Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous (Archived)

mjfloyd1

@tommister2 said:

@breld said:
Since the market has softened and dealers are baking all that into trade values. It's been so nice to "try out" cars over the past couple years, but those days are ending.

For this we need a sad face

The struggle is real 😂

roadburner

With a new car I had to add to my model car display at the office.

henryn

I received an email today, with a "special offer" from Chase. New car financing at 7%, basically. I'm not interested in a new car at the moment, and if I were, I would be paying cash, but I was curious if that really was a "good deal". My credit union is still running 3.59% up to 4.29%, depending on length of loan.

A quick online search finds bankrate.com showing interest rates for new car loans at 6.17%. Definitely higher than a year ago, but not as bad as Chase would have you believe.

It seems like only yesterday that my credit union was offering under 2% for new car loans.

corvette

Penfed appears to be in the 5%-ish range. My home bank, which is not generally super competitive, is more towards the 7% you're seeing from Chase.

Michaell

Just for grins, I looked up the captive finance rates for 72 month loans:

5.9% - Honda
7.9% - Ford
3.9% to 6.29% - Hyundai (depends on model)
5.09% - BMW
5.75% - Lexus (only on a few 2023 models)
N/A - VW (supported APR only for 36 month term, on SUVs)

venture

Michaell said:

Just for grins, I looked up the captive finance rates for 72 month loans:

5.9% - Honda
7.9% - Ford
3.9% to 6.29% - Hyundai (depends on model)
5.09% - BMW
5.75% - Lexus (only on a few 2023 models)
N/A - VW (supported APR only for 36 month term, on SUVs)

When I looked at my BMW on the 2nd of this month, they were offering 4.99% and a $1,000 rebate if you financed through them. I thought that was a little high until I looked around. My credit union was higher which is a little unusual.

Of course, the rebate disappeared when I was ready to buy on the 6th. I asked for an additional $1,000 from the dealer. They complied. They still honored the 4.99% though for 48 months.

kyfdx

henryn said:

I received an email today, with a "special offer" from Chase. New car financing at 7%, basically. I'm not interested in a new car at the moment, and if I were, I would be paying cash, but I was curious if that really was a "good deal". My credit union is still running 3.59% up to 4.29%, depending on length of loan.

A quick online search finds bankrate.com showing interest rates for new car loans at 6.17%. Definitely higher than a year ago, but not as bad as Chase would have you believe.

It seems like only yesterday that my credit union was offering under 2% for new car loans.

Your local bank always seems to be the worst place to get auto financing.

kyfdx

mjfloyd1 said:

@tommister2 said:

@breld said:

Since the market has softened and dealers are baking all that into trade values. It's been so nice to "try out" cars over the past couple years, but those days are ending.

For this we need a sad face

The struggle is real 😂

You'd think he would have told us, before everyone made their purchase picks for 2023.

stickguy

We were sandbagged.

explorerx4

This short story has the authors grandfather-in-law's car history included.
Really enjoyed the pictures and history of the subject person.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/i-sold-a-mediocre-car-to-carvana-for-a-lot-of-money-and-i-don-t-feel-bad-about-it/ar-AA16g43b?cvid=b8cbc109dd4c422e9eaa2cb4f8c7c03d

breld

stickguy said:

We were sandbagged.

Well, every January starts with a declaration of improved maturity and restraint.

tifighter

breld said:

stickguy said:

We were sandbagged.

Well, every January starts with a declaration of improved maturity and restraint.

#remindmeofthisinthreemonths

henryn

kyfdx said:

henryn said:

I received an email today, with a "special offer" from Chase. New car financing at 7%, basically. I'm not interested in a new car at the moment, and if I were, I would be paying cash, but I was curious if that really was a "good deal". My credit union is still running 3.59% up to 4.29%, depending on length of loan.

A quick online search finds bankrate.com showing interest rates for new car loans at 6.17%. Definitely higher than a year ago, but not as bad as Chase would have you believe.

It seems like only yesterday that my credit union was offering under 2% for new car loans.

Your local bank always seems to be the worst place to get auto financing.

True, but J.P. Morgan Chase is not exactly a local bank. The largest bank in the USA, last time I checked.

For many years, I used only the credit union, with no actual bank account. Then after I went back to work contract, I opened an account at Chase as the really small contracting agency that I was contracting through did not have the ability to do direct deposits. They were mailing paychecks, which the post office was losing on a regular basis. I asked him what bank he used, and then opened an account at the same bank.

