Why does Shouty Kilmer think used cars are so expensive?
 

I complain about him regularly, but I usually find him entertaining, if not informative. I think he has good points and they were not what I was expecting. He explains that AutoTrader bought Kelley Blue Book and J.D. Power bought NADA Guides. I do not know how convincing people that used cars were worth more would benefit either AutoTrader or J.D. Power, but it is a weird connection.

My understanding was that used car values seemingly increased over the last ten years because the economy crashed and Cash for Clunkers reduced the supply and artificially increased demand. You can watch his video here if you like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUwx3TEJuAs

I was surprised that the video was longer than a minute or two. He keeps releasing clips from his live streams which are more sound bites than anything else. I wish he would expand on them when he released these videos.

Have a great day! :)

My leaf is only about 8 years old, had less than 50,000 miles and lost over 80% of its msrp when I bought it.
I think vehicles are cheap if you know what to look for.

Cash for clunkers woukd onky have had a relatively short term effect on gas guzzling cars. I imagine the major reasons used cars are more expensive is an effect of lower supply relative to demand because people are keeping their new cars longer than ever. Also, relatively high demand might be a factor, since real inflation adjusted wages have been mostly flat, minimally growing, and often declining relative to expenses for decades. Lastly, cars are initial defect prone, but otheriwse much more durable than the 1970s or 1980s. They simply ARE more valuable from a longterm durability perspective.

The chart he embeds at 2:40 is flat from mid-2010 to 2016 and fell all through 2017. So what's he talking about? That deep low in 2009 is probably related to the bank bailouts while everyone was losing their homes.

NADA mid-book on my Superbeetle is up $3K over 5 years. But it's over eight years old.

Good suggestion on Craigslist, I should watch the prices there. The other interesting thing was Carmax buys cars. I should show the Superbeetle to them. Do they have local offices?

The thing I wondered about as I watched the video was how he manages the audio as he switches beck and forth between two locations. But then at the end when he pops out of the trunk of a car there is all the background noise you'd expect. Does he overdub the whole thing?

He has various trunk clips that he has been using for years, so those are like closing credits, apparently pre-recorded. He does tend to change locations mid-sentence without missing a beat. I think he must be good at editing.

He claims he lost some of his hearing in the Army, so he does not necessarily shout because he is obnoxious.

Used cars can be expensive if you intend to maintain them as though they have an additional intrinsic value.

The cts I had is reasonable example, it would have cost a fortune to maintain it at the dealer and replace/repair it as though it were a collectible (it may be one day, beautiful car).

Same with the Volt, the front bumper has a lot of chipped paint and the cover doesn't seem to fit just right. But it was under 5 figures, had 84k miles on it with another 16k miles of warranty, and gets 40mpg and 35+ miles of ev range.

Use it up, it's a car not a picasso.

Dealerships do not necessarily do better work than independent shops. They just charge more, but doing it yourself is often twice as cheap.

...with a helluva microphone. One of my off-topic favorites is Dr. Randomercam. He does drunken rants where he says extremely profound things, muttered under his breath. Turns out its all scripted.

Used cars are cars indeed much more expensive than even 10 years ago (if your trying to buy)

The reason is empty super tankers
The big boats need something to bring back hence
Increasingly massive numbers of used vehicles and junk vehicles get sent overseas where they sell for much higher prices.

This practice ruins the spare parts availability and cost,
Let alone making used cars more scarce than they once were.

It’s almost bad enough there should be a law.

Shouty said that they used to import used cars because it was still cheaper, but the rest of the world does not seem to match the EPA's standards.

Thanks Nixon!

All I have to say is I hope you made up that "Shouty" nickname. That's funny.

Are you suggesting that oil tankers are backhauling used cars to foreign shores? Do you have any real evidence of this as I don't see how it would even be possible, they have very limited open deck space and their tanks/holds don't have removable loading hatches like some other bulk freighters. How and where would the used car loading happen, it definitely doesn't happen here at our oil refinery or any of the other local lightering or unloading berths for the VLCCs and ULCCs.

No

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj...pty-1444768094

Though both types of ships struggle with being empty and are the same size

Seems like the most expensive part of the equation are not the used cars, but the cost to fix all the issues left behind by previous owners

:)

How Cash for Clunkers failed
 

I just watched this forty-six-minute video by Regular Cars about Cash for Clunkers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZAhq375Wmw

I am not sure what I missed, but some points that I did catch were:
1. It was supposed to stimulate the economy, but since people needed to purchase economical cars, they were also generally cheaper.
2. Specifically, it was supposed to stimulate the U.S. economy, but the top two purchased cars were the Civic and Corolla. Japanese cars were eight of the top ten, with only two being domestic. Of course, I am sure that some Toyotas create more American jobs than certain Chryslers, for example.
3. Virtually every part of a car, even the fluids, can be recycled, but most of these were not.
4. This only benefited people who could purchase new cars. If you relied on used cars, they were more expensive, and so were used parts.
5. Someone commented that hundreds of dealerships called back buyers saying "Your car was ineligible after all. Pay the money you were credited or return the car."

