Neutral:

Wow, the deciding vote.  I don't know if I'm up for such a responsibility.

My grandfather owned two of these consecutively after retirement, not because he wanted to mislead people thinking he was driving a Mercedes, but he was just a Ford automobile loyalist. Comet, Granada, Grand Marquis, and later Explorer, he always drove Fords. Maybe my memory is off, but I thought his later Granada had…

I bought my last used car (and still current DD) in December 2012. The vehicle was a year and a half old, 13k miles and around $3.5k off the original price. That same vehicle, if I were to be in the same situation now, would be about $7k more expensive because the starting sticker has gone up that much. If I were in…

For me, it’s not the range, it’s the charge time. When charge times become comparable to filling up a gas tank, I will consider an EV. I am single, and I still take long trips in my one and only vehicle (I hate to fly). The other issue is that I have largely lived in apartments for my adult life. Ease of charging is…

Damn, I wish that was the case when I bought my used ‘11 back in December 2012. At the time, I lived in coastal South Carolina, and there was not a new Wrangler Sport with a stick shift and no dealer add-ons (bigger tires, cosmetic aftermarket parts, roof racks, etc.) within 500 miles. I ended up buying a year-old one…

My aunt used to only buy Nissan Pathfinders, four of them in around twenty years or so, and absolutely loved them. She worked from home and didn’t have to commute, but liked the Nissan’s capability to keep her mobile through the Chicago winters. When she got a new vehicle, there was no shopping involved, it was trade…

2nd Gear:

Neutral:

Gavin Belsen also got into a Tesla in “Silicon Valley”. Considering his megalomaniacal nature of the character, maybe Musk didn’t mind the product placement.

NP.

I was at that 500.  I even thought that pace car was ugly as hell as a teenager.

Already been done.

As a Jeep owner, I can say without a doubt, that it is definitely a truck. It drives like a truck, shifts like a truck, accelerates like a truck, and the back acts as a bed if the seat is out (which mine has been for probably 110k of the 111k miles on the clock).  It also has comparable has mileage to a truck.

I bought my Jeep used from a Ford dealer. They had three vehicles that I was interested in and were within my price range. I test-drove all three without a salesperson with me on the drive, and told them I would be back the next day (I wasn’t lying or bullshitting).

Good.

There is no way in Hell I would ever pay ten grand to be able to utter the words “I drive a Maserati” when it looks like what Mike from Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul would drive if he ever took a beach weekend.

I think it would be interesting to see people’s reactions if cars today had the reliability standards of thirty or forty years ago. Muffler replacement after 20k miles. Engine life of 100k. Tune-ups and carburetor calibration. We have come a long way, even for the least-reliable vehicles for sale today.

I feel like I was misunderstood in my original comment. I wasn’t saying that the people who are behind on their payments were all reckless in their spending habits. I just meant that many (myself included at times) occasionally bite off more that they can chew financially, and that millions are a single unexpected ex…

Could part of the problem be that it’s not just the auto loan, but in combination with a $1k cell phone, $150+ cellular bill, credit cards, student loans, “keeping up appearances”, and other mis-classified wants?