The truth about auto dealer invoice prices (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The truth about auto dealer invoice prices (2017)

clark.com

70 pointsnkurz118 comments

> Then 1995 happened, and any doofus with five thumbs and a keyboard could get invoice prices for free all over the Internet.

My uncle was a top car salesman in his area at that time. He said guys would come swaggering in with a printout from the internet, and he'd be like "so what - go somewhere else, then" because it didn't matter - no one was going to sell you the car at zero profit.

If they "secretly" raised the "invoice" price it was almost certainly so they wouldn't have to deal with boneheads constantly coming in and demanding to buy the car at cost.

Anyways, his advice today? Lease. And if you're trading in, wait until the day you're supposed to pick up the new car, then call in and say, "you know, I think my trade-in is worth more than that" - they will always negotiate at that point.

I hear people say leasing is the way to go, but I don't understand the math. Cars easily last 10 years now, and I drove my last car for 18 years. Please explain! Is it about always having a newish car at an optimal price?

Leasing wins against having a new car every few years. It fails badly if you keep your cars longer or buy when they're a few years into the depreciation curve.

Personally I decided buying cars a few years old made far more sense.

Leases are literally the option to purchase a car at a much later date at a predetermined price. You’re betting you can keep the value of the car above the price difference of the vehicle at that later date. The manufacturer is just raking it in - they’ll rarely not be able to fix a vehicle up for a great profit. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the lease contract price (Ie sum total of downpayment and monthly payments) more than covers the manufacturers per vehicle cost.

> Personally I decided buying cars a few years old made far more sense.

I think it absolutely does. I actually go for older than that, Typically 6-8 years or even more. Right now my newest car is a 2006 which I bought last year.

So leasing wins if you've already decided to pour money out the window? I see that you said buying used and older makes far more sense; which means we are probably on the same page. However, is that really the only selling point for leasing? If so, how in the world do so many folks get suckered into doing it?

Pretty much, along with the fixed and known cost per month with fewer possible surprises.

I can understand the appeal of new if you are buying to keep for a long term, or something exotic. Outside of those I don't know why anyone would buy new a thing that loses half its value in the first two or three years. Still it provides plenty of choice in the secondhand market. :)

Lots of people like new cars and being able to have the latest year's model every 3 or so years is a big bonus for people. Same a majority of people like having the latest iPhone or Android flagship phone.

Not everyone places value purely in the monetary realm. Some people view cars as a status symbol. There is also less hassle with leasing.

Saying people don't place the value in the monetary realm is amusing, since money is supposed to be fungible for all value. :)

That said, I get it. Some people place a ridiculously high value on having the latest. I think I used to be in that population, to an extent. Nowadays, I confess this mentality leaves me ridiculously confused.

If you are buying fancy cars, it always makes sense, as the emotional buzz from having a fancy car fades with age.

The dealers will sell the car for next to nothing because they owe money on the car, and get stuck with inventory they don’t want. Your Toyota dealer doesn’t get his high margin 4Runner unless he takes a view Yarii (or whatever the tiny Toyota is). This is the same reason bars sell well liquor at a loss.

Do bars really sell well liquor at a loss? I've never heard that and I can't imagine that being true just from my experience as a customer in bars.

Even if a Rum & Coke is 5 dollars (I'm used to it being more around 8-10$ on average, but being conservative), the unit economics still seem extremely profitable to me. I would think the coke from the fountain costs pennies, and the shot of (well) rum would be max one dollar.

The going rate for a cocktail in Sydney Australia is somewhere between $16-20 at the bars I would frequent a few years ago. Take a martini, with 3 shots (total) of gin and vermouth - 35mL shots for the math to work out. 750mL bottles of gin and vermouth will set you back about $30 each (retail), depending on the brand. With 22 shots per bottle it works out at about $1.40 per shot, and therefore $4.20 per drink. You're looking at $100 bottles of spirits before you start reaching the $16 mark for price of spirits alone.

For comparison, with beer you're looking at about $2 per beer retail ($50/24 bottles) and likely to pay $8 or more at a pub. This suggests a similar markup on beer to spirits, at least here.

