The Toyota Corolla starts out at just over $17,000 and fits four people comfortably. There's room in the back for a baby seat if you need it. The same is true for other cars in its class such as the Kia Forte which starts out at just under $16,000. If transporting other people isn't a concern, or if you usually just have one passenger, a car like the Toyota Yaris starts at just under $15,000. See also the Kia Rio where you can get a five door hatch for around a similar price. Need more space for kids and are willing to swallow your pride and not go full SUV? The Toyota Sienna can be had for just under $29,000, that's $5,000 below the price of the average car quoted in the article. Need a work truck? Even both the Toyota Tacoma and the Toyota Tundra start under the price quoted in the article, though once you start tossing in features like 4wd, the price starts to climb. Though to be honest with you, most people who own trucks don't really use them as trucks. I'm amazed at the number of used car dealerships I've been in over the years that have truck after truck that don't have a single scratch in their bed, even at five or six years old. All of these vehicles, and similar ones from companies like Chevrolet, Hyundai, and more can be had at reasonable prices and last you well into the 15 year and 250,000 mile range if they're well taken care of. Car companies like Lexus and Cadillac tip this price range and loaded out cars like SUVs and trucks also tip this price range, but affordable cars are out there. As for the talk about financing? That's probably pretty spot on.
Have you... driven a Forte? Or a Yarpus? Or a Rio? They're awful. I mean, they're not awful in a "I would kick it out of the driveway" way, they're awful in a "there's no way I could look at myself in the mirror if I let someone charge me $15k for this piece of shit" way. That's why the article talks about average prices and average incomes - $29k a year is pretty much poverty and if you're comfortable asking someone to drop half their yearly income on a fuckin' Yarpus you're more cruel than I. So of course you can buy used. At $29k a year "affordable" is enough to buy my 2009 Honda Fit off me at going rates, all 130k miles and a fender bender of it. Which is borderline Dickensian - let the proles lick up the drippings while the plebs eat the meat. Know why I'm not driving the same damn FR-S you are? 'cuz holy shit thirty grand. I took out a loan like 14 years ago to finance all $9200 of my Stealth, and it's still a semi-decent ride. I even start looking at stuff and a pussilanimous V6 Mustang is like $28k out the door. mk and I had a dispute about the price of cars and their affordability. The other side of the "affordability" equation is "how much money do you have." That, as it turns out, is going down.
I agree 30K is a lot of money. Id have to save for at least 2 years to cover that and its hard to justify that when your existing care runs just fine. I hate my shitty Nissan Altima, but I dont know if I hate it enough to plop down 30k on a new car. The other issue is that the only feature I really want is Low Speed Adaptive Cruise control and nobody wants to sell it to me without selling me a lot of worthless shit I dont need. To get ACC I need to pay for a rain hole in my roof, a shitty Bose deck, a navigation system that makes Apple maps look functional, and headlight assemblies that cost $1500 instead of 300 and provide little additional functionality other then the ability to break in new an innovative ways. Oh yeah and Rims FUCKING Rims cruise control wont work without those either apparently.
You sure do like that word nowadays.pussilanimous
Maybe it's just such a wacky word I've been noticing it more: Ooh, I never saw the convo about that Foreign Affairs article on Iran. I had just finished Legacy of Ashes, then read that and was really confused how that article got written cause one or the other was blatantly lying. I didn't really have an end game in mind here.
Well to be fair, they're entry level commuter cars. Ford Falcons and AMC Gremlins were equally depressing in their times. Most people don't seem to care though. I have co workers with Kia Spectras, Hyundai Accents, etc. and their cars aren't causing them to fall into month long bouts of depression. A lot of people just don't care. Are cars getting more expensive? Yes. Do I recommend a household making under 30k to drop the dough on a new car? Probably not. But, there is a silver lining on those new cars. They last longer now and are much more reliable, so if you keep the car for life you really might be getting more miles for your money. Though, I'm on the phone and don't know how to do the math on that, so I might be wrong. I love my car. I hate my car payments. Don't tell my wife I said this, but if I could do it all over again? I'd have bought a used car as a daily driver and maybe a project car for fun. I was young, dumb, and in love. I learned my lesson on that though! I can only hope when it comes time to buy a house I don't make a similar mistake. I do agree cars are getting more expensive though. A brand new '85 Mustang GT in 2016 dollars is a steal compared to a '16 Mustang GT. Airbags, traction control, back up cameras, and other safety devices add to that price, which is a shame for cost, but arguably keeps us safer. So, I don't know. At least they last longer (until the electronics get screwy).
