That just boggles my mind, sorry.
Even if I made enough money to be able to afford that, I wouldn’t.
The AVERAGE price tag on a new car is now $47,000
Twenty years ago when I was repairing Lincoln / Mercury vehicles for a living,
forty grand bought you a top of the line, all the bells and whistles, prestigious
automobile that most people couldn’t afford.
Now they want forty grand for this,
Now add insurance and $5 a gallon gas.
According to the article linked above, because of the electronic chip shortage, automobile builders decided to build bigger, more expensive models to get the most bang for their buck because they couldn’t crank out as many as they wanted to.
Now as I recall, back in the day, mid 70’s and a couple of times since, when the price of gas got higher than peoples comfort level, the automobile industry still had enough sense to respond to demand by cranking out little Econoboxes by the millions.
Such as,
Now of course these newer cars have way more amenities and still get pretty decent mileage but give me a break, Thirty Five Grand for a Grocery Getter?
Are you fucking serious?
And who are these people who can just plunk down that kind of dough, especially when EVERYTHING ELSE has gone through the roof except wages?
$2000 a month for rent, $600 to $800 a month for groceries, etc. etc. etc..
As it is, credit card use has skyrocketed in the past year as people foolishly try to maintain a standard of living that they are purposely being squeezed out of.
Then we have the ones I really love seeing.
Sweet Jesus, I wouldn’t even be able to afford NEW TIRES on that shit!
I mean, I make decent money but are you kidding me?
It’s not just new cars either, the price of used vehicles has shot way up too.
Now me being a mechanic, I might be able to afford a much older rig, spend the money here and there and REFURBISH something but I sure as HELL ain’t paying what they are asking for what I consider to be a vehicle that isn’t rebuildable BY DESIGN in the first place, let alone some Front Wheel Drive piece of crap with enough useless electronic crap in it to run a small country.
Damned if I know, most folks gotta do what they gotta do to get around but the way I see it, unless you are pulling down just about twice as much as I make in a year, there is no way you can afford to buy a new car.
It just isn’t possible.
Eventually the car manufacturers are going to see their sales fall off a cliff and be forced to rethink their strategy.
I guess they never heard of this before,
I had a toyota starlet. it was a great little car and on long highway drives it would get 45 mpg.
Phil,
You didn’t mention electric vehicles! How dare you leave out the most expensive, least useful, highest polluters of them all! Greta, Elon and Kerry will be cross with you.
(from a seasoned gas-guzzler)
I left those out on purpose.
It’s too ridiculous for me to ponder.
I actually know of one person out of all the people that I know, who has one.
My youngest daughters, Libtard boyfriend.
That statistic says it all.
Man, I hear you. I’m running a 95 F150 and a 1999 Suburban right now. The 90’s are about as new as I care to work on. Finding parts hasn’t been too hard. But the way stuff has been lately, I don’t drive very far or very often. Our whole country sounds like an old two stroke diesel passing 2000 rpm on a runaway. We all can hear it, and know where it will end.
From what I remember, the Edsel was way ahead of it’s time, and kind of a bastard design. But those things were built like tanks back then. Heck, when dad was working at a gas station in ’49, he said the deep stroke six could get upwards of 20 mpg back then! My buddy had his grandpa’s Hudson out back. His dad rode that up Pikes Peak all the way in high gear. Those straight eights were stout. But they were simple. And by government design, cars CAN’T be simple anymore. Complexity breeds expense. Add into that the bean counter short sighted oversight, and you kill every company eventually.
They could very easily crank out millions of little Econoboxes that got 50+ miles to the gallon.
They won’t.
And I wouldn’t buy one anyway – they crush like a candy bar wrapper if they hit something at over 15 mph!
