Posted on 03/05/2023 1:02:09 PM PST by CFW
A growing number of Americans are falling behind on their car payments, an ominous sign for the U.S. economy as high car prices and persistent inflation strain household budgets.
Car repossessions tumbled in the early days of the pandemic when the government sent $5 trillion in stimulus money to American homes and businesses. But they have progressively ticked higher as sky-high prices for used and new cars alike forced consumers to take out bigger loans.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
Find a good used car/truck. Have it checked by a mechanic. Pay cash, don’t finance. Drive it forever.
Used vehicles are priced like new ones were ten years ago. Most of the time you’ll be somebody else’s trouble.
5 trillion buys a lot of cars. Notice of the bounty,,, yards full of cars in the sameareas that fiber optic cable appeared happened in
givens,,, new metal roofs concrete driveways car porches,
And nice cars musaydez, porches bmws what I mean.
???????????? Dents not standard equipment.
My wife’s 13 Nissan Murano has 227K miles on it and I have put about a thousand into it over the last year to keep it going. But it’s the little things that are starting to add up. Busted front axle, axle seal leaking, new tires, new battery, got a code for a bad PVC replaced, replaced plugs, got a miniscule oil leak we can’t find. She got in a month or so ago and it chugged all the way to her work and then ran fine. We can smell whiffs of how oil smells on a hot engine. Two different shops failed to find it. It needs rear shocks and my wife opened the drivers door after church and the door handle broke—second handle in this case.
I would love to drive it another 80K miles but it seems things are starting to cascade on it. It’s in the shop every other week for something the last two months. Found her a 21 Nissan Kicks with 30K on it and credit union will give her 6% so payments would be about $300 and she says she can live with that. Will so how the negotiations go with the dealer.
Maybe Biden will forgive everyone’s car debt.
Yep....if you keep a car at least 20 years then it’s a good move.
Thanks to ever increasing regulation, these mortgages on four wheels are simply unaffordable.
Loaning that kind of money on 6-7 year car loans with minimal or nothing down to people with 400-450 credit scores - What we call a "Well DUH" moment.
Another point. Interest rates should reflect risk - that has not been the case for a long time. They should not be arbitrarily determined by a bunch of Ivy League pinheads with no skin in the game.
[an ominous sign for the U.S. economy]
And there have been several. Yet people call for higher interest rates. Just wait for the collapse; it will be breathtaking. The car dealers charging $5000 over list for cars will be begging people to take their inventory.
You can’t have a brain-dead buffoon like Joe manipulating the economy - and every single move he makes is wrong, wrong and wrong again.
[People ignore all the evidence piling up and still insist the economy is great and consumers have loads of money just waiting to be spent.]
Yep
Remember cash for clunkers under The 0ne?
Replaced a front CV boot on my 05 Trailblazer over the weekend. Used a split boot.
Zip ties serve me well with that vehicle. But the 4.2L/250, transmission, drive train, brakes and 3” steel box frame are very reliable. Other than 13mpg it is an inexpensive vehicle and easy to work on.
I use AT-205 on the CV and other boots to preserve them. Don’t want to do another CV boot.
Stupid people do stupid things, as buyers and loaners. I don't get it. My younger sister is one of those stupid people. Decades ago she bragged to me that she bought a $37,000 Buick car. I said "No way, I know those Buicks sell for $24,000!". She then said that after paying it off it'll be $37,000 with the interest on the loan. Car fell apart after a few years and she was on the hook for remainder of the loan. Same sister and her husband bought a house and went into debt. She then asked me to buy her house because they couldn't afford the mortgage. No way. They went bankrupt and went into low income rental.
As for us, we generally pay cash for our car purchases. In 2019 we bought a new car with a loan. Why? Because it was a zero 0-percent loan over 3 years. Made use of the finance-company money without owing interest, we earned interest in investments on the money.
I buy used cars and pay cash. Then keep them for as long as possible. My current Ford Expedition just rolled 300K miles.
Mechanically solid and will pull a 6000 lb trailer no problems.
My Ford Focus is filled with sawdust and bark fragments, but mostly on the back seat (folded down) and passenger seat. If I put the firewood in the very back it starts scraping the rubber off the tire where the big truck crushed the fender, so I have to distribute heavy loads front and passenger side.
I think the same when I see 70 thousand dollar pickups driving down the road or new beamers flying by on the highway.
Who can afford it. Maybe I could once, but I dont want too.
Payments? PAYMENTS?? You mean the Raptor I just ordered requires PAYMENTS?
I thought that was what Carvana was for!
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