Not really. Since mass production cars take a bit less of a depreciation hit, the lease rates on those types of cars are pretty staggering. I could get a Fiesta ST fully loaded for $23,935 per Ford's website. Their estimated lease payment with $2,494 down is $222/month. If I were to finance that with the same…

You sure? Go spec out a Sierra Denali, then you think the guy/girl buying that truck might have a wife/husband, so they would want something nice too, maybe a CTS or ATS, or more likely, the Buick Encore.

It is very VERY far. Your friend was trying to keep his car because he knew he wouldn't be able to finance another one and he was "upgrading" it because he doesn't know what "financial responsibility" is.

I would definitely be interested. If the car has a warranty that lasts the lease period. On my Volvo, my payment was originally in the $400 range to pay it off in 3 years. On top of that, it came out of its very long 60 month warranty during my second year of ownership. This was a used car when I bought it I guess…

The other thing you're missing though is the fact that many consumers had their credit destroyed within the last 5 years, and auto sales slumped hard during that time. A bunch of people didn't just die off, so those people will eventually need to buy newer forms of transport. I feel like "record sales" are always…

How do you define "most"? I took a loan term that was longer because the interest was the same. I was planning to pay it off in 36 months anyways, but I had the insurance if my situation changed to pay less. I paid off a 60 month loan in 36 months.

Who is keeping tabs of the "Type" of person taking 84 month loans? I'm sure there are some consumers who don't know anything about it and are making an irresponsible decision, but there are others who this credit is helping to get a reliable piece of transportation and still hedge on a shaky economy. If the car is…

Exactly this. I took a 60 month loan. I paid it off in 36 months. That loan allowed me some flexibility if I lost my job or had some other unexpected large expense occur, which thankfully did not.

Can we at least have an Automatch-Tom rebuttal like SOTU address? You argue by omission in this blog post. Sigh, this is about as good as CNN or Fox News.

They have a clause in the paperwork saying your rate can't go up with the snapshot, but there would definitely be some people at home base re-thinking that

Wish I would have known this two years ago. I spent 6 months driving like an idiot trying to eek out some discount. I got 5% off, and I had learned the limits on that thing to where I knew when it was going to beep before it happened. I'm not sure what roads you have to drive on in order to get the max 10 or 15%…

As an engineer, I really appreciate the work that went into this. Also as an engineer, I would want to shoot the marketing guy that said "we need to show this to the public, NOW!" 9 years ago. I hardly knew that Ford was making another GT and now I find out they will RACE IT THIS YEAR. Also, that same company that…

This makes not getting all the manual RWD wagons imported to the US worth it.

I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but you nailed it.

Nobody knew who he was in the first place in the US, so saying he was 4 time world champion of something few people cared about really boosted the perception of Infiniti as an Also-Ran.

Maybe it wouldn't seem so bad if you just put a Camry next to it.

They need to make a convertible version just to rub it in the face of Nissan.

Neutral: An anonymous reporting system is a good start, but someone still has to decide whether to fix the cars specified in the tips that come in through any reporting system. In this case, the PR team is probably dominating the "fix stuff" budget right now, so of course the guy gets lunch with the CEO. Makes for a…

You need to have the screen as close to the natural driving sight line as possible, to do that and "incorporate into a nice looking space" you would have to either plop it in somewhere above the center console or design an accommodating dash that smoothly contours around the thing. I don't see any way to do the…

Disagree. It's already difficult to see around those behemoths when they don't have 9" of ground clearance that absolutely nobody that owns a current explorer actually needs. It should be the Everest, and it should be on sale here in limited numbers.