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New Cars Are Too Expensive For The Typical Family, Says Study (gulfnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from GulfNews: A new analysis from Bankrate.com found that a median-income household in the U.S. could not afford the average price of a new vehicle in any of the 50 largest cities in the country, though cars are more affordable in some cities than others. The average price of a new car or light truck in 2016 is about $34,000, according to Kelley Blue Book. That's in part because new cars are loaded with helpful but expensive safety features like collision-avoidance systems. Bankrate calculated an "affordable" purchase price for major cities, using median incomes from U.S. census data, and factoring in costs for sales taxes and insurance. In San Jose, California -- the heart of Silicon Valley -- the median income is about $84,000, and an "affordable" new car purchase price is about $33,000 -- close to, but still below, the average new car price. In lower-income cities, however, affordable purchase prices for a typical family are far below the average cost of a new car. In Hartford, Connecticut, where the median income is about $29,000, an affordable purchase price is about $8,000 -- about a quarter of the average new-car price. Experian Automotive said the number of new cars bought with financing rose to more than 86 percent (Source: may be paywalled) in the first quarter of this year. The average loan amount topped $30,000, with the average term for a new-car loan in the 68-month range -- some stretch as long as seven years.
Why do people think self driving cars will catch on? If anything, they will be more complex with even more sensors and systems needed to operate safely. If typical families already can't afford new cars, why would they be able to afford even more complex and expensive cars? The genius of Henry Ford wasn't building the best and most sophisticated car, but finding a way to lower production costs and make them affordable.
Some have suggested that self-driving cars will lead to a decline in personal vehicle ownership. Instead, people will rent a car from a membership pool when they need it, paying a simple fee per use or per month instead of bearing all the costs of insurance, inspection and registration on themselves.
Majority of young people are graduating with 20-100k of school debt. Then working at BestBuy. Their credit is shot, I work for a local car dealership. The only people who come in to buy new are the Elderly. 50+. They use it for a year, trade it in against the next year's new one. The Millennials drive old run down not fit for the road Honda Accords or moms minivan because they still live at home until they're 30.
HAHAHAHAA, sorry.
In a sane world with rational people, this would mean you'd budget for a new car and buy only what you can afford. Of course, you may very well plan on using leprechaun gold at that point, while we're playing make believe.
Meanwhile, in the real world, people will borrow way too much for way too long, then complain about how it's not their fault. If it happens often enough, the government will get involved, ala "government backed loans"...then it'll really get exciting.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Here's the depressing thing: cars aren't really more expensive than they used to be. This is not a shift in car prices. This is a shift in the financial solvency of the American people.
People don't want a dirty car that strangers have been in. They don't mind a dirty car that is one they only use.
People don't want a dirty car that strangers have been in. They don't mind a dirty car that is one they only use.
Plenty of people in cities get by on taxis and car-share, self driving cars will expand that to suburban areas.
None of the car-share cars I've used have been "dirty", they are regularly cleaned and maintained.
You should never spend more than 20% of you annual income on a car.
Where did that rule come from?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Why does everyone have to find a new car? I could easily afford a new car, but my last 3 purchases have all been for cars that are 2-4 years old. You save thousands of dollars that way, and you still have a very good car that will last you for years (provided you've done your research).
As soon as I saw the headline I thought "since when does the typical family buy a new car?" Upper middle class families can do that, but smarter upper middle class people aren't obsessed with being the first owner of a car, since you have to pay a huge premium for that privilege.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
... That's in part because new cars are loaded with helpful but expensive safety features like collision-avoidance systems...
It is not really the safety features, but the "make the car more like a living room" features, that make cars a lot more expensive.
. /sarcasm
But don't worry, the car manufacturers are slowly turning the vehicles into remote monitoring and surveillance environments so that every aspect of our lives can be sold to the marketeers. That should drive down the price.
Indeed. I'm trying to replace a 16 year pickup truck. The new ones get the same mileage. They festooned with all manner of gizmos that I don't really want. They're harder to see out of (because of the smaller windows from the side airbags -yes, they're useful but so is seeing things). They cost close to $50,000.
That is a hell of a lot of maintenance on my old truck. Unfortunately, GM built themselves into a corner. It's fundamentally sound. Even the interior looks OK.
So it's off to the local shop to replace what ever rusts out.
