Small / economy car deathwatch: we've passed "peak econobox" again

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Not run across pathological liars yet that you know of, have you?

Pretty sure Judge Judy screens the cases for television appeal.

I feel like that if there were some sort of easy metric to discover when someone is lying then there wouldn't be hardly any liars in this world because lying would be unproductive.

Even lie detector tests can fail at detecting liars. Why should I believe I can detect them with a few simple questions?

But my point was, even if we all could detect liars and a person goes and buys a used car in from someone selling it in good faith that the car is ok, there's no guarantee that it's going to be ok. It's a huge money risk. If cars were 100% reliable until 200k miles then manufacturers would guarantee them for 200k miles. But with engines and transmissions that these days you have to replace the entire engine or transmission, they're not cheap to fix when they do blow up.

Also, cars seem priced like this right now:

• Brand new: $18,000
• 50k $15,000
• 100k $9,000
• 150k $6,000
• 200k $3,000

That seems upside down. Older cars should be less expensive because they are at a greater risk of something failing, and because they probably have signs of wear.

I bought my Avalon for less than half (about 45%) the base MSRP at 50k. Looking at 5-year-old Avalons now with 50k they are around 73% of the original base MSRP.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Not run across pathological liars yet that you know of, have you?

Pretty sure Judge Judy screens the cases for television appeal.

In my last post, I mentioned I spent a year in prison; a concentration of deceit. There's more pathological liars there than society as a whole. Observing that environment was what flipped the switch in me. I stopped cursing and always spoke honestly from that moment. Seeing how deceit was a cancer in every aspect of people's lives will wake anyone up who is even dimly observant. Your options then is to either strive to be king in the prison of deceit, or to transcend it. Strangely, developing the reputation of honesty in that environment earns you respect, even from the dishonest people.

I can't have any relationship with a pathological liar, because there's nothing real to have a relationship with.

Regarding Judge Judy, real courts recommend cases to the show. Both parties have a financial incentive to appear, because the show pays whatever judgement Judy decides. Plus they get a free trip to Hollywood.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I can't have any relationship with a pathological liar, because there's nothing real to have a relationship with.

I work with a few children and young adults that have had a poor upbringing (orphaned, beaten, raped, etc.) that, as a result, almost always have the tendancy to lie through their teeth at every opportunity, since that's what they had to do in order to survive in their younger years. The problem now is that if you take everything they say as a lie you condemn them to a life of a liar. That's because they've been told all their life that they have no hope but to steal, cheat and lie, that they'll never change. So if you keep telling them that narrative they give up trying to conquer their shortcomings.

For that reason it's important for me to try to have a relationship with and believe in anything they say that I possibly can, while of course helping them to see the consequences of lying and benefits of being honest. That's even true if something I try to believe in ends up being another lie.

For me, sure, there are things they say that are obvious lies. But when I'm trying to find things people say that I can believe in, it gets hard splitting hairs on what to believe and what not to believe. And for that reason it's hard for me to automatically take something as a lie just because the person couldn't answer a question quite like the way I wanted him to.

And as I said before, even if the person is completely honest, that's still no guarantee that the car isn't going to die and need a whole new engine or transmission in another couple of months. And if prices are seemingly based on the car being guaranteed to last until 300k when it may not make it past 150k a guy might as well as buy a new car.

Take your Acura for an example. For $7,000 it could very well last until 200k without needing much in the way of repairs. That would be the same per year as a brand new car that's around $14,000, assuming insurance, maintenance and fuel mileage are the same. But if it lasts only until 150k, then it would be the same as a $21,000 brand new car, assuming insurance, maintenance and fuel mileage are the same.

But what I really don't want to happen is to buy a $7,000 car that ends up needing an engine or a California compliant catalytic converter that costs $2,000 for just the cat and then the car end up not lasting much past that for some other reason.

[JSH]

Isaac. It seems your biggest issue with used cars is uncertainty. I suspect that fear of unexpected repairs stems from not having a repair fund so that unexpected repairs aren't a financial burden.

The advantage of buying used cars is the savings over new. Buying used can save tens of thousands of dollars. The downside of used that are out of warranty is that repairs are paid out of pocket. When I switched from buying new cars to used cars, I continued to pay that used car payment into a repair fund until it hit $5,000. That is enough to cover almost any repair assuming one doesn't go to a shop at tryings to take advantage like the one that charged your friends $9K for a transmission.

Having a repair fund removes the worry from owning used cars.

For example - I recently spend almost $3K on repairs for my 2011 Acura. I paid them out of the repair fund and went on with life. The repair fund will get refilled over time. However, considering I paid $17K for a car that was $50K new, shelling out for a $3,000 repair isn't' too bad in context.

I also spent $5K on repairs for my Duramax Ambulance. That sound bad until you consider a new one is $350,000 and I paid $35,000 for on that was 12 years old with 110K miles.

Part of your problem is likely that you live in the middle of nowhere without many options both to buy cars or to have them repaired. (I'm pretty shocked when you say it is 3 weeks to get a tire repaired and months for a car repair.). I can get a tire fixed in a day and the timing chain on my Acura was 5 days and the owner of the shop apologize for the delay because he had to order in a part that he couldn't find local.

[Isaac Zachary]

The tires and mechanic shortage wasn't a problem until COVID. There are no dedicated tire shops in town anymore. 3 shops out of 11 closed leaving us with 8, if you include one place that only does oil changes. Otherwise there were 10 and now only 7. 2 others changed hands (one used to do just tires, now they do everything except tires) and have done some pretty poor work, not at all like the previous crews that worked there. 2 of the 5 original shops were never good shops to begin with, for which reason I'll never go back. That leaves 3, two that are always swamped and a thrid that charges about double what everyone else charges.

