Tapeworm21

I work in a bike shop and yesterday I had a customer worried about an extra 30 bucks for a part he needed. He decided to skip out on it and put his bike in the back of his truck. A brand new GM truck. At least $30,000. I don't get it, I really don't.

Neil_B

Bicycle = toy.

I don't agree with this equation, but that's the math many people use.

wahoonc

People "waste" money on all kinds of things. People think I am completely nuts to spend $35 on a set of yellow fenders for my expedition bike, but think nothing of going out at spending that much at a bar. It is all a matter of priorities and IMHO many people's are grossly misplaced when it comes to cars. We are having a severe drought in our area and one of the restrictions is not washing cars at home. Somebody got ticketed for it and now wants to file a lawsuit, claiming that it is his "right" to have a clean car I guess he would rather have a clean car than water to drink?

Aaron

Brian

And if you must own a car, food for thought.

acroy

I read somewhere this little factoid:

average new Tahoe seeling price: $42,000

Average household income of average new Tahoe buyer: $40,000

wish i could find the source...

Brian

No money down leaves them with a payment of close to $800/month. I'd guess insurance would have to run another $200/month, but it could be much more or even less. Factor in fuel, and that's got to be 1/2 their take home pay. Not a big deal if you live at home with mum and dad, but bad math at any rate.

evblazer

Don't forget rolling in the amount owed from their previous tahoe which they got tired of after 2-3 years I speak from my limited exposure to people who I work with. Mostly it is the younger folks but I know someone who is near retirement who traded in a tahoe after 2 years for a tahoe XL and they pay more then 1/2 their take home pay. I almost had them sold on a Honda Silverwing Maxi Scooter too but they couldn't afford it !!?!?!?!!?! $@#()*@)(#*$

Brian

A good portion of Americans refuse to live within their means, which is very sad. I love cars just as much as I love bicycles and cameras and other toys. But I would never spend more than I could afford to.

dynodonn 

$800 a month for a car payment is still difficult for me to comprehend, that's well over double of what my monthly mortgage payments were.

Brian

Kids living at home get into this kind of trouble all the time. Of course, when I worked at a VW/Porsche/Audi dealer, two of the kids there drove $60k plus cars. Ego issues. They teased about my Scion. My paid for Scion. My paid for Scion that cost me less per year in gas/insurance than they paid per month for their car payment.

Artkansas 

Mom and Dad should take the hint that if you can afford a think about buying a new Tahoe, that perhaps its time you were on your own.

eofelis 

In 1999 I spent $5000 cash for a 1991 Subaru with 113k on it. I'm still driving it, occasionally. It has 161k on it now. Insurance is $250/yr. Gas varies, I drive it around town once a week or so and sometimes take it out of town. It may have an oil consumption issue going on, but I haven't driven it enough lately to tell. But I think I can nurse it along a few more years. I'll eventually replace it with another $5000 Subaru.

My SO got a 12 yo Toyota truck for $5000 a year or so ago. It has 100k on it and he'll probably get another 100k out of it.


I can't think of anything I want bad enough to make payments on.

same time

Those credit facts on page one make my skin crawl. I can't believe people are rolling unpaid old car loans into new ones when they buy a new car. And taking out a five year loan ON A CAR? Something that is guaranteed to depreciate in value? These things indicate that people do not understand the basic concept of a loan.

We need a license to drive a car, maybe we should need a license to apply for credit, too.

dynodonn 

I recently sent a car I had for 20 years , which I bought used, to the auto boneyard. Since it was going to need some major repairs, I decided to use the money that was going to repair it for home improvements and a new bike purchase. I figured with the initial purchase price, all the operating/maintenace costs over the 20 years, put it towards bike purchases, I would have a really nice fleet of bikes.

smurfy

13 months ago I bought a '95 Ford Aerostar minvan from a neighbor for $1,000 w/123k miles and no rust (those things are usually notorious for rust!). Only put 9k miles on it so far but the next 12 months it should be less than 5k additional miles (actually much less than 4k miles maybe since I'm moving much closer to work, grocery, etc.).

Roody

Back in the bad old days when I drove, my cars kept getting cheaper and cheaper. My last one cost $400 and was stolen!

Now I don't even spend $400 on a bike, since I buy used ones. Most of the time I spend less than $200 and get a great vehicle for city gritty riding.

