I don’t know what to do with this information now that I have it.
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Small car insanity predates the pandemic. I sold my 2008 Civic LX to CarMax in 2018 with 70k miles. It had a clean Carfax but some cosmetic damage. CarMax fixed it up, put it on lot for $12k and it sold within a week for what I imagine was the asking price. This at a time when you could get a new civic for about $20k and a Corolla for even less.
Insanity for small cars is only gonna get worst. A lot of people need a used vehicle in the $12k price point (I’m gonna use consistent 2023 dollars). Whereas a decade ago you had probably 20 vehicles for sale that would be worth $12k after say three or four years of ownership, now there are far fewer. Cars like the Cruze, Focus, Fit, Fiesta as well as lower trim Malibus and fusions have been discontinued.
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I completely agree. Over the summer I was searching for a $10Kish car for my 16 year old. The options I found were truly dreadful. Anything with under 100K miles was over $12K. Anything $10K & under has between 120K & 150K miles and was 10-15 years old. I ended up leasing a zero option 2023 Tacoma SR from @Jrouleau426.
The Tacoma turned out to be too big for a new driver. He had some difficulty navigating the school parking lot and backed into another student. In an ironic turn of events, I’m now commuting in the Tacoma full time and he’s driving my fairly loaded '22 4Xe Sahara .
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Sorry to hear this and I hope nobody was hurt! Was that issue due to the size of the vehicle or could that have happened to any size car/truck?
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There’s very little in the $8-10k price range that makes it worth getting over a car in the $3-5k range
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Isn’t this also why this thread exists?
As I’ve posted before, the reason we went new for our kids was due to the safety features and parking sensors… but kids will be kids as they just ignore them and hit stationary objects anyways. 
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Now I know.
There was a time where average joe was flipping cars by buying brand new. applying the EVcredit and then getting a new one and making profit
Thanks. Nobody was hurt which is the most important thing. Part of it had to do with the size of the Tacoma, part of it was where & how he was parked to begin with, & part was due to him being Autistic. The only thing that would have prevented this would have been if he had the automatic rear braking or if he would have backed into the spot.
He admitted to me that he looked at the camera, looked at the dashboard and then didn’t look over his shoulder and check the camera before he proceeded to back up.
Autism affects fine motor skills. Which in driving translates into difficulty in parking lots.
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Well, at least now they start to develop and make it available the self parking feature.
My ID.4 apparently has it I just don’t know how to use it yet nor how it work but it was standard without extra pay.
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Hope fully he learned it’s better to walk an extra 100 ft and pull through so you never go into reverse.
(And hopefully a high school parking is striped in a way that allows that.)
If we can stay in the same house, my kids will have a brisk 10 minute walk to high school, so I’ll be buying them bright flashlights.
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Are we in the reverse peak insanity phase already?
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It is starting. Just saw that a Hyundai Tucson (maybe others) is now 0% for 60 months.
0% making a comeback is a good sign.
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Yeap, saw a post elsewhere that Subaru is starting to offer 0% as well. I think for them its still regional though, but the writing is clearly on the wall already.
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It had to happen. Enough people are upside down 5 figures easily and those same folks who would normally just roll their negative into a new car sure as hell aren’t going to do it at 6-8%+.
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I think a lot of those people would try and roll it in to a high interest loan like that but the banks are also saying no to them. 
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Santander says no? 
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Both they and LendingTree want your 22% business!
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That’s a big spread with banks auto loans at 8+%
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Even more important is that it is 60 months. Some manufacturers have been running 0% or 1.99% for 36 months or so, but I think 36 months is beyond the reach of many consumers at the average price point for a new car with sales tax, etc.
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