SunflierOct 20

Americans can’t afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

https://lemmy.world/post/37630345

Americans can’t afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried - Lemmy.World

If only we had invented and built some sort of alternative mode of collective transportation. Maybe it could be in tunnels and ride on metallic rails. It would serve many people and make periodic stops to the same locations instead of the highway clusterf- we have today. Sad that we don’t, but a man can dream though. A man can dream though. A man can dream.

Show threadIninewCrowOct 21

Buying a new vehicle hasn’t made sense for about 30 years now.

I’ve been driving for about 30 years and in all that time, I’ve never owned a new vehicle. I kept buying used vehicles for about $2,000 - $3,000 per vehicle. The oldest one I’ve ever had is a 2004 Volvo station wagon and I still maintain it and it’s still running as one of my main vehicles. My other main vehicle is a 2010 GMC Truck which I also maintain. They don’t look new, they show a bit of rust around the edges, but they are still very good vehicles that will last several more years.

Once they break down enough … I’ll buy another used vehicle. In all, over the past 30 years, I’ve spent about $30,000 on multiple vehicles (I think I’ve gone through 8 or 9 in that time).

It has never made sense to me to buy a brand new $40,000 car that will only be used for about five years before you buy the next one.

Show threadMinFapperOct 21

That’s going to become more and more difficult to do over time.

Cars are being designed to be difficult to repair and to fall apart in less and less time.

Show threadIninewCrow

I agree … I think the cutoff is about 2010-2015 vintage vehicles. I like Volvo cars and station wagons, they are literal workhorses that were designed by a Swedish company for winter use. And in that vintage, it is just at the peak when the company was still producing good vehicles and just before the point where they were heavily Americanized, then taken over by Chinese interests. The vehicles are still produced in Europe (I think) but of a lesser quality because the company got taken over by foreign interests. And like all manufacturers, they are moving away from the piston engine technology and transitioning to all electric.

Yes it is inevitable that everything will move away from old piston engines … but I think it will all last another 20-30 years before it all becomes impossible or way too expensive for anyone to maintain their old clunkers after that.

Oct 21 at 3:58amWeb
Show threadboonhetOct 21
To be fair by 2010 they’d been owned by Ford for a decade and then in 2010 were sold to Geely, the Chinese parent company. From everything I hear, the quality actually has gone up under Geely, compared to Ford, which was easily the worst era of Volvo. Personally I still like RWD Volvo bricks, but of course they’re not as safe or efficient as modern cars.