I have kept that account for convenience, as Chase has branches everywhere, and it costs me nothing. I've never had a loan with them, and at this point in my life, I don't expect to ever again have any kind of loan.

henryn

An interesting piece in the NY Times on electric vehicles. Probably behind a paywall, but ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/opinion/electric-vehicles-sales-growth-tesla.html

In Norway, electric vehicles now represent four out of every five new cars sold; the figure was just one in five as recently as 2016. In Germany, more than 55 percent of new cars registered in December were electric or hybrid. In China, where more electric vehicles are sold than everywhere else in the world combined, the rise is perhaps even more dramatic: from 3.5 percent of the market at the beginning of 2020 to 20.3 percent at the beginning of 2022. And growing, of course: Nearly twice as many electric vehicles were sold last year in China as in the year before. The country also exported $3.2 billion worth of E.V.s last November alone, more than double the exports of the previous November. Its largest single manufacturer, BYD, has surpassed Tesla for global market share — so perhaps it should not be so surprising that Tesla’s stock is dimming while the global outlook is so sunny.

In the United States, investments in battery manufacturing reached a record $73 billion last year — three times as much as the previous record, set the year before. Globally, battery manufacturing capacity grew almost 40 percent last year, and is projected to grow fivefold by just 2025. By that year, lithium mining is expected to be triple what it was in 2021.
If E.V.s and gas cars share the roads for a decade or two, how do you ensure or design the right mix of charging stations and gas pumps, and how do you map their locations? At what point do gas stations become unprofitable, and what happens then? These may seem like relatively technical questions, but the problems of the mid-transition extend to the matter of employment structures and pensions, the need for skilled labor to manage site cleanup and safety and the decline of funding from gas taxes for maintenance and infrastructure as gas consumption declines (if not all that rapidly to zero).

Michaell

I find it interesting that Norway has such a high adoption rate of EVs, given that they have one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, all of which is funded by the extraction and sale of oil and natural gas from the North Sea.

pensfan83

Current rates through my employer, 5.8% for 60 month and 5.9% for 72 month. Both include a .25% rate deduction for auto debit from an account held here.

explorerx4

My main bank is a low as 4.89% for 60 months.

au1994

Not looking to start something, but isn’t lithium mining expensive and not exactly environmentally friendly?

henryn

au1994 said:

Not looking to start something, but isn’t lithium mining expensive and not exactly environmentally friendly?

From the same article I quoted above

Rapid growth also opens up a new landscape of challenges. We used to worry whether there would be sufficient demand for electric vehicles, particularly given their cost and range limitations. But demand already outstrips supply, which, in addition to driving up the cost of E.V.s and creating manufacturing and delivery delays, has given rise to anxiety over the next roadblock: the empire of mineral extraction, refinement and production that has to be built to meet that. That obstacle may be in some ways smaller than it appears, as Hannah Ritchie, among others, has emphasized: We are not yet mining enough lithium to meet demand, but it’s not exactly a scarce resource, and even Ritchie’s relatively conservative estimates suggest there is more than enough for a battery vehicle revolution.



Those taking a broader view of the ecological costs of this project, like the activist Thea Riofrancos, worry over a different set of unresolved questions: Is it possible to design a system for extracting and producing these materials in anything close to a responsible way? One possible approach, flagged by the Volts newsletter writer David Roberts, among others: actually recycling batteries, treating lithium as a “renewable” rather than endlessly extracted resource.

andres3

You don't need an EV for instant torque, a 3.0 V6 with a supercharger and dual-clutch transmission does a very fine job indeed.

fintail

Michaell said:

I find it interesting that Norway has such a high adoption rate of EVs, given that they have one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, all of which is funded by the extraction and sale of oil and natural gas from the North Sea.

They can afford to subsidize it.


Also, the dealer seldom indulges in his product

explorerx4

Norway has had some wide ranging incentives for EV's for a while.
A lot of them were scaled back starting this year 2023.

qbrozen

@andres3 said:
You don't need an EV for instant torque, a 3.0 V6 with a supercharger and dual-clutch transmission does a very fine job indeed.

…when its not in the shop.
;b

stickguy

This is what QB needs for his business.