I was able to nurse 20 MPG out of my ’59 Ford Farilane, and it had the obscure Thunderbird 332 V8! Yup; Ford big Y-block engine with the small block CID…
I hear you on the runaway diesel… Parts are flying off the machine as we watch…
My daily driver has a 292 Y block and I get close to 25 mpg wit 373s in the rear.
now I see why my old 1989 4runner sold so fast.2 grand for a running but needs some work 4 by 4 truck is a steal these days. and even the tires where good, less than 3 years old and under 5 thousand miles on them.
just hope I get my old 1994 up and running here soon.
the “newer” truck is a 2016 and I do like the bells and whatnot. I rather have the 94 running as it better on gas than the newer one. doesn’t have cruse control or GPS
but I can live with that. was thinking of getting a atv as walking over to the neighbors but starting at 6 grand and up ? and then you need tags and insurance also on the damn thing ? guess I just walk the couple of hundred yards. fuck it.
and no corn gas is 5.40 a gallon around here now.
one thing I haven’t found is a clean 55 gallon drum, seems like there none for sale around here anymore. heating oil is 5.35 now and I hate to see what it will cost for people to heat their homes this winter, most people get one or two fill up a winter around here. firewood I have close to 6 or maybe 8 cords worth. enough to last 2 winters at least. don’t like the hot air noise box heater as the wood stoves do a better job and are quiet as well.
seems like there a waiting list to get one if you can find one around here.
people don’t think I was nuts to install 2 of them after moving in now. before they all said I should have gotten a pellet stove as they easier to use. but you have to buy pellets and you need electric power to run them. wood stoves need a light
and they work. winter is going to be a bitch for a lot of people this year.
hope the diesel oil trick works on the engine, if it does. I will very grateful for it.
always like the idea of a spare sets of wheels, but the prices today ?
once bought a 94 corella for 2200 used and it got close to 35mph easy.
wonder what it would bring now a days ?
That’s the reason I elected to have my engine rebuilt. I couldn’t get past the fact that if I bought a new or used vehicle, it would be worn out before it was paid off.
I can get a real nice UTV(Side by side) for 26K!
Has AC and heat even!
Who needs a car!
Work went to get a new side by side and with heat and AC it was 70k. Prices have skyrocketted.
Dad bought a brand new 1976 VW Rabbit to supplant the ’66 VW Beetle he drove. No A/C, 2 door design hatch back. Damn, it had great acceleration for a 4 banger, and gas mileage was good. Reliable too.
My current wheels is a GMC 2000 4×4 pick-up. Has a bit over 210,000 miles, I hope it makes it to 300,000. Its been pretty good, definitely not a turd.
didn’t VW come out with a diesel eco box that gets close to 70 mph ?
but the epa says no way or something ?
watch the hunger games the other day, makes me think they want something like it
vast areas of no people and everyone cramped in shit hole towns and cities
it no wonder now why the mechanic shop is doing great. they keep people cars and trucks running for a whole lot less than the price of a new one.
there a graveyard of ev cars outside Paris as no one wants to replace the batteries
in them. funny how they never bring that point up. replacing the batteries.
had a co worker with a toyota highlander with batteries and he used to brag about
putting less than 20 bucks in gas per month until he had to replace 2 of the batteries in it. 4 grand and he sold it inside of 4 months as the others would need replacing inside of a year he said.
bio diesel may be a way out if you can get used fry oil cheap and do it yourself
and you live in a area that never gets below zero temp.
but even then you buy the stuff to make it useable and it also takes electric power
to do. I think you also need special seals and lines as well, not sure about that part of it. but what the point of any of it when we have years worth of oil below us and they don’t want us to use it ?
as I have asked before, what so special about a E.O. they not laws. those are passed by the assholes in congress I thought.
there is no divine rights of kings here. about time we start remembering that shit.
and tell these assholes to fuck off and just drill the damn oil ourselves.
they are to govern, NOT RULE US about time we remind them of that fact.
