Deciding on a new car...ugh

Investment Analysis Clubs Millionaire Fools
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Hi, Smurf!

Thanks for any insight you can offer.

Well, hell. Someone has to bring up an alternative viewpoint. I get the LBYM thing. However … you’re not required to get down on one knee and propose to a car. I mean, what’s the use of scrimping and saving your whole life (sorry if wrong, I’m ASSuming of course) only to keep doing the same thing when you’ve “made it?”

The choices among vehicles are almost unlimited, and many are among the best at … something, depending on your goals. Safety, price, mileage, quiet, ride, pleasure, durability, maintenance requirements, whatever. So why not buy (or rent!) a newer used car for a month and find out how you like it, sell it for what you paid for it or close, then go out and buy that model in a new car, assuming that’s still your wish? Not perfect? Heck, try another one. If it costs you a hundred bucks, or a few hundred bucks, isn’t it worth it to get the right vehicle? It sounds like you care about your choice.

It also sounds as if the car you choose has to last you for decades. That’s surely true for many less affluent buyers who can afford a car (any car) but you? You can buy any car you want and trade it in the next week if you don’t like it. So back to the LBYM thing: It has evidently served you well, and I am not suggesting you abandon it by any means. But fretting over car models seems a waste of time and effort.

I know the mantra here is LBYM, and I agree it has rewards aplenty. However, maybe you should also be rewarded occasionally for having “made it.” It might even be worthwhile to live this life like it’s the only one you have. If not now, when? Just a thought.

I know, I know. It’s no wonder it took me so long to become a $m aire. On the other hand, I enjoy my new truck and my old Corvette more than most things money can buy, and I’ve enjoyed the 16 of the 17 new vehicles I’ve owned. (The other? Well, I doubt a Jeep Wrangler is on your list, so not to worry.)

To me, family is for keeps. Cars, on the other hand, are for whatever I want them for, and only for as long as I enjoy them. Then it’s divorce city, and no lawyer and no alimony are required.

And that Goofy fella … I don’t know him personally, but I get the rock-solid sense that he buys any damned car he wants, whenever he wants. Seems quite fair to me. LOL, he can tell me if I’m wrong, as I’m sure he would.

That was easy. :slight_smile:

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I know the mantra here is LBYM, and I agree it has rewards aplenty. However, maybe you should also be rewarded occasionally for having “made it.” It might even be worthwhile to live this life like it’s the only one you have. If not now, when? Just a thought.

On the LBYM board, there are some who think it’s a contest on who can “out cheap” the others. For the long time poster who helped establish the board, there are only two things you should try to do. Of course, the first thing is to live below your means. The second is to prioritize your spending. If a nice car is a priority, save in other areas. It could be a nice house, nice clothes, good food or travel. Just prioritize your spending so you don’t live above your means.

PSU

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We got a Camry hybrid. We like it.

V

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All this talk of cars on this board.

I just went to fill up my 2012 Dodge Caravan…(yeah, an old thing)…and at the local cheap station the cheapest gas was $5.99 a gallon. The most expensive was $6.35.

I’m one of the lucky ones whose life will not really be affected by that, but I spoke to the grocery clerk who has a long commute to his job, and felt really bad for him…

I can help with the Food Bank, but I can’t help with the gas prices…:frowning:

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"I can help with the Food Bank, but I can’t help with the gas prices…:frowning: "

Recognizing that other people have a problem is actually a great help - and is beyond the
capability of most government agency folks.

Howie52
Telling government agency folks that there is a problem that will likely kick them out of
office or out of a job themselves tends to “light a fire” under their lower extremities.

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Here’s what a local car dealer did yesterday.

Free gas: After Massachusetts car dealer Ernie Boch Jr. offers 7,000 gallons of free gas, drivers wait 9 hours overnight

Drivers patiently waited more than nine hours overnight at a Norwood gas station after a promise from Massachusetts car mogul Ernie Boch Jr. to deliver 7,000 gallons of free fuel Friday morning.

https://www.masslive.com/news/2022/04/free-gas-after-massach…

Ernie is a multi-millionaire and makes it a habit to give back to folks in the state.
'38Packard

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Gas in Alabama is $3.85 a gallon

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Sorry, but I’ll pay the price to stay here in Northern Calif, where a chunk of our price is underutilized road taxes… But. pothole fixits are coming… Meantime a nice merlot…

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Central Illinois = $4.539/gal for plain automotive gasoline at Casey’s.

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So Cal $165, 27 gal diesel, $6.11/ gal
Had to use 2 credit cards.

Don’t think the cost increase is due to federal or state taxes or the cost of oil.

CA gasoline taxes
2022: 2.25% + $0.56/gal
2012: 2.25% + $0.427/gal

Cost of oil
2022: $100/bbl
2012: $106/bbl

Federal gas taxes
2022: $0.184/gal
2012: unknown

Gasoline $/gal
2022 $5.59
2012 $4.10

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Don’t think the cost increase is due to federal or state taxes or the cost of oil.

