S&P Global: Average age of vehicles in the U.S. hits new record

[Alfisti]

I just poured over $5K* into a 15 year old 9-3. Seems insane but the cheapest vehicle I could find in decent shape under 100K KM and less than 8 years old was $20K, my Saab has 150K KM..... just made no sense to go out and buy another used car at those prices. At $10K you have my interest ... $20K ... ummm no. .

*Pads/Rotors, freshen up suspension, tyres, aircon repair, few cosmetic issues.

[DrVenture]

To me the challenge with the older cars is knowing when to let go. Not to spend thousands and THEN decide to change cars soon after. I was at that point with my last car. It was worth $6500, needed $3500 in maintenance to keep it reliable...time to move on. If I'm plan to keep it, different story.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

To me the challenge with the older cars is knowing when to let go. Not to spend thousands and THEN decide to change cars soon after. I was at that point with my last car. It was worth $6500, needed $3500 in maintenance to keep it reliable...time to move on. If I'm plan to keep it, different story.

I'll never understand that math. My car is worth $800, I spent $5K. Irrelevant. All that matters is medium term cost to repair vs cost to replace.

In my case it was $5K vs $20K. I could refresh my car 4 times and break even.

[BlkGS]

There's almost no situations where buying a new car is the financially smart choice. It doesn't hurt that cars from the 90s to 00s made huge strides in reliability and features and comfort. There's no shortage of 00s cars that are just as good or better than their new counterparts in non power and efficiency metrics.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

There's almost no situations where buying a new car is the financially smart choice. It doesn't hurt that cars from the 90s to 00s made huge strides in reliability and features and comfort. There's no shortage of 00s cars that are just as good or better than their new counterparts in non power and efficiency metrics.

I think it makes total sense to buy a new car and keep it for 15 or 20 years and put hunderes of thousands of miles on it. I've done that with my E90. I estimate that it has saved me $52K over constantly leasing a new car for the last 18 years. That $52K over time has gone into my investment funds and grown to around $110,000. And that's with a car I drove at over 3x the normal miles driven per year. If I had driven it just 10,000 miles a year vs. 32,000 per year it would have just 180,000 on it rather than 420,000 miles.

However if one wants a new car every three years, lease if you can afford to.

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

I'll never understand that math. My car is worth $800, I spent $5K. Irrelevant. All that matters is medium term cost to repair vs cost to replace.

In my case it was $5K vs $20K. I could refresh my car 4 times and break even.

Maybe I wasn't entirely clear. Keeping and fixing is good, I agree. But I would've had to put a minimum of $3500 into mine, then I still would have bought something else anyhow in a year or less. That would have been a poor decision. It was 15 years old and I wanted to upgrade.

Not all automotive choices, for me, are strictly financial. And I live on 1/3 of what I earn. Maybe less. I am starting to think I will be leaving too much behind when I go. Time to live a little.

[Car-Addicted]

Just maybe the economy is not as being advertised? .
Repos Spike in 2024 As Fewer Americans Can Pay Their Car Loans
Jul 19, 2024
Repossessions are even higher now than they were pre-pandemic.
Car repossessions have surged in the U.S. during the first half of 2024 as more borrowers fall behind on their auto loans. Repos have gone up by 23% compared to the same time period last year, according to Automotive News.
Average interest rates for new car loans are at 7.3% right now, while the average for used car loans is sitting at 11.5%, per Edmunds. These rates result in an average monthly payment of about $740 for a new car and $552 for a used one. Some people are choosing to avoid such payments, which has led to the average age of vehicles steadily rising in the U.S. to 12.5 years.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/repos-...heir-car-loans

Food and clothes for the little crumb-crunchers or a new car, I know what wins every time and it doesn't have 4 wheels.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

Maybe I wasn't entirely clear. Keeping and fixing is good, I agree. But I would've had to put a minimum of $3500 into mine, then I still would have bought something else anyhow in a year or so.

Oh 100pc man, that's different. My case is also unusual in that I only do 3K miles per yr so I know my refresh will last me quite a while vs killing the car in 12 months with 20K more miles right.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I think it makes total sense to buy a new car and keep it for 15 or 20 years and put hunderes of thousands of miles on it. I've done that with my E90. I estimate that it has saved me $52K over constantly leasing a new car for the last 18 years. That $52K over time has gone into my investment funds and grown to around $110,000. And that's with a car I drove at over 3x the normal miles driven per year. If I had driven it just 10,000 miles a year vs. 32,000 per year it would have just 180,000 on it rather than 420,000 miles.

