Cars
 

Do you think new car prices will normalize in a year or so?
Every decent new car is at premium right now.
Some dealers will not even negotiate.

After a lifetime of always buying a new car, we have now been buying CPO.
We drive our cars almost forever. The first Mercedes had 330,000 miles on it when we gave it to the National Kidney Foundation. There was nothing wrong with the car, but we purchased an SL500 at the time. That car now belongs to our son. Bought a CPO SL550 with sticker price of $114,000, 2 years old for $63,000. Beautiful car, great riding and really fast. My wife says to me "we really didn't need that gas" when I downshift. Getting 28 miles/gallon. The E350 along side it gets 600 miles/tank on the highway which means driving all day without stopping for fuel. Prices will respond to consumer demand in my mind.

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I am a retired workaholic and continuing aquaholic

I've been looking for a truck but I refuse to pay new price for a 2 or 3 year old truck. New ones aren't available, just like everything else, supply chains are strained. It may take a year or so but things will get back to normal. If you can wait you will be rewarded, I know I can.
I was in a Jet Ski store the other day to register my 4 wheeler and the guy was telling people on the phone not to expect their new skis until sometime in June at the earliest. ATV's and boats are the same, nothing available anywhere.
If you've been thinking of selling now's the time!

I will wait, as long as prices come down a bit.
Thank you

I have a friend who just bought a gently used, (under 10K miles), Audi Q7 SUV this past week. He needed to buy a car, as his previous ride had been totaled by a drunk who hit him, (luckily no injuries), and he was a cash buyer with the insurance $. Even paying cash, the dealer wouldn't budge on price, and since he needed a car, he had to cough up the dough.

I also believe that there is a lot of pent up demand, from people basically having done nothing or bought nothing over the past year. There is a school of thought that with people being vaccinated and things opening up, the pent-up demand will have the economy taking off in the 2nd half of this year. Which translates into: if you want something, you're gonna have to pay up!

I don't need a car but have been thinking about selling my Outback and getting an Ascent (late model used) as the extra space would be nice. I started casually looking in February, almost bought in April but the p[rice wasn't quite right. Since then, prices have climbed steadily upward and inventory has dropped. I am glad I don't need a car as prices are high and there is little reason to negotiate.

Never driven one, but I LOVE the SL. A steal at $63K!

Priced right possibly since I bought it straight from Mercedes sice they owned the dealership at the time.

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I am a retired workaholic and continuing aquaholic

I bought my wife a new car this time last year. There was plenty of inventory then and we got a great deal on a left over 2019.

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I was in the Audi dealership for service and they had a RS6 Avant in the showroom, sticker $123k, plus a market adjustment of $25k...$150 station wagon!?!?! It looked great, but I’d rather grab it for $65k in 2 years.


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"Market adjustments" are criminal.

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The Market
 

I'm always looking for a used wagon. Being an accountant I learn never to buy new. I buy low mileage used cars. They are out there, you just have to find them. You need patience and spend a little time searching each week.
The 2005 e350 wagon I bought in 2013 had only 60K on the clock, a steal at $1100. It took me 8 years to find the 2014 allroad from CA. with only 34K. Because of today's market, this is the most expensive car I ever bought at $19K.
I really hesitated to spend that kind of money, just how often you find a pristine low mileage vehicle?

market adjustment of $25k ?

I sincerely hope you told them to Go **** Yourself. I would have.

I have had very bad luck with used cars, never again.
One was a Buick LeSabre, New transmission, then a cracked engine block.
The other Datsun 310, one problem after another.

Never again. Have been very happy with Toyota and Honda. Now I am considering Kia. I would never buy a Chevy, Ford or Chrysler.

Last time I owned an American car was in the early 80's. Had excessive issues with rust, dependability, and overall expenses to keep it running. With that said, that was the last time I owned an American car.