Note however that a proper martini (or manhattan, old fashioned, etc) is likely to get you the best bang for buck as a consumer - all the 'fancy' drinks marketed toward women like frozen margaritas etc usually contain less alcohol but retain the same price tag.

They price all this into the lease payment and down payment. You aren’t getting any sort of deal. All you are doing is saving yourself hassle when you return the car back at the end of the lease instead of selling it yourself at that time.

Leasing is a bad arrangement, if you have a car you get get rid of it, but if you are leasing a car they can make it near impo$$ible for you to get out of it.

I know one guy who had his own vehicle. But right before breaking up with his girlfriend she took out a car lease with his name on it. After they broke up he not only never needed the second vehicle, but also couldn't get out of the payment, so he had to get a second job just to cover the payment on a car he didn't need or want.

For some brands, it's about needing to be under factory warranty coverage for the entire ownership period.

Nothing wrong with a warrant, but that is a good indication it is time to look at a different brand.

It's less about the brand than the feature set. Any brand that pushes the limits of performance and technology will tend to be less reliable. Toyota is at the top of the ratings partly due to engineering skill, but mostly because their designs are conservative and take few risks. The V6 engine in the Toyota Camry has been in production since 2002 with only minor improvements so they've had plenty of time to work out the bugs.

If you just need a transportation appliance, you should only even be considering used Honda/Toyota. If you're buying an image or a driving experience, touchy maintenance and expensive repairs tend to come with the territory.

Maybe it's incentive-caused bias from a person who makes more money selling leases?

People who don't want to get ripped off are "boneheads"?

There are bad people on the both sides of the equation. As a consumer, my experience is that plenty of sellers are greedy, and many will gladly screw you over. And car salesmanship has its bad reputation for a reason. But my SO worked a lot in customer support and can tell from first-hand experience that there are many customers who are stupid, or inconsiderate arseholes, or just plain trying to defraud the seller.

So yeah, there are people who want to negotiate a fair price, and then there are inconsiderate boneheads.

People who think you should sell them something at cost or a loss "because that's what you paid for it" are.

I guess I'm just going to keep being that "bonehead" and paying at most invoice, if not invoice minus holdback, for all cars I buy in the future, just like any car I've gotten in the past.

Leasing is not feasible for people who commute. I know plenty of people who got into leases and then got jobs where they would end up going over the mileage.

If the alternative is buying a new car instead, leasing is no different. If your situation changes and you'll go over the lease mileage, buy it out instead.

If the alternative is buying a used car, then leasing is definitely different, but that's orthogonal to the mileage issue.

I’ve assumed the invoice price now also includes the cost of 0% financing. This would mean it’s carrying a lot of extra cost, and the dealer can hold the price up.

I bought a new car last year, and the way I did it was to locate the car I wanted at all dealerships within 300 miles. I then emailed each dealership and asked for the lowest price that they could sell the car for. Then I passed the lowest number to the other dealerships, who counter offered. I iterated this process until no dealership would go any lower, and then I drove to the one with the best deal and picked up the car.

It brought the price a few thousand lower than the supposed "invoice minus holdback minus whatever", but I suppose they wouldn't have sold the car unless they made some profit on it.

The person actually selling you the car makes a surprising difference. A friend who worked at a Ford dealership for awhile told me to always go straight to Internet / fleet sales.

Reason? Those agents are comp'd based on volume over minimum, not on margin (or how the lot salespeople are measured).

End result? If he or she can sell you a car in 5 minutes for over the minimum, they'll happily do so and then chase the next sale.

Sometimes you can take a loss on the car, but make a profit on the sale: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/513/129-cars

If you're interested in how dealerships actually work (and how perverse and stressful the incentive structure can be), I highly recommend listening to the above podcast. It was fascinating.

One example: sometimes dealerships are selling you a vehicle at a loss, in hopes they'll hit the next volume tier, earning enough manufacturer rebates to make a net profit on the deal. And they have to cut their prices that low if they're in a competitive market.