However if one wants a new car every three years, lease if you can afford to.

I've purchased two used vehicles in my life. One was a 94 Camaro Z28 and the other is my 2016 BMW C650 Sport. Both were purchased from a dealer. In the case of the Z28, I felt really comfortable buying it because the car was inspected by a trusted mechanic friend and I ended up being able to chat with the original owner. The C650 had a paper trail of work done on it and had only 1800 miles when I purchased it in 2019.

I've gone with buying new as I drive all the cars into the ground. I got rid of the Z28 in 2014. Don't remember exactly when I purchased it but I think it was in 99. I got rid of the Z28 when I bought my 2013 135i which I still have. My daily beater bought new in 2019 is a C-HR with over 143k miles on it. The previous other cars I've owned were junked due to a blown head gasket which I didn't want to deal with fixing with the car at almost 200k hard miles and the other was done in when I hit a deer with it which at the time had about 180k miles on it.

Because I tend to buy econoboxes for my primary vehicle buying new doesn't impact me as much. The 135i is my only "upscale" purchase. My sportbikes have been purchased new as I prefer to know how the bike was broken in and treated....which would be only me. The oldest sportbike I own is a 2004 ZX-10R still running fine and looking showroom new.

Also, if you wrench on your own cars, this offsets much of the negatives of keeping a car on the road. It's been rare that I've had any of my cars in the shop as I've done most of the work on them.

[NickyC]

Originally Posted by Car-Addicted

Just maybe the economy is not as being advertised? .
Repos Spike in 2024 As Fewer Americans Can Pay Their Car Loans
Jul 19, 2024
Repossessions are even higher now than they were pre-pandemic.
Car repossessions have surged in the U.S. during the first half of 2024 as more borrowers fall behind on their auto loans. Repos have gone up by 23% compared to the same time period last year, according to Automotive News.
Average interest rates for new car loans are at 7.3% right now, while the average for used car loans is sitting at 11.5%, per Edmunds. These rates result in an average monthly payment of about $740 for a new car and $552 for a used one. Some people are choosing to avoid such payments, which has led to the average age of vehicles steadily rising in the U.S. to 12.5 years.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/repos-...heir-car-loans

Food and clothes for the little crumb-crunchers or a new car, I know what wins every time and it doesn't have 4 wheels.

Considering people have lost 20% of their buying power in the past four years, none of this should come as a surprise. What I've learned the older I get is that there is a rarely a black swan event where everything crashes overnight. Terrible economic conditions such as the ones we're in now take years to really start having an impact on peoples' day to day lives. People learn to get by with less and less, barely keeping their heads above water. The government can print money far longer than any of us can stay solvent. Most of us are on a slow road to a much lower standard of living than we enjoyed in years past.

[Car-Addicted]

Originally Posted by NickyC

What I've learned the older I get is that there is a rarely a black swan event where everything crashes overnight.

Just wait for the digital dollar, you can be quite literally be screwed in your sleep.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Car-Addicted

Just wait for the digital dollar, you can be quite literally be screwed in your sleep.

I have a good friend (Tam - not his real name) who escaped from Vietnam in 1982 when he was 18 years old. It took his family 4 tries to escape. They snuck out in a canoe at night traversing several rivers to reach the South China Sea. His father was a surgeon and relatively well-to-do. Tam said the communist government would change the currency every few years and the exchange rate would be just 60% to 80% of the current currency when you would have to change your cash to the new currency. Tam also said the communists would just enter his father's home and assess his wealth and decide he was living beyond his stature and literally just take some of his family's possessions to lower his wealth.

I can only imagine when the current administration (which will be the next administration) moves the US to the digital dollar. How easy it will be to devalue one's assets (beyond just printing more money).

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by NickyC

Considering people have lost 20% of their buying power in the past four years, none of this should come as a surprise. What I've learned the older I get is that there is a rarely a black swan event where everything crashes overnight. Terrible economic conditions such as the ones we're in now take years to really start having an impact on peoples' day to day lives. People learn to get by with less and less, barely keeping their heads above water. The government can print money far longer than any of us can stay solvent. Most of us are on a slow road to a much lower standard of living than we enjoyed in years past.

This is such an important statement. It is just so difficult to get young people to understand this.

