Americans Want To Stick With It Until Their Car Commits Seppuku
Bloomberg has had a look at the U.S. new car market and it seems that American consumers are busy joining their Japanese counterparts in a new trend: hanging onto their cars until they die. “Used vehicles being traded in at dealerships averaged 6.3 years of age after the Wall Street meltdown in late 2008, about 6 months older than before the crisis, according to forecaster J.D. Power & Associates in Troy, Michigan.” And you know which way this one’s going. TTAC’s Best and Brightest have been connecting those dots for some time. Still, it’s a bit startling to see the MSM do the same. “If the industry sells fewer than 12 million vehicles this year, the government will have to write more checks” media-friendly auto analyst John Casesa told Bloomies. “Otherwise GM, Ford and Chrysler will be gone, bankrupt.” TARP this. “’Even with a drop in the price of gasoline, families aren’t changing their decision to keep running the old car’ said the Conference Board’s Goldstein. Nor will steps such as an easing of credit standards at lender GMAC be enough on their own to revive showroom traffic, said Tom Libby, a J.D. Power analyst. ‘Just because GMAC has become a bit more lenient, it’s not like a light switch,’ Libby said. ‘It will take economic stability to reignite car buying, it will take some calm. That’s what a shopper needs for the confidence to spend $26,000.'”
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Also, why buy a new sports coupe? A C5 costs $15k now. You can get some pretty good double-A players for twenty grand new, but this one bats .270 in MLB.
Keeping mine, going on 11 years now and the best part, at least for me, I do ALL my own repairs and repairs for my family. It is so much cheaper to have parts replaced. I thought I wanted a new camaro, I'll let someone else purchase the depreciation. As the boomer population declines the demand for new vehicles will too. Vote against the, "cash for clunkers bill", part of obomas nutty stimulus plan.
@ snafu Vote against the, “cash for clunkers bill”, part of obomas nutty stimulus plan. Really? Great. Is there a reference to that somewhere?