Which turns the entire endeavor into a monthly game of musical chairs. "And 3rd place? Third place is you're fired."

Just a heads up, the lowest email/phone price is often higher than the lowest in-person price, for this very reason.

How did you initially identify at scale if the dealerships had the particular make of the car you wanted? By simply searching their website?

I have never bought a new car, but I suppose if I did, this would be a good strategy. I mean it's a lot of effort, but when you talk about something that expensive that you're going to keep for 5 ~ 10 years at least, it makes sense to put in that effort.

It’s a few hours over 1-2 days - not that much effort to save a few thousand dollars.

That’s the method described in the end of the article.

My sister bought a new car in 2014. She used one of the services that shops your requirements to dealers within your area. The night before her scheduled test drive with the dealer who had the best price and didn't seem sleazy, a friend of hers told her to check with a fleet broker. Within a few hours, the fleet broker sent her a price that was about $100 less than the dealer's.

I went to the dealership with her, we both drove the car and made sure it would fit in her driveway (steep with sharp angles, a recipe for ripping off front trim). On the way back to the dealership I asked how long the paperwork would take. The salesman (actually the sales manager) said it takes a couple hours because of 'state requirements'.

She asked him to match the fleet broker's price, he said it had to be a scam and refused so we drove away. On the way to lunch, she called the fleet broker and had her insurance agent send him proof of insurance (she already had financing arranged). As we sat down to eat, the fleet broker called back and asked when she wanted the car delivered. She got it delivered 2 days later and spent less than 5 minutes doing the paperwork.

I have always fantasized that the next time I buy a new car, I'll figure out a reasonable price and take a cashier's check for that amount to the dealer. I imagine telling them that I want to be on my way out the door with the keys in my hand in 15 minutes or I will leave. But really, why waste time on that when I can just call a fleet broker?

If you have a Costco membership and buy cars through them they always send you to the fleet or wholesale section of the dealership. There isn't any negotiation with fleet sales but their price is almost always at invoice or a few hundred less. In fact for one of the cars I bought through Costco the fleet sales guy threw in a manufacturers discount of $2k in addition to giving me a base price of about $500 below invoice.

Our strategy is to let local dealers compete, then go in and offer cash at the last minute. But also we have a different agenda, which is: how much is the car worth to me? I've always assumed exactly what Clark says, which is that the dealer invoice is bogus. By paying cash we save a huge amount over the lifetime of the car, and the wiggle room isn't terribly important.

Cash is usually the last thing the dealers want because they double dip by getting kick backs by selling loans to people. By financing through a credit union you can usually get a great rate, invest that large sum else where, and pay the loan off early if you want. Some scummy dealers will also only give you a price based on you financing with them, cash is more expensive since they were expecting that kickback.

Yeah, whenever I say I'm paying cash they get disappointed and stop negotiating as much. I've learned to save it until the very end when the real salesman, the "paperwork" guy.

Agreed. The last car we bought had 0% and a rebate on the loan making it cheaper to finance than to pay cash.

I've heard of dealers pulling out of an agreed deal when they learn the buyer wants to pay cash.

I always tell dealers that I already have financing when I ask them for a price. The ones that balk when I say that are the ones I don't go any further with.

Yep basically. Set your own limit in cash, be prepared to walk away entirely.

I knew a guy once that would go to dealerships with a graphing calculator (just for show) and tell them how much profit he was willing to let them make. If they said no then he'd tell them "Are you sure? you can make this much money off of me right now, or give it to another dealer who takes the offer"

That is often not true, given how low the APR on a new car loan is if you have good credit.

E.g. loan at 0.9% and you can get WAY more than that by sticking that $40k in even a safe mutual fund.

So where's the money coming from? Who wants to make 0.9% on a car loan? You can get about 2.4% right now on a damn 1-year US Treasury! And that's tax free too!

Is there something I'm missing here? I'm extremely confused as to why someone buying a car, even with insanely good credit, would get a FAR better rate on borrowing money than the US Government.

