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Why have cars become so expensive? My understanding is that the used car market was gutted by "cash for clunkers" style government programs Used to be more us
by bluefirebrand 8mo ago
Why have cars become so expensive?
My understanding is that the used car market was gutted by "cash for clunkers" style government programs
Used to be more used cars on lots, so used cars were more affordable
May not be the whole story but it seems likely it played a part
- ramses0 8mo agoVery true, but you're a decade or two late for that. IIRC Cash4Clunkers put like a $3k floor on used car value (~$5-7k in today's dollars) meaning you'd never sell your old car for $2k to an individual when you could sell it to the government for $3k. Per google it was started in 2009, which means any car worth less than $5k around 17 years ago isn't materially impacting new or used car prices today.
- bluefirebrand 8mo agoHuh I could have sworn the cash for clunkers thing was much more recent. Thank you for the correction
- maxerickson 8mo agoIt was like 700,000 vehicles. Enough to have an impact, but we buy like 15 million cars a year, it's gonna smooth out fairly quickly.
- tim-tday 8mo agoThis just isn’t true. Offering someone $1k to junk a $5k car does nothing. The only time it matters is when a $2k car needs more than $1k of repair like a transmission replacement. The program kept the most problematic cars off the road generally increasing the reliability of everything on the market. The used car market is alive and well.