Used Car Prices Now

fmdog44

Well-known Member
Location
Houston, Texas
Just now 6/10/21 NBC Nightly News said used car prices are up 29.7%. Overall inflation is growing faster than anytime since the Great Depression. Time to trade in your vehicle I say yes and don't fall for the dealers price based on Blue Book. Dealerships are making a bundle on used vehicles and the chip and parts shortages on new vehicles further kicks up the prices on used vehicles.
 

The dealers won't bargain with you anymore on used cars and don't give you hardly anything on used ones and refuse to budge. Best not to deal with them, private car sales could be better--some people still have a heart.
 
Driving around our area, it is pretty obvious that there is a vehicle "shortage". Virtually all the dealers we've passed in recent weeks have very few new cars on their lots, and not many used cars/trucks, either. This obviously creates a problem for anyone trying to buy or replace a vehicle, as the dealers have NO incentive to negotiate on prices. This is a prime example of the "supply vs. demand" issue.

Between the ridiculous run up in housing prices, and now, the cost of vehicles, "inflation" is certainly becoming an issue for many people.

It will be interesting to see how all this translates next year when the SS COLA numbers are released.
 
Well, it's apparently the car mfgs' own fault, as the supply of chips didn't just stop production. Yes, it slowed, but it was a case of shifting demand due to the lockdown. It was a multi-step confluence that caught the automakers with their pants down.
  1. Car mfgs saw the economy slowing, so they slowed, then stopped, production lines.
  2. Due to "just in time" mfg, this meant the # of chips going to automakers were free to go elsewhere....
  3. ....And those chips did - into the increased demand for electronics as people were suddenly working from home or were out of work and locked down.
  4. One analyst in a TV interview commented that he saw electronics mfgs in mid-2020 were stockpiling all the chips they could buy because demand just kept building.
  5. Now the automakers are ramping back up, but so is everyone else. Appliance mfgs, equipment mfgs, etc., all use those chips as well.
  6. Chip makers have struggled with their own supply chain/COVID slowdown restrictions, so even a small reduction in supply causes pain everywhere, because demand is simultaneous across the board.
Great article on this situation from LGUS:
Why a silicon chip shortage has left carmakers in the slow lane

A global dearth of these vital components, and a reliance on just-in-time manufacturing, has put the motor industry in a tricky spot
London Guardian U.S. by John Naughton 05 Jun 2021
(free access) https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-shortage-has-left-carmakers-in-the-slow-lane

(excerpt) Here’s a tale of two industries – cars and computers. In February, major car manufacturers such as Nissan and Honda began to warn shareholders that revenues were likely to fall significantly below expectations. And the reason wasn’t Covid-19 – well, not directly anyway: the pandemic had already significantly depressed sales in 2020. No, the problem was that manufacturers were now unable to make some cars because they couldn’t get the silicon chips (processors and other semiconductor components) needed to get the vehicles rolling off production lines. As a result, some factories were temporarily closing or being put on short time.

Meanwhile, in the same month, the computer industry was looking at a record year. Laptop sales were up 90% year on year. Tablet sales had recovered after a long slump. Even desktop computers and printers, for heaven’s sake, were flying off shelves and into delivery vans. So how did it happen that one industry struggled while another boomed?

The answer is that both had found themselves caught in a perfect storm that one had weathered and the other hadn’t. This storm bought three forces simultaneously to bear on an unprepared world: the fragility of a global supply chain on which both industries critically depended, the exigencies of US-China geopolitics and a pandemic that, more or less overnight, transformed the way large parts of the industrialised world worked.
 
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I bought my truck on 4/24/21 and got $4,900 off the sticker and another dealer offered me $23,000 after offering only $21,000 for my truck and I had to battle three sales people at the same time. I can't accept the dealer not willing to deal. If that is what comes out of their mouths simply get on your phone and call another dealer in front of him. If you can't get a deal now then wait for better times.
 
Just our luck! Wouldn't you know it??

Last August, we decided to cut expenses by selling our 2017 Nissan Rogue. We have a truck that's paid off, so saving a car payment (plus insurance and registration costs) made sense to get rid of it. It was my vehicle and I very seldom drove it. It had less then 12,000 miles on it.

After looking up it's value on Edmund's and Kelly Blue Book, we went around to local dealers and no one wanted it! I contacted CarMax and we made the trip 100 miles to sell it to them. They didn't blink. It was like brand new. So, we went home with a check in our pocket. We were feeling smug and they were great to deal with.

Fast forward to now....we could have gotten a heck of a lot more money in our pocket if we would have seen this coming. SHEESH...just our luck :( But I look at it this way....over the last year we've saved over $10,000 with getting rid of that payment. I guess we made out OK.

We see a lot of temporary tags around here so they must be getting cars somewhere. Probably went to CarMax....haha.
 
But I look at it this way....over the last year we've saved over $10,000 with getting rid of that payment.
Likely more than that. Maintenance, gas, really add up. When we got rid of our extra car, we noticed the difference and we didn’t have any payments.
 


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