Since that time I have only owned Toyotas, Hondas or Subaru. Nothing but driving and oil changes. Thank goodness for competition. It's too bad it has to be from an overseas Company but many of these Japanese Companies now build their vehicles in the USA.

What are they doing right, or better yet, what was Ford, Chrysler and GM doing wrong to let all their business slip away? Why couldn't they get the quality issue nailed down tight 40 years ago?

I was just killing time. $100k car is not my idea of a good way to spend money.

The RS line from Audi are impressive vehicles and in high demand with those who have money to burn.


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Was watching Mecum auctions & a like 1970 lime green Dodge Challenger 426 hemi convertible w/an automatic trans went for $1,650,000. (1 of only 9 built). Now that’s an expensive toy/ride!


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All will get a good deal on the Ascent as the reviews are less than upbeat.

"Why Subaru Ascent Just Made The 10 Least Reliable Cars List And What You Should Know"

LINK

Been having extremely good luck with German cars in the recent decade.
Skip King in Gilford is highly knowledgeable on the market. German Motorsport next door is competent in German and Norwegian cars.

still have my 2005 wagon at 165K miles. So reliable the significant other won't part with it. Photo of my new ride.

My favorite car that I owned was my 2000 Passat. Would have kept it forever, but at 15 years and 238,000 miles, the clutch finally needed to be replaced, and there was rust in the frame. Would have bought an Atlas, but it was the first model year and the mileage was horrible. Went with a Highlander Hybrid instead. Love getting 28-32 mpg for a 3-row SUV.


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15 years for a VDUB is fantastic! Clutch is a regular maintenance item. Love a girl who can drive a stick!

The miss just got rid of her 2011 Highlander for the 2005 MB. It was a major headache from day 1. My experience is the lousy mechanics at the dealer. The Highlander needs new brake lines and major front-end work to pass inspection so we lost money selling to a wholesaler. Only 98K on the clock. No more Toyota for us!

I miss my stick, but not in Floriduh with all the traffic lights, which also drops my fuel mileage from 32 here to 28 there. I’ve had no issues with the Highlander, and the dealerships both here and in FL have been fine to work with. Both VW dealerships I dealt with for the Passat were horrible. They’d break something and expect me to pay for it.


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Mentioned multiple times here on this wonderful Winnipesaukee Forum.

Get the vehicle oil undercoated and there would be no rust on the frame.

Here are two places :

Carrara's in Vermont:
LINK
and in Concord/Chichester
LINK

Yet there are still some that state that cars do not rust anymore.
Your post is proof positive that yes - cars do rust today.

Stick 6; pandemic relief

Alan

Women and stick shifts
 

Years ago when my daughter was learning to drive, I insisted that she master a manual transmission and she did. When time came for her senior high school prom, her date arrived in a borrowed sports car with a stick shift. How the owner of the sports car let the kid borrow the car was beyond me. We were hosting a pre-prom party and the date somehow managed to drive the car from his house to ours. However, he could not back the car up without stalling it; in fact he had a very hard time finding reverse gear. So my daughter switched places with him in front of the assembled group of prom attendees, put the car in reverse and drove off flawlessly. It was priceless.

Well, it was 15 years old, and traveled 238k miles, all in snowy/salty New England, so I think I got my money's worth without the treatment.

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standard
 

No one wanted my 99 F250 7.3 with a 6 speed when I bought it with 6K miles 2 years old in 2001. Now I get offers monthly!

I sold my Ram 1500 ecodiesel in SC last year when down there working. After looking at the prices and availability of new, I picked a 2011 E350 4Matic up from WeirsBeachBoater (Denis) last fall and will drive the wheels off it. Amazing in the snow, especially with 4 Blizzaks!

Thanks for the business, Happy to assist any forum members. Also I have decided to sell my own 11 E350 Sport if someone wants to be like VitaBene!

Must have been luck! My 2005 MB wagon at 165K has no rust! Mechanics are amazed!