And off to buy a new radar for the boat.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That's why there are these magical things called loans
And there are magical things called second-hand cars too, which can reduce the cost.
Got any other stupid arguments against buying a used car?
I don't, however I've certainly got some intelligent and informed arguments against buying a used piece of shit FWD Dodge. ;)
Here in Brazil we usually buy a car in 60 - 72 not so cheap monthly payments.
That's in part because new cars are loaded with helpful but expensive safety features like collision-avoidance systems.
It's never because of abusive profit margins in a not truly competitive market. Down here they always blame the taxes (they are included in the price and not discriminated).
If I've used the Inflation Calculator correctly, then the cumulative inflation of the U.S. dollar from 1969 to 2016 is 554.6%. And so that $13k Mercedes-Benz in 1969 would cost ~ $85k in 2016. Much more than the $30k you cited.
Yeah, and a lot more people should probably go that route of they can't afford a car. My income is ~80k/yr and I've never owned a new car in my life. The newest car I've ever had is a 2013 Camry that I bought in 2015 for less than half of its msrp, and I just paid cash for it. In fact I've never had to borrow money to buy a car, even in the days when my income was shit.
I've never owed a new car, I don't think its a very good value. Cars lose like half their value in the first few years, and the insurance kills you (and road taxes, some places charge road fees based on how old the car is.).
Peace, or Not?
84% of statistics are made up; however, GP is not 100% wrong, just wrong about what cost should not exceed 20% of your income.
According to AAA, an organization more reputable than Bankrate.com, the cost to own and drive a vehicle in the USA today is $8,558 per year. That's a number with a lot of precision but without a lot of accuracy. They have an article up on the web that talks through their assumptions and calculations, though. Fun fact: they note that the cost of owning and driving a car has fallen to a six-year low, so TFA's author can go peddle their papers someplace else.
Back to GP! 5 x $8,558 is $42,790, which is not so far off what actual people actually working actually make. If you're making less you should consider a small sedan, which AAA estimates costs only $6,579 annually. You can do a little better if you buy a good used car. You can't do much better, though, and there is an element of luck around whether you buy a car from a careful owner or a doofus.
Why does everyone have to find a new car?
Because if you're not an automotive engineer, a new car gives you a fighting chance not to be fucked.
That wasn't an argument against buying a used car. It's an argument against calling it reliable.
I drive a really old used car (1990), but I also carry my cell phone because I know it could break down unexpectedly, and I'll have to deal with it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I had a very different experience. I went shopping for used cars for my daughter and to replace my old car. I found used cars hold their value much, much better than they used to. 2-4 years in, they were only selling for a 20% discount under prices for new cars. It seems the days of a car losing half its value when it rolls over the dealer curb are over.
Came here to say this. The mean price is driven up by pickup trucks (the prices are skyrocketing on those due to the financing available for them, something like what happened to student loans) and possibly even 6/7-digit supercars. A regular midsize sedan costs somewhere in the ballpark of $18k~$25k, maybe a little more for a hybrid or EV. Surely well under $30k.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I there nothing we can't blame him for?
Plenty of people also get by walking several miles in the sun/rain/snow/dark.
Sometimes people simply don't have a choice.
But they do have a choice - many carless city dwellers can afford a car payment and even a garage space (they may even have a deeded space that they aren't using), but chose not to own a car because there's no point - why buy an expensive depreciating asset that sits around unused 90% of the time if they don't have use it to get to work or run errands because they can get to work by train and walk to the grocery store?
It seems the days of a car losing half its value when it rolls over the dealer curb are over.
I had also noticed this in my own research the last time I was in the market for a car. I have a couple of theories that dovetail well with the premise of TFA:
First, as mentioned in TFA, the average quality level of most cars has been increasing. Even mid-market and entry level cars come with all sorts of safety options, better engineering and higher quality assemblies. The days of dirt cheap new cars, ala the "Barbecue that Seats Four" (aka the Ford Pinto) are definitely behind us now.
Second, cars last longer these days and Americans who do choose to own cars tend to drive them for longer periods of time before replacing them, partly because they can and partly because cars are much more costly to replace. When a new car could be had for well less than 10k back in the 1960s, 1970s and even into the 1980s in some cases it made more sense to trade up every 5 years or so. Now, as cars have become more complex, sophisticated and expensive that's not as true as it used to be.
