I just moved a few months ago to a less shit part of Canada, but the place I used to live had an insane car market. Converting to USD, the under $5000 market simply did not exist. The stealerships were absolutely criminal. Cars between 5k and 8k, there generally would be about 2-3 cars within a 200 mi radius available, they'd be absolutely thrashed, about 20 years old, and around 200k miles. The entire 8k-10k market was American make pickups or SUVs, over 100k miles, 30+ years old. Above that, it was still mostly pickups and SUVs, but you might find a handful of used grandpa buicks that are around 10 years old. Anything that hasn't been in a collision and/or is newer than about 8-10 years would just be new car MSRP money or significantly more. Like $70k for a 2 or 3 year old truck, $40,000 for a 10 year old truck, cars from like 2001 going for around $20,000 because they're uncrashed and have only moderate undercarriage rust. Of course, if you want to sell your car, you're probably not even going to make blue book value.
The only cars for sale by owner would be "you take over payments" muscle car bailout attempts or dudes who found a 50s studebaker with no engine that's mostly rust on their farm and still think it's worth $5500.
My understanding is that the upper plains states like Montana and Nebraska are also similar outside of the cities, and it looks pretty familiar on Craigslist for Wyoming, North Dakota, and even moreso in Montana and South Dakota
Literally how the fuck are people supposed to buy cars in markets like these, where they're also especially mandatory because the grocery store might be an hour away by car?
yeah, i've been out of the used car market for about 13 years at this point. sometimes i look up stuff in my LCOL area and the broader region and it's been real fucked for the last few years. the big lots snapped up a ton of used car inventory and, as you say, want a king's ransom for everything. if my car got totalled i would probably see about repairing anyway, or do some fleet vehicle surplus / salvage title bullshit and end up with some $500 deathtrap. or prowling the obituaries to find and old lady/old man car and offer to pay cash like a vulture. there's a clear pinch going on right now with the transition to EVs, because the logic is to not buy a new ICE vehicle right now and try to limp along with something until the EVs really start rolling out. not to mention, buying a new car has always been a dogshit value proposition... and with interest rates/prices so high and wages so crappy, more people are incentivized to scrutinize the entire notion.
I feel like EVs are never going to get down to a price point, and the goal is to just price half of people out of the auto market just like they've been priced out of housing and everything else.
manufacturers et al do seem to be in the "price discovery" phase, where they are imperceptibly turning the price dial down on EVs to find what is the highest price people will pay, so that when gas prices go up to $12/gallon during the next major military conflict, they will harvest as much money as possible.
I just moved a few months ago to a less shit part of Canada, but the place I used to live had an insane car market. Converting to USD, the under $5000 market simply did not exist. The stealerships were absolutely criminal. Cars between 5k and 8k, there generally would be about 2-3 cars within a 200 mi radius available, they'd be absolutely thrashed, about 20 years old, and around 200k miles. The entire 8k-10k market was American make pickups or SUVs, over 100k miles, 30+ years old. Above that, it was still mostly pickups and SUVs, but you might find a handful of used grandpa buicks that are around 10 years old. Anything that hasn't been in a collision and/or is newer than about 8-10 years would just be new car MSRP money or significantly more. Like $70k for a 2 or 3 year old truck, $40,000 for a 10 year old truck, cars from like 2001 going for around $20,000 because they're uncrashed and have only moderate undercarriage rust. Of course, if you want to sell your car, you're probably not even going to make blue book value.
The only cars for sale by owner would be "you take over payments" muscle car bailout attempts or dudes who found a 50s studebaker with no engine that's mostly rust on their farm and still think it's worth $5500.
My understanding is that the upper plains states like Montana and Nebraska are also similar outside of the cities, and it looks pretty familiar on Craigslist for Wyoming, North Dakota, and even moreso in Montana and South Dakota
Literally how the fuck are people supposed to buy cars in markets like these, where they're also especially mandatory because the grocery store might be an hour away by car?
yeah, i've been out of the used car market for about 13 years at this point. sometimes i look up stuff in my LCOL area and the broader region and it's been real fucked for the last few years. the big lots snapped up a ton of used car inventory and, as you say, want a king's ransom for everything. if my car got totalled i would probably see about repairing anyway, or do some fleet vehicle surplus / salvage title bullshit and end up with some $500 deathtrap. or prowling the obituaries to find and old lady/old man car and offer to pay cash like a vulture. there's a clear pinch going on right now with the transition to EVs, because the logic is to not buy a new ICE vehicle right now and try to limp along with something until the EVs really start rolling out. not to mention, buying a new car has always been a dogshit value proposition... and with interest rates/prices so high and wages so crappy, more people are incentivized to scrutinize the entire notion.
I feel like EVs are never going to get down to a price point, and the goal is to just price half of people out of the auto market just like they've been priced out of housing and everything else.
manufacturers et al do seem to be in the "price discovery" phase, where they are imperceptibly turning the price dial down on EVs to find what is the highest price people will pay, so that when gas prices go up to $12/gallon during the next major military conflict, they will harvest as much money as possible.
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