Have you priced a car lately?
According to an article published by AP News using data from Edmunds.com, the average price of a used car this past November was $29,011, “a dizzying 39% more than just 12 months earlier.” New car prices also saw a sharp increase, with the average “edging toward $46,000.”
On top of that, Edmunds senior manager …
Yikes, I've bought multiple new cars and not spent that much on any one of them.
Choice to buy a car at pre-pandemic pricing last summer: validated.
Good thing I have four extra cars. I won't run out anytime soon. 
I bet people hanging on to clunkers instead of selling them for $1000 and moving on has certainly affected this.
I look forward to the GRM $30k challenge. Any word as to whether recoup will be allowed?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:I bet people hanging on to clunkers instead of selling them for $1000 and moving on has certainly affected this.
That and people buying 1-3 year old cars instead of buying new because that's all that's available.
I'm glad I didn't try to squeeze one more year out of my '98 Buick and replaced it in early 2020. Would have been in for hanging onto it a long time otherwise.
Or ended up making a completely unhinged decision like thinking this MGB GT would make a good daily driver.
dps214 said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:I bet people hanging on to clunkers instead of selling them for $1000 and moving on has certainly affected this.
That and people buying 1-3 year old cars instead of buying new because that's all that's available.
Saw something on Jalopnik this morning. Last quarter 9 new Impalas were bought at various GM dealerships.
They ended production of them somewhere around a year and a half back. All I can think is that they had a great deal to get them out of there.
It would be interesting to see the average age of those used cars, to see if that's changed. Are these 1-3 year old cars going for new car prices due to the lack of new cars, like dps214 said? I suspect so. Our local Chevy dealership ("America's #1 discounter of automobiles!!!!") has a huge lot that is completely empty. It looks like they've gone out of business.
A friend sold his Tacoma, bought new, for what he had in it a few months ago and bought a Hummer H3. He's thrilled with the money aspect of things, but now he's driving an H3 :D
Man, what a weird chain of events.
Interesting bullet points from the article:
"Last month, the average used vehicle price was 63% of the average new vehicle cost. Before the pandemic, it was 54%."
"What used to be a $5,000 car,” the car dealer said, “is now $8,000. What used to be $8,000 is now $11,000 or $12,000.”
"Including taxes, fees, a 10% down payment, and an interest rate of around 7.5%, the average used vehicle now costs $520 a month, even when financed for the average of nearly six years"
"Monthly payments for the average used vehicle, he noted, were $413 two years ago, $382 five years ago and $365 a decade ago. The November average payment of $500-plus for a used vehicle, Drury said, is about the average that was needed five years ago for a brand-new vehicle."
On the plus side I already have 6 cars at the house, so this tends to dissuade me from bring home number 7.
I know its bragging but in early Covid, May 2020, I bought a 2019 Dodge Grand Caravan GT w/40k miles for $15.1k directly from Hertz as they were fire-selling off cars quickly on the eve of their bankruptcy filing. At the time Avis & Enterprise was not fire-selling and they were priced just over $18k.
Now:
Hertz: 2019 GT with 76k miles at $25k
Avis: 2020 GT with 51k miles at $31.6k
Enterprise: 2019 GT with 59k miles at $28.5k
These number astound me. Sure I bought at the bottom but now I don't even have 60k miles on my van and it retails now for $10 - 13k more!! I wish I had bought 5 of these vans!
STM317 said:Interesting bullet points from the article:
"Last month, the average used vehicle price was 63% of the average new vehicle cost. Before the pandemic, it was 54%."
"What used to be a $5,000 car,” the car dealer said, “is now $8,000. What used to be $8,000 is now $11,000 or $12,000.”
"Including taxes, fees, a 10% down payment, and an interest rate of around 7.5%, the average used vehicle now costs $520 a month, even when financed for the average of nearly six years"
"Monthly payments for the average used vehicle, he noted, were $413 two years ago, $382 five years ago and $365 a decade ago. The November average payment of $500-plus for a used vehicle, Drury said, is about the average that was needed five years ago for a brand-new vehicle."
I'm shocked about the 7.5% rate on used vehicles. That seems crazy to me.