My mom had a Ford Escape hybrid. One morning she backed out of her driveway and it died. No warnings, no lights, no power. That was the last time the vehicle ran under its own power. She was told that a replacement battery would cost EIGHT.THOUSAND. DOLLARS. She was able to get $1K on a trade-in. People don’t realize that the life of the battery determines the life of the car! The’re falling for a vehicle with GUARANTEED programmed obsolescence! He car was ten years old… My Jeep Wrangler is 25 years old and still going strong. …People are stupid… “Going green” means “Your green is going…”
I worked in Suitland and lived outside DC in the mid-late 80’s; had to commute ~45 miles each way to stay out of that shithole. We bought a Justy and loved it! Peppiest little rush-hour car I’ve owned and as long as you weren’t going up too much of a hill, the air conditioner worked fine. On the other hand, when it rained you pretty much expected to die by hydroplane.
I own an 05 Wrangler that I can work on, and a 2010 Sierra that I don’t do anything but oil changes and brakes anymore, wife drives it and I would rather someone that knew what they were doing fix it. Need something newer, waiting for the dust to settle, one way or another.
I drive a company provided 19 Colorado LS with the 3.6 for work, including to and from work. On call 24/7. I had the first gen Colorado with the sideways 5 cyl, company scrapped it at 45K miles. The 19 is almost as big of a POS as the 05. 30K miles, on it’s 3rd battery, defective radiator and had metal shavings in the rear diff – I do not abuse vehicles, even work ones
Well Phil, I hate to break the news to ya, but you’ve reached the grumpy ol’ fart status with all the “back in my day” comments. There’s nothing left to do now except take up residence in the rocker on the front porch with your coffee/beer and shake your cane at whoever has the nerve to walk in front of your property. It’s been a good run and may God have mercy on those souls that get the privilege of hearing the profanities spewing from that porch that would make an 80 year old DI blush! Bwahahaha!
Are you on my lawn?!!!
😂👍
BTW Miss Smarty-pants,
I’ve earned every Fucking minute of it.
😘
Letfreedomring sure has a hard on for you!
What can I say, gotta thing for tough old boot leather and cranky as a snapping turtle.🤣
Phil? He is a soft touch, warm and fuzzy as a new kitten…
I have been looking for older trucks on craigslist. Funny, they seem to be as expensive as new ones. I found an 88 for 5800 and thought about it for one hour. Went to get the phone number to call and the damn listing was already gone.
Try finding a pre 1970 truck around here for under five grand…
It’s recockulous.
SHEESH!!! The Subaru Justy… We used to call it the Rusty! Subaru did a fairly good job of making America forget that one!
One of my friends had a “Chevy Sprint,” which later became the Geo Metro. That thing got 65 MPG, highway. It was a rattletrap, but it got us to and from work on pennies a day.
There was also the Chevette. Remember that thing? There was a diesel version of that. I can’t remember the MPG on that one…
Now you’ve done it.
Cederq is going to tell you about the little Geo he hot rodded and drove the piss out of…
😆😆😆😆
Sprint, not Geo… get it right.
* ’96 Volvo 850 Turbo purchased new. 70K miles, motor is just broken in.
A keeper- best car I have ever owned.
* ’71 K 20 Suburban- tough and easy to work on. 8-13 MPG. Sold at 310K miles for what I had in it.
* Replaced with ’86 VW Vanagon Syncro- AWD, Subaru EJ22 motor swap. Tricky to work on. Gets 15-24 MPG. I love this Van!
* Recently acquired: ’69 Standard Beetle. Work in progress.
I just made the last payment on a 2016 Honda CR-V, hopefully it will last me out.
The auto manufacturer’s strategy is how they can pull in the most profit per micro chip, not how can they help their customer’s best. I know this will come as a shock but it is possible to build a car without microchips. True, the laws/regulations that have been passed probably make that against the law somehow.
Our government is conducting ware on the middle and lower class and they are doing a fine job of it. Just once you would think they would screw up and do something that actually helps.
what was that about “Cash 4 Clunkers”? boy oh boy, did we bend over!
