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And the best anti theft device is having a manual transmission, because younger people today have no idea how to drive one, sometimes i wish i had my x mother in-laws old Maverick with a 3 on the tree and use it as a bait car in a not so great neighborhood and watch some young person try to steal it. I would be laughing my ass off.
I would say PRICE is the number one reason why "kids" are not buying new cars.
Imagine graduating college saddled with student loans, the pressure to find suitable housing that you can afford considering your the $35,000 entry level job and then add in a car payment to that?
Even a $20,000 car is $400 per month. Are there even new cars selling for $20,000 that are more than a box with 4 wheels?
The kids of today are finding out the hard way that real life is not like a TV sitcom.
Low wages with little prospect of substantial increases in the future.
High housing costs.
Crazy high costs of buying a new car.
Student loan debt.
Both of my sons really like cars, but they have little or no use for a car. One lives and works in Austin, rides his bicycle to work and to anywhere he needs to go. If he needs to use a car he calls Uber. The cost of keeping a car, especially when combined with parking costs, is simply not worth it. He would like to have a car, and he is a competent mechanic, but the cost of purchase, registration, and especially parking make it not worthwhile. He has and always will have a limited budget (he is a rowing coach). He might get a car someday, but it will likely be 5 or more years.
The other son is in college. He will probably be there for 6-7 years (bachelors-masters in music). Parking is expensive and hard to find. Pretty much everything he needs to go to can be found on or near campus. Electric scooters are available for quick trips that are too far to walk. When he needs to go someplace in a car, he catches a ride with other students who are going to the same place. Some of the students are commuters, so they have to have a car available (but it may be a parent's car). He has an operable $700 beater that sits in my driveway, in case he needs it during the summer. His G.F. does not even have a license (she is 18 or 19). When he graduates, he will likely live in a major city or a university town, he will not have need or use for a car, it would just be an unnecessary expense.
One daughter bought a slightly used car since she had to have a car to travel to various locations necessary for he PhD dissertation work. She got hit by a semi on the freeway and used the settlement to buy a new car instead. She has a 72 month loan. she will undoubtedly take her car wherever she ends up as a college professor, but she will not have a lot of need for it. She will not be buying a new car anytime in the near future.
Another daughter bought a new car when she graduated. It was totaled by hail, but she used the insurance proceeds to pay it off and then bought it back from the insurance company. She cannot sell it, but she has no car payments. She is a teacher, so she cannot afford to take on payments for a new car. Plus she just bought a house in Colorado, so she has no money for a down payment either. She only drives about 5 miles miles each way to work and otherwise, does nto use the car a lot. She lives in a City with decent public transportation. She expects the hail totaled car to last another ten years. If not she will buy a used car. Another new car is too expensive.
Daughter 3 has the most need for a car, but the least ability to buy a new car. She did not like college, has worked various low paying jobs, worked for the labor union for a while and made more money but could nto stand the dysfunctional way the unions operate (or the people she ha to work with), she is back to working part time at a lower paying job. She drives a 2006 Volvo she bought used a couple of years ago and which is literally held together with duct tape and chewing gum. She will have it paid off at the beginning of next year and would like to consider getting a new car but she will have to save up a down payment and she is terrible at saving, she will have difficulty qualifying for a loan, she will have difficulty making the loan and insurance payments, and her job is not very secure, she could end up jobless at least for a time at any moment. she is also aware of the pending economic downturn and does not want to take on a car payment only to have it repossessed.
Looking at their friends and beaus etc, it appears there are two things keeping most of them from buying a new car: lack of funds/high cost; and the lack of any real need for a car. They all seem to stay pretty local and if they need to go on a longer trip on occasion, they either use Uber or rent a car.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 12-10-2018 at 09:33 AM..
Even a $20,000 car is $400 per month. Are there even new cars selling for $20,000 that are more than a box with 4 wheels?
The car payment is only the start. you need full coverage insurance and gap insurance = $250 a month more. Maintenance and parking = at least $50 a month more. taxes and registration = another $30 a month or more. replacement of wear items like tires, battery, brakes, etc. = Another $50 a month after the first year.
Also, although there are cars advertised at $20K and below. In most cases you will pay substantially more by the time your drive away. Even younguns are smart enough to see the foolishness of taking out a 72 month loan on a car designed to last 36 months, which is where the lowest priced cars are (although you can often milk considerably longer service out of them, it is a gamble).