Anything else? I will update! :)

They crushed them all, without sorting out the sedan deliveries and convertibles that would appreciate in value.

Yes, anyone should have immediately noticed it was a regressive subsidy for those that are more wealthy at the expense of the less wealthy.

As usual, the program was too specifically targeted at certain symptoms of a problem rather than the root of the problem itself, and was therefore plagued by all the problems you listed.

The higher up the chain of authority goes, the less specific their actions should be. The federal government subsidizing new "fuel efficient" vehicle purchases for the wealthy is so far outside the scope of the top level of government that we should have canned anyone that voted for it in the first place. By allowing our politicians to act stupidly and not pay the price for their incompetence and arrogance, we ensure stupid ideas will be put into law in the future.

It may sound quite strange, but maybe it could make sense to offer a repowering with some newer engine into some "clunkers", in a way similar to what was done in Bolivia with some Toyota Coaster minibuses which were converted from Diesel to CNG with Vortec 4300 engines.

I have watched a number of auto repair tips and tricks videos and it seems like most of them have the same hack tips--most of them have the Shouty trip that I shared some months back about using a scrap of plastic to keep a bolt in a socket. I watched another video like this and the guy kind of made fun of Shouty and Eric the Car Guy. Someone mentioned Shouty in the comments and the poster wrote this:
He has 159,000 subscribers. Shouty has 2.74m. Eric is partially retired and has 1.36m.

Shouty is more of an entertainer than a mechanic, but I still prefer him and Eric to this other guy.

He's right though, if you replace a part and it doesn't fix the problem you didn't diagnose it correctly. Even good mechanics make mistakes/misdiagnose, but good mechanics get it right the first time the great majority of the time.

I've been saying Shouty is a hack from the beginning (and not entertaining). I know next to nothing about auto repair and can tell this. Eric is better; how he has fewer subscribers is a mystery.

Loud and obnoxious is what's in style these days. Someone who simply presents good information in a professional way apparently makes people think of a college lecture room or something.

Myself, I prefer the plain presentation style, I don't need a bunch of flair. Then again, I am very much the type to offer a plain, professional presentation over something big and flashy.

I don't need to be entertained to keep my attention when the purpose is to fix something. My attention is already 100% there because I need to fix something, and the person is presenting the information necessary to complete the fix. Shouting won't get any more of my attention.

If Shouty had useful videos, I'd tolerate his shouting to watch. As it is, randos have more useful videos so I don't bother with his.

I know it's a Shouty thread, but since I showed the MCM video without comment, I should point to MCM's production values. These guys started in their driveway, but now they have photoshoots on an acre of seamless paper.

Here's part 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjTwkXAWqeM

They don't talk about fuel economy, but I can see (at 9:00) that thing is sprung so stiff it will rattle your teeth.

I also like Rich Rebuild's since he put the Zero motorcycle engine in a Model A roadster. That one should be quite economical.

Mighty Car Mods had a video trying out various gas-saving devices, but I feel that they, like ChrisFix, went from relatable videos of projects that may actually do, to interesting ones that we could never afford.

Did anyone watch MCM's video with 250 car tips? I watched that a while ago and have not gotten around to creating a thread, although I doubt that anyone would read a significant fraction of the list.

Have any of you watched "The Car Wizard?" He seems to know his stuff, but has absolutely zero personality. Am I watching a car video for my own project or for entertainment?

What about replacing some part with other out of the required specification? I have recently seen that in a '98 Mitsubishi Pajero, which had a vacuum hose replaced with a weaker one, leading it to shut down at full-throttle while cold.


Sometimes a simpler failure might be harder to notice at a first glance...

I would argue that this is even worse than replacing the wrong part.




Agreed. I was speaking to people who just throw parts at a car (for example, the car's idle wanders, so with no diagnosis let's just replace the IAC valve.) I've seen that exact scenario a few times and not once has it actually fixed the issue.

Fixing a big issue and then finding that there are smaller problems remaining is a whole different game, as long as the first fix was actually needed. Another example: We had a lady come into the Ford shop I worked at for oil changes. She did her oil changes there, and for about 2 years every time we topped off her rear differential and told her that her axle seals were leaking, and should be replaced. Well she she finally agreed to having the work done, and when we got underneath her pickup we found that she not only needed axle seals, but she needed new axle shafts (groove worn in from 2 years of running dry), and an unrelated fix was that she needed new fuel tank straps. We wouldn't have found the the rusted out fuel tank straps if we hadn't been up under the axle working on all that.

I can confirm it happens. I was riding in a school bus when in high school, and the gas tank fell out at 25-30mph.

Immediate weight savings!

MPGs go to infinity for the duration of the coast.

It's a whole different matter, but it does make sense. Well, some people when they realize their old jalopies need some repairs other than what they were planning, either scrap it or do some makeshift repairs that might be actually worse than the problem that led to those repairs...