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Are Automakers About To Hit The Panic Button?
There is a major problem brewing the US Auto industry... and therefore the US economy.
Automakers just unleashed a massive production surge to keep the dream alive...
With inventories at record highs (having risen for 61 straight months)...
Which would be fine if sales were keeping up - but they are not...
And now the subprime auto loan market is set to collapse...
And here's why stock markets should care...
To sum up...
The only way automakers are making sales is by lowering credit standards to truly mind-numbing levels.... that cannot last.
China's economic collapse has crushed forecasts for the automakers.
Inventories are already at record highs.
And July saw a massive surge in producton.
What comes next is simple... a production slump - just ask The Atlanta Fed.
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Went to a dealer looking for a jeep, found a great used jeep and after fanagling on price and settling on a price ... wrote a check for $6k and saved $33k on the sticker price for a new one. $33k savings buys a lot of gas and the 100k plus miles I'll be able to put on it is more than enough before I'll want something different. CD changer/player doesn't work in the back... I don't give a shit... the one on the dash works fine.
The taxpayer funded gubmint will just order a few million new ones to replace there aging year old fleet!
Plus with the new generational auto loans soon to come, it will be a new car for everyone.
Sure, look ma, no bills!
the last new car I purchased was in 1991, paid off in 4 months, no way for me to do that today. Drive a 1998 Chevy Astro mini-cargo van for 12 years, daily driver, rain, hail, snow and shine with nearly 250k miles. Bought a used 1992 Toyota 4Runner about a year ago, fixed it up and my nice car.
"Ben, I have one word for you . . .are you listening? REPOMAN. Repoman. Think about it."
A chicken in every pot. A GM in every driveway. Problem solved!
Make mine an Escalade please.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/cadillac-escalade.html
Forgot the potluck, ask for a bumper to bumper extended warranty. Free of charge.
you like the people killer gov. motors?
OT
Has anyone posted this Hillary Email video yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prls6Iz3B3E
That's Hillarious!
Serious stuff.
Priceless!
Thanks! Awesome!
Funny stuff, and required viewing imo, Miss E. I don't speak German, but I think I will start saying "Scheisskopf" instead of its overused English equivalent. More expressive, more satisfying in every way.
The US has been manufacturing cars to keep people employed and to prop up the economy. China has been building their "Ghost Cities" for the same reason. All this over production with no car sales is reaching a critical state. The explosion of cars in China indicates how bad car sales have gotten.Worst thing to have in a deflationary cycle is DEBT.
First they will hike the prices because of China.
there's nothing wrong with buying a new car if you have the money and feel like spending it on one. there is still some freedoms left in america. the problem we have here is pumping velocity to keep the train moving which is inevitably going to go off the cliff. every economy thinks they can export their way out of their socioeconomic problems but pray tell who's on the other side of that equation if no one is? .gov and their financial gimmickry.
don't look at me, i'm driving my old shit until they rot or are unrepairable
I bought a Citroen AX 1994 for 300 euros. very lowmileage and gets 45 MPG. I can't still change the oil and fix it like normal car and its UNHACKALBE. Tires are cheap, and so are all othe parts.
Try doing your own work with a NEW CAR.
Yes agreed, I like being able to open up the bonnet on my car and actually being able to see the plugs etc, I just do oil every 6,000k's with a new filter, plugs every 40,000k's and transmission oil at about the same, throw some fuel injector cleaner in the tank, check the belts and crap, chuck a new battery in every couple of years and I'm done.
The problem is going to be what the hell do I replace it with that I can actually do minor maintenance on without having to put it in for $500 services twice a year?
Warning about injector cleaner in tank. If you tank is dirty, .....................well, you get the picture.
Better to pull injectors and clean separately.
Warning about injector cleaner in tank. If you tank is dirty, .....................well, you get the picture.
Better to pull injectors and clean separately.
Yes you are right, but I'm lazy, seems to have been OK for the last 12 years...and I'm getting to that mileage that I could be in for some new ones anyhow.
"Bonnet" all the way from England are we , how is it over thier not been back in 25 years.
Still wet, cold and miserable, your not missing much :)
CASH FOR CLUNKERS 2.0 , but better double it.
CASH FOR CLUNKERS 4.0
I'll get a new car if they give it to me free and charge it to Bernanke. Fuck You Ben
Surely the FED could just create money out of thin air and give it to some corporation to buy all the new cars, seems to be what they have done with every other aspect of the economy.
fed aka corrupt gov. has been buying the sheit out of the people killer car company gov motors to keep this pos going
I believe 59% of last quarters auto sales were GOVERNMENT bought. unsustainable.
.gov turds in new vehicles are all over the place.
Forward Soviet!!
Push, drag, or tow in your old car and we'll put you a NEW vehicle TODAY! Complete with an 84 month payment book in the glove box. Well sure, you'll be upside down the entire 84 months, but YOU are getting a NEW car TODAY!
Expect more car-becues this weekend.
I'm out for a while bitchez!
Still driving my 1992 5-speed Toyota pickup. 313,000 miles, runs like a champ.
nice job keeping her running...those were great trucks and still carry a premium and looked great...i'm strictly manual tranny myself
I have a friend who hates automatic transmissions as much as I do. He says anything less than 3 pedals is not really a car :-)
automatics here in Europe are an option. Most people enjoy driviing their cars. Not the cars driving them.
Thats why we don't detune cars here or have them softly sprung like the cars we send to the USA with its crappy roads.
Manual transmission is way better on icy road anyway.
Don't drag (queen) Michelle into this discussion.
Good Job Lin - My 1998 Toyota truck with 5 speed manual has 206 K miles and runs like it will last forever. She is a little rusty and dented but runs like new.In addition to saving money, I am Fucking the state out of 6 percent sales tax on a new vehicle. Maryland is truly a money grubbing shithole.
BTW - May I ask what oil and filter you run? I use Amsoil synthetic and factory oil filters.
O
Fram oil filters and Quaker State synthetic oil...
Fram used to be great..20 years ago.
Now it's the worst garbage in n the market.
I would advise you to do a little research and switch.
In the same price range Purolator is much better, but Go up a few bucks and get a STP.
Fram is known as the orange can of death by automotive enthusiasts. Unknowingly installed a Fram filter on my SSEI - ruptured engine gaskets and seals. Cost $1200 to fix. Lesson learned.
Good advice, will do and thanks!
