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DETROIT (AP) — That clunker in America's driveway has reached a record old age, but there are signs that people may be growing confident enough in the economy to get a whiff of that fresh car scent very soon.
The average age of a car or truck in the U.S. hit a record 10.8 years last year as job security and other economic worries kept many people from making big-ticket purchases such as a new car.
That's up from the old record of 10.6 years in 2010, and it and continues a trend that dates to 1995, when the average age of a car was 8.4 years, according to a study of state vehicle registration data by the based Polk automotive research firm.
Well, cars are made much better today than ever before. The economy sucks and all but I think that has something to do with it.
I had a '99 Taurus I bought in 2000. I drove it for 5 years and put 120,000 miles on it. Sold it to a guy I work with-he drove it for 6 years and put another 100K on it. He sold it to a friend for 600 bucks. His friend took a job in Alaska and drove the car up there and I guess it ran perfect and is still running with close to 300K miles on it. Never anything major done to it except tires and brakes ect.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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LOL I guess Kentucky is the new trend setting state
In my family people drive cars until the wheels fall off. Got an aunt who still drives a 1994 Buick Century, cousins who drive a mid 1990s Buick and Toyota Avalon (they drove a 1980 Toyota Corolla until 2001) etc, another cousin who still drives a 1994 Chevy truck, etc.
I think it is mostly the economy. Cars do last longer now than they did a number of years ago, but that isn't increasing the average age. A good percentage of cars are not driven to the end of their serviceable life, because they simply become undesirable as they get older, and higher mileage.
Since people as a whole have less disposable income for new and newer cars these days, the desirability of those older cars is not declining as quick. People are forced to keep them longer. Therefore, they are getting more out of them before getting rid of them.
Sure, having them last longer helps too. It makes it possible. Yet, I do not see this stat increasing like it is if the new car industry was still moving 17 million new cars a year like it was 5 years ago.
The only problem I see with this is that used car values can go up costing as much as its newer model.
Some vehicles like Tundra’s and Tacoma’s are not worth buying if they’re 1-2 years old, because they generally have not depreciated all that much. The consumer is better off buying a new one with 0% financing on Tundra or 2.9% on Tacoma.
It makes perfect sense when you see that the new car market shed about 4 million vehicles annually in volume and has only started to recover. The average age can only be pushed so far before people start upgrading. On top of that leasing virtually ceased to exist between 2008 and 2010, taking a lot of short term vehicles off the road.
I suspect that statistic is deceptive, because of weighting. Newer cars are probably driven more miles per year than older ones, which often serve as a second family car and get limited use. I would bet that if a sample were taken from traffic flow of the cars passing a certain point over a period of a few hours, you would find that the majority of cars on the road at any given time are a lot newer than 10 years.
I suspect that statistic is deceptive, because of weighting. Newer cars are probably driven more miles per year than older ones, which often serve as a second family car and get limited use. I would bet that if a sample were taken from traffic flow of the cars passing a certain point over a period of a few hours, you would find that the majority of cars on the road at any given time are a lot newer than 10 years.
This may be true to some extent, but at the same time a lot of multi-vehicle families use the older car as their primary driver and let it take the beating so they can keep the newer vehicle nice.
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