Even more to your point, the new Camry STARTS at $30k. Granted, it’s only available as a hybrid, but still. Even the base Accord starts at $27k, and neither of them even offer a higher performance engine. 

I guess we must live in very different locales. Around here in border-town the people I see in Mirages, Versas, and Rios aren’t buying them because they’re new. They’re buying them to get around, and run them hard for as long as they can. I would say there’s ego involved with folks who feel the need to switch to the…

for 3 years of my childhood my father owned a ZDX tech. Financial issues caused him to sell it, and when we were on stable enough footing to get a nice car again, he bought an RDX A-Spec because it was “the closest new car that felt like the ZDX”

nothing wrong with an entry level new car. Some people Can NOT miss work.  “my car is in the shop” is not a reasonable excuse. So you drive the entry level car for 4-5 years. Pay it off and trade it in for something nicer after your income/credit gets better. We all start somewhere. 

I don’t know about current models but a friend bought a so stripped it didn’t even have a radio Honda Civic new in 2000 and got almost 20 years out of it before it was stolen and totaled. 

I used to feel this way. Now I feel strangely interested in base spec economy cars. Like, I kinda wanna drive coast-to-coast in a Mitsubishi Mirage, a 3 door Yaris, or a Kia Rio.

The ZDX may look a bit ungainly, but a 300HP, AWD, big hatchback really neutralize any issues with the looks. I’d check to see if the timing belt has been replaced, as those are interference engines

“I’ll take some heat for this, probably, but brand new examples of base-trim budget sedans/hatches.”

I get what your saying and I do the same for my cars. I just tracked down a 2nd gen Sequoia that was 60k new and I only paid 20k for 1 owner with no accidents. But I am comfortable doing my own work, many people don’t have the interest, knowledge, space or tools to be able to do it themselves and would rather get a…

Any car that’s all Trumped-out. You know the one. Trump bumper stickers, Trump Flags, hand-written Trump pronouncements. You just know that the driver is someone you never want to sit next to at a party.

A brand-new Infiniti QX80. There are so many better choices out there, and by “so many other choices” I mean “literally anything else”. I had the (dis)pleasure of driving one of these as a rental car and it is just as big on the outside, small on the inside, ungainly, and overpriced as I expected.

Any lifted full size pickup.

Wrangler with the “angry face” grille.

This makes the entire Russian market fall somewhere between Pennsylvania and California in terms of yearly new car sales.

My understanding is that Rivian is a direct sale like Tesla...the price is the price, unless they do what Tesla does and drop prices to be better compettive, but there is no negotiation.

I.... don’t... get it? It looks literally like a cab to a regular passenger car stuck to a frame with a bed. 

I sold my RTT because I got a dog. I put a normal shell on the back of my truck and the dog and I slept in it. Did that for a two years and got tired of having to unload and load the bed every damn day. I also got tired of sleeping with my German Shepherd. Dude is a bed hog and his shedding is insane! I camp 50-60…

My plan for bringing the dog is I’m going to add a 270-degree awning with side drop downs. Wife and kiddo can sleep “upstairs” in tent, while dog and I will be down under the closed-in awning.

I would even take a government requirement that ALL road mapping data needs to be collated into a single public repository so we don’t have five+ different companies all independently mapping the roads for themselves and their clients and we could instead possibly operate as a functioning society and act…