I think the answer is that low-interest car loans often come from a finance arm of the auto maker. I once got a 0% loan from Volkswagen to buy a Volkswagen. Seems like a way for them to sell more cars to people with good credit who will almost certainly pay back the loan.

I don't have any particular insight into this industry beyond my own personal experience though, so there's a non-trivial chance that I'm wrong with regards to the general case.

> I think the answer is that low-interest car loans often come from a finance arm of the auto maker.

Exactly. Most auto makers would actually be better described as financing companies that happen to build autos on the side. Particularly when you look at their financials and realize that all of the actual profits are coming from financing and that actual vehicle sales are often a net loss if taken by themselves.

0.9% exists to get people into cars (aka, volume) who otherwise might not come through the door + add origination fees + attract the type of people who are likely to incur late payment fees. I would guess at a macro-level, the effective rate is much higher and more than offsets the 1.5% difference between safe treasuries. Lots of people buy based on "what would it take you to get into this car" monthly payments rather than TCO, so if you're a cash buyer and can safely arbitrage the interest rate difference, you're probably the exception.

I suspect the local sales guy pockets any loan origination fees; the automaker is just paying that as commission for the actuarial likelihood that the people who finance will default at a rate that still makes it profitable when taking into account the benefits of maintaining low inventory in a given model year.

The manufacturer subsidizes the loan, and it’s secured by a lien on the car. Pretty low risk.

Especially when they come with GPS that tell the lender exactly where it is to come repo it.

Because the rate isn't where they're making money. The rate is almost certainly a distraction from unfavourable terms elsewhere.

It's the free market at work, to an extent.

If Toyota doesn't want to offer $rate, Hyundai will - and now Toyota has to match it or they lose market share. (Of course, it's more complex than that, since obviously people get car loans from banks, but most of the big automakers have finance arms).

In a sense it's rather unfortunate that the market drives the evolution of obfuscated contractual agreements. Of course, it's not surprising at all.

In some cases the money is coming from the car manufacturer who wants you to buy the car.

As the model year changes, makers offer financing incentives to clear inventory. My 2018 Civic was financed at 1.9% for 5 years. There was no point in paying cash.

The real interest rate is built into the cost of the car!

My wife bought a Civic. I got 3 years @ 0.99%

Seriously. On a 6 year loan the car is almost free at current rates of return.

Is the 0.9% the APR or the stated rate?

Loan origination fees are a thing.

Dealerships are a state protected scam. They collude on prices and with Kelly Blue Book, as well as wholesale auctioneers to keep prices high.

If states allowed direct sales, an entire industry would vanish overnight. Auto dealerships employ two million people in the US. No politician wants that on their hands.

Interesting, I didn't realize there were laws against direct sales[1]. The phenomenon of bullshit jobs--i.e., jobs that serve no real purpose--has been discussed here on HN multiple times[2]. It's funny how entire industries (like the 2-3 million people who do health care paperwork in the U.S.) could disappear overnight if the systems and regulations were different, and we wouldn't notice, except possibly for the unemployment it would create.

[1] "U.S. car dealerships [are] protected by state laws. Most state laws expressly prohibit manufacturers and distributors from operating retail outlets. They must by law sell their vehicles through independent franchise retail distribution network." https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/culture/commutin...

[2] Most recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17260911

> I didn't realize there were laws against direct sales

Interesting. Not even Germany has such a law, I wonder whether that makes the US a car maker or rather a car seller country?

I recall reading that laws against direct sales were created because car makers in the US were very abusive/anticompetitive. So the laws might have had some sense at that time.

I'm not so sure. Cars need maintenance. Customers want to drive the cars before they buy them. So maybe the management and dealership owners lose out, but the rank and file should still come out OK.

I think the same thing may be true with tech employers and their on-site benefits. Sure, the employees aren't eating out in town as much, but they are still eating. For the line cooks and other service workers, there's still work to be had. Its the people who are in the business of owning service industry businesses that are in trouble.

Cars need maintenance.

How much maintenance do electric vehicles (not hybrids) need? Probably less than 25% of that of IC vehicles.