Third, most of the quality well-maintained used cars tend to end up in the dealer certified "pre-owned" programs where people can purchase them from the dealer with warranty coverage similar to what they would be offered on a comparable new car purchase. This has reduced the number of good used cars for sale by individual private owners and made the transaction less attractive in any case because private owners don't offer warranties. This has also allowed dealers to capture a greater share of the best part of the used market.
Fourth, because of points 1-3 and the relatively recent "Cash 4 Clunkers", where many old but serviceable used vehicles that might have been attractive to the lower middle class and working poor were taken off the road by the government and crushed, the used car market outside of the dealer certified "pre-owned", which offers much more modest discounts over new prices, has been increasingly filled with shadiness and problem vehicles that have been abused rather than maintained. Unless you like to spend your weekends at AutoZone and do your own work, buying a car like that is going to be a bad move for most people.
These are just my own opinions, but I think that I cannot be the only one to see these trends. In the long run, especially with ride sharing services like Uber and the declining interest in car ownership among generation Y, as many of them choose urban living situations where cars are either less necessary or even problematic, we may see the new car and car ownership in general become more of a luxury item and less of an everyman purchase.
The rule of thumb I heard was that your vehicle expenses (loan/lease, insurance, fuel, maintenance, etc.) shouldn't be more than 20% of your total expenses. It doesn't have to do with the value of the car. Similarly housing costs (rent/mortgage) aren't supposed to more than 30% or 35%. That doesn't mean you can only buy a house of $15,000.
Not every worn out part will cause an unexpected and/or immediate issue. If you take care of the car and regularly inspect it (or have it inspected by someone who knows what he's doing), you will catch most trouble before it happens. And if the car is a popular model, there will be a ton of other owners with advise on what to watch for. Yes, older cars require more maintenance, you can't get away with the usual once a year or 10.000 km service, so I am not surprised the guy spent more on repairs than on the car itself. But if you do that maintenance well, the car will be as reliable as a new one.
If you decide to get an old car and you need it to run reliably, it's essential that you learn how to take care of it or find a mechanic whom you can rely on. And learning how to work on your car is another good way to save money. I'm pretty handy with tools but didn't know much about cars until I decided to learn; I've probably saved €4000 or so in repairs on our ancient Mercedes 500 (which we keep for sentimental reasons), and another €2000 or so repairing the old Jaguar (which we keep because it's such an unbelievably good ride).
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This is no longer the case. A quality, well built Camry, Civic, BMW or Accord loses about 10% when you drive it off the lot. Some American cars as well as some high end cars on the other hand do lose a lot more of their value on possession sometimes even more than 25%.
Unfortunately, holding on to a new car for more than 6 years stops helping much (annual costs become dominated by other factors).
???
I generally hold onto a car over 10 years, and it's never cost me that much extra. You *do* need to maintain it as you go along, and it depends on how much you drive, but my current car is from the 1990's and isn't yet in condition where it needs to be replaces, though it's getting there.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Many decent family cars out there are NOT, in any way, 34K new. A new Mazda 3 is a sensible car and starts under 20K. A Camry is 25K. You could buy a 350Z for less than 34K!
So plenty of families can afford new cars: They just can't afford large, over featured, expensive to repair urban assault vehicles. US streets would be better if nobody could.
As a statistician (well, once upon a time) let me say that the median is one of three averages. The averages are the median, the mean, and the mode. Each is an average with certain characteristics and areas of utility. If you've got a normal bell curve they are the same number.
For most purposes involving income the useful averages are the median or the mode. Not the mean, which is unduly influenced by extreme values. (I didn't read the article, so I'm only commenting on your response.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's also just a flawed place to use the average of any kind. If you want to assert that people can't afford a new car, you need to compare the cost of low end new cars to the median income. Including $80,000 Mercedes' and $60,000 trucks in the calculation makes no sense at all. No one on the median income cares about $80,000 Mercedes', they care about $10,000 Kias.
While I agree that spending half your annual income on a new car is pretty insane, you're misinterpreting the parent. He's saying that he spends 50% of his annual income every $TIME_UNTIL_CAR_REPLACEMENT, not 50% of his annual income per year. He presumably does not replace his car every year.