Heck, I want one. Just as soon as I hit Mega tomorrow, and but a 10 acre homestead with a giant shop! Because this beast would not even fit in my current driveway. But it looks like so much fun to drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRdUOYLfm6A

qbrozen

Oh, trust me, I looked at more than a few. But the wife complains about an extra Kei car in the driveway, so I can’t imagine the grief I’d get for having a whole nother flatbed out there.

au1994

So what’s the scoop on the mini Pajero’s? Paint issues and possible transmission issues. Anything else?

oldfarmer50

au1994 said:

So what’s the scoop on the mini Pajero’s? Paint issues and possible transmission issues. Anything else?

Maybe there’s room in that new building for a paint booth and a transmission shop.

qbrozen

au1994 said:

So what’s the scoop on the mini Pajero’s? Paint issues and possible transmission issues. Anything else?

It has been raining here, so I haven't gone out to even take them off the trailer yet. The blue one appears to be all OK except for the hood, so maybe I'll wrap the hood and call it a day. The silver one needs to have all the plastic fender bits touched up or repainted, and I have to address the transmission. I may need 8 tires. The silver one's are dry-rotted. It was kind of a semi-plan anyway that I'd put meaty all-terrain tires on them to make them look tougher for the internet shopping crowd.

mjfloyd1

Tesla price cuts

kyfdx

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Michaell

kyfdx said:

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Yeah, because everybody needs a car that can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds.

mjfloyd1

@kyfdx said:
I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Cool story bro 😂

ab348

kyfdx said:

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

That sounds like the old 1960s joke about the businessman coming home from work whose wife announces she just saved them $5K. When asked how, she shows him the new mink coat she just bought on sale.

I was going to post about the Tesla price changes until @mjfloyd1 beat me to it. But this article on it gets into some depth about how those changes impact US govt rebates to buyers. I confess I have some difficulty with the public policy rationale for those, and why US taxpayers are subsidizing Mad Man Musk.

https://www.autonews.com/retail/tesla-slashes-prices-across-lineup-demand-worries

mjfloyd1

Subsidy is for North American made EVs, Musk just happens to make EVs in North America

breld

I’m quite surprised as to the extent of price cuts on the Teslas, particularly given the 3 and Y may be eligible for the federal tax credit this quarter (subject to buyer eligibility). The $13k reduction on the Y puts it back close to the $50k we paid for ours in 2021.

The fun part is actually seeing what the dealers with used Ys and 3s on their lots will have to do now. My local broker has had this one on their lot since they sold my Rivian months ago. It was originally priced like a new one around $70k (like lots of dealers), and now you can order a new 2023 Y Performance for about $55k and get it this month or next.

https://www.greenwoodautomotive.com/vehicle-details/used-2021-tesla-model-y-performance-parker-co-id-49011459

au1994

Michaell said:

kyfdx said:

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Yeah, because everybody needs a car that can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds.

Exactly

28firefighter

breld said:

I’m quite surprised as to the extent of price cuts on the Teslas, particularly given the 3 and Y may be eligible for the federal tax credit this quarter (subject to buyer eligibility). The $13k reduction on the Y puts it back close to the $50k we paid for ours in 2021.

The fun part is actually seeing what the dealers with used Ys and 3s on their lots will have to do now. My local broker has had this one on their lot since they sold my Rivian months ago. It was originally priced like a new one around $70k (like lots of dealers), and now you can order a new 2023 Y Performance for about $55k and get it this month or next.

https://www.greenwoodautomotive.com/vehicle-details/used-2021-tesla-model-y-performance-parker-co-id-49011459

I'm a bit irked by the significant price drops but grateful I didn't buy at the top of the market.

breld

28firefighter said:

breld said:

I’m quite surprised as to the extent of price cuts on the Teslas, particularly given the 3 and Y may be eligible for the federal tax credit this quarter (subject to buyer eligibility). The $13k reduction on the Y puts it back close to the $50k we paid for ours in 2021.

The fun part is actually seeing what the dealers with used Ys and 3s on their lots will have to do now. My local broker has had this one on their lot since they sold my Rivian months ago. It was originally priced like a new one around $70k (like lots of dealers), and now you can order a new 2023 Y Performance for about $55k and get it this month or next.

https://www.greenwoodautomotive.com/vehicle-details/used-2021-tesla-model-y-performance-parker-co-id-49011459

I'm a bit irked by the significant price drops but grateful I didn't buy at the top of the market.