Oops. There goes 75% of the service department. Which is probably a higher margin area than sales. They mark up the parts and then bill $150 per hour for labor and probably pay mechanics less than 25% of that rate.

If I owned a new car dealership I'd sell it within the next 5 years. Because EVs are coming.

> How much maintenance do electric vehicles (not hybrids) need? Probably less than 25% of that of IC vehicles.

If built to be good cars, not profitable cars. The cynic in me says that manufacturers will find some ways to raise the maintenance requirements of EV to maximum level they can still get away with. Such is the way markets work.

Sigh.

I think you're spot on with your cynicism. But maybe the market won't let them get away with it, if there's sufficient competition?

Here's my sad story of what you allude to, regarding a washing machine (or maybe it was a dryer I forget now):

An electric motor is fundamentally an incredibly reliable part. I'd venture that there are still some 100-year-old electric motors in daily service.

The "contactor" (fancy word for a high power relay) failed. This contactor controlled the electric motor which made the drum turn. Turns out that the field replaceable unit is not the contactor, but is an assembly that combines the motor and contactor. So instead of being able to replace just the relay (which can be prone to failure after some years of use), the entire assembly must be replaced. A perfectly good motor thrown away because the contacts on the relay controlling it went bad.

The replaceable unit cost $320 (this was a while ago) instead of perhaps $20 for the relay itself!

There's lots of infrastructure work to be done if politicians were concerned about employment numbers.

I don’t care. It’s sort of like wiping out a virus with a vaccine. If everyone in the pay day loan industry loses their job, who cares. Car dealers are at the same level.

yet... i would think a sizeable portion of them would just be shuffled and reemployed someplace else in the auto chain. maybe not 100% but... most?

Are you willing to stake your career on that guess?

Don't the direct-sales showrooms also need staff?

That sounds AWESOME

I know something about the wholesale auto auction business. What kind of collusion are you suggesting?

One new trick I discovered last time around doing the new dealer quote matching game is to find a set of dealers in a different state.

In our case all the dealers for one brand were owned by a single conglomerate(under different names) however as soon as we mentioned we had a lower quote from a OR dealer(this was in WA) they suddenly dropped their prices significantly.

The quoted price for the last used car I bought was a hair under what any third-party pricing resource said it should be, so I accepted. I then learned where the dealer profit margin lives - in a very aggressive upsell to a $2500 maintenance package.

Why are people still buying cars?

Google's Waymo is going to be available to the public in less than a year...

People buy cars and expect them to last between 7-10 years.

With Waymo soon to be available to the general public, why would anyone want to buy a car and make a purchase that you pay for over 10 years?

>>Why are people still buying cars?

Because (majority of North American cities, and many others around the world, are impossible, impractical, or difficult to live with without a car), multiplied by (variety of lifestyles, people, locations, conditions, health, jobs).

[In reality, I assume you understand the answer to this question but there _are_ people who genuinely don't - their age, health, needs, job, location, lifestyle and wealth are such that they can get away without one, and lacking empathy or bother, don't understand not everybody is in that very specific slot]

>>People buy cars and expect them to last between 7-10 years.

I bought a new car in 2004 and am still driving it. I go to dealerships for fun with my dad few times a year, but am in no rush to replace. When I do, I'll expect at least 10 years out of it (tricky with the welded entertainment systems these days, but you can still get a car without a Touchscreen, if you try hard ;).

>> With Waymo soon to be available to the general public

See #1. Some people need a car now; some people need convenience, availability, particular size, etc; some people will be outside of target markets for years if not decades; etc etc etc.

Again, I understand the question may have been meant to start a discussion, but I feel there could've been less intentionally provocative ways around it (or, if it were purely genuine, for your own sake, dear goodness, open up your eyes and empathy gland a bit and notice the world around you - talk to or make some friends who are in different positions, travel, watch some TV, etc :-)

Also depends a lot on where you choose to live. In the city? Totally understand an on-demand car service.

Out in the country/rural area? You're may want a truck that's matched to what you tow/haul/etc. Pretty sure it'd be against Waymo's ToS to haul your garbage into the dump in places where trash service isn't a thing.