So if I go with one of the places that didn't bolt my struts back on and I drove off and nearly lost control of the car, then yes, I have to wait sometimes up to three weeks to get a bad tire fixed.

I do have money for emergencies, a few thousand right now. And that is very good advice, so thank you. For some reason our health insurance went up to $500/month this year. It's not bad, but it was only $100 last year, so I wasn't expecting it to climb so much. I'm going to get a second job to pay for that and put some more money away as I'm looking into opening a ROTH account. The death of one family member at the begining of COVID ended up costing us personally some $30,000 to date to take care of all the ones affected as best as we could, so I'm still recuperating from that. That was supposed to be a downpayment on a house, but oh well.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

I work with a few children and young adults that have had a poor upbringing (orphaned, beaten, raped, etc.) that, as a result, almost always have the tendancy to lie through their teeth at every opportunity, since that's what they had to do in order to survive in their younger years. The problem now is that if you take everything they say as a lie you condemn them to a life of a liar.

Great points. I'm not the nurturing personality type; but the boundary enforcement type, so those perspectives often escape my awareness.

In my conceptual hierarchy, the need to immediately stop anti-social behavior supersedes the need to rehabilitate. When the murderous gunman has guns blazing, stopping that is by far the 1st priority. Integrating the individual into society is the optional luxury that wealthy societies can afford.

Seeing the patterns that lead to disfunction is absolutely important. Understanding how things went wrong is crucial. Fixing the things that went wrong is insanely difficult (my personality type chose the easier problem). Fundamentally changing behavior and values is the most difficult thing in the world, and the earlier the intervention, the slightly easier it is.

My forced intervention came at 18, and the only reason it was a positive experience is my inquisitive nature. If I wasn't always asking "why", then I'd be trying to climb the hierarchy of deceit.

Further than that, a person has to accept that truth exists, and that it will win the day. Those who don't recognize that are lost forever. Any investment into one who rejects truth as a concept is utterly futile.

[Piotrsko]

It has bubbled up through my consciousness that there be a significance between a pathological liar and someone who wrongly believes they were correct for whatever reason. Generally the population you've experienced would have been the latter. They both pass lie detection tests but for different reasons.

The pathological ones never feel remorse for anything. The remorse button is broken

[freebeard]

Well, that's ten posts that were offtopic.

The_Firesign_Theatre's eigth album was titled Everything You Know Is Wrong. Not much has changed since.

redpoint5 would appreciate their 1998 album Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death.

[Isaac Zachary]

What is the new economy car?

I'm eyeballing a 2018 Chevy Bolt that would be under $9,000 with the federal tax credit. That's not including the Colorado Credit yet, up to $4,000 off that.

But I'd rather put my money in a ROTH IRA for some reason, so maybe next time when I'm desperate for a car.

Anywho, I think we'll keep seeing this battle of the EV's take place which can suddenly make them depreciate greatly. I've seen a couple Tesla Model 3's now finally around $20,000 (I'm not sure if that's with the federal tax credit or not though). But it feels kind of like the tide rising on the beach with waves crashing in. The possibility of getting an EV recedes and supply recedes and demand and prices go up, then manufacturers get a bit carried away and start making too many and fewer people end up wanting them and supplies go up and demand and prices go down.

There's also a Nissan Leaf for $1,000 for sale here nearby. It only has 25 miles of range though, but maybe it would help save fuel for around town (but maybe I should just get my bike fixed and ride that around town. If only it would stop snowing.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

It has bubbled up through my consciousness that there be a significance between a pathological liar and someone who wrongly believes they were correct for whatever reason. Generally the population you've experienced would have been the latter. They both pass lie detection tests but for different reasons.

The pathological ones never feel remorse for anything. The remorse button is broken

A lie has 2 properties; a. intent to deceive, b. untrue

A person that wrongly believes something is not a liar. If I ask my wife where the keys are, and she says they are on the counter, but they are actually in her coat pocket, she's incorrect, but not a liar. She only met 1 of the 2 criteria for a lie.

Honesty is the process of truth seeking, and I'm inclined to believe it's more important than being correct, as dishonesty is disinterested with truth seeking.

Anyhow, this topic makes me think of "Shorty" in prison (there's perhaps 4 Shortys in a prison population of 400). He couldn't tell any story, no matter the significance, without embellishing to the point of maximum absurdity. If you play a game of Monopoly, he steals from the bank when you're not looking. If you play chess, he takes pieces when you're not paying attention.

This is a person that can never be integrated with society. Their OS is deceit and exploitation.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

I'm eyeballing a 2018 Chevy Bolt that would be under $9,000 with the federal tax credit. That's not including the Colorado Credit yet, up to $4,000 off that.

Anywho, I think we'll keep seeing this battle of the EV's take place which can suddenly make them depreciate greatly. I've seen a couple Tesla Model 3's now finally around $20,000 (I'm not sure if that's with the federal tax credit or not though).

There's also a Nissan Leaf for $1,000 for sale here nearby. It only has 25 miles of range though, but maybe it would help save fuel for around town (but maybe I should just get my bike fixed and ride that around town. If only it would stop snowing.

Get the Bolt; it's worth probably $11k here in Oregon private party. It'll go 15 years for you I bet.

Tesla announced a $1k across the board price increase for the Model Y next month. They seem to be the EV market maker. Would not expect prices to dip much lower on any EV unless there is a new model that has a temporary demand spike. The CyberTruck is one such vehicle. Some time next year, I expect the price to be lowered.

You know to avoid that Leaf. If it has 25 miles of range, that means 10 in winter. Good for getting the mail and not much else.