this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2026
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Fuck Cars
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For less than $25k you can buy a new Nissan Sentra, Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Corolla, Volkswagen Jetta, Mazda 3, or a Subaru Impreza. I'm sure there are others.
People just don't seem that interested in buying cars anymore and consumers seem much more interested in projecting status
Even 25k is ridiculous for those models though. You used to be able to get a base model Corolla for like half that
Nissan Sentra cost us 27k including the tax and interests. The marked price was 21k. That was 3 years ago. Made us feel very poor because we couldn't just pay for it, and had to pay more overall for not having that money outright. We didn't have any other debts.
So I don't think people with other debts can afford a car outright either, so end up paying more. Rich people can avoid all that. Or they can take that loan, make more money from the money they already have (higher returns than loan interest rate), and avoid taxes on loan money, and get richer
Indeed, the boots theory of poverty. So many things are cheaper even in absolute terms if you have enough money to get things cheaper or get better things for not much more money that will way outlast the cheap stuff. Also people are more excited to just give you money when you have money (higher interest rate, even for very safe savings accounts).
Oh, I am certainly not advocating for buying new. I'm just trying to say that cheaper options are out there, even if consumers aren't interested in them. It blows my mind that average transaction prices are north of $50k while everyone is seeming broke.
People can't afford to own a car, that's why. It's not just public transportation infrastructure being fucked.
People can't find used cars because everyone wants a car that'll last a long time but then the job market is shit and people get high aprs and then ruin their credit, it's a lot of shit to get a car but people fuck themselves so hard buying one because they don't know how to navigate the financial aspect. ..... That's at least how I see it.
You also gotta make compromises with what you want vs what you can afford.
Too many people with bad credit bitch about high aprs that lock them down. I feel like if we had a better understanding of the financial demographics they're basing the research off of, we'd know who's not driving because they can't afford it vs lack of infrastructure by state.
The cheap used car market today was largely killed by cash for clunkers. Intentionally seized (literally, destroying perfectly running vehicles) engines to get them off the road. Near a quarter million perfectly running driving cars were intentionally destroyed. That had a short term affect on used car market sure, but more so it fucked people in this particular time for GOOD and CHEAPPP cars. I remember beating the shit out of 500$ bmws the night I got them off craigslist now I cant get a fucking civic for 3 grand that doesn't need another 2 in repairs
Well once there's a glut of cars they'll either shoot the price down and tell nobody, rich private sellers will scalp the cheap glut or they'll pull 👇
again and then we can all start complaining about public transportation twice as hard, with no results on our end but more profits on theirs......
Edit: holy shit they'll destroy the for insurance money if they're able to or they'll sell them back to their manufacturers and lose contracts potentially going out of business but it's more like the glut not being advertised is where it gets fucked and we need to put limits on how many vehicles someone can own. Rich people buying cars and selling them at scalping prices happens.