
When your wish list was headed by two-seaters and sporty small sedans from the days when you first got a driver’s license, there’s not much incentive to go shopping today. Should a careful, conscientious seller offer up a pristine, low-miles Fiesta ST, earlier GTI or NA Miata on BaT, I’m toast.
New cars were far more appealing in decades past. Considering that the average car wasn’t expected to roll over much more than 75-85K miles on the odometer before needing significant service or just to be put out to pasture, a new car was typically a better value-for-miles equation than taking a risk on an alleged “cream puff” used car that turned out to be a highly polished turd.
As technology improvements picked up the pace from model-year-to-model-year, you could still score a good value on a new car through the 90s and early 2000s. I bought two new vehicles during the 90s, one at the beginning of the decade and one at the end, and enjoyed the heck out of them. But here and now, I just don’t see the value of new cars at the current asking prices, nor for all the luxury and feature excess that all too often I don’t want. Too much to fail/need warranty service. Yes, new-car warranties are great. But I’d like to have my car, not keep swapping it for a loaner while mine is in the shop. Again. Which, unfortunately, is more likely to happen with more complex cars.
Used cars, and predominantly older (often simpler) ones, are more appealing to me as a car enthusiast.
My GTI is paid off and I am surprised to find I developed the new car itch. Fortunately it’s only out of want than any need right now, but I also don’t know what I would get. With about a year left on the warranty I am glad I don’t feel like I’m in a pinch to get out of it yet should it start to do more German car things.
I’ve mentioned before, I think by now most non-car people are attuned enough to the state of the market from whatever media outlets they keep up with, that they’re holding off buying if they can help it. It’s mostly people in a good position – whether well-off on their own, or maybe a trade that already had high resale (like a Wrangler) – that are making moves on something new. But then, what pops that bubble and when…
I bought a new 2006 Scion xB in February 2007 for $16,500 that I am still driving 188,000 miles later, and hope to drive to 300,000 miles, at which point I will be closing in on retirement age. At that point I plan to buy “The Last Car” which I will drive until I die. I am going to finish paying off my house next year, so that will give me about a dozen years to save up to pay cash for it.
I bought a manual Honda Fit in February 2020 just before the pandemic. For a while I felt like I had taken on consumer debt at exactly the wrong time but mostly now I feel like what it must’ve been like to have scored a new ’42 model just before Pearl Harbor.
I got my 2019 Civic Si in the Fall of ’19, and feel so lucky to have done it then. I have a fun, reliable, economical car that’ll last a good long time with proper care & feeding.
That being said, I’ve recently developed a case of the New Car Itch. but I have no reason to make a change, and really nothing that I both desire and can afford. Still, it itches.
Indeed. I landed my daughter a cherry 2019 Rogue SL with 4k miles on it in Jan 2020. 40k miles later it’s market worth is still $7k more than I paid. It’s nuts out there.
I feel like it’s not going to be long before the focus on luxury inevitably breaks and there will be a panic to readjust plans and investments.
At a certain point you run out of wealthy people. It’s a small percentage of the population. If you start charging people too much in housing they go from buying a new car, to buying a used car, to buying no car. And the more gouging you do, the more this happens.
Not sure exactly what this break will look like, but the current markets are no longer sustainable.
I hope you’re right, but one can also argue that with higher education and the bubble still hasn’t fully burst there. It’s close, and it’s shown signs of some collapse, but it’s still not there. I can’t see further regulations helping lower car prices any time soon…
I’m dating a university professor – albeit for a smaller university in Canada – and let me just say higher education is NOT doing well.
I bought my Kia new in 2014. It was a bait & switch model to get people in the door. I got it at a scream price in my mind and paid it off in 5y at 2%. I want a new car now, but since Kia replaced the engine and transmission, I’ll be keeping. I’ll think about buying new when the recession hits and dealers/OEM are throwing cash at people to buy their inventory.
We know why this is happening: rich people have all the money.
Or the last and this administration have been printing money which has screwed the folks looking on the low end. Inflation is what’s killing this market.