[BMWCCA1]

When you talk "inflation" you do realize you are basing the value of the dollar on a specific data set of consumer prices, not the value of the dollar compared to other currency. As we have found over the past several decades, oil companies are able to charge pretty much whatever they want for gas at the pump, seemingly unconnected to the barrel-price of crude oil. In the past couple of years that philosophy has spread to food companies who shrink box sizes or simply raise prices. If you watched egg prices fluctuate so rapidly you never knew what you'd be paying from week-to-week you know there's a lot of artificial manipulation going on that has nothing to do with the value of the dollar but more the larceny of monopoly food suppliers.

Look how quickly McDonald's developed their $5 meal deal. Of course last year Wendy's already had a 4-for-$4 meal which they raised to $5 without gradual increases. My favorite is the McDonald's pricing on my cheap-lunch favorite Daily Double burger. Basically a Big Mac without the extra bread and no "special sauce". Great way to get their Free Fries with minimum $1 purchase since the Daily Double originally cost $1.99. Then $2.99, and today it's $3.69. That's not inflation in the value of the dollar, but just corporate greed where producers have figured out from gasoline and drugs that we'll pay what we have to without questioning it. But now the Right wants to blame that on the Left. It's really just corporate greed where the CEOs earn a fortune on the backs of the underpaid workers. As of 2022 the CEO-to-Worker compensation ratio was over 344, meaning the average CEO makes 344-times what their average worker earns each year.

And where does that corporate executive salary increase of 13% a year come from? Jacked up prices. So, before you go blaming one party or the other for what you call "inflation", check the real market influences of retail prices for food, gasoline price at the pump, and transportation costs like cars.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

I just poured over $5K* into a 15 year old 9-3. Seems insane but the cheapest vehicle I could find in decent shape under 100K KM and less than 8 years old was $20K, my Saab has 150K KM..... just made no sense to go out and buy another used car at those prices. At $10K you have my interest ... $20K ... ummm no. .

*Pads/Rotors, freshen up suspension, tyres, aircon repair, few cosmetic issues.

I don't think this is crazy at all if you love the car and parts are readily available. I don't subscribe to the idea that just because a car might require thousands of dollars in repairs that exceed a lot of the car's value that it's not a wise decision to make those repairs. Obviously there are some cars that should go to the crusher in a situation like this, but there are many that are worth it, especially if the car is generally free of rust and is otherwise in good condition.

Even if my 2011 Cayman blew it's engine and cost me $20K to build a new (and more powerful) one, I'd do it for sure even that motor easily exceeds 60% the car's value. Sometimes your love for a car exceeds rationality.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

When you talk "inflation" you do realize you are basing the value of the dollar on a specific data set of consumer prices, not the value of the dollar compared to other currency. As we have found over the past several decades, oil companies are able to charge pretty much whatever they want for gas at the pump, seemingly unconnected to the barrel-price of crude oil. In the past couple of years that philosophy has spread to food companies who shrink box sizes or simply raise prices. If you watched egg prices fluctuate so rapidly you never knew what you'd be paying from week-to-week you know there's a lot of artificial manipulation going on that has nothing to do with the value of the dollar but more the larceny of monopoly food suppliers.

Look how quickly McDonald's developed their $5 meal deal. Of course last year Wendy's already had a 4-for-$4 meal which they raised to $5 without gradual increases. My favorite is the McDonald's pricing on my cheap-lunch favorite Daily Double burger. Basically a Big Mac without the extra bread and no "special sauce". Great way to get their Free Fries with minimum $1 purchase since the Daily Double originally cost $1.99. Then $2.99, and today it's $3.69. That's not inflation in the value of the dollar, but just corporate greed where producers have figured out from gasoline and drugs that we'll pay what we have to without questioning it. But now the Right wants to blame that on the Left. It's really just corporate greed where the CEOs earn a fortune on the backs of the underpaid workers. As of 2022 the CEO-to-Worker compensation ratio was over 344, meaning the average CEO makes 344-times what their average worker earns each year.

And where does that corporate executive salary increase of 13% a year come from? Jacked up prices. So, before you go blaming one party or the other for what you call "inflation", check the real market influences of retail prices for food, gasoline price at the pump, and transportation costs like cars.

Amen! This is A HUGE factor in "inflation" as of late. Corporate greed, pure and simple. Companies aren't hurting, they just realized consumers were willing to pay more during the Covid wealth era. Now the Covid money has dried up and people are needing to cut back. Fast food, automakers, food producers, insurance, etc. are and/or will soon be feeling the pain and will have to retract prices substantially which seems unfathomable to them but it will be the only way because they've pushed to the bar way to far right. Simply stopping the movement isn't going to work.

My company, an engineering consulting firm, is just as guilty of this greed. We've been pushing and pushing up our rates and have enjoyed impressive growth, especially in the US, over the past 4 years even though my salary hasn't come close to matching that level of growth. The company expects this inorganic growth each year now. I crack up when they question our office's performance because we we're 1-2% under "plan" for a given month and what's going on. Our day of reckoning is coming and it's needed. Unfortunately, many will lose their jobs, but it's just a cycle.

[Car-Addicted]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

Jacked up prices. So, before you go blaming one party or the other for what you call "inflation", check the real market influences of retail prices for food, gasoline price at the pump, and transportation costs like cars.

Odd you left out:
Pfizer
2023 revenue: $58.5 billion
2022 revenue: $100.33 billion
2021 revenue: $81.29 billion
Johnson & Johnson
2023 revenue: $85.16 billion
2022 revenue: $79.99 billion
2021 revenue: $93.77 billion
Roche
2023 revenue: 58.72 billion Swiss francs ($65.32 billion)
2022 revenue: 63.28 billion Swiss francs ($66.26 billion)
2021 revenue: 62.80 billion Swiss francs ($68.71 billion)
Merck & Co.
2023 revenue: $60.1 billion
2022 revenue: $59.28 billion
2021 revenue: $48.70 billion

Yes those Evil fuel and food company executives should be hung!

“The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”
― Karl Marx

[DrVenture]

The other guy did it too? Not an argument. More of a confirmation.

Both pharma and energy execs have been shoveling BS for decades. And I have owned both in my stock portfolio to great effect. Many people participate in the fleecing. What I have made off of Baker Hughes and EPD alone will pay for a lifetime of my fuel needs. Perhaps a car, even.

Suggesting that anyone who knows the truth is a marxist is a bit hyperbolic. For instance, I know that in America we profit off of the sick. Your numbers illustrate that. I still participate in the profiting. What does that make me? A realist? A hypocrite? An opportunist? A capitalist? Certainly not a Marxist.

Big leaps in profits, since the start of inflation, do suggest that prices were inflated more than costs would have required. One article on the subject: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/econo...the%20pandemic.

Another article: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/08/exce...rt-claims.html

'...big firms made inflation “peak higher and remain more persistent,” particularly within the oil and gas, food production and commodities sectors.'

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

When you talk "inflation" you do realize you are basing the value of the dollar on a specific data set of consumer prices, not the value of the dollar compared to other currency. ...

Correct, devaluation is a FOREX issue. Many people conflate the definition of inflation with devaluation. And fail to understand that dollar devaluation has plenty of upside, particularly as it has to do with domestic exports vis-a-vis trade deficits and reduction of sovereign debt burdens. It also makes imports more expensive, so can assist with re-shoring efforts. But, all those cheap imports become more costly. No free lunch!

People who complain about trade deficits are essentially wishing for inflation. Imagine what would happen to prices if we made everything here, given our standard of living. Where would we even find the workers without triggering wage spirals?

[DrVenture]

Originally Posted by Weather Man

Please stop regurgitating D election talking points. It's bad enough watching that crap ad nauseum on the stupid commercials.

Companies exist to make money. When you quote any company in the deep end of the pool, like petro and medical, the profit numbers will be large.

Like what? What did I say that you deem political and isn't factually supported? Of course companies exist to make money. I exist to participate in the profits. I have for decades. As I have said, I have done quite well off both energy and pharma. I even made money off of inflation. I am not complaining about that either. Never have.

I don't watch TV news or read "D talking points" or watch TV with commercials or pay any attention to politicians. I don't call people "marxists" or suggest they are "regurgitating" in a thoughtless manner. Those are the sorts of things that make things personal.

The data shows that rather than simply pass along price increase, some industries actually took the opportunity to employ a "cost plus" strategy, adding to inflation. This suggests they now have room to decrease prices, if that becomes necessary. Which was the original point. I am open to data that refutes this analysis.

[RPM33]

Originally Posted by DrVenture

Maybe I wasn't entirely clear. Keeping and fixing is good, I agree. But I would've had to put a minimum of $3500 into mine, then I still would have bought something else anyhow in a year or less. That would have been a poor decision. It was 15 years old and I wanted to upgrade.

Not all automotive choices, for me, are strictly financial. And I live on 1/3 of what I earn. Maybe less. I am starting to think I will be leaving too much behind when I go. Time to live a little.

Don’t be cheap your entire life Dr Venture! Spend some money!!

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Sometimes your love for a car exceeds rationality.

No this was a cold, rational decision. Yes free of rust etc but rational not emotional. I was ready to move on but any other sensible option was FAR more expensive.