Because not everybody’s life or needs are just like yours?

it's a fair question.

I would bet a moderate amount of money that I could not buy a car equipped with Waymo on July 22, 2019.

But perhaps you didn't mean buy. Perhaps you mean "use it like Uber now". Well, I don't want to use Uber for all my driving needs now - why would it be different once it's Waymo instead?

Because mass transit is non-existent or shitty in many American cities.

Also, we're a good 10 years minimum from viable self driving cars, and people I know in that industry say it's more like 15+. It's a fucking hard problem, and one where you can't screw up. You screw up and people die.

Self driving cars also will not clear up road congestion. Even if every car was self driving, they still take up a shit ton more space than a train and transport a fraction of the people. I wrote about this a while back:

https://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-so...

Because kids

Yeah, there's a whole load of gear that you need when taking kids on the road. Not just car seats but toys, sippy cups, spare nappies, snacks, etc. that you'd have to bundle into and out of the car every single time if you're not using your own vehicle.

Lots of people seem to do just fine with cargo bikes, or with baby carriages on public transport.

We don't use the car for stuff where a bike or subway would do. We leave town, we stay with in-laws, we go to weddings, etc. We also do these things in bad weather.

A suggestion that bikes replace a car for a family of 4 strongly suggests that the author doesn't have kids.

Lots of people seem to do just fine subsistence farming in mud huts, too. Doesn't mean I want to live like that.

Do you honestly and seriously align choosing a bicycle for transport where appropriate with "subsistence farming in mud huts"?

Spoiled children we are in the western world.

If self-driving cars were out and affordable, maybe I'd use that. Otherwise I'd never go without a car that lets me go wherever I want whenever I want and transport anything within reason inside it. I would never want to live the life of being beholden to the where&when of public transit and having to do grocery trips a few bags at a time, constantly surrounded by strangers. I drive half a mile to a Wendy's from my house fairly often, and I love having the freedom to do that instead of walking or biking.

You don’t pay for 10 years, it has a 10 year life.

Waymo will cost way more for a long time, assuming its street legal and available.

You buy a car today because it saves you time and provides utility.

I guess because being stuck within a city and not being able to go hiking or whatever is my personal little hell.

What will Waymo provide except as lightly cheaper version of what Uber provides right now, which again is a cheaper version of what taxis have provided for a hundred years?

Why can't you retrofit the car with self driving equipment?

How much will a 10 mile ride to work in rush hour cost on Waymo?

Because not everyone wants to shell out the stupid amount of cash to live in an overcrowded intrusive California city where the government claims half your paycheck.

In our case, because we live in the Seattle suburbs and we don't have a solution to the problems of street people shitting in the buses, threatening our children and causing fights; of banana republic hours and whimsical every two-hour-or-so schedules; of no room in the Park and Ride lots; or of miles-long walks to the bus stops. You sound pretty smart and probably have the solution to these problems. Please share it.

Not to be glib, but a bicycle solves a lot of the medium range issues. I have a car but use it sparingly.

Anything inside of 15 miles or so is fair game and I’m almost always faster than a car and guaranteed faster than public transportation. Kid and grocery hauling is well within reason. And my weather is about as weird as yours.

For people in good health, for people with flexibility of time and condition they arrive to target in, for people in cities with amenable climate, for select times of year.

Not to be glib, but what about the old, the young, those who cannot come in sweaty to work, those who don't live in Caribbean / those who need to get out of their house more than 6-8 weeks out of the year, those of poor health or limited mobility, those in places which are not friendly to bikes, those who need to go with somebody, those who need to carry stuff, etc?

My pregnant wife, my 73 year old dad, my waist-down-paralyzed nephew, my asthmatic self (no made-up examples) cannot take 15 mile trips in Canadian Winter through a place lovingly called "Halton Hills". I have two friends who can. They did for one season, they told everybody how awesome they are, and their bikes are now in the locker.

I drive my car less than half a mile to a Wendy's on a regular basis. On a bike I wouldn't be able to bring my dog, it would be weird using the drive-thru, it would be uncomfortable on all but the few days of the year that are a perfect temperature, and I'd be much less safe in the case of an accident (people don't look at all coming out of this one place they're supposed to yield sometimes).

