
A record 7M Americans are 3 months behind on their car payments - montalbano
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/12/record-million-americans-are-months-behind-their-car-payments-red-flag-economy/
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Ancalagon
"Some cars are installed with devices that prevent the car from turning on if
someone misses a payment and it has become easier to geo-locate a car to tow
it away."

Well that's terrifying. Even more of a reason to buy used, older cars with
less mileage.

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philwelch
You've never heard of the repo man? If you hold property that is collateral
for a loan, you don't really own the property; the lienholder has extensive
legal rights in the case of default.

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dwd
Just speculating... How many of these are ride-share drivers who purchased a
new car for that purpose and can no longer meet payments once the driver
market became saturated and fares dropped?

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justboxing
> How many of these are ride-share drivers who purchased a new car for that
> purpos

Don't think it's that much. Ride-share companies ( Uber and Lyft) allow
drivers to lease vehicles from them for as low as $170 / week, so unlikely
that there are that many drivers have bought cars on loan for this purpose.

Source: My friend here in SF who leases from Lyft.

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kop316
You do realize $170/week is $680/month, and for leasing that is extremely
high.

I shudder to think what the high end is if you say "as low as"

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cosmie
It's high compared to a typical lease, but a typical lease also generally
includes significant penalties if you go over 10,000 - 12,000 miles per year.

$680 isn't unreasonable considering the accelerated rate of depreciation and
wear & tear that would come with the amount of miles a full time rideshare
driver is going to accumulate. And will be mostly all tax deductible, due to
the bulk of mileage being business travel.

~~~
kop316
I have never driven for lyft, so my follow on question would be assuming 20
hr/week and 40 hr/week, what is the average and std dev of the wages of a
typical lyft driver?

I ask because though that is a good point, that is dangerously close to
indebting a lyft driver to the company. Make them pay a huge cost for a car,
and they have to drive more to make up for it.

To put it in a different context, my loan for a $20k car over years was
$450/month.

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Simulacra
I’m curious, how many of you out there Pay off your car loan and keep the car
for many years, without buying a new one or upgrading?

~~~
pkaye
Just go rid of my first car that lasted 20 years. Currently we have two cars
which are 7 years old. Hope to keep them till they are 20 years old.

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jdlyga
From what I know about history, the middle class in America has been having
problems with debt since at least the early 1800s.

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sct202
A related trend, is that the length of the car loans is also increasing. 84
month loans are not uncommon now.

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vivekd
Couldn't get past the paywall even by clicking on web so I read the story here

[https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-auto-
loans...](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-auto-loans-behind-
red-flag-20190212-story.html)

it says

>There was a marked difference in delinquency rates between bank vehicle loans
and dealer-financed loans as well, the feds noted, with 6.5% of the dealer-
originated loans being 90 or more days past due, compared with just 0.7% of
such loans granted by credit unions, the Federal Reserve noted.

I'm not American so I'm not familiar with how you guys do things down there;
but is it possible that this whole thing came about as a result of dealers
handing out easy loans as a way to move inventory?

I mean the risk is relatively low for them right, they can always repossess
the car and resell it themselves so it seems worthwhile for them to finance
everyone even if they have no hope of keeping up with their payments. Heck
even here in Canada one of the local dealers has a radio jingle that goes "no
credit checks, no credit checks, we finance everyone." It seems foreseeable
that practices like that, when done at scale could result in a large quantity
of loans sitting in arrears

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perfmode
Employment rate is such a perverse metric.

Our metric must take into account the quality of employment as well.

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westmeal
If people just learned the basics of maintaining and repairing vehicles they'd
save themselves thousands of dollars by buying auctioned off used cars and
repairing it. Same thing for taking it for a shop for maintenance...

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mywittyname
Some states require dealers licenses to participate in auctions. But if you
know a guy with a license, you can score amazing deals (which are only amazing
because of the limited pool of bidders).

I think _knowing_ how to fix cars is valuable, but I don't think doing
maintenance yourself generally pays off. I'm pretty handy with a car, but the
only maintenance I do myself are brakes and batteries. Tires require special
tools, so those are out for the shade-tree, same with suspension (which
requires alignments after installation). I've found that oil changes, air
filters, wiper blades can be done at the dealer for about the cost of parts
(at least for my Ford and Toyota).

Now, as far as fixing repairs. Most mechanics, especially at dealerships, will
toss parts at the problem. So knowing how to research the problem can help
save you a boat load of money, even if you do none of the physical work
yourself, since you can come in and ask for them to perform some specific fix.
Additionally, lots of sensors are easy fixes if you can follow direction on
YouTube/forums.

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zerohp
Suspension maintenance is not out of the question for the home mechanic. You
can align the suspension to an accuracy that's safe to drive for short
distances at low (not highway) speed. All you need is a level, a tap measure,
and a little bit of high school math. I have saved quite a bit of money doing
this.

Edit: Of course, you'll want to drive it to an alignment shop right away.

~~~
justtopost
I routinely win bets with alignment guys doing string and plumbob alignments
on level concrete. Its not hard, as much as it is laborous.

