Record number of car buyers underwater on their trades; loan lengths increasing

[freebeard]

The student loan bubble comes first.

I suggest a semi-submersible houseboat, with a water-power turbine under the keel.

[ThermionicScott]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

So we had the subprime housing market crash, recovered from that, now we can look forward to the subprime auto loan crash. Really, sometimes I don't know whether to laugh, cry, run down the road screaming, or find an isolated cabin in the wilderness and wait for the bang.

It's like being on a roller coaster climbing gradually up that first big hill until momentum takes over, isn't it?

[MetroMPG]

Apparently we're even bigger suckers for long loans than Americans!

In Canada, automakers are selling about 41 percent of vehicles with loans of at least six years or leases of at least five years, said Buzzell. [...] In the U.S., the average new car loan in 2015 was 5.5 years, compared with six years in Canada.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...bt-pile-mounts

Ford is actually starting to worry about increasing term lengths.

Because encouraging customers to buy more car than they can afford may be good for the short term bottom line. But ultimately putting them underwater is probably bad for long-term repeat business, dontcha think?

[jakobnev]

I wonder if the Dutch have this problem with boats.

[MetroMPG]

Being underwater with them?

[Natalya]

I had been thinking about this... If you live in Canada, you're totally boned when it comes to car ownership. Let me explain how:

Unless you live in Victoria BC, you've got road salt. You can take it to rust treatment, but odds are you don't. And after like 10 years and idk maybe 150k kilometers, your car is going to be rusted to hell and worthless and end up in a junkyard. How many 15-yr-old or more cars do you see on the road in Ontario? Like, none.

That means people are replacing these old ones as they die with new ones. Except Canada's dollar is worthless and so the new cars cost too much to own, so you end up with 6 year loans and bad cellphone contracts.

Even the G1 Insight all-aluminum body isn't immune to the salt; mine had to have the lower cat replaced, I had to weld a new flange onto the upper cat, and my cousin replaced all of the brake lines and previous owner replaced part of the fuel line and I had to replace the sway bar link arms, AND I patched corrosion holes in where the seat bolts enter the floorpan. Also there's less than 400 of these things up here anyway so like not everyone can get one.

Point is that cars don't last, and it's hard to get a used car that's worth buying because they've all been turned to rust. Canadians are totally screwed.

And then the new cars they're making, they keep you know improving standards and ****, so the cheapest new car is $10K these days, and like you know lots of people don't want to drive a Nissan Micra (even though they probably should, or a Mitsubishi Mirage, because then they'd save on Canada's terribly high gas prices) so they're just paying money out their asses meanwhile they're probably broke because it's Canada and the economy sucks.

Oh and I'm writing this post from Canada, I'm visiting this weekend.

[oil pan 4]

Where I am from in Maine is kind of the came way.
After 10 to 12 years a car becomes a rusted out crap box.
And they have state inspections and they will fail you for having a rusted out crap box.

In new Mexico I see a Chevy love still on the road and some really old fords too. With a typical day having 15% to 50% humidity it's like all the vehicles here are the ones rust forgot.
If I ever move back to Maine I will be looking in west texas, new Mexico or Arizona for an old used car.
I would rather pay $1,000 to $2,000 to ship a 20 or 30 year old car that cost $2,000 to $4,000 than buy a $10,000 car.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Being underwater with them?

That would make them 'submarines' (wink,wink).

[freebeard]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-submersible

[acparker]

Originally Posted by freebeard

The student loan bubble comes first.

Don't forget the enormous commercial property bubble. With all the big department/anchor stores going under, it should be popping soon.

Local governments ought to have a contingency plan to deal with tax delinquent and/or foreclosed commercial property. Vacant stores don't generate sales tax.