You’re not reading carefully enough.

$48k gets you a LUXURY CAR. You don’t need a luxury car.

Hell, a $22k Toyota of today is a hell of a lot more luxurious than a 1990s cadillac, except for the lack of leather.

I’m saying NO ONE needs to spend $48k on a new car, and if you’re complaining that cars are too expensive…

Nonsense. Most people can afford $350-460 a month for 5 years (what a good car costs on a loan with $0 down). In fact, the overwhelming majority of households can. A decent new car, as a percentage of household income, has NOT been increasing for going on 40 years now.

WELL UNDER. A $20k vehicle will run you closer to $350 with decent credit.

And a hell of a lot of people can afford that.  Historically, those aren’t high payments at all relative to household incomes.

Your friend bought a Sienna with luxury trim.

Or he’s got horrid credit.

Because you can get a very well equipped Sienna for a hell of a lot less than that.

Or buy the sub $30k model. They still exist.

Or better yet, buy the car that actually meets 99% of your needs and rent a truck for the few times you actually need one. I do that. I rent a truck on average once or twice a year. Costs me $30 or less to do so each time, and I save more than enough in gas to cover those…

That is below the long term historic average, chief, which is closer to 9 months of pay to afford a new car, or about 15% of the median household income.

And that ignores that median household income is actually a very distorting statistic - because it includes things like retired households with little to no earned…

Look it up - straight from NHTSA data a few years ago - The average new car had a life expectancy of about 15 years. And that was based off of the reliability of cars built in the 90s, which pale in comparison to today’s cars.

The fact you might not keep your cars that long doesn’t mean that cars don’t actually last…

Historically, that’s actually a smaller percentage of median income than normal for a new car.

People who think new cars are outrageously expensive either have unrealistic expectations or no grasp of historical prices.

My point, though, is that it isn’t Ford dealers who have this problem - its universal to all brands.  Hell, Honda dealers are the worst I’ve ever seen - by far.  But even there, there are a few good ones.

So what you’re saying is that if I put 95% down on a $200,000 house and have a 15 year loan at $75 a month, I can complain that cars are too damned expensive because the loan payment for car is a lot more expensive than my mortgage?

Note - I said “well under $500". At 5 years, a $20-25k car will run you $360-480 a month.

If you can’t afford that, you have no business buying a new car. Adjust that figure for inflation, and you NEVER have had any business buying a new car.

Any new car nowadays can be expected to last 15 years or more. At $25k, that…

Ford has talked about keeping cars around in “niche” markets.  Personally, I believe the Fusion would have done fine in terms of sales with the Taurus/Focus/Fiesta sales moving over to the Fusion.  But a Fusion wagon (sorry, “estate”) would be a perfect example of a niche market.  Just offer it for sale and don’t push…

$48k can get you into most of the Lexus lineup.

$600-800 a month on a 15 year mortgage is on the very low end of the housing market.

A car with that sort of monthly payment over *3* years is historically cheap, adjusted for inflation.

Your comments on service departments are by no means limited to Ford. All dealers seem to have these issues from my experience.

To their credit, though, the last Ford dealer I went to for service ($19.99 oil change, cheaper than I could do it myself) only tried to upsell me on diagnosing an oil leak. They had never…

The stupid thing is they DO still sell cars. They JUST stopped production of the Taurus. Fiesta is still going for a few more weeks. But Fusion and Mustang are still running, and Fusion has no end date. They scared off people by announcing all cars except the Mustang were being killed off.

If you look at their first…

$1000 a month? You don’t need to buy a luxury vehicle, for crying out loud.

There are TONS of very, very good options in the $20-25k range.  That’s in the $600-800 per month range over a short 36 months.  Go to even 5 years (still just a fraction of the expected life of any vehicle), and you’re well under $500 a month.

“What about drivers of the Ford Fiesta, Ford Focus, Ford Fusion? They’ll switch to other Ford products, LaNeve predicted.”

Maybe some will. I might not. Every car I’ve ever had a say in purchasing has come from a Ford factory (Taurus from Chicago, Mazda6 from Flat Rock, Fusion from Hermosillo). It isn’t that I object…

“but Ford took a particularly large bath with net revenue plummeting 34 percent. “

You kind of trash your own credibility when you publish incorrect stories like this.