It may be related to many other things:

  • Could be that supply and demand for gasoline isn’t directly proportional to supply and demand for oil.
  • Could be that other costs, like turning oil into gasoline, or gasoline additives, or transporting gasoline to the filling station, have increased.
  • Could be additional costs of regulation outside of tax direct taxes.
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Could be additional costs of regulation outside of tax direct taxes.

Could be the guiding hand of the free market at work. Maybe oil companies just like getting as much money as they can for their product. Don’t like it - don’t buy it.

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Could be the guiding hand of the free market at work. Maybe oil companies just like getting as much money as they can for their product. Don’t like it - don’t buy it. - Volucris

Absolutely. And if the next oil company thinks it can gain market share over the first one by cutting the price a percent or two, then go for it. Competition and profit motive keeps an ever present downward pressure on prices far better than any centrally planned ecomomy.

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Could be the guiding hand of the free market at work. Maybe oil companies just like getting as much money as they can for their product. Don’t like it - don’t buy it.

Or not.

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill…
Fossil Fuels Received $5.9 Trillion In Subsidies in 2020, Report Finds
Coal, oil, and natural gas received $5.9 trillion in subsidies in 2020 — or roughly $11 million every minute — according to a new analysis from the International Monetary Fund.

The guiding hand of the free market is not the driving force. It’s the grabbing hand of arguably the most powerful and destructive lobby in history. Companies paying (or basically becoming, revolving-door style) government officials and representatives has made today’s world and its atmosphere what it is today. When the level of government subsidy going to R&D on cleaner fuels starts to approach even half of what oil’s been getting for well over a century, then things might start to change. And EVs existed in the early 1900s; I contend that if the subsidies we’ve given to fossil fuels for transportation had gone there instead, our cities, rivers, air, and economy would look a lot different today. Range, charging, maybe even the model of car ownership itself might have turned out completely differently (for example, membership, rather than owning and storing a specific vehicle).

Now we’re hooked, and we still pay half what Europe does for gasoline. “Don’t buy it” is a misguided and highly classist answer that’s simply not tenable for the strong majority of Americans. They’re in the mobility-cost bed that was made for them by short-sighted greed a long time ago. Hard to call it “corruption” when it was completely legal, and in large part still is. Forward-thinking policy change that’s immune to the greed that got us here is what it’s going to take.

-n8

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The guiding hand of the free market is not the driving force.

Actually it is. It’s the phenomenon of very high price elasticity, where the price of a commodity can swing wildly based on a small change in demand or supply.

A lifeboat isn’t a particularly expensive item, but if you have one on the Titanic you can get almost any price you want because there are no substitutes. It’s the same with oil (gas), we have built a society around the automobile and (relatively) cheap transport, and when the supply is constricted for whatever reason (OPEC embargo, Iraq invasion, Russia sanctions) the price adjusts greatly before people give it up even a little.

It’s the same reason food price supports were put into effect almost a century ago, because when agricultural harvests boomed or busted, food prices skyrocketed or bottomed, killing farmers and or hampering food purchases by those in urban areas. Food is a bit different in that there are substitutes: if beef is high you can switch to chicken. You may not like it but at least you can do it. If gas is high, well, there’s nothing to switch to and the only action you can take is to consume less. That ripples through society as discretionary monies end up in petro-states, industries curtail hours, etc.

There is very little a client state can do; our only defense against it is a release of oil from the strategic oil reserve to temporarily increase supply, a slowdown of the economy to use less, a substitution of energy (more nuclear, solar, coal, whatever), and so on. None of those are happy outcomes, especially substitution which takes years of planning and preparation to accomplish. The last one is greater supply which we have done through fracking, but that’s not the long term answer either. Drill baby drill only gets us to the bottom of the well faster, as it did in the 1960’s when we started becoming depending on the Middle East. It can help but it’s not a long term answer.

And yeah, higher prices are good for oil companies obviously in the short run, but mostly it means longer term they can go after known reserves which have been previously unaffordable to recover. Good for them, not good for joe six-pack and his Ford F-150. Maybe he could switch to a smaller Toyota, but that doesn’t make him feel warm and fuzzy now, does it?

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Could be the guiding hand of the free market at work. Maybe oil companies just like getting as much money as they can for their product. Don’t like it - don’t buy it.

That was my first bullet point! Supply/demand for gasoline is likely different than supply/demand for oil. Of course oil is used to produce gasoline, but that is only one input to it.

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It may be related to many other things:
* Could be that supply and demand for gasoline isn’t directly proportional to supply and demand for oil.
* Could be that other costs, like turning oil into gasoline, or gasoline additives, or transporting gasoline to the filling station, have increased.
* Could be additional costs of regulation outside of tax direct taxes.

Agreed, it could be a combination of the things mentioned or other things as well. The commonly assumed causes, taxes and cost of oil probably isn’t the cause.

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the most powerful and destructive lobby in history.
I do not disagree.
V

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That was my first bullet point!

Ah. So it was. Sorry about that.

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Agreed, it could be a combination of the things mentioned or other things as well. The commonly assumed causes, taxes and cost of oil probably isn’t the cause.

In most places, taxes are definitely not the cause. Not only did taxes not go up in absolute terms, but they didn’t even go up proportionately (in other words, they are generally a fixed level per gallon, rather than a percentage of total cost per gallon).

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