I mean go buy a new car right now. It's 3 months if they haven't closed down the production line like they just did with the Colorado. Or the other option is getting an ADM for anything that may just happen to be on the lot. So no surprise that this is the case. I mean I drove my Golf R for a year and got paid for it.
This isn't going to letup anytime soon.
This is the same condition as mine that I paid $5200 for in March. Same mileage.
I bought a 981 Cayman in 2019, which at the time was the most extravagant purchase of my life. I sold it in 2021 for 10% more than I paid with 20% more miles- and it had bald tires when I sold it. It's hard to complain about getting a free lease on a Porsche for two years and making some money at it on the side, but I probably could have done even better if I had waited another year. Looks like market price now is 10-15% higher than what I sold it for.
bobzilla said:This is the same condition as mine that I paid $5200 for in March. Same mileage.
$5.2k to $9k and above says that $5k is now $8k...about right. Also factor a little reduction since you bought via private party and this $9k is dealer.
z31maniac said:STM317 said:Interesting bullet points from the article:
"Last month, the average used vehicle price was 63% of the average new vehicle cost. Before the pandemic, it was 54%."
"What used to be a $5,000 car,” the car dealer said, “is now $8,000. What used to be $8,000 is now $11,000 or $12,000.”
"Including taxes, fees, a 10% down payment, and an interest rate of around 7.5%, the average used vehicle now costs $520 a month, even when financed for the average of nearly six years"
"Monthly payments for the average used vehicle, he noted, were $413 two years ago, $382 five years ago and $365 a decade ago. The November average payment of $500-plus for a used vehicle, Drury said, is about the average that was needed five years ago for a brand-new vehicle."
I'm shocked about the 7.5% rate on used vehicles. That seems crazy to me.
Crazy good or crazy bad?
I know someone who usually bought used cars at 29% interest. Makes the WRX that I put on a 19% credit card look sane.
In reply to John Welsh :
Theres another one, red, but the paint is trash and the interior beat for $8500. I found one PP on CLM and that one was $8200 with more miles.
What is going on? That's a rhetorical question. I have the mis-fortune to have to replace a car after my daughter had an 'incident' with my daily. Just happened to occur 24 hours after she finished a TireRack Street Survival School too! How ironic.
So on December 3, I put a deposit down on a 2022 Civic Si. Looks like March delivery. Still cheaper than a 2020 Si with miles on it. Now that is just crazy.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:z31maniac said:STM317 said:Interesting bullet points from the article:
"Last month, the average used vehicle price was 63% of the average new vehicle cost. Before the pandemic, it was 54%."
"What used to be a $5,000 car,” the car dealer said, “is now $8,000. What used to be $8,000 is now $11,000 or $12,000.”
"Including taxes, fees, a 10% down payment, and an interest rate of around 7.5%, the average used vehicle now costs $520 a month, even when financed for the average of nearly six years"
"Monthly payments for the average used vehicle, he noted, were $413 two years ago, $382 five years ago and $365 a decade ago. The November average payment of $500-plus for a used vehicle, Drury said, is about the average that was needed five years ago for a brand-new vehicle."
I'm shocked about the 7.5% rate on used vehicles. That seems crazy to me.
Crazy good or crazy bad?
I know someone who usually bought used cars at 29% interest. Makes the WRX that I put on a 19% credit card look sane.
My father recently found paperwork for a used '77 Buick Regal he bought around '79-'80 when he and my mother first got married, and it was a 24.99% interest rate. He looked at the interest rate and his eyes popped out of his head and he said he doesn't even recall batting an eye at that interest rate back then.
In reply to trucke :
The important Q is was the insurance payout on the old car high enough to cover it's current value?
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
Insurance? Actually making someone whole on a claim? LOL.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to trucke :
The important Q is was the insurance payout on the old car high enough to cover it's current value?
Actually, yes! It went up along with the used car prices. However, the high payout on a 2013 Focus is still way less than a new car. This is about a $25k lesson Dad gets to pay. Good news is that she learned it and is a much better driver now. She had a habit of braking way to late. She rolled the Focus, twice. No airbag deployment, but she bounced her head off the roof, twice.
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