Bushman

same here. I got my truck in 1990,(Bday from dad), and its still going strong, 17 years later. I spent a whopping $25 CDN a month fuel, and with my very high insurance Discount i only pay $80 a month for insurance (everything, including 6 million third party liability). I have never understood why people would keep getting new cars every year like some of my friends. They are in so much debt.

funrover 

I have 3 cars.... they cost less than my bikes do!!! I guess I wasn't in the statistics for this BS!

Brian

When we built our tandem in Australia, it set us back about $9k. Almost what we paid for our car.

bhtooefr

I paid $1200 for my Jetta, $500 for the Civic I bought to have something to drive to work while I built the Jetta's replacement up (I had wrecked the Jetta,) and $150 for the Golf that ended up being my Jetta's replacement (and I used mainly parts off the Jetta to do repairs on it.)

Right now, I spend over $1200/yr on insurance (being 19 with an at fault accident on the record FTL - and I'm on minimum coverage,) between $160 and $220/mo on fuel (it comes out to roughly $2100/yr,) and about $50/mo on repairs/maintenance (so $600/yr - that number might be low, though.)

That means I'm paying about $3900/yr to drive, not counting purchase price of the Golf. Counting that, it comes to $4050. Counting purchase price of the Jetta that donated many parts to the Golf, it comes to $5250.

I'll be getting an apartment, for $300/mo, about $200/mo worth of utilities (and that number may be high,) and riding my bike. I'll be spending about $20/mo on fuel for the car, less on insurance, and much less on maintenance, too. I don't come out ahead FINANCIALLY, but I do have much less commute time (2.4 miles on a bike is much quicker than 40 miles in a car,) and I'll be in better shape.

Of course... I have a close friend that ended up needing a car, got a new car (so she could know that it was taken care of properly from the start, and it would have a warranty,) got badly upsold by the dealer, but it was OK... but then she got pregnant, had the kid, and now she can't afford to maintain it. (Yes, she sees the irony in this situation.)

Funny side note, her boyfriend is going to have to start bike commuting, because he got caught driving under suspension (and the reason he was under suspension? He didn't have insurance. You simply don't DO that in Ohio - go to New Hampshire if you're going to do that...)

Dahon.Steve

That's insanity.

In the New York Metro, a 40K salary is barely a living wage. I know several people who can't afford cars because they are making 40K a year! What do these folks eat for dinner after buying such an expensive car? Cat Food?

Dahon.Steve

It's quite possible he didn't have $30.00 bucks for the part. The GM truck is owned by the bank and after paying for the monthly payments and high insurance, there's not much left for anything else.

Roody

Well, if their car payments are so high they can't afford cat food, I guess they eat the cat.

It is so easy for a low-income family to spend half their income on transportation, sometimes even more than half. My friend on disability, with young kids, just turned in her van for a newer one from the same dealer. There was no down payment, and monthly payments were lower for the newer van. But it's almost like she's renting the vehicle from Rent-A-Center. She never pays off the vehicle, just turns it in after a couple years, and the dealer resells the old van to somebody else who's even poorer than she is. The dealers make their big profits on the interest payments.

Why does my friend do this? Partially because she doesn't fully understand the financial principles that keep her poor and make the dealer rich. But also, it's pretty much impossible for her to come up with, say, $1500 cash to buy a reliable used car outright. That would save her a fortune on interest payments, but she's illiquid, as they say.

cadillacmike68

Dog food is progbably cheaper. You want to read the horror stories - go to edmunds.com and look at their forums - page after page of dolts who insist that they need to get a new / newer car even while they owe twice - or more- than what they have is worth.

syn0n

I think the ego thing with cars is what makes people get in over their heads. I had a 1992 Buick Century for a long time, I was the 6th owner of that abused car and it had well over 150k on the clock. I paid $400 for it, and got some decent mileage out of it before the tranny failed. It was ugly and slow but it did the job of going from A to B.

Because of that good choice, I didn't end up accumulating any car debt early on and now I have a decent and completely paid off '04 Elantra. Although I do have plans to buy a sports car of some sort, as I save towards that goal, I keep in mind that I want to be able to put at least half down. I've seen my friends make mistakes by buying cars they can't afford and it really is sad to see. I don't know how you can be happy with flashy material things if you are so strapped for cash that you can't really even enjoy them. But I think that's the same across the board really. People with expensive cellphones, iPods, TV's and game systems, computers, etc. It's a cultural things that goes beyond cars, but cars obviously are the things that can sink people.