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There were people in a thread on Reddit saying they have cars with $40/month of subscription services. That seems absolutely insane to me. My family buys used

There were people in a thread on Reddit saying they have cars with $40/month of subscription services. That seems absolutely insane to me. My family buys used cars, usually in the 3-5 year old range, we do our own repair work, and drive everything for 10-15 years. It's usually close to 15 than 10. We drive them until they drop. I figured it out one day and the lifetime TCO has been about $100/month per vehicle. We really, really need legislation that says advertised features can't require an ongoing subscription. The whole scheme of giving the original buyer a "free trial" that lasts long enough that they'll sell the vehicle is just a tactic to seek rent in the secondhand market. The thing is, there are a lot of people buying second hand because they don't have money to waste. How do you pull yourself up by the bootstraps if the bootstraps require a subscription you can't afford?

Syonyk 5y ago
> How do you pull yourself up by the bootstraps if the bootstraps require a subscription you can't afford? Can't have those upstarts worming their way into elite circles now, can we? I thought you'd understand. Once a poor, always a poor, you know. There's a rather depressing trend of this sort of stuff lately, and a lot of it is coming from people who claim they care about lower income classes - but then conveniently just so happen to do things that are the opposite of what they claim to support. When called on it, you mutter "unintended consequences," "nobody could have foreseen that," and shut the mic off for anyone who predicted exactly what just happened.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  Who would have thought the revolution won't be sponsored by Toyota or Pepsi? The corporate SJW movement is all marketing, it's really depressing to see it work on people.
- citizenpaul 5y ago
  It was started by gates and buffett "the giving pledge" they are now a decade into giving their fortune away and are comicallty richer than when they started. That kind of hipocracy tends to flow top down and now we are seeing the results.
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
I use a similar strategy of targeting 2 to 4 year old used cars in good condition, and then swapping out when they get around 10 years or 100k. It's worked quite well for me. I have no idea what I'm going to do next time I'm in the market for a car, because every trend I see in the industry is stuff I do not want. And it's not just cars. It's freakin' everything. I don't need a touch screen on my fridge. Like that joke tweet from a decade ago, I feel like it's just a matter of years before all the couches on the market are wifi connected. I'm just sitting over here hoping there's blowback that keeps some reasonable stuff on the market. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to become some sort of personal expert on keeping things from 1990 or older running.
- rurp 5y ago
  I just went through this, buying a car to replace the one I'd had for 13 years. Oh man, I had no idea how terrible the car industry had gotten; it was every bit as bad as you're fearing. I had a slight preference for an automatic transmission but ended up looking mostly at manuals since those often lack a few of the "modern" anti-features. I wish I had better advice to give, the experience honestly bummed me out quite a bit.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    I too dread this. My current car's getting to about the number of kms that I usually sell at. With covid making secondhand cars expensive for some weird reason, and all these terrible modern car trends, I just haven't been able to bring myself to "upgrade".
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Honestly, take the money you'd spend to upgrade and instead overhaul the car. Need new front seat upholstery? Some new plastic end pieces? Maybe an engine rebuild? It probably won't cost more than a new(ish) car, maybe even cheaper.
      - brokenmachine 5y ago
silverpepsi 5y ago
I'm totally on the same page. After my millionaire frugal friend told me he managed $88/mo TCO, I've been chasing that target nonstop
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  10 year old Toyota Prius is going to be roughly $45/mo TCO for registration, insurance, and minimal maintenance. Depreciation is probably another $40/mth. I'm pretty sure that and a Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf (for low range reqs) is the best you can do.
  - gbrown 5y ago
    Time will tell, but in theory the Volts should last a really long time also. The generator only directly powers the drivetrain at highway speeds, and in the gen-1 they were really conservative with allowed pure electric range on the battery. I'm planning to drive mine until it dies, and suspect that salty winter Midwestern roads will render it unsafe/broken before anything else does.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  That’s impressive. We’re around $100/mo for everything excluding fuel on our 2005 CR-V, bought by us in 2011. It’s going to have to last several more years to get down under $90/mo. (If your friend said that 10 years ago, I guess I’m under that already.)
ghaff 5y ago
I fully expect that, assuming we get to autonomous driving someday, either the system or the entire car will only be available as subscription services. It just won't work any other way given the manufacturer will be on the hook for the proper maintenance and updating of a safety critical system. And it probably applies even more broadly as things that were historically just hardware have an increasingly large software component.
otikik 5y ago
It seems there is a market there for people like you and your family: removing/disabling/hacking the DRM on those used cars.
- mhandley 5y ago
  The market is already there. I have a 2010 Mercedes C180 and the car suddenly wouldn't start. Turns out it has an coded electronic steering lock which talks to the electronic ignition and won't enable the car if the lock doesn't disengage. Of course the steering lock itself failed - turns out this is a design flaw. Would have cost way too much money to transport the car to the Mercedes dealer at the only time the dealer would accept it for repair and then have them replace it. Turns out there's a thriving market in folks who will come to your house, completely remove the steering lock, and replace it with an emulator that just pretends to unlock when its told to.
Kon-Peki 5y ago
> We really, really need legislation that says advertised features can't require an ongoing subscription I recently bought a new car. All of the things on the window sticker that required a subscription said "(subscription required)". Is this not enough? Or are you talking about things like TV/Internet/Radio advertising?
caf 5y ago
We really, really need legislation that says advertised features can't require an ongoing subscription. All that is needed is for the advertising to be required to make it clear which features require an ongoing subscription. I don't see the problem for the used car market - if anything, the fact some features won't be functional without a subscription ought to depress the used price of the car. If you take it to an extreme - say, a car that requires a daily payment to run at all - you'd find that the market price of such a vehicle wouldn't be far above the scrap value.
manquer 5y ago
Not defending Toyota, their model is abusive, however your comparison is not accurate/fair. The TCO is just parts/raw material costs, your time and skill are very expensive!. For me, even if I had to pop the hood of the car I need a mechanic, that is probably a couple of hundred to start with, and add anything he says I need to buy whether I actually I need to or not, it can quickly add up. It is like me saying why pay for managed email or website hosting, when I can run those myself for much cheaper, even if my time was not a factor, I cannot compare those costs I would have to costs for someone without the skills needed .
WWLink 5y ago
I ponder the same thing. On My Jeep all that nonsense is tied explicitly to the radio. If you yank the 4G modem out, it's all as good as gone - though then the GPS map feature doesn't work either. If I replace the radio entirely I gain control, but lose the auto emergency braking system. That's unfortunate lol. Luckily no required monthly services. I have no interest in a car with that.

Syonyk 5y ago

> How do you pull yourself up by the bootstraps if the bootstraps require a subscription you can't afford? Can't have those upstarts worming their way into elite circles now, can we? I thought you'd understand. Once a poor, always a poor, you know. There's a rather depressing trend of this sort of stuff lately, and a lot of it is coming from people who claim they care about lower income classes - but then conveniently just so happen to do things that are the opposite of what they claim to support. When called on it, you mutter "unintended consequences," "nobody could have foreseen that," and shut the mic off for anyone who predicted exactly what just happened.

xanaxagoras 5y ago
Who would have thought the revolution won't be sponsored by Toyota or Pepsi? The corporate SJW movement is all marketing, it's really depressing to see it work on people.
citizenpaul 5y ago
It was started by gates and buffett "the giving pledge" they are now a decade into giving their fortune away and are comicallty richer than when they started. That kind of hipocracy tends to flow top down and now we are seeing the results.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

I use a similar strategy of targeting 2 to 4 year old used cars in good condition, and then swapping out when they get around 10 years or 100k. It's worked quite well for me. I have no idea what I'm going to do next time I'm in the market for a car, because every trend I see in the industry is stuff I do not want. And it's not just cars. It's freakin' everything. I don't need a touch screen on my fridge. Like that joke tweet from a decade ago, I feel like it's just a matter of years before all the couches on the market are wifi connected. I'm just sitting over here hoping there's blowback that keeps some reasonable stuff on the market. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to become some sort of personal expert on keeping things from 1990 or older running.

rurp 5y ago
I just went through this, buying a car to replace the one I'd had for 13 years. Oh man, I had no idea how terrible the car industry had gotten; it was every bit as bad as you're fearing. I had a slight preference for an automatic transmission but ended up looking mostly at manuals since those often lack a few of the "modern" anti-features. I wish I had better advice to give, the experience honestly bummed me out quite a bit.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  I too dread this. My current car's getting to about the number of kms that I usually sell at. With covid making secondhand cars expensive for some weird reason, and all these terrible modern car trends, I just haven't been able to bring myself to "upgrade".
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Honestly, take the money you'd spend to upgrade and instead overhaul the car. Need new front seat upholstery? Some new plastic end pieces? Maybe an engine rebuild? It probably won't cost more than a new(ish) car, maybe even cheaper.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago

silverpepsi 5y ago

I'm totally on the same page. After my millionaire frugal friend told me he managed $88/mo TCO, I've been chasing that target nonstop

reducesuffering 5y ago
10 year old Toyota Prius is going to be roughly $45/mo TCO for registration, insurance, and minimal maintenance. Depreciation is probably another $40/mth. I'm pretty sure that and a Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf (for low range reqs) is the best you can do.
- gbrown 5y ago
  Time will tell, but in theory the Volts should last a really long time also. The generator only directly powers the drivetrain at highway speeds, and in the gen-1 they were really conservative with allowed pure electric range on the battery. I'm planning to drive mine until it dies, and suspect that salty winter Midwestern roads will render it unsafe/broken before anything else does.
sokoloff 5y ago
That’s impressive. We’re around $100/mo for everything excluding fuel on our 2005 CR-V, bought by us in 2011. It’s going to have to last several more years to get down under $90/mo. (If your friend said that 10 years ago, I guess I’m under that already.)

ghaff 5y ago

I fully expect that, assuming we get to autonomous driving someday, either the system or the entire car will only be available as subscription services. It just won't work any other way given the manufacturer will be on the hook for the proper maintenance and updating of a safety critical system. And it probably applies even more broadly as things that were historically just hardware have an increasingly large software component.

otikik 5y ago

It seems there is a market there for people like you and your family: removing/disabling/hacking the DRM on those used cars.

mhandley 5y ago
The market is already there. I have a 2010 Mercedes C180 and the car suddenly wouldn't start. Turns out it has an coded electronic steering lock which talks to the electronic ignition and won't enable the car if the lock doesn't disengage. Of course the steering lock itself failed - turns out this is a design flaw. Would have cost way too much money to transport the car to the Mercedes dealer at the only time the dealer would accept it for repair and then have them replace it. Turns out there's a thriving market in folks who will come to your house, completely remove the steering lock, and replace it with an emulator that just pretends to unlock when its told to.

Kon-Peki 5y ago

> We really, really need legislation that says advertised features can't require an ongoing subscription I recently bought a new car. All of the things on the window sticker that required a subscription said "(subscription required)". Is this not enough? Or are you talking about things like TV/Internet/Radio advertising?

caf 5y ago

We really, really need legislation that says advertised features can't require an ongoing subscription. All that is needed is for the advertising to be required to make it clear which features require an ongoing subscription. I don't see the problem for the used car market - if anything, the fact some features won't be functional without a subscription ought to depress the used price of the car. If you take it to an extreme - say, a car that requires a daily payment to run at all - you'd find that the market price of such a vehicle wouldn't be far above the scrap value.

manquer 5y ago

Not defending Toyota, their model is abusive, however your comparison is not accurate/fair. The TCO is just parts/raw material costs, your time and skill are very expensive!. For me, even if I had to pop the hood of the car I need a mechanic, that is probably a couple of hundred to start with, and add anything he says I need to buy whether I actually I need to or not, it can quickly add up. It is like me saying why pay for managed email or website hosting, when I can run those myself for much cheaper, even if my time was not a factor, I cannot compare those costs I would have to costs for someone without the skills needed .

WWLink 5y ago

I ponder the same thing. On My Jeep all that nonsense is tied explicitly to the radio. If you yank the 4G modem out, it's all as good as gone - though then the GPS map feature doesn't work either. If I replace the radio entirely I gain control, but lose the auto emergency braking system. That's unfortunate lol. Luckily no required monthly services. I have no interest in a car with that.