Further, if you can make the payments on that $50k car, then save that money instead, and soon enough you won't need a loan.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Um, no. Unless your car is a complete shitbox to start with, or you drive ~100 miles per day every day, keeping it for 10-15 years will not cost you more than replacing it every six years. Depreciation is an accounting trick that only really works in aggregate. If your car is still running in six years time, keep it. You will save the cost of a new car. The fact that yours is worth zero on paper means absolutely nothing if it still works the way it's supposed to.
I have an 07 Chevy. The biggest expense I've had on my car was when it got hit by a forklift while parked. That was 3k in body work covered by insurance. The next biggest expense was about 700 to replace the brake disks because I let the brake pads wear down to the metal. Oops; everyone has to learn somehow to replace their brake pads regularly
Other than that, new brake pads and fuel injector cleaning every two years (200 a pop). New spark plugs every four years. New tires every ~3-4 years depending on mileage (again, 300-400 depending on tires). New battery and timing belt at six or seven years.(500-600, I don't recall). Oil changes every three months ($30). All of those are recurring costs no matter whether your car just came off the line or is ten years old.
And lastly it goes without saying that even if you do make mid six figures, a 25k car gets you to work on time just as well as a 50k car. There's not even that much difference in the bells and whistles these days.
Here in the UK, all respectable dealerships check vehicles over thoroughly and offer a warranty (if they do end up with a clunker on their hands, they send it off to auction rather than risk getting a bad name). Buying new is largely a status (or company fleet) thing; nearly-new second hand is the smart move.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Plenty of people in cities also have bed bugs and other infestations. Call me a hypochondriac but I am proud adherent of the bus pants methodology of utilizing public transportation when I don't drive.
Do the math.
Resale value varies a lot by car and by condition, but to have some numbers, lets look at a car that is worth 1/3rd it's upfront cost after 6 years, vs 10% after 10 years. The difference in depreciation is then 11% vs 9%, per year. If that were the only cost of car ownership, that would be significant - you could get a 20% better car by keeping it for 10 years instead of 6.
But other costs matter too. Maintenance (which does get worse over time), insurance, gas, parking, tolls, etc. So you're maybe looking at being able to get a 10% more expensive car at replacement time by keeping the car for 10 years rather than 6. That's not even a step up to the next model for most manufacturers.
So, for the same money, do you get better value by getting a $30k car every 6 years, or a $33k car every 10 years? Seems very subjective to me: if you value "newness", the former is a better deal, if you don't the latter, but it's a small enough difference either way.
What is a "20% better car"? Is there an objective absolute "car goodness" measurement scale I never heard of?
You seem so deeply embedded in the "car resale and buy new" paradigm that you cannot see that there is an entirely different way to manage you car needs. Buy a car and keep it on the road until such time that the repair costs are no longer economical when prorated over the additional mileage gained, or ti simply becomes too unreliable. I keep my car costs low by buying used (mostly, sometimes new) and then never selling the vehicle while it still runs, subject to the repair cost and reliability criteria just mentioned. "Resale value" is a piece of paper to me, I never resell until end of life.
But you are the source of the good deals on the used car market. Keep it up. I may buy your depreciated but perfectly serviceable car.
If you value "newness" you are absolutely going to spend big additional bucks over the years to satisfy this predilection. If you don't the difference is "not small either way" it is huge.
As you say, do the (real) math.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
His pads hit metal so the rotors were probably impossible to refurbish. Those can cost quite a bit for 4 of them assuming that all of them were damaged. More likely he got ripped off and only 1 or at most 2 of them were bad. Depending on the car those are about 30 to 100 dollars per wheel. Brake pads might be 50 bucks per brake pair for OEM style pads. That's a lot more than 50 bucks in parts. Still 700 sounds really excessive, he probably took it to his dealer and you know those guys are going to fuck you. I've installed plugs on my Grand Marquis and it's a bitch on it. I can't conceive of doing it on my daughters Nissan. Sure, they're a couple of dollars a piece for the plugs but 130 dollars per hour of labor and that gets expensive too. If you can't work on your own car then the simplest maintenance will cost hundreds of dollars. My dad taught me because we couldn't afford to pay anyone else to do it and we had cars that were almost always 20 to 30 years old and required a lot of work. I remember my dad rebuilding a 57 buick dyanflow transmission on a table in our basement. That was a shitty transmission, he called it a dynaslush. Still he got the car for 100 dollars, towed it home and 3 days later he was driving it to work for the next 7 years before it threw a rod and went to the crusher.
