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1. older cars are much better quality/reliability than new ones
2. despite what many want to believe, dollar value is reducing rapidly. Car is not an investment, it's expense. It is, in long run, cheaper to buy used. Dollar buying capacity is not the same as your proverbial little nickel.
3. used car sales men want more of the pie. So prices go up.
1. Strongly disagree. Not sure how far back you are going in referring to "old cars" but certainly not 70s/80's
2. can argue either way.
3. used cars have different price points (where as new cars all cost the dealer the same amount). There is more margin in used cars, yes. The salesmen sell whatever they have, the management sets the prices.
No I cant afford to drop 2.5K for a motor, but I can build one piece by piece at $100 - 150 a pop over the course of several months. and once the engine is finished I can drop it into the car I was driving around in the whole time.
Plus I could never get a vehicle for 2K that i would be happy with and I would feel like crap for spending that much on a hoopty, or some boring slow car, but buying a car for a few hundred and slowly turning it into the car that can blow the doors off that rich A-holes (insert name of highend euro sportscar here), well there is a kind of pride in that.
You are watching too many movies......You do realize that you can buy a stock Cadillac or Mercedes station wagon with over 550 HP that runs circles around anything you can build in your backyard $150 at a time.
I know, most people these days don't fix anything, they just get a new one, it's kinda sad.
and I'm n ot talking about cars hitting walls, i'm talking about cars hitting each other, but even when they hit the walls, older cars still hold up better after the accident, newer cars have what would have been a minor fender bender they look awful much more damage than what would have happened to an older car. much more body work that needs to but done.
you can't just hammer out cracked plastic.
I fix my cars. But newer cars simply don't need as much work as new cars. I've been relatively lucky and my cars run just fine and dont have issues therefore repairing something isn't a big deal. The wear parts are not taken in account simply because they are normal wear parts. And truthfully most quality parts can be bought online for 1/3 the local store price
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyphorx
No I cant afford to drop 2.5K for a motor, but I can build one piece by piece at $100 - 150 a pop over the course of several months. and once the engine is finished I can drop it into the car I was driving around in the whole time.
Plus I could never get a vehicle for 2K that i would be happy with and I would feel like crap for spending that much on a hoopty, or some boring slow car, but buying a car for a few hundred and slowly turning it into the car that can blow the doors off that rich A-holes (insert name of highend euro sportscar here), well there is a kind of pride in that.
Oh god not that clip. Regardless you do realize that the Supra cost about 75,000 to build. So you're not building that $150 at a time. As far as high end euro sorts car you do realize they actually make some fast cars and fI guarantee you that it's gonna take a lot more than a $2500 engine to beat a 550hp AMG.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyphorx
So basically that 10 year older clunker that used to get sold in the free papers 20 years ago is now the 10 year old still runs good enough car that gets passed down to the kids when jr gets his license or becomes the dependable backup car when you finally get a new one.
or simply middle class people drive their cars til the wheels fall off these days. as opposed to buying a new one every 4 years like they did in the past.
.... sad times.
What's sad? I don't buy a new car until I need a new car due to changing needs. For example I no longer need two full size heavy duty trucks so I'm selling one of them. My wife needs a smaller car as her Infiniti is too big for her anymore and she doesn't feel as comfortable driving it as she used to. So we will selling the extra truck (even though I really don't want to as those trucks are like gold and simply keep their value) and I'll probably get her a new car and I'll drive the Infiniti until I find something.
Location: San Ramon, Seattle, Anchorage, Reykjavik
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffD
An awful lot of people buying used cars have sub-prime credit.
Or they are cash buyers that can't see any good reason to go into debt on a rapidly depreciating asset. With CPO programs like they are today, you get a better warranty on many used cars than on new ones.
I can more than afford to buy any car made. I still buy used because I have to work hard for my money. I've only bought one new car in the last 10 years and that was only because it was rare and the only way I could get it.
Location: San Ramon, Seattle, Anchorage, Reykjavik
2,254 posts, read 2,736,702 times
Reputation: 3203
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiero2
The short answer is demand. More people want to buy used cars than used to.
The long answer has to do with market preference (for whatever reason), but also cars have much higher quality today than even 30 years ago. We have two cars now, one over 300k miles, the other getting close. Such mileage was unheard of 40 years ago, and highly unusual, even freakish, 30 years ago. Today it is not uncommon to see cars over 200k miles.
I bought a Toyota Tacoma last weekend to haul firewood at my cabin. $1000. 567,000 miles. No rust, zero oil leaks, good clutch, and starts and runs flawlessly. The interior is a bit trashed and the windshield could do with replacing but that's it. Modern cars will run just about forever if they are maintained and protected from rust.
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