During that cash clunker deal I had a guy come to my door wanting to buy my 99 dodge dakota for 2k. When I said its not for sale he went up to 3k. I said no and the guy almost cried as he went away.
There must be a lot of money sloshing around because one of the high schools I pass on the way to work has its parking lot full of late model cars. Bought by parents of course, but still.
Well Phil, you can get a base 2022 Corolla for 21k. I recently rented a KIA K5 that has base price of 26k. 4 cyl w/turbo and it was fast, braked and cornered well. Good milage too but I didn’t record it. If I had use for a 4 seat sedan, I’d think about one.
Point taken though. Wife and I saw the devolution of autos and prices back around 2012 so we bought new RAV4 and Tundra (21k and 32k). I expect the Tundra to be the last vehicle I buy, but hey, why do I need 7 air bags? How much cheaper would it have been without that kind of crap. Gov regulations haven’t helped prices. I Do like that I likely won’t be getting lube jobs, replacing suspension parts, ignition modules, etc etc several times like I did over the 14 year span I had my 1980 Camaro, and I like that the engine and drivetrain will go 300k easily with oil and filter changes. Also it was # 4 on the made in America parts and labor list at the time. (Check out the top 100 vehicles made in America for 2021 for some real surprises.)
You’ll have to kill me before I pay 60k for an electric car. Gee, no engine, no trans, cooling system, et all, replaced by a battery that will cost you 8k at today’s price before the car is done, and a couple electric motors?? Talk about stupid. Plus Tesla’s are ugly. 60k and they can’t even make a good looking car?
It ain’t getting better either. Every year seems to add more spy and external control devices like remote kill switch. On Star can already do that right? And you pay extree for it. hahahaa
guy down the road was going to sell his 1971 chevy short bed truck, didn’t ask the price as I figured it be out of my price range. looked to be barn stored for years
paint faded but not rusted to death. he took the sign down a while ago, he using it as is to get to work. seems it has a big six banger in it and it drives great from what I hear too. shame, it is a good looking truck, just needs some paint on it.
looks like he replaced the tires on it already, so,,,
and there are a LOT of old restored cars and trucks in this part of PA too.
last trip to town we saw a real nice old dodge and I don’t really like them, but it was better than new, quiet too.
My pickup is a 1991 and my car is a 1997. The truck is easy to work on. The car is somewhat of a pain being transverse engine front wheel drive. I had to replace the timing belt in it last year. I would love to get my hands on the engineer that decided it couldn’t have another half inch clearance between the engine and the inner fender. It was an even bigger pain than the 1991 Taurus I used to have when I replaced the timing belt in it.
No way am I going to spend the current price for a newer vehicle as long as I can keep these running. It’s starting to get interesting to find a lot of the parts for the 1991 pickup, though.
I cannot bring myself to pay more for a pickup than I paid for my house. I just can’t do it. But I see a lot of folks that do.
Welcome to the 360 month car payment yes it will be like a mortgage but better.
I saw a commercial for a some kind of high dollar jeep looking thing with a starting price of $89,000. For those that qualify, that’s over $1,400 a month for 60 months at 0% interest. I doubt many qualify, and adding some interest is far above those with a modest budget.
Used cars will probably be lower priced in the near future, as those that financed those that can’t afford to pay try to recover their money. It will be a buyer’s market.
My last new vehicle purchase was an ’87 F-250 4WD with a 6.9 diesel and a five speed. It was a dealer special. They had five of them, all different colors, all five equipped the same. I got the last one. It was green.
They sold for $14,000. I put $7000 down and had it paid off in a year and a half. I hate owing money, especially to banks.
Put an ATS turbo on it and it ran and sounded great. It was melted in a wildfire in ’94. I still have a slab of aluminum alloy that was one of its wheels.
