I’ve seen a lot of economic stuff recently with cars specifically, and I wonder about who is actually making these horrific choices en masse. Obviously every demographic will have a set of people who have zero financial literacy or get very unlucky with the timing of a wreck at a bad financial spot in their lives, but I just can’t imagine that the average working class to middle class White American is the one providing the bulk of stupid car purchases with these awful or predatory loans. The White people in trouble I see are either upper middle class liberal women overextending to flex an electric car (and not doing any research lol) or a lower class White man who wants a big truck that won’t leave the pavement, and they aren’t that big of a group overall.
So are the idiots who support the car market’s insatiable greed composed mostly of financially illiterate immigrants? How much of our economy is based on helping the financially illiterate dig deeper holes?
People I see buying new vehicle:
A big issue with the car market is cultural. Many people think they need a new vehicle after owning the same one for a while. This is often fueled by people purchasing unreliable or poorly made vehicles. I own a 2010 Lexus with 160k miles on it. I've owned it for almost 15 years now. Besides oil changes, new wiper blades, cabin air filters, spark plugs, break pads and rotors, and tires, the only thing I had to change on it was the radiator for $1000. Meanwhile, most people will buy some Jeep and then everything will fall a part after 4 years, then they'll buy a new Chevrolet only for it to do the same so they keep buying new vehicles again and again. If people bought for reliability, they'd waste a lot less money.
Luxury cars are good if you know what you're doing and can afford the initial purchase. I knew a guy who bought a BMW in the 90s (used) and drove it another 20 years. Some are not worth the money so you need to do your research.
For a budget option, I love little asian cars (Civic, Accent, etc). They're as good on gas as you'll get, this side of a hybrid, parts are cheap and plentiful, and they tend to be surprisingly robust. I was talking to a guy who owned a cab company with nothing but Accents; his personal car had over 300 miles on the engine.
The nice thing about Lexus is they haven't switched to CVTs or any ridiculous things to save fuel like shutting off your engine when you stop. Nearly all non-luxury vehicles aren't even worth the price they cost because of all the government regulations forcing manufacturers to make shitty vehicles. I'd never recommend a new non-luxury vehicle to someone. Better off driving an old beater, imo. The actual decent vehicles made by non-luxury manufacturers cost luxury price anyhow like the GR Corolla.
Emissions destroyed the car market. I understand and agree that we can’t have a million things dumping pollutants into the air but in the grand scheme of things personal vehicles don’t matter compared to large companies and third worlders making it their life’s work to destroy as much of the environment as possible. Plus you can only increase cylinder pressure so much before you either drive the material price through the roof or you drive the piston itself through the hood of the car when whatever plastic or cheap alloy containing it breaks.
Literally none of our regulations matter because China and India negate any kind of progress we make, and that's if you consider reducing carbon emissions to be progress in the first place.
Accent made me think of something. How much if the supposed constant reliability issues of the Korean cars is down to their owners just totally ignoring any maintenance? It’s the mindset that goes with a lot of the buyers they are going to pick up.
I have had euro cars for close to ten years now. I buy nice used and do a lot of work myself and don’t skimp on things. A lot of people put me down as totally loaded because they are super nice and cool cars, but I own them let someone else depreciate them, and do the bulk of the maintenance work myself. Most of these people commenting are cruising around in a generic SUV they loan or lease and is costing them more than both of mine combined.
There was the old saying about buying luxury cars when they became cheap is the running costs and spare parts are still luxury priced depending on what you got.
That list covers basically everyone. You could just say "just about everyone." I bought my truck brand new in 2020 and I carry no lien on it, it's 100% mine.