And taking home the amount of groceries that I do on a bike would be impractical, and if put in a backpack, probably hurt my back.

I cherish having the choice to take a car to these kinds of places. No way a bike would be faster because whenever there's someone on a bike in front of me on these routes, I have to slow down, and these routes are never badly congested. Admittedly riding a bicycle in a bike lane can be a lot faster in some of the most congested parts of the country like Manhattan, but there often aren't bike lanes and using sidewalks is a point of contention.

>"On a bike I wouldn't be able to bring my dog"

Your dog can run leashed next to your bike, it's a very common way to walk dogs.

Or you could even walk, half a mile is super close.

>"it would be weird using the drive-thru"

Yeah probably a bit. Go inside instead and sit down to eat, maybe?

>"it would be uncomfortable on all but the few days of the year that are a perfect temperature"

You get used to it extremely quickly, trust me :-)

>"I'd be much less safe in the case of an accident"

Even in a car, I would avoid a place like that, and find an alternate route. That just sounds like an accident waiting to happen, to be honest, no matter your mode of transport.

>>"And taking home the amount of groceries that I do on a bike would be impractical“

Yeah, if you only shop once every week or even two weeks. My girlfriend and I manage grocery shopping quite well on foot and bike, and I would think we buy an average amount for two people.

I know it's easiest to stick with what you know, but there's always an alternative.

> Your dog can run leashed next to your bike, it's a very common way to walk dogs. Or you could even walk, half a mile is super close.

Biking across a street with her beside me? No. She freezes sometimes when there's something like a dog or just a person she doesn't like in the distance, and she can be stubborn about running regardless. If I was biking at a speed she could keep up with then I might as well walk. And I wouldn't make her stay outside that long in extremely high or low temperatures, especially 10 minutes both ways.

> Yeah probably a bit. Go inside instead and sit down to eat, maybe?

Like I said, I like to bring my dog, and you can't bring doge inside a restaurant. Taking her with me there and giving her a bit of bacon/whatever has been a great positive reinforcement to make her see car rides as a positive.

> Even in a car, I would avoid a place like that, and find an alternate route. That just sounds like an accident waiting to happen, to be honest, no matter your mode of transport.

You're less visible in a bike. It's not a big deal with a car, I just go slow and stay prepared to stop. The speed limit the entire trip is 25mph at most.

>You get used to it extremely quickly, trust me :-) > I know it's easiest to stick with what you know, but there's always an alternative.

In college I walked across campus for food daily. At my job training when I was in a hotel I walked to the nearby mall or Wendy's for food daily. I never particularly got used to freezing temperatures on my face (and sometimes texting gloves weren't enough for the hands) and very hot temperatures. Even in nice weather I didn't like all the walking college entailed. After all this I greatly appreciate having the option of driving, not to mention that I've come to enjoy driving in its own right.

I know it's very easy and comfortable to stay in our chosen set ways, but there is always an alternative.

You could train you dog to run alongside you, just like you've trained her to go on car rides. You could sit outside with her and eat.

Setting up mental barriers is very common in order to avoid things seen as uncomfortable or strange, but sometimes you just have to try. See the world in a new light, rather than through a windshield. Enjoy the fresh air (while we still can).

Did you read my post? I said I used to walk to get food all the time. I have extensive walking rather than driving to places to get food. Driving is the new thing for me here, which I really only started doing late last year, and it was uncomfortable at first as well. I've made an informed opinion of both after having done both.

And I do go with the windows down when it's reasonable to do so.

I never had an issue with people on buses in Seattle .. well there was that one guy on the E who was smoking week in the back, but another passenger told him to quit that shit and he did. .. and I did find a needle laying on the floor of the 8 once, capped.

Other than that, I took the bus/LINK nearly every day to work when I lived there, and a ton on the weekends, and never had issue with the Seattle bus system. I knew people who took the bus from up in Linwood at the park and ride; way better than trying to drive through that shit in the morning.

