Toyota is selling a basic (no ABS brakes, no airbags, crank windows) pickup in the rest of the world for $10,000. They could probably sell a version with the optional safety equipment in the US for $15-20k. But they will not sell it here and mess up the $50-100k luxury pickup gravy train.
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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At least they aren't doing what the big 3 do with their trucks. A mid range XLT F-150 will cost about the same as a fully decked out Tundra, and a fully decked out F-150 will set you back over $100K, but these were sold for $50-$75K just before the pandemic, so what changed? They just decided to charge more due to greed.
I look at it as fleecing the assholes who buy those fucking things for vanity. Keep it up Ford and GM. Make them go fucking broke.
And also the chicken tax
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So basically,
- Banks will repossess vehicles to try and minimise losses
- Banks will not be able to sell those repossessed vehicles, resulting in losses
- Banks may become insolvent as they are unable to liquidate the vehicles
- Government steps in to bail them out
New vehicle prices are not in line with their actual value, so banks are making loans that aren’t covered by the collateral. This is shit management by the banking industry. If it’s impossible to get an auto loan then vehicle prices will eventually fall as supply stacks up. Banks are feeding this cycle by being unrealistic in these loan assessments.
But... But price only go up?
The sky daddy book of economics says price only ever goes up and concentrated wealth is a good thing
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- Government steps in to bail them out *with tax money taken from the people who couldn't pay their car note in the first place
So either banks make money or banks take money.
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4 probably won't happen. The mortgage bailouts were a bit of a special case, because the debt was rolled into securities and spread all over the place. To my knowledge there isn't a secondary market for auto loans, so the scope is limited to individual banks.
What may happen is the FDIC guarantees all deposits like they did with silicon valley bank, which is less bad than a full on bailout.
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The shift towards massive vehicles (SUVs) and trucks loaded to the tits with tech junk is to blame. Auto industry sold the idea to Americans that their fat ass needs a compensator instead of psychiatric help.
Nah.
It's poor planing and over spending that is the issue. People who lease cars are on an endless cycle of never owning anything and always laying a premium.
Just actually buy a car you can actually afford.monthly payments on and drive the car into the ground. Every car in have owned has made it at least a decade and a 150k miles. Once you are done paying off take what the monthly payment would be and out it into two banks account split 20/80. Woth the 80% being towards a new car and the 20% being for repairs.
My wife’s Honda has over 300k and still runs fine and doesn’t use oil. We put $10k aside for an emergency down payment, but every month it keeps going we are a few hundred dollars wealthier.
I laugh at my buddies who constantly need to have new vehicle.
Too many see their car as a measure of their worth.
Funny thing is my wife bought herself a beat up 1980 squarebody pickup for hauling stuff around the farm and you cannot take it out anywhere without people stopping to comment it and she only paid 4k for it.. Hell, we have near weekly offers from strangers to buy it off of us at a premium. I want to emphasise it is not some pavement princess it has whiskey wrinkles from past owners and plenty of rusty bits.
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that's what i'm hoping for with my 1st gen yaris, 100k and no signs of wear besides the 3 previous owners fucking up the clutch and synchronizer gears.
poor planing
well you got the poor part right
Exactly. I like cars so it starts to suck keeping them for 10 years but otherwise I'd be in continual car payments.
Also taxes and insurance get cheaper as the car gets older too, so that helps.
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Auto industry sold the idea to Americans that their fat ass needs a compensator instead of psychiatric help.
True or not, that got a good belly laugh out of me.
People in power will squeeze and squeeze. They’ll crank up the interest rates. They want you to default on the equity. Take your payments and your car. That’s how they make their money.
Have to be sure they don't repo a running usuable car, then.
I understand the sentiment but please leave us decent cars on the used market.
So what I'm seeing is to find any way I can to short the auto lenders so when they declare bankruptcy I can finally be able to afford a car?
"ok Google, how do I buy a short position on auto lenders?"
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I don't understand how people buy new cars. They cost like 1/4 of a house.
Debt that they can't afford. You can get approved generally for more debt than you can feasibly make payments on. Easier for a working class schmo to get approved for a $90K truck than a $500K house.
Who the fuck pays $90k for a truck?
Anybody willing to do that deserves it.
Lots of people. I don't get it either, but here we are.
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Car payments are a poverty trap. Save and pay cash for cars, it's harder now that used prices are absurd, but it doesn't change the math.
It's not harder. It's not possible for a vast majority of people. You're telling people that are delinquent on their auto loans to "just pay cash" for used cars that are thousands of dollars. Sure you can find a beater for $800-1500 but what happens when the transmission goes or the engine throws a cylinder? Those of us with auto loans don't have the liquidity to pay outright for a decent vehicle.
You don't need to drive a beater forever. At this level cars are basically worth the same you bought them for. A year of driving a 1k beater and saving 500 a month that is less than an average payment leaves you with 7k for a better car.
Minimum wage in most of the USA is $7.25. Working 40 hours a week, 4 weeks of the month is $1160 dollars before taxes and all the other bullshit. Where exactly is that $500 to save coming from?
Most people aren't making federal minimum wage.
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Hopefully. Maybe I wont see so many people who make very little money driving pickups so large they can't even park them right and then returning them 4 years later to get an even larger one.
I have an economy car. My whole family fits it, it is already more car than I actually need. I bought it when it was 5 years old. I will repair it until the point it can no longer be repaired. At which point I will buy another reliable used economy car in cash.
A car is not an experience, it is not a status symbol, it is not compensation for your tiny penis, it is not for showing off, it is a machine that moves humans and goods from A to B.
I have known a retired accountant who lived in an apartment with an oversized pickup, I have known people who make $11 dollars an hour with a bright shiny pickup, I have known a small retail store manager drive around in a Hummer they got modified to look militarish-copish, homemakers with one kid with a SUV that sits 8, people on the verge of bankruptcy telling me how they will be rich restoring a mercedes from the 70s.
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My wife's head gasket went and we had to decide do we get a new car or replace the entire engine and the fact the engine was the better option these days is just wild. Those new monthly payments are wild
I mean, that kinda makes sense? An engine should be cheaper than a whole car, shouldn't it?
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Replace the entire engine over a head gasket?
Yupp. New HG for a subaru is nearly the same price as an engine and once you're in high miles it just saves time and money doing the entire engine. The engine takes about 4h to do vs a head gasket which is about 12h. It's stupid.
Head gaskets, plural, on a Subaru boxer engine! One on each side. The procedure for that job basically starts with step 1: Remove engine.
So at that rate, if you have a new crate motor on hand you can skip all the shit in the middle and proceed straight to step 2: reinstall engine. It doesn't surprise me the parts cost for an engine outweighs the labor cost for removing it plus taking it apart twice.
I'm not sure it's possible to get the heads out of a modern Subaru without pulling the engine. An older one where there was more room in the engine bay, maybe. But there's too much shit in the way and the unibody and wheel arches are like 1/2" away from the tops (sides) of the heads. I'd doubt you could get a wrench on all the bolts, let alone snake the head bolts out which are like 10" long.
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Where are we on the whole used car market thing? This could get wiggly if tons of people can't pay their car note, but for at least the first few they might actually be able to sell and turn around some money. Not a ton, mind, but until recently it was a given that your car is worth less than you owe on it.
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I was looking at the amount of bad debt that Americans are in with mortgages, and with the moratorium over on student loan repayments, earlier this year it looked like another 2008 on the horizon. I never considered though that it would be the car payments getting defaulted on.
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