It’s all relative. It’s around $6-7k average across Highlander, Pilot and Palluride to go from the mid trim to the highest, and you get a ton more there than you could by spending 6-7k on options on an already much more expensive vehicle such as an X7 or GLS.
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Quick search I see a Platinum AWD is right at $60K MSRP. Which is the base Macan price with nothing in it.
I got a ride home from the Porsche dealer recently as my Por-Shaahhh was in for some warranty work. Their courtesy car is a base Macan. It’s a nice ride and the car feels really solid. But man it looks cheap. For $60K it’s got an enormous amount of plastic.
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A bit of bashing BMW and Mercedes badge chasers here. Yet a well equipped 3 Series is just a bit over the average cost of a new car. And these cars sell in relatively small volume. Doesn’t seem like many people are badge chasing anymore. That my be a relic of 2005 thinking when these small sport sedans were much more popular.
What costs significantly more, on average, than a 3 series and sells many many times more models is full size pick up trucks and SUVs. These body on frame trucks have largely replaced sport sedans as the image projection life style vehicle.
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Yeah I would always choose a well equipped car over a more luxury brand at the same price.
This is very much a view of the minority, though.
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I can understand SUV for family thing, eventhough IMHO minivan is a better fit for those need. The one thing I can’t understand is that full size pickup truck for suburban dad who barely use the bed.
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What is the payload capacity of that truck?
One man’s ego
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I no longer own own but I did for a while. Not really suburban though, I live downtown 
340/365 days it wasn’t used for “truck” stuff. But when I needed it for “truck” stuff, it was there. Also nice for those really snowy days with the high clearance.
The truck question applies to sports cars as well? When do you drive 150 MPH? Almost never. So why do you need a 911?
Why does anyone need a $100K sedan? Nobody does. A $30K sedan works as well to get from A to B.
The answer to all these questions is I don’t NEED one, I WANT one.
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Of course. But there isn’t a sports car in the top 25 best selling vehicles list while full size pick ups occupy spot 1,2,3 and 7. One is a very niche vehicle and one is very mainstream.
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I can take a hard turn at 40-50 and appreciate sports car features far more often than people can use the bed in their useless heavy duty truck or dually
There are definitely advantages to being faster and more nimble than other cars on the road. Being able to brake quicker, etc. not huge needle movers but at least something compared to driving a truck when most folks never put anything in the bed and take up 1.5 parking spaces
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Point is you don’t need one. Nobody needs anything more than a Corolla for 95% of their driving. A truck is just another version of sports cars or luxury cars. Nobody needs them lots of people want them.
As for duallies. Useless? LOL. Tell me you’ve never left the city without telling me. I’ll concede many regular p/u trucks are just used for commuting. But nobody buys a dually just for the hell of it. They buy it to do work that requires it.
Man, what is with all the gatekeeping going on in this thread?
Look, there are millions of car buyers out there with almost as many unique motives, use cases, and wants. To project that someone who wants a car/truck is making a bad choice because another one specific buyer may not want is ridiculous.
The auto industry needs this wide array of tastes so any of you all can get any car. It’s like the haters who think the M3 is the only BMW to get, and then they make fun of 330 buyers. You aren’t getting an M3 without a lot of people buying 330’s to make the business case work.
You want a nimble sports car with a GT3 RS badge? It turns out the automaker needs to churn out some base Macans. Don’t judge the buyer of some other car because “they ain’t you.” Just appreciate the fact that there are so many wonderful options to get because the supply chains, manufacturing, and sales network can operate at such a scale to enable you to get the vehicle you personally like to drive.
Being said, EVs are still rolling appliance garbage sold on price/discounts. We can all thank the government subsidies for this. But I guess the EV’s enable us to get ICE motors since the government is making an ICE-only product portfolio untenable.
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My favorite is the guy who had the itch for a new car, his wife said she didn’t care as long as it seated six (that’s their family size), assuming it was understood what that meant, and he came back with a pickup with a front bench.
Now convincing any of the kids to sit upfront with their feet in the passenger side footwell is a daily exercise in pulling teeth.
I hear this a lot, including from the aforementioned guy who bragged about how much he saved by hauling his home remodel materials himself instead of having them delivered.
What he doesn’t tell everyone is that he had to give up in the middle when it became obvious he was in over his head and had neither the time nor the skills to finish the job. His “savings” on delivering stuff was a drop in the bucket compared to the expense of paying a GC to undo what he started before restarting the job from scratch.
Quick update - leasing continues to pick up steam and is much more common on EV compared to ICE. This should come as no surprise to anyone on LH.
Some of the new metrics are interesting though.
Honda and Toyota still sit atop the most leased makes as a % of volume… even though they don’t do much PHEV or EV volume as a % of their mix. TCO-fans are rolling over in their graves.
And the average BZ4X loan monthly payment is over $700. Assuming a standard deviation of ~$100, that means some people have a very sad monthly payment going to a BZ4X.
And last, check out the average LTV on new loan originations. Still over 110%. That means people are either still going way over MSRP on cars, or rolling neggy eggy from mistakes in 2021. Either way, the average car buyer (who finances with a loan) continues to be upside-down.
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I don’t get the tco comment , isn’t minimizing tco ( or at least relative to flexibility) pretty much always the goal, regardless of leasing or financing
A lot of people will put monthly cash flow way way higher on the priority list than tco.
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You should message LH’s TCO advocate, @max_g, to better understand why leasing Toyotas and Hondas is considered unfavorable.
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If a couple hundred bucks in monthly cash flow is that significant of a factor, one is prob living beyond their means.
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People do this for sure. But they do it wrong.
You can bring monthly cost down on financing by simply extending the period of loan. This was especially true during the low rate period in late 2020 to late 2021. If monthly cash flow is primary concern, then, rationally, you should figure out how long you have to stretch out to make the payment equal lease payment. Then either finance or lease using TCO as deciding factor.
Of course this is beyond the average car buyer but it’s what one should do if monthly cash flow is priority 1.
Yep 100%, it is not a magic solution to buy a car with a loan when comparing economics vs a lease. Especially if you consider the opportunity cost of any cash/equity tied up in the down payment or recurring loan installment payments being higher on a loan than a lease.
On occasion, some LH users bring a mindset to assume some pitch-perfect loan structure, and then compares that loan option to a normal lease structure being offered at the time. That forms an unfair comparison IMO.
Also, the rule of putting 20% cash down is basically dead when it comes to the average car buyer. That’s why the LTV (see above) is over 100%.
And on top of that, new car loan terms are being stretched way out… the average below super-prime is between 6 to 7 years to maturity. I know LH likes to imagine super prime folks getting subvented APR @ 0 to 0.9%, but unfortunately average interest rates even for super prime are pretty high today. So the cost of funds for a loan vs lease aren’t materially different.
Bottom line, folks that buy a car on a loan and run the car through to the loan maturity will likely have a lower TCO than someone who is on the lease treadmill. However, some buyers may place higher utility in having fresh vehicles under manufacturer warranty, so ultimately the leasing TCO may be higher, but leasing is still a better play from a utility perspective for those buyers.
Having the option to lease or to buy is great, and there is no single approach that is always better than the other. I wish this forum would stop with the mindset that one financing structure is always better than the other. I know why leasing is better for EV’s due to the government incentive; but for ICE vehicles it’s not so simple.
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