Re: 'Like house of cards,' used trucks fall

Are you referring to Tundras? ;)

Is 82 old?

I can't compete with Mike for the sheer numbers of car owned, but then he is

27 years older than me...I still have time to catch him.

I've owned -

1972 Ford Pinto 1975 Datsun 280Z 1963 Austin-Healey Sprite 1968 Austin-Healey Sprite 1978 Ford Fairmont 1974 Jensen-Healey 1973 Ford Pinto 1972 Jensen-Healey (number 2) 1981 Plymouth Reliant 1981 Audi Coupe 1978 Ford Courier 1983 Mazda 626 1975 Jensen-Healey 1974 Jensen-Healy (number 3) 1978 Ford Fiesta 1986 Ford Taurus 1982 Toyota Cressida 1986 Ford Ranger 1989 Ford Taurus Wagon 1992 Ford F150 1996 Ford Explorer 1997 Ford Expedtion 2001 Ford Mustang GT Convertible 2003 Ford Expedition 2003 Saturn Vue 2004 Ford Thunderbird 1992 Pontiac Firebird 2006 Ford Mustang V6 Coupe 2006 Nissan Frontier 2007 Ford Fusion 2008 Mazda 3

In the list there are only four vehicle I regret owning - the '81 Audi, the'82 Cressida, the '83 626 and the '03 Vue. There are several I regret selling too soon - '75 280Z, '81 Audi Cope, '01 Mustang GT Convertible, and '04 Thunderbird. Most of the rest I got rid of at an appropriate time.

There are also a long list of family vehicles that i have driven and maintained...Hondas, Toyotas, Fords, VWs.

Ed

Nah, the GM/GMC/F-Series.

I felt that way, before I started to make a lot of money. Now I replace my two daily drivers every two years. I currently own a 2008 Lincoln MKZ and a 2009 Mustang GT convertible.

I still have a collection of some of the cars that I bought new a '64 Mustang convertible, a '71 Pinto, a '72 LTD Brougham convertible, a Lincoln Continental Mark VI, as well as a '41 Lincoln Continental that was willed to my by a friend.

The fact is it costs money to maintain those old cars. I prefer to put the money into new cars. All of my old collector cars are in pristine condition, have between 100,000 and 300,000 miles on them and generally only driven monthly for up to 100 miles at a time. I do not NEED to depend on them as my only driver nor would I want to, if I lived is some part so Canada.

I can not list all of the vehicles I have owned but I did own more than one off of the following; every GM brand but Cadillac. Every Chrysler brand but Chrysler. Every Ford car brand including a model "T" and two Edsells as well as half dozen trucks. Studebaker, Packard, Nash, Nash Healey, Keiser, Dodge Brothers, Teraplane. Imports from Ford, VW, Borgward, Honda, Toyota including one of the first owners of a Toyopet, a half dozen Lexus' and some more that I can't recall at the moment ;)

It costs more money to buy new every 2 years than buy used and pay for the occassional problem. The only people who can economically justify the new vehicles are people who's time is so valuable that even a couple of hours downtime stuck in a dealership waiting for a repair will cost them a lot of money.

There's plenty of people like this in the world, I'm sure you can think of a few off the top of your head - stockbrokers, investment bankers, specialist surgeons, etc. These are specialists who work at very time-sensitive jobs. If your patient is bleeding his life out in the ER you can't be sitting in some mechanics waiting room.

However there's a whole lot MORE people making a lot of money who like to THINK that they are in this class, but who really aren't. For example a lot of company CEO's are like this. Well guess what, if the CEO was really doing his job he would have a competent staff able to handle the normal everyday business, and he would only get those "emergency" calls every once in a great while. The incompetent CEO's are the micromanagers who no competent second in command can stand working for them, and as a result the CEO cannot turn his back for a minute without some fire happening that only he can fix.

CEO's that understand this are people like Mike Eskew, the CEO of UPS - he never flies first class, always coach, has no limo, and even carries his own bags. Your not going to see him buying a brand new car every year because he thinks his time is oh-so-valuable even though he certainly can afford it, since he makes something like

3 million a year.

My experience is that the folks who run around claiming that their time is oh-so-valuable that they absolutely must have new cars all the time are invariably the ones who's time ISN'T. The real truth of it is that they simply like buying new cars and feel guilty about it, and so spend their time kidding themselves that they "have" to have a new car. The people who really do have to have a new car generally don't talk about how they need it.

OK, well as they say, it takes all kinds.

The fact is that a new car purchase is a luxury for most people. For businesses, it is that, but also it can be a sales tool - businesses that tend to sell products to easily impressionable people find a lot of value in blowing up to the customer in a brand new vehicle. They find that they can make more money in sales if they project the image of a rich successful business and having the brand new vehicle is part of that image - thus it's a legitimate business expense for them. If you ask them about their new car they will be happy to say how they just liked the look of it and decided to get it - you won't hear them say they need it as part of the image to sucker you, even though that's probably the truth of the matter.

This is why car rental agencies get new cars. It's not because they have to have them - Rent-a-Wreck has survived and thrived, buying used and renting them. If used cars were that mechanically troublesome - as you claim - then Rent a Wreck would have disappeared. It's because car rental agencies with brand new cars can get more money for renting them out. Since all the agencies get the same percentage of the rental, the agencies that can rent for a higher dollar-per-day make more money. Pretty simple math.

It's an image thing. It's not a need thing. And during economic tough times, the people buying vehicles as an image thing stop doing it.

That's why the new truck market is going to be in the toilet for a long, long time. It is simply because the folks buying new trucks because they wanted to - because a big new SUV or truck as a commuter vehicle made them feel like they had a big dick or something - have stopped doing that.

The manufacturer's volumes are set for the market that was both people who need the new truck and people who just wanted the new truck. Now the market is just people who need the new truck. And until the manufacturers all ramp production down of trucks, there will be an oversupply of new ones and a huge glut of used ones. Considering the domestic manufacturers don't appear to know how to make a profit selling small cars, I think that rather than ramping things down, they will all spend their effort trying to grab market share and push their competitors out of the truck market.

Ted

You certainly are entitled to you own opinion, but me thinks you simply are rationalizing because you can't afford to by new cars.

Have you ever noticed, the first thing most people do when they are willed, or win, a lot of money is buy a new car. ;)

And a new car does NOT guarantee that will not happen. Not by a long shot.

I know a lot of cases where that backfires too. If the salesman pulls up in a brand new MegaBux Deluxe, the customer says "this joker's making too much money - To make that kind of money in that business he's ripping someone off - likely me!!" And he buys elsewhere.

** Posted from **

A LOT of fools in this world.

A new car is one of the WORST investments ANY person will ever make. NOBODy really NEEDS a new car. You only drive a new car ONCE, and then it is a used car. Why not buy used in the first place, and let some other fool pay for the LUXURY of driving the new car off the lot.

Just because somebody has a lot of money doesn't meen he's cornered the market on brains.

** Posted from **

Don't get me wrong I love people who can not afford to buy new cars and rationalize that fact by thinking it is wiser to buy used cars!

If it were not for hundreds of thousands of people willing to by used cars every couple of years, it would cost the millions of us that buy new vehicles every year a lot more money to buy our new vehicles as often.

Now we can only find people willing to buy used appliances, furniture, clothing etc., using the same reasoning, folks like my wife and I could save a lot more money.