The good news is that the car I bought used in 2019 is still worth exactly what I paid for it even with 20,000 more miles on it. The bad news is that the car I really want---a Kia Soul---has gone up proportionately in price and there are very few good ones for sale. Same as the real estate market.

"Market Adjustment"
 

As I mentioned over in my thread, "wheelchair accessible SUV's", my son is about to graduate college in May. There are only a couple of SUV's that would accommodate the lift he needs for a wheelchair, one of which being a Honda Pilot. Since there is a Honda dealer close to where he will be living for his job in VT, we decided to go with the Pilot.

My son and I went to the Honda dealer in Manchester to check out a Pilot on the lot. Told the sales guy we were cash buyers and would be buying asap...just had to go home and discuss it with The Boss, (wife/Mom). I asked him to email me quote. Quote came over...List Price, Plus, $1000.00 "Market Adjustment" and $900 in "Fees", (with no detail on what the fees were). NFW....

On Monday, I went to the Honda dealer in Salem. Found a comparable Pilot and told the sales guy I walked away from his competitor due to the "market adjustment" and I that I would buy on the spot, but without the BS extortion added on. They capitulated and we signed the deal.

Subsequently, I was talking to my brother who has a friend in the car business. The friend told him that most dealers have to have a certain cash flow per month to keep the lights on, finance the floor plan, etc. Since there are so few cars available due to the "chip shortage" and other supply chain issues, they have resorted to these made-up fees to increase revenue any way they can.

I agree. I don't know exact numbers, but if you're financing or leasing as many buyers do, on a $45K car over 5-7 years, $1000 changes the monthly payment very little, so people put up with it. The trade in numbers are going crazy too.

I am on the National Ski Patrol and they offer Subarus at 2% below invoice pricing. Twice I have contacted dealers about the program (different dealers) and both times I got a runaround with no straight answers. Just the other day I got quoted a price that was MSRP. In addition, the salesman was focusing on the monthly payment when I wanted to know the price.

The program should be simple - order the car, look at the invoice, and take 2% off. Subaru pays the 2% and the car is ordered instead of taken off the lot.

I hate buying cars. My strategy is is to figure out exactly what I want and come up with a price I am comfortable with. If they take it, fine. If not, out the door I go.

totally agree...
 

Totally agree with you. Unless you know someone that you trust who works at a dealership, you feel like you have to take a bath in witch hazel when you leave and double-check that you still have your wallet. My wife refuses to set foot in a dealership because she hates being spoken to as "the little woman" or "the dumb blonde". She's an engineer with an MBA and hates to infinity and back the stereo-typical condescending car salesman. Many years ago I once had a dealer refuse to give me my keys back from when they checked out my car as a trade-in until we actually bought a car...I literally had to threaten to call the police.

It's a horrible experience...

I leased a car a few years ago (I'll never do that again, but that's a different story). I negotiated the price and mileage. They wanted me to take delivery before the first of the year so I rearranged my plans to get there on the given day. When I got there, the salesman said I needed to go talk to the finance manager. The finance manager said he was really sorry, but the monthly payment was going to be $20/month more "less than the cost a cup of coffee on the way to work each day".

I left without the car and have never been back.

I'm sure that most could post horror stories about a car buying experience.

But the good news is that the pandemic and related supply shortages have fundamentally changed the car buying experience...almost.

If you follow what Tesla had done, and Ford is now trying to do, in the future dealers (if they even continue to exist other than for service) will have little to no inventory. Buyers will select their configuration and place their order online or perhaps with some help from a salesperson, and take delivery once it's built. There will be little haggling on price as MSRP will now be the norm for pricing.

The bad news, MSRP will now be the norm for pricing. As painful as the haggling games were in the past, if you knew what you were doing, you could negotiate a deal better than the norm.