ST3 is going to help a lot too. A train to Redmond and up past the University. That's going to be amazing when it goes live.

> You sound pretty smart and probably have the solution to these problems. Please share it.

I am not OP, and I am not sure where in the Seattle area home and work are, but my suggestion is to move somewhere where you don't have to drive as much.

Fully aware that many people don't want to do this and will even get angry at the suggestion. But speaking personally this is doable. I myself lived in the walkable part of Bellevue, then I lived in SLU shortly before the tech boom hit full steam.

I since moved to SF and my kids were born down here, so I do not know the Seattle kid experience well other than to say when we go back we stay downtown and walk everywhere without problems.

But the question was why would "Anyone" buy a car, and almost by definition, not everyone can move out of "Impractical Big city A" into "Utopian Small City B", because then "Utopian Small City B" becomes "Impractical Big City B" :)

There simply isn't a place in North America, let alone the world, that a) Is amenable to a non-driving lifestyle, and b) has room for all the people in the world.

It is not a universally applicable advice; it is virtually by definition only doable by select few. The rest of the population will still have to deal with reality of things.

A good point, it is a privileged position to do this in the US especially. But the nitpicker in me would point out no one place can satisfy your criterion B, to fit 7 billion people.

>>no one place can satisfy your criterion B, to fit 7 billion people.

Fully agreed - exactly the point :-)

For the foreseeable future, we'll have to live in heterogeneous environments with limited "one size fits all" , or "implementable immediately by all" solutions :-/

A friend of mine is a Seattle bus driver and he witnesses terrible things up to and including child sex trafficking. And the cops don’t care a whit when he reports things. Public transportation in major US cities is cancer. I know it can theoretically be good, but it seldom is.

I've taken public transport quite a bit in several US cities. I didn't have a car for five years. Transport isn't going to get better if regular people stop using it. And there's something special about being on a bus or train or cycling/commuting with tons of other Americans.

Even if you don't interact with them, you see them .. you see all sorts of people from all walks of life. In the 60s we were all in our books or in newspapers. Today we're all in our cellphones. We don't interact, but we see each other. That changes perceptions. That changes the way you view people.

When people go to work in their cars and yell at other faceless cars, they don't truly see people. It changes who we are.

All it does is exposes the problems of the American underclass. When you're not taking public transit, and live in a suburb, it's very easy to close your eyes, and pretend that poor people don't exist.

What is the most valuable resource a car salesman has? Time. She/he can’t make more of it and any time spent on something that likely won’t bring them a deal has a huge opportunity cost.

Knowing that, the most effective way to get the lowest possible price is to spend as much time with a salesperson as possible. Test drive every model, have them dig up odd questions and get them convinced that you’re going to buy. After all, a serious buyer would never take so much time if they weren’t serious.

The sales rep will see all the other potential buyers coming into the lot getting help from his competing reps. This isn’t a big deal if she/he is convinced you’ll buy.

After spending all day, walk away. And do it at the absolute last minute. The sales rep and their boss will do everything they can to get you locked in because 1) they were already set on you buying and 2) they burned a huge amount of time helping you and missing out on other buyers. They’re too mentally invested in seeing you buy.

There’s no guarantee you’ll get something at cost or at a loss but you’ll put the power in your hands and be working with someone who’s as invested in buying as you are.

The idea that you can email your way to the lowest price is far less effective. The amount of time it takes for a car salesperson to reastart one to an email is trivial compared to burning an entire day test driving vehicles with you.

your time also has value. Spending a whole day to get a lower cost might not save as much money as it seems

Sometimes it is worth it. I spent 2 days to buy a truck. I flew to another state and drove it home. It mostly went according to plan except the leaky power steering hose that I spotted the first minute I looked at it - and then spent the next 5 hours waiting for them to fix it. I wish I could trade more weekends for $5,000.

> except the leaky power steering hose

Great QA right off the bat.

agreed completely, the point was to explain how to get the lowest price out of a car dealer, not necessarily to maximize value.

some folks prioritize the former or feel like they have time to burn

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