4 ms·

I have to agree, at least to a point. Nine times out of ten a person buying a car doesn't need it right away. Therefore if they don't like the mark-up they can

I have to agree, at least to a point. Nine times out of ten a person buying a car doesn't need it right away. Therefore if they don't like the mark-up they can just come back later when the market changes. If everybody did that then demand would go down and then so would the mark-up.

FireBeyond 3y ago
What? Apparently car accidents aren’t a thing near you. “Nine times out of ten” is a wholly made up and entirely inaccurate estimation. “Sure, someone just totaled my car but I can “just come back later when the market changes”.”
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  There are plenty of great vehicles to buy that don't have a $25k markup.
- troyvit 3y ago
  If you think my numbers are made up, take the effort to refute them. Are you saying 9/10 people who buy a car are buying it because they got in an accident? There were 13.7 million new cars sold in 2022. I doubt you'll find 13.7 totaled cars in 2022. And it still stands to reason that if somebody got in an accident, why would they turn around and buy a new car with a big mark up and massive waiting period when they can just walk onto a lot and get a good used car for much less?
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    > If you think my numbers are made up, take the effort to refute them. So I'm required to make effort to refute numbers, but you're not required to make effort to substantiate them? Huh... > Are you saying 9/10 people who buy a car are buying it because they got in an accident? I never said any such thing. I just think the number is higher than 1/10. > There were 13.7 million new cars sold in 2022. I doubt you'll find 13.7 totaled cars in 2022. I wouldn't expect to. But I'd definitely expect the number to be over 1.37 million. Hurricane Ian alone resulted in 400,000 vehicles damaged[1], and that was just one environmental event, before we look at collisions. Washington State (with 2.3% of the US population) reported 104,000 collisions [2]. So we might extrapolate to somewhere in the order of 5 million collisions a year. Indeed, that number is probably closer to 6 million [3]. So we're already approaching 7 million vehicle 'incidents' a year including collisions and one 'act of god'. I think it's reasonable to set a number of 8 million when you factor in all the other tornados, hurricanes, hail storms and others. It's hard to determine what fraction of those are total losses. However... US insurers paid out $173B in losses. [4] $173B across 8 million incidents is around $21,000. Now in a good number of those losses there are 2, or more vehicles involved, which increases the number some. But even if we assume that say 50% of collisions involved another vehicle, then we have an an average auto loss of $10K per vehicle per collision. Most insurers work on a 70/75 rule for total loss, that is, if the cost to repair the vehicle exceeds 70 or 75% of its value, it is written off. So if your collision results in "only" a $2-3K repair bill (which can be cheap these days), then you can see that there's a notable amount of payouts on total losses. (It's also hard to get a value of the average vehicle on the road in a given year - insurers are the only ones who'd likely be able to supply that information, and it would be buried somewhere in actuarial tables more than anything). It's not 9/10. Nor did I ever say it was. But if I had to make an estimate, I'd say it was closer to 2 or 3/10. [1] https://www.automotive-fleet.com/10183423/carfax-estimates-hurricane-ian-damaged-358-000-vehicles https://www.automotive-fleet.com/10183423/carfax-estimates-h... [2] https://www.weierlaw.com/2022-washington-state-car-accident-statistics/ https://www.weierlaw.com/2022-washington-state-car-accident-... [3] https://www.simplyinsurance.com/how-many-people-die-in-car-accidents-every-year https://www.simplyinsurance.com/how-many-people-die-in-car-a... [4] https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/auto-insurance-statistics/ https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/auto-insurance-s...

FireBeyond 3y ago

What? Apparently car accidents aren’t a thing near you. “Nine times out of ten” is a wholly made up and entirely inaccurate estimation. “Sure, someone just totaled my car but I can “just come back later when the market changes”.”

seattle_spring 3y ago
There are plenty of great vehicles to buy that don't have a $25k markup.
troyvit 3y ago
If you think my numbers are made up, take the effort to refute them. Are you saying 9/10 people who buy a car are buying it because they got in an accident? There were 13.7 million new cars sold in 2022. I doubt you'll find 13.7 totaled cars in 2022. And it still stands to reason that if somebody got in an accident, why would they turn around and buy a new car with a big mark up and massive waiting period when they can just walk onto a lot and get a good used car for much less?
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  > If you think my numbers are made up, take the effort to refute them. So I'm required to make effort to refute numbers, but you're not required to make effort to substantiate them? Huh... > Are you saying 9/10 people who buy a car are buying it because they got in an accident? I never said any such thing. I just think the number is higher than 1/10. > There were 13.7 million new cars sold in 2022. I doubt you'll find 13.7 totaled cars in 2022. I wouldn't expect to. But I'd definitely expect the number to be over 1.37 million. Hurricane Ian alone resulted in 400,000 vehicles damaged[1], and that was just one environmental event, before we look at collisions. Washington State (with 2.3% of the US population) reported 104,000 collisions [2]. So we might extrapolate to somewhere in the order of 5 million collisions a year. Indeed, that number is probably closer to 6 million [3]. So we're already approaching 7 million vehicle 'incidents' a year including collisions and one 'act of god'. I think it's reasonable to set a number of 8 million when you factor in all the other tornados, hurricanes, hail storms and others. It's hard to determine what fraction of those are total losses. However... US insurers paid out $173B in losses. [4] $173B across 8 million incidents is around $21,000. Now in a good number of those losses there are 2, or more vehicles involved, which increases the number some. But even if we assume that say 50% of collisions involved another vehicle, then we have an an average auto loss of $10K per vehicle per collision. Most insurers work on a 70/75 rule for total loss, that is, if the cost to repair the vehicle exceeds 70 or 75% of its value, it is written off. So if your collision results in "only" a $2-3K repair bill (which can be cheap these days), then you can see that there's a notable amount of payouts on total losses. (It's also hard to get a value of the average vehicle on the road in a given year - insurers are the only ones who'd likely be able to supply that information, and it would be buried somewhere in actuarial tables more than anything). It's not 9/10. Nor did I ever say it was. But if I had to make an estimate, I'd say it was closer to 2 or 3/10. [1] https://www.automotive-fleet.com/10183423/carfax-estimates-hurricane-ian-damaged-358-000-vehicles https://www.automotive-fleet.com/10183423/carfax-estimates-h... [2] https://www.weierlaw.com/2022-washington-state-car-accident-statistics/ https://www.weierlaw.com/2022-washington-state-car-accident-... [3] https://www.simplyinsurance.com/how-many-people-die-in-car-accidents-every-year https://www.simplyinsurance.com/how-many-people-die-in-car-a... [4] https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/auto-insurance-statistics/ https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/auto-insurance-s...