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os2warpman

It has been my experience that people who talk about cars are lying to themselves.

They say they want one thing, but buy another.

They claim they want a manual transmission and then buy a RAV4.

They claim they want a sports sedan and then buy a RAV4.

They claim they want a station wagon and then buy a RAV4.

They claim they want a base, cheap, simple, vehicle and then they drop $55k on a fully-equipped RAV4 Hybrid.

Be weird. It's ok. Do the dumb thing and follow your desire.

And you can hedge your bets. I bought, used, a manual transmission convertible sports car, a sports sedan (red, even!), and capacious station wagon for all of my Home Depot needs all for less than the price of RAV4 Hybrid and between the three I always have at least one functional vehicle!

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I think a lot of people do want these things, but car buying is not always up to just one person. It's often a decision made in the context of a family or group who will share a vehicle or otherwise have input on the buying decision.

These studies should be surveying these groups instead of individuals I think. Sometimes the "group" will just be one person, and that's okay. But I wouldn't want someone's opinion if they're making it on behalf of a group without the groups input, because that's not realistic

Exactly. And this is the "magic" behind the Jeep Wrangler. It's the person driving it who you have to please but buyers have all these other spurious "requirements" forced upon them.

So they went out and built a 2dr jeep with a shitty 2nd row so people can pretend like it's optimized for people hauling and sell the "lifestyle car" they really wanted to their SO. They retained the soft top and manual at non-insignificant cost to appeal to additional swaths of buyers and then added a hybrid option as a checkbox exercise.

It's kind of beautiful if you think about it.

When it comes to Wranglers they used to only do 2 doors, but then they introduced the 4 door which is supposedly now 90% of the sales (I'm guessing the extra doors make it easier to compete with other SUVs)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelharley/2023/08/30/2023-j...

Anecdotal, but I've also noticed way more 4 door new Broncos and new Defenders around than the 2 doors

> all for less than the price of RAV4 Hybrid

Can't recommend enough this approach of multiple older cars. Between the extremely high cost and steep depreciation new cars make no sense unless you're so rich money is not a consideration.

I have multiple sports cars (all over 30 years old), a truck for towing and utility (over 20 years old), a minivan for kid and family duty (~15 years old). All that together is cheaper than a single new car. And having bought them depreciated, the value barely goes down. In fact a couple of the sports cars are appreciating now, worth more than my cost.

> And you can hedge your bets [ with multiple vehicles ]

In many countries that's unaffordable. In the UK I pay £350 per year car tax, £480 insurance and £50 mandatory roadworthiness testing. Best part of a grand before I've even driven a mile - and the UK is considered cheap in Europe. In Ireland the tax alone would be over £1000.

My partner pays about the same for her 20 year old petrol Honda SUV. Ironically if she chose the filthy, carcinogen-spewing diesel model she'd pay just £40 in tax, so it's little wonder that people compromise.

And then there is storage/parking and maintenance cost and time. This is really why the SUV is so popular in the US. It has OKish cargo space for dump runs, family trips, etc even if it is oversized for the daily commute. But the base cost of a vehicle is so high you might as well get one that can get all the jobs done.

Exactly what I do. I own 6 cars. I didn't pay more for all of them combined than the cost of one new car.

With 6 cars, how's the insurance cost?

I have liability only, none of them are worth insuring for loss. Multi-car discount, and a couple of them I don't drive in the winter so I suspend the insurance for those.

How’s the registration cost? Where do you store them? How much does it cost/how much time do you spend keeping up with all of the regular maintenance?

Registration is minimal because the largest component of it is based on the value of the car. Don't ask me why that makes sense but that's how we do it. I do the maintenance myself as much as I can, it's a hobby that I enjoy (which I realize would not be the case for others).

Everyone's driving record and location is different, but on my three paid-for used cars liability-only is less than comprehensive on one cheap new car.

It helps that I haven't had a claim in 30 years.

> I own 6 cars. I didn't pay more for all of them combined than the cost of one new car.

Seven but we have 3 drivers. Cars are 1961-2011 and 63, 96 & 2011 are current daily drivers. Every so often something under 40k mi shows up on FB marketplace under $2k and we grab it.

Our car insurance includes a $200/mo FU charge for living in FL. We're at no risk of flooding and carry liability-only. The forever-skyrocketing costs of repairing other drivers' new cars - this is a force multiplier on our premium costs.

Awesome stuff about older cars: Tactile controls. No screens. Not blinding drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists (bfciia). Not ruining others' visibility with pointless oversizeness (bfciia). No telemetry. Crank windows (excpt 2011). No forced flood of accessories/features. Whatever happens, we can repair it - well.

Not awesome stuff about older vehicles: No cruise control on most of them(sigh). Higher gas consumption on the 61 and 69. The 69 does 130mph at low rpm and needs to go away. The 61 has fewer driving days because droptop. Can't see around pointlessly oversized vehicles.

It's a Wash: 30mpg from 63, 92, 96 and 2011 (89 not on road yet). Repair/Service time varies wildly on new models and is hard to compare to ours (we are 2hrs/mo)(more when tinkering for fun).

bfciia: References behavior formerly clustered in intentional aholes (but now mandated for millions of [mostly] unwilling drivers).

Is it like coffee? People say they want a coffee with a strong flavor but they then proceed to mask the coffee flavor by adding milk and sugar (or plant-based creamer and artificial sweetener).

Nobody can afford to "follow their desire" at new car price points so everyone buys blob SUVs that are the best bang for your buck.

Great post.

I think also in life your opening line can be generalized to:

It has been my experience that people .. are lying to themselves.

I think there is definitely some self delusion happening on the customer side, but automakers absolutely shape your purchasing choices away from what might be your ideal vehicle to things that are good enough vehicles for more people.

More people naturally want a RAV4 than a manual station wagon, but the automakers would prefer that even the folks leaning towards the manual station wagon leave the dealership with a RAV4 so they can just make the RAV4. So manufacturers offer nicer features it would make sense to offer in any vehicle exclusively in models they want to steer customers towards, like nicer seats, better sound systems, advanced safety features, etc. Subaru sells both the Impreza hatchback and the Crosstrek, which is literally just a lifted Impreza. But if you want non-cloth seats, roof rails, or even a spare tire, your only option is the Crosstrek. The conclusion that everyone wants crossovers is driven in no small part by the fact that buying a crossover is often the only way to get features customers want that should be, but are not, model agnostic.

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