The car payment is only the start. you need full coverage insurance and gap insurance = $250 a month more. Maintenance and parking = at least $50 a month more. taxes and registration = another $30 a month or more. replacement of wear items like tires, battery, brakes, etc. = Another $50 a month after the first year.
Also, although there are cars advertised at $20K and below. In most cases you will pay substantially more by the time your drive away. Even younguns are smart enough to see the foolishness of taking out a 72 month loan on a car designed to last 36 months, which is where the lowest priced cars are (although you can often milk considerably longer service out of them, it is a gamble).
In DC area parking is $100 a month minimum and $200-300 if in DC proper.
In DC area parking is $100 a month minimum and $200-300 if in DC proper.
yes. it will depend on location. Decades ago I visited a friend in Manhattan. He paid $1200 a month for a parking space. He finally got rid of the car.
The are really two subjects here: (1) will Millennials and post-Millennials still keep buying motor vehicles (not necessarily just "cars")? (2) whither enthusiasm for driving and wrenching?
Both are highly dependent on one's environment. In my locale, the nearest convenience-store, grocery-store, bank, post office, gas station, library, coffee shop or any sort of shop, is 8-10 miles away... all rural roads, unsuited to bicycles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by superseiyan
... in my city where I'm about to move, walking to work is the same time as driving to work accounting for rush hour traffic. Why have a car if I'll walk to work daily or use metro?
Traffic moves at 3 mph? That doesn't even happen on the Shirley Highway in Northern VA, heading into DC.
Metro is great, but as you yourself point out, it's expensive... and not very useful if your residence or workplace is far from a station, or you wish to eat during your commute, or you're carrying a week's worth of groceries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ziggy100
People don’t really live in inner cities and if they do, it’s temporary. Just like the old days everybody ends up in suburbs when they have kids.
You have a point there. Even for singles, or couples without kids, there are all sorts of barriers and detriments to car-free urban living, especially if one’s employer is in a suburban office-park. Economic vicissitudes and cell-phone-obsession may have delayed the traditional “adult” rite of passage from 16 to 22 (same age increment as this thread), but it’s only delayed it; it has not obviated it.
There’s only so much truly urban real-estate to go around. Even if Millennials are content to live in 500 ft^2 apartments, there are only so many such apartments to go around. But they are countless millions of suburban acres, with everything from 1900’s bungalows to 21st century McMansions. Nearly all of them require cars.
Good friends of mine (a couple without kids) live near Capitol Hill, in DC... the typical 1100 sq ft, $750K rowhouse. One of them works in Alexandria; the other, in College Park. They have two cars, and use both almost daily.
Quote:
Originally Posted by don1945
We grew up in a different time, we LOVED cars and LOVED driving them. A lot of young people today could care less...….cars are not something they are interested in...
Yes. And your point can be simultaneously true with Ziggy’s point. What I think most assuredly IS over, is the broad regarding of cars as objects of aspiration, personal devotion and hobby.
We still need refrigerators and ovens. Even vegans or Keto-diet advocates still need to cook. So, fridges and ovens still sell… but they’re not by nature objects of devotion. Likewise it has become with motor vehicles. They’ll keep selling. But cars-as-a-hobby are in decline. That was true 6 years ago, when this thread started, and is even more true today.
Likewise with driving itself. I still regard driving as a sport, on par with skiing, sailing, or horseback riding. I take more pleasure in driving up the winding hill towards the ski-slopes, than going down said slopes on skis. This is the sort of mindset that's fading away! Vehicles will still sell, but they'll sell on criteria other than driving-engagement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by superseiyan
Actually it is surprisingly cost-effective even compared to public transit let alone other cars. Caveat is that this is for short distances i.e. if you're ubering and lyfting within city. Suburb to city ubering obviously gets expensive really fast.
In our city if you metro from the ends of the line to downtown, that's $12 a day. If you park at the metro throw in another $6.
Last year, my girlfriend and I had a trip to Los Angeles. Normally I rent a car, but this time, we tried Uber. From LAX to Malibu, then to Long Beach, then Garden Grove, then Pasadena... over the course of several days, it would have been cheaper to rent a car!
Ueber is maybe half of the price of a traditional taxi-cab. But it is still prodigiously expensive.
I guess that raises the question - is this something that the auto companies might be able to reverse through clever marketing, or are the changes more fundamental? And what does it mean for the future of the American auto market?
Cars are expensive. In the city even more. Parking is being eliminated which makes spots a commodity to those that are convinced everything is driven by profit. There is really no other reason.
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