I have a Kia Spectra. Sure it's boring as heck but who gives a crap, all I am doing with it is collecting dings, bumps, and scratches from parking it downtown all day. As long as it keeps running I'm happy and would replace it with a Forte hatch in a heartbeat.
Someone at my place has a new BMW 4 series, and it's beautiful. In theory, I could probably afford it. But when I replace my Civic, I'd rather spend $25k on a Subaru Crosstrek than $45k on a 4 series. That's a different question on prices. Should Americans who can receive a six year loan on an average priced new car take that route, or are they better served buying something less costly or used with a four or less year loan?I love my car. I hate my car payments.
Anecdotally I hear that Subaru reliability isn't all that great. They are still having engine problems (oil and head gasket). The price premium for them doesn't justify the shitty interior build and the reliability issues. A CX-5 or ford Escape will run you just about the same amount of $ for a 4wd versionSomeone at my place has a new BMW 4 series, and it's beautiful. In theory, I could probably afford it. But when I replace my Civic, I'd rather spend $25k on a Subaru Crosstrek than $45k on a 4 series. That's a different question on prices. Should Americans who can receive a six year loan on an average priced new car take that route, or are they better served buying something less costly or used with a four or less year loan?
Bah. I drove a '66 Falcon for years. The build quality was miles above a Yarpus, and I hated the shit out of that car. More than that, I'm willing to bet that Yarpuses in 2030 are going to be as rare as Suzuki Samurais are today. They just aren't built to last.
Eh. Not to dog on you, but the Samurai is kind of a bad example. There weren't nearly as many sold in the '90s as Yarises sell today. There are still a good number of '90s Corollas and Civics though, hell even Cavaliers are still running out there. The Yaris might start to get feeling a bit jalopy when it becomes 20 years old, but it'll probably still be there. Annecdotal evidence? My bud has a Toyota Echo (which Toyota renamed the Yaris about 2 generations back) and a Geo Metro from the mid '90s. Both are still running decently on the original drivetrains. His problem is getting replacement parts for everything else that's failing on them. Because they're not cars that people want to keep running, like a Fox Body Mustang, finding parts for them can be difficult. If the Echo/Yaris was iconic as the Falcon/Mustang, he probably wouldn't have that problem. I mean, let's be honest, if you called up an auto parts store looking for something for an '82 Chevette they'll laugh and wonder how you've kept it running for so long.
Bring it, bitch. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-09-22/business/fi-3229_1_suzuki-samurai Meanwhile, Yarpuses are flying out the door at about a thousand a month right now, down from ~2500 a month. Anecdotal evidence? I owned two Samurais. They weren't pieces of shit. They were jeeps, and if you drove them like GTis you got what you deserved. But they were also 1300cc k-cars and they weren't built to last. I killed one just by driving it to Vancouver and back with four people in it. People don't want to keep the Fox bodies running. They were just around for fifteen fucking years so there's no shortage of parts. And by the way. Here's the problem, yo - you freely admit you don't know how to work on cars, but you really like cars. I freely admit that I've forgotten more about cars than most people will ever know and, you know, these days I kind of hate them. I took apart my first Volkswagen at the age of 6. I have a preposterous amount of schadenfreude towards VW but I'll say this: a 6-year-old can work on a Beetle. A Yarpus? He'd be too embarrassed.On Wednesday, Suzuki officials acknowledged that they expect sales to plunge to just 2,000 a month for the remainder of 1988, below June's sales of 2,199, the lowest sales month on record for Samurai. For all of 1988, Suzuki executives believe that sales will fall to 80,000 units, down slightly from 1987's 83,000.
The Corolla is, in my opinion, the best buy that exists. It may be the best vehicle deal ever, once you take inflation into account. You know way more about cars than I do, but, shit: I bought a new Corolla a few years ago. I'll be driving it for another 15 years, probably, unless I double down on a Tesla. Total maintenance costs in that time will most likely be between 1 and 2000 dollars. At that point it's cheaper per year than my fucking insurance, I think. Car drives really well, too.
I bought a Kia Optima (my first new car ever) in late 2014. Even fully loaded it was under the median price quoted in the article, and I got a six-year loan...at 0% interest. I still have about 3.5 years left on the total warranty, with another 5 on the drivetrain after that. My insurance premiums are less than a grand per year. Only thing it's cost so far is oil changes. So this seems like an article looking for a problem to drive clicks.