Our old neighbors whom we're still friends with (and we work with the husband) each bought a Model Y Performance within the past few months. So she bought one around the $70k price a few months ago and then he bought one at year end when they were offering the $3,750 incentive (prior to the increase to $7,500).

I'd absolutely be ticked - particularly because of the enticement to buy one prior to year end, only to decrease the actual price by $13k a couple weeks later.

qbrozen

even with the price reductions, they still don't appeal to me

henryn

Michaell said:

kyfdx said:

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Yeah, because everybody needs a car that can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds.

I would probably black out from the G-forces involved.

oldfarmer50

henryn said:

Michaell said:

kyfdx said:

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Yeah, because everybody needs a car that can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds.

I would probably black out from the G-forces involved.

I love the acceleration of an EV but how long before that novelty wore off? Also on the Hyundai EVs I’ve driven it’s way too easy to spin the tires and without LSD you’d always be replacing one tire.

stickguy

you would be replacing your front bumper all the time from running into the idiots on their phones, not noticing the light changed.

kyfdx

oldfarmer50 said:

henryn said:

Michaell said:

kyfdx said:

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Yeah, because everybody needs a car that can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds.

I would probably black out from the G-forces involved.

I love the acceleration of an EV but how long before that novelty wore off? Also on the Hyundai EVs I’ve driven it’s way too easy to spin the tires and without LSD you’d always be replacing one tire.

It does get boring.. especially without a manual transmission.

The fastest accelerating car we've owned was my wife's G37X sedan with 328 HP. You could get 100 mph by the end of most entrance ramps. Probably hit 100, at least 15 times in that car. But, eventually, it's just meh.

Drove my 235 HP BMW (top speed 155) for ten years, and topped 100, maybe three times.

kyfdx

Not that her Infiniti was in Tesla territory..

tifighter

kyfdx said:

oldfarmer50 said:

henryn said:

Michaell said:

kyfdx said:

I need an S Plaid. And, banking a cool $21K. Seems like the way to financial prosperity.

Yeah, because everybody needs a car that can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds.

I would probably black out from the G-forces involved.

I love the acceleration of an EV but how long before that novelty wore off? Also on the Hyundai EVs I’ve driven it’s way too easy to spin the tires and without LSD you’d always be replacing one tire.

It does get boring.. especially without a manual transmission.

0-60 could get old. But instant passing power on highways never gets old.

henryn

I don't think it would ever get "old". More like "routine", or "accustomed to", but not "old". When I was young, and drove very fast cars, it never got "old" or "boring", the excitement was always there, just toned down a little after you became used to it.

stickguy

Walked the lot at the ford dealer. They actually have some inventory now. Mostly bronco sports , escapes and explorers. Maybe a dozen F150s too.

Stuff is expensive. Makes a maverick lariat look like a screaming deal. Bronco sport with a 1.5l 3 banger for almost $39k, and escape SEL a little over $40k. Cheapest PU seemed to be about $51 and went up to about $67k. And man they are huge.

Nice mustang GT convertible on the showroom
Floor though. Red seats. Only $57k. But automatic. Good luck selling that in snow and salt country in mid winter.

au1994

Those prices on the Bronco Sport and Escape are asinine. Guess I am just conditioned to the truck pricing as those seem about typical.

I was looking at Silverado’s online as we may move to those in our work fleet. Local dealer had 25+ on the lot and was even advertising some rebates and other incentives.

I know what you mean though. A full sized truck is just a beast. I had a regular cab Ram back in the 07-08 timeframe and it seems petite compared to some of these today.

oldfarmer50

stickguy said:

Walked the lot at the ford dealer. They actually have some inventory now. Mostly bronco sports , escapes and explorers. Maybe a dozen F150s too.

Stuff is expensive. Makes a maverick lariat look like a screaming deal. Bronco sport with a 1.5l 3 banger for almost $39k, and escape SEL a little over $40k. Cheapest PU seemed to be about $51 and went up to about $67k. And man they are huge.

Nice mustang GT convertible on the showroom

Floor though. Red seats. Only $57k. But automatic. Good luck selling that in snow and salt country in mid winter.

My buddy bought a used Mustang GT on New Year’s eve and got 25% off.

tjc78

@Michaell said:
Yeah, because everybody needs a car that can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds.

Still too slow for @roadburner 😎😎