In around 2000 I went back into that same dealer to see what a truck like mine was going for and the price was more than doubled. When a salesman walked up to me to give me the sales pitch I interrupted him, pointed at a sticker and said “You guys are insane” and walked off. I now drive a 2003 Ford Ranger that I bought from my cousin 10 years ago. Good little pickup.
I won’t buy a new car, for ALL the reasons that everyone above stated. The MOST I’ve ever paid for a USED car was $8K, my 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee. My ’89 SHO was $2500, even my Beaver 34′ Motor Coach was only $6000 CASH (but needed about 6K more to get it in good running shape!) – I will not buy a new car because they depreciate 25-35% when you drive ’em off the lot!
My ’67 two-top Corvette got 11 mpg, but what do you expect for a 427 L88 engine? I’ve had a Geo Metro (50+ MPG), a Chevy Chevette (43 MPG), but for some reason never felt the need for a truck. Weird, huh?
Daughter has a ’14 Honda pilot, all it needed was an oil pressure sensor for the variable-valve timing, 18 MPG. 20 bucks and 15 minutes, all fixed! And, boy howdy is that thing spacious!!
Neighbor has a ’74 Chebbie truck we keep running, and a newer model Surburban that I swear needs something replaced on it every 6 months.
Yeah, things are gonna get much much worse before it gets better.
No new trucks or cars for me!!
Sure are chatty tonight for being a sloth…
I just snagged an always garaged, CHERRY one owner, 2003 Subaru Forester 2.5 XS with 114,000 original miles on it. The little old lady who owned it had all service done on it at the same Subaru dealer she bought it from. I called Subaru to inquire about the timing belts since it’s an interference engine. At 107,000 the head gaskets failed due to a poor gasket design and oil leakage saturated the timing belts so they were changed when the head gaskets were replaced. Nary a squeak, rattle or even wind noise which is a common issue on that year. $2000 plus $292 for tax, title and reg.
RockAuto and YouTube. ’07 Hyundai has 407K miles. Researched value showed one result: $300. Shucks, the brand new tires were more than that. Plus the new A/C. No complaints. None.
P.S. Don’t buy low end at RockAuto. Go mid-high unless you look forward to doing it again in 6 months.
– Mississloppigarro
Couple thoughts from the comment thread:
I had a ’78 Honda Civic. It got at least 60mpg, and it wasn’t anywhere near as fragile as some of the small cars these days.
Eric Peters (ericpetersautos.com) says the reason we don’t have cool diesel cars like everywhere else in the world is electrics. TDI jetta will click in 50-60 mpg – more than a Toyota Pious. I believe him. Common sense TDI crushes hybrids and electrics. FFS, when I was in England I was floored by the cool diesels passing me by – like a Jeep Patriot. Who wouldn’t want a Toyota Diesel pickup?
Wish I still had my ’06 Ram. At least my ’12 is not one of those f’ing DEF requirements.
Da Gubmint is 100% responsible for a good portion of the ridiculous increase, with Obama probably being 20% of a vehicle’s ownership prices these days
– the illegal bailout and takeover of the domestic auto industry years ago
– ridiculous emissions requirements on vehicles, with diesel jumping to stupid levels (15 parts per million sulfur) followed by:
– DEF on all diesel trucks (what a joke)
– the destruction of millions of used vehicles for “The Environment”😭
– backup cameras on EVERYTHING
– airbags EVERYWHERE
– electronic this and electronic that
I remember the days when diesel was cheaper than regular gasoline – mainly because it comes off the line in the refinery before all of the extra processes to continue the gasoline distillation. It still does, but now it has to go through just as many damned processes.
You’re better off going to Mecum and buying something from the year you graduated (high school, college, vo-tech, kindergarten, bible school – whatever gets you back to the 70’s or earlier).
For that matter, does anyone have a 1934 Duesenberg Model J or 1949 Cadillac Convertible or 1942 Ford Half-Ton Truck? The mileage may be a little worse than today’s engines, but at least I can fix everything on them and there is no electronic tracking.