I dunno I got a new car off the lot years ago and it’s been treating me perfectly well. Of course I hardly drive in the first place so it’s not like I put a ton of miles on the thing. 2017 model with a little over 30k
Comment on Anon buys a car
j4k3@piefed.world 2 days ago
No new cars have 0 miles. They have all been driven in transit at various stages. No one cares that you drive one like this. Carfax is garbage nonsense anyways. All that shows is the state record which likely wasn't processed within 30 days. Most dealers are on a monthly or quarterly cycle anyways. Like with my auto body paint business most of my dealers paid my purchase orders monthly, some quarterly. That sucks because I had to float the funds in between, and automotive paint has enormous overhead relative to profit margin. I doubt any dealer is filing paperwork on any sale immediately. The 30 day window is likely just formalizing the filing window that already existed, and likely coincides with an increased filing window for dealers. No dealer really cares about individual sales like this anyways. The thing everyone cares about is volume and turnover rate. Everyone also knows only fools with too much money buy new or from dealerships. New cars burn tons of money from day one, and almost all used cars at lots are lease returns or repos. In both cases the car is beat and unmaintained. No one I worked around at many dealerships owned a car off the lot. I went to wholesale auctions as an agent a few times and it is a joke of a clown show. I started buying stuff off Craigslist to sell to dealers on the side when business was slow, because much better cars can be found this way and for better prices than auctions without the nonsense constraint of never being able to drive the auction cars prior to sale. I have never owned a car that sold for less than I paid for it initially, which is a brag few people even think about or realize is possible. You just need to know how to spot a deal, and cool rare cars people will still want to drive in the future.
Rolder@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 days ago
Then a used car purchased for 25% less (or more) would’ve been an even greater value.
My last purchase was a 3 year old car from a small dealer that I paid half the new price - they depreciate that hard rolling off the lot. And it was in perfect condition.
Fuck buying new.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 days ago
I was with you until this point. You forgot about trade-ins. Dealers love getting folks trapped in a revolving line of car loans especially if they can convince those folks to keep coming back to them every 3 years for a different vehicle to buy on a 72 month loan, max out their debt to income and convince them to buy an ESP or two. With customers like that they can sell cars a bit above market price, pocket the kickbacks from the both the ESP provider and the lender and the finances are kept simple because all of the money is coming in B2B. This requires keeping folks coming back and trading in vehicles before the vehicles are too worn to be worth their effort. It’s scummy as shit and preys on consumers not understanding loan terms, and their fears as they are not knowledgeable of how vehicles work and wear
j4k3@piefed.world 1 day ago
Things actually get very muddled when talking about trade ins.
First of all, most new car dealerships that appear to have a used car lot too, are actually two entirely separate businesses that have no real connection. This is largely due to how used car lots work and collect bad inventory over time. They all go through a 3-5 year cycle where a new manager is hired with all of their cronies and third party services tagging along. After a few years of buying 10-15 cars at a time at auctions, they collect enough bad buys that won't sell to where they drown from a lack of turnover and cash flow. This cycle is due to how no one gets to drive auction cars before bidding. The cars are all boxed into a lot. Some will let agents take the keys and start the cars, but many won't because of the potential hassle and volume of inventory. Keeping keys sorted with lots of cars is a chore especially when fobs or cars may be dead or not functioning. Mix some careless upper middle class pretentious SOB Buyer into that mix and it is a train wreck.
Most auctions consist of a bunch of fools where three quarters of the agents present did no homework and did not look at the cars in advance. All they do is try and gauge those that actually may have put in an ounce of effort and then only bid on the same cars as that person. It then becomes very a complex game of strategy if you're intelligent and marked as such. You've got to convince the rest that they have you figured out and use it to your advantage. You might need to place bogus bids on junk cars just to have a chance later at the ones you want. Like I said, it is an insane clown show. You're going to get stuck with one of those bogus bids at times and take an absolute junker back to the lot. You know it is going to cost you your job in a few years time, but hopefully it is worth it for some really great cars you snag from the ruse.
When the used car dealer stops making a profit, the owner will file for bankruptcy, and liquidate the entire inventory. Then a new manager is hired and the cycle continues. That new manager is just some smooth talker from across town that just got fired from the exact same scenario somewhere else, and so the game of duck duck goose continues.
Some times the auction agents is the manager, sometimes it is an assistant or few. The finances and planning of the used car lot is what these guys are all about. They do not take kindly to anyone forcing them to take inventory they did not seek out themselves. Like I could never pick up a Craigslist car and hawk it to this kind of lot. I could only do that with the very small used car lots where it is an owner operator with real reserve capital. Most of these tiny lots, or rather around half if these, are actually exporters that are primarily acquiring cars to sell in places like the middle east. They last long term because all of the junk cars they can't sell end up getting exported to places where anything can be fixed extremely cheaply relative to the actual car's value.
This gets into the actual way trade ins work in most large lots. Some dealers have a large enough space and enough trade ins that they will offer a first pickings like situation for the adjacent used car manager to buy cars ahead of auction. Usually though, the volume is not sufficient and it is poor time management. The general manager will just sell the car at auction and in some cases the used car manager may even buy the car at said auction. You see, these two people are like rivals in many cases. The general manager is often some old used car lot manager the escaped the auction cycle. Getting them to agree on a fair wholesale price is just a nuclear war begging to light off. Instead these guys are usually kept separated on opposite sides of the building. The sales persons are more like independent pick pockets or thieves where the new and used car managers are two competing pawn shops, but the opposite flow of merchandise.
Then there are the exporters. Many larger lots will sell all of their trade in vehicles either to an auction house or to a large exporter. This saves a ton of time over doing anything piecemeal, and more importantly, it allows them to take in junk trade ins with no real value and still get them off the lot. When the best vehicles are kept, the auctions and exporters will not accept the junk too. This leads to most lots filling the service area with inventory which then results in a different kind of nuclear war with a service manager and team, which are often also a separate business.
Lastly, buy here pay here lots are by-far the worst and most sleazy. Many of those are not even making a profit off the sales cycle. They are actually making their money from selling the defaulted loans after repossessing the cars. They sell the same cars dozens of times to people that have no means of paying for them and no chance of getting a car from somewhere else. This happens in states where the law is ambiguous about how cars must be auctioned after repossession and that amount applied against the existing loan. These dealers buy the actual cheapest junk at auction without a care about the condition of the vehicle. Their goal is only to buy the car itself for as little as possible. Because of the ambiguity of the law, this amount they originally paid is always the amount applied against the repossession and defaulted loan no matter how many tines they sell the car to someone off the lot. They barely get the thing running, but are willing to go to extreme lengths to purchase the cheapest car possible. They actual compete with the 3rd (4th-9th) world exporters for rocks that might roll with a little polish.
It is rare for the real owner of a large lot to expose themselves to the risk involved with a unified business where actual trade ins stay under one roof. These are much more picky about what they take for trade ins. It also means the capital backing the operations is much larger than is typically the case, and they are capable of fiscal planning that is at the decades scale. At that scale, return on investment and stability come into question. The new car side has major challenges that make this difficult too. The manufacturer actually dictates a lot of the inventory of new car lots. They don't really have a choice. They just get sent loads of cars and have to figure it out. Many must lease separate storage lots off site because they get sent more cars than they could possibly showcase. They have no room or infrastructure to deal with piecemeal trade ins. They are dealing with a hundred cars you see, and 100-500 more you don't. Anyways, that is how it really works.