These loans have been around a lot longer than indicated.
Good used cars are also expensive, and those loans have been getting longer too.
People get advice not to lease, so instead they get longer loans and end up just as bad. There’s also the obvious change in the vehicles themselves. Using ‘rules’ for auto buying that were common sense when cars were junk at 100k miles don’t make sense when cars are relatively nice at 200k miles.
I have an old bucket Blazer on ebay and I am amazed that so many even care. I’m letting it go since I am not really up to pulling the maintenance and repair I like. It sits way more than I care to. Should get about what I paid for it. Besides the jeeps are easier to work on for me.
Or worse! Often there's a gap insurance policy attached.
We leased, 3 years, cash out at the end is 16k for a car that you can't for 10K more than that. It's a no brainer for self employed or small biz owner.