When to buy
 

It appears too many people buy cars at the wrong time e.g. "It's about to die and I have to buy now" or "I paid the loan, so now I can afford another new car" etc.
I have a friend who used to sell cars. When I felt the urge, I'd call him and tell him to be on the lookout for 'X'. It might take a few weeks, or a few months, but he'd swing by the house and drop off a car for me to drive for a day or two. Never haggled over price. He knew I'd buy another car from him. I knew if anything needed a quick fix in the first few months, there wouldn't be a bill. He also knew that when people admired my new car, he'd get a few calls from prospective customers. Buying a car does not have to be adversarial. Doesn't that apply to most of our daily lives?

.... living in your Cadillac!
 

Cars: If you are living in your car temporarily or something, then a car dealership can be a good place to park your car and sleep at night.

Car dealerships have parking lots with lots of cars so it's easy to blend in and hopefully go unnoticed. What's even better is to go to a dealer that sells your brand of car so it will blend in even better. For example if you is liv'n in your Cadillac then go get there after dark, pull in next to another Cadillac and chill out till about 6:30-am the next day when you leave before the mechanics get in.

People locally will just assume your Caddy is some old beater that's in for some work or something, plus dealer's have good security so's you probably won't get bothered in the middle of the night. ..... :D:laugh:;)

25 Best Places to Sleep When Living in Your Car! ..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk-_OAbkH0g&t=31s .... Dec 26, 2020

As I have noted. I am constantly looking for the perfect car. When one comes up, it will be my summer ride. The old car becomes the winter beater!

Wait, didn't you get a sweet Corvette a year or two ago?!

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Never had one of those, bought a few to over my time.

Bought a 1993 4 wheel drive Toyota when I lived here on Paugus Bay and folk's would come up to visit with their camper's towing a boat, I'd use my pickup and take it across the street and put it in the lake for them.

Had it for about 11 year's and when I moved to Texas I gave it to my Brother whom lived in Salem NH at the time.
He called me about 2 year's after and just behind the cab, the frame let go!! He had gone out to get parts for something he was working on, hit a bump in the road, and walla!! The good news is that he was going slow and was OK.

I bet you wouldn't do that today---walk out on a car over a difference of $240 a year. You could end up carless.

Would probably depend on what he went in with, right?

I walked away from a dealer over $500 when I was buying my 4Runner, but I had a paid-off vehicle to drive...to the next dealer with.

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I probably would. The way the agreed upon deal changed at the last minute told me enough about the business manager, salesman, and dealer that I knew I would never trust them.

Corvettes: Did you know Joe Biden has a dark green 1967 Stingray convertible 4-speed manual that he's had for over 55-years and as president he does not get to drive it.

It has something this new TiltonBB vette ain't got ....... a manual stick shift! A real Corvette has a stick shift and a clutch pedal!

You know there is probably NO speed limit out on the Lake Winnipesaukee frozen ice surface for driving a snowmobile or a car.

I loved sticks, and stuck with them till very late in the game, teaching my now 20-something kids to drive them as well. But the new computerized transmissions beat them on both acceleration and fuel economy. I'll take Tilton's :D

With the dual clutch transmission there is no lag between gears, typical of an automatic transmission. There is just a click and it is immediately in the next gear. This car has no torque converter. For the first 1,000 miles I was amazed every time it shifted.

I did plenty of shifting in an earlier life! 10, 13, and 15 speed Road Rangers, even Quadboxes (Two sticks, a 5 speed and a 4 speed transmission that worked together to give you 20 forward speeds and 4 in reverse.) Now playing with those is just a hobby.

I am fine with letting the car shift itself! It shifts a lot faster than I could with a manual transmission!

FLL: There is most likely a reason that Joe Biden is not allowed to drive his manual transmission car anymore, but it has nothing to do with Presidential security!

I'm actually waiting to see some of my father's friends start talking electric conversions on their classics.

My dream car

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/ele...will-ever-need

Yes, but do you have the white New Balance's to go with it? :D