Bought a '98 Camry about 10 years ago for 8 grand. It's got 253,000 miles on it now. Off the top of my head, I've done the following non-routine maintenance to it:
Exhaust replacement, front to back: $575
Idle air control valve: $800 (Dealer because I didn't have a good cheap mechanic at the time.)
New suspension and steering parts & alignment: $800
Oil leak from oil pump: $500 (estimated mechanic cost, I did it for much less)
New air intake hose: $40
Let's round that up to $3000 in case I've forgotten a few things.
I have a car that is quiet, drives well, doesn't leak, and is reasonably comfortable. It gets 27 mpg and still has sufficient power. The money I've put in it to keep it in good working order for 10 years doesn't add up to 10 months of car payments.
Would I like a newer ride? Sure, and I may get one eventually. The fact is that I can keep this car comfortable and running for cheap money. The occasional $800 hit saves me a few thousand a year.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Packages get bundles because it's inefficient to offer them as *factory* options a la carte. That $3300 tech package includes an integrated version of the $1700 item you linked, cruise control, GPS nav and a backup camera system. You could probably put together an equivalent bolt-on system for all of that for $2500, so asking for 25-30% markup at the retail level really doesn't seem overbearing. Upselling is one of the most common profit centers in any business. So, in a way, it is that expensive. Though once it becomes standard, the price gets rolled into the base and it's no longer a premium item. Example: if you price the components that go into a car based on the dealership parts department, you'll find that the sum of all the parts to build a car are 300-400% of the price of a new car on the lot.
As for history, I grew up in a pretty middle-income family in rural MD, and our typical new cars were a Datsun pickup and a VW Fox and Rabbit. Definitely sub-average on the price tags. That was back when air conditioning was an option (and a $1000 option at that). New cars are expensive; always have been, always will be. You buy used until you can (or are willing to) afford a new car. It's a luxury, and if you're not on the happy side of the income curve you only get a certain number of those.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"Respectable dealership" is an oxymoron here in the states.
The diamond ring and the family car are both 20th century inventions. I thought the rule was spending 52 weeks income on a car and 4 weeks income on a diamond ring. Now it's 21 weeks for a suburban necessity and 13 weeks for a shiny decoration. What strange priorities for a not so brave, new world.
Having a car as a 20th Century invention is rooted in the undeniable utility of having a vehicle that can transport people and goods long distances quickly.
The "requirement" that every marriage requires a large investment up-front in a diamond is purely the product of a marketing campaign by a diamond cartel (i.e. a price-fixing monopoly). Here is a brief, but honest as far as it goes, account by an organization dedicated to selling you diamonds. Note that the founding of the American Gem Society, in 1934, precisely coincides with the start of the De Beers cartel hard sell. It is striking that a trade organization, founded as part of a marketing scheme, does not try to hide its own origin.
Lengthier accounts of this bizarre pure luxury business are easy to find.
Regarding those "guidelines" (treated as "rules" by the industry) for how much to spend in a diamond ring - if you let marketing literature tell you what you should spend money on, you are perhaps typical, but still you are just being a patsy.
When I got married, no diamond was involved. It was a ridiculous waste of money, absolutely not an investment (they are virtually impossible to resell, the industry makes sure of that), and at that time a prop for the Apartheid regime. That last reason had ended, and recent "conflict diamond" rules have greatly reduced the tendency of diamond purchases to support mass murderers, but not ended that last problem entirely.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Globalism is not the cause. Manufacturing efficiency is the cause. Many "third world" countries where you used to get dirt cheap labor are starting to pay more for workers. Not American or EU rates, but the ratio has closed by an order of magnitude in the last 20 years.
What you're seeing is that goods - things - have stayed the same cost or risen only slightly, but labor costs have increase dramatically. The per-unit cost for a widget has become trivial because we can make a million widgets with basic, easy to create tooling and unskilled labor. But a doctor or a nurse, who has to be with you, personally for care; or a framer, plumber, or electrician who has to travel to your land to erect a building piece by piece; or a teacher who has to spend 6-7 hours a day teaching the same class size at 30 or 40 years ago - that's labor that hasn't been automated. There are inefficiencies, but they're nowhere near the gains seen in manufacturing. It's raised our "standard of living," as measured by all of the stuff we own compared to 50 years ago - but has brought into sharp relief all those things we haven't automated.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
For most folks, the reason they pay the big bucks, discounting ego (eg Mercedes CLA, BMW 320i) is for a warranty. This is a promise that if it breaks, someone else will fix it, on an open ended contract. This is the warranty premium, and what sells most new cars. (I"m sick of my POS whatever, I was late again, I NEED A NEW CAR). Interestingly, repair costs are set up specifically to be just a bit more than car payments when the car begins to age...at dealer prices.... Now, in reality, it isn't that simple, but you need 99% uptime to get to work, and it plays into that. If you can afford two cheaper cars, you don't need that 100 % uptime from one, and it can be cheaper. You need space, so city dwellers can't do this. If you can do some work on the car yourself, or have basic knowledge such that you can discuss reasonably with a service tech, you can buy used pretty safely. If you know where the gas goes and the key goes, and the "check engine" (yup, still there) light scares you and results in random $500 bills, then you can't buy used. I'm driving a $50k car (new) that I bought used for $16k. I did $2500 in catch up work and this includes an alternator which puked 15k miles after I got the car. Most folks think I'm driving a $50k car, but as I have another car, and I DIY most work that does not need a lift, I can afford to drive a used car. Mileage is a factor. Warranty is because they know how much folks drive, so 3 yrs/36k means I'm out of warranty early year #2. It is brief warm feeling, like a towel out of the dryer....so new, for me, isn't equal to warranty. You can do a LOT of repair work for the "warranty premium, even a whole engine in most cases". Again, this only works if you have some space, and understand the mechanics. Otherwise, they are awfully good at separation of you and money, aren't they ?
You were looking for the unicorn of used cars, a good condition Accord/Camry for $5k. Sorry.
Man a lot of people don't even know how to change an oil filter. If anything goes wrong once it's out of warranty they're at the mercy of a mechanic. It's like people having to take their computer to best buy because it wont boot, most end up just buying a new one when all they needed was a new hard drive.
I know how to do that. I take the car to the mechanic near where I work, walk to work, walk back at the end of the day and pick it up complete with fresh oil and oil filter.
I have hobbies. Fixing cars isn't one of them.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Honestly, if you spend more than 30 grand on a new car, you're already rolling in a lot of superfluous or unused features. My family members always end up buying well-equipped (not best equipped) midsize sedans like Toyota Camry and Honda Accord in the low 20Ks, and usually under the sticker price. And in fact, Camry and Accord have gotten too fat to even be called mid-sized. So if you want to save more money, go for a 20K compact car, like a Corolla, Focus, or Civic, etc. This still have four doors and five seats. Plenty for an average family, specially with younger children.
While the reality is that average car on the road is 11+ years old. If you take out commercial and industrial cars probably average consumer age is approximately 10 years.
While many advocate buying used, this used car needs to become a new purchase first, and, just as the statistics shows, on average every tenth car on the road is probably a new car. If everyone would be buying a used car, then there would be no supply of new cars.
Reality is that existing prices for both new and resale values represents a finely tuned, yet fluid, supply and demand model, that takes into account both purchasing power, vanity, depreciation, reliability, cost of auto-mechanics labor, crash accidents statistics, auto-industry profit margins and many other factors.
Yes, brand new car is often overpriced. That is part of the model, where salespeople commissions and average buyer's vanity comes into a play. It is also true, that sometimes the old is just not the right choice for some people.
Location is a huge factor. You could make 200k in a metro area and just live the upper middle class lifestyle. Or you can make 100k and live the same life style in a rural area only a hundred miles away. Housing is considered your largest expense taking between supposably 1/3 for renting and 1/2 for a mortgage of your income. Then the cost of goods in the area are inflated to pay everyone else larger wages to live in that area.
That $15 minimum wage debate is because in some areas of the US $15 an hour (30k) is more than some professional work at in some areas.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's in part because new cars are loaded with helpful but expensive safety features like collision-avoidance systems.
Wrong factors. Median income people haven't been able to afford new cars for a while. And this is more a function of loss in purchasing power than about new (and expensive) safety features.
People in such conditions do what they have done for a long time - buy used cars. #firstworldproblem.
The ones in Seattle are usually empty. I often have the bus to myself, but generally I'm one of 3-4 people. What a waste!!!
Maybe if you showered more people would get on.
Just another day in Paradise