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Simple things that have little effect for an upper middle class family can completely devastate a poor one. If you own a 20 y.o. car that you bought for 3k to
by whatever1 4y ago
Simple things that have little effect for an upper middle class family can completely devastate a poor one.
If you own a 20 y.o. car that you bought for 3k to commute to work it will for sure break down. You go to the mechanic and they quote you 4k, while you live paycheck by paycheck.
Now you cannot drive to work. In non coastal America, that typically has 0 public transportation, you are now convicted to bankruptcy.
An upper middle class family just buys a new car every 5-6 years and they avoid most of the maintenance.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoAnd here I am driving a 17 year old car which is worth less than I make in a week. It doesn’t really break ever either, just some small stuff over the years.
- 0_____0 4y agoYou’ve obviously never lived somewhere that salts during the winter. Where road salt is used you don’t see many vehicles that old.
- ericd 4y agoWe do, we have a couple Toyotas older than that. Paint tech has come a long way since cars were rusting out left and right.
- perceptronas 4y agoThe trick is to buy used cars from regions that don't have salts during the winter. If I look at cars imported from US, I look at ones from Texas and etc.
- 0_____0 4y agoI brought a pickup truck from CA to the northeast and promptly sold it for $2000 more than I bought it for 4 years prior. Inventory issues were part of it but indeed the rust free frame was highly desirable.
- sokoloff 4y agoThat’s not at all obvious to me, who drives a 18 year old Honda that’s lived its entire life in upstate NY, NH, and MA. It’s true that rust will likely be the eventual reason to retire it, but probably not for another 5-10 years.
- 0_____0 4y agoGo outside and count the cars that are older than 15 years. Then go to California and do it. It’s different.
- sokoloff 4y agoNo one claimed that salt usage made no difference. That's a far lesser claim than concluding that someone driving a 17 year old car has obviously never lived where the roads are salted. Despite being a lower percentage than CA, there are plenty of perfectly usable 17+ year old cars on the roads in New England.
- tasuki 4y agoEastern Europe represent. We use lots of road salt and plenty 17 year old cars.
- dgudkov 4y agoIt's not really comparable. Northern US and Canada use way more salt on roads and it's not the regular salt (it's forbidden) but a pretty aggressive mix of various salts. I've never seen so many not so old but already rusty cars as in Quebec, Canada.
- boppo1 4y agoTell us more
- sgt 4y agoHe doesn't need to. We all know it must be a Toyota.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoI drive a 2004 corolla that I bought off the lot and I'll probably drive it for another 10-20 years. But I also grew up dirt poor and understand the difference between where I'm at now and where my family was at when I was young, in terms of vehicles. There's a world of difference between an older, well-maintained, vehicle, and buying a car for $300 off the side of the road.
- sokoloff 4y agoOur 2005 Honda CR-V was ~$7K 11 years ago and all the maintenance (except tires) has been easily done by me with no unusual tools needed. It’s probably a $3K car now and there’s literally thousands of them around. It’s not that hard nor time-consuming to do basic maintenance and it saves low four-figures per year.
- j-bos 4y agoAdditional point, mant people are not mentally or physically capable of doing vehicle maintenance.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoWhere are you going to do maintenance? In your garage or driveway in the home you own? That's a pretty big privilege. The reality is a low income person is living in low income housing, typically large apartment complexes. These places have strict rules against doing car maintenance and work in their parking lots. In addition it's a huge privilege to have weekend and free time to do car work yourself, not to mention buying the tools and materials necessary for it. Working on cars is a hobby for middle class folks nowadays, it's not a solution to the general problem that low income people need reliable transportation in most of America.
- deathanatos 4y agoEven my not low-income ($3-$5k / mo) apartment complex forbids this. If you want car maintenance, or to run your own business, or any number of other things, you need to first own a home, apparently. And that just furthers the article's point…
- brailsafe 4y agoI would have to imagine a $3-5k type place would be even less likely to allow this.
- tristor 4y agoHonestly, a parking garage. I’ve done a LOT of small car repairs, installed exhausts, simple mods, etc for people in a random retail parking garage after hours. As long as you aren’t disassembling the motor and you’re not an asshole the security guard making $12/hr driving a hoopty in the exact same boat as you is not going to hassle you. It’s a lot less fun than doing it in a proper shop with a lift and power tools, but given enough effort you can do nearly anything with jackstands, a trolley jack, and basic hand tools.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoYou aren't convicted to bankruptcy, that would be too nice if it were just that. In reality no work = no income = evicted or foreclosed and kicked out on the street with no belongings = no permanent address = no way to pass a job interview or get a job = no way to survive and get back to where you were. There are certain cliffs in American society where if you fall off you will almost certainly never get back on top without someone stepping in and giving you direct support.
- screye 4y agoNote that this problem also ties into American (really post WW2) cultural expectations, which are completely out of sync with the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, you either have a social-safety net from your community of your govt. Somehow, America has neither. In the rest of the world, if you lose your job -> you move back in with your parents. In completely individualistic societies -> your govt. provides welfare by taxing the generation with wealth (your parents generation, ie. Age. 50+ people) ___ On the contrary, America allows the age 50+ homeowners to place unprecedented restrictions on housing stock, further increasing their wealth while paying a minority of taxes (prop 13). At the same time, it's the generation that 'kicks their child out at 18', in an era when gas, infrastructure maintenance, university & housing are no longer 'practically free'.
- RajT88 4y agoPoor folks find mechanics who will install used parts. Or work for beer. There are lots of these.
- smileysteve 4y agoThe labor shortage impacted mechanics available too, it's now a $75/hr job; which inclines one to work more paying gigs. Even historically, you often got what you paid for. Turns out that the friend that takes beer as payment and doesn't have a shop manual is less likely to figure out the vacuum system correctly in not their car. Heck, I don't even trust many of the $75/hr oil change place to not bugar up my drain bolt.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- danielvf 4y agoI spent half my twenties driving beater 20 year old cars in non-costal America. Both of which I carried fire extinguishers in - because one of them had a habit of springing exciting fuel leaks in the engine compartment. The answer to making it work, was of course community. That and $99 per year triple A's free towing. People to get you places when the car is down, friends who look under your car, see that the stick is disconnected from the transmission, and bolt it back on with some bolts they find by the side of the road. Friends with the same model of car who know where the good garage mechanics are.
- Gigachad 4y agoCar dependence is such a massive drain on productivity and wealth in the US
- sgt 4y agoIf you dabble with old cars, always have two. Then if one breaks down you have a spare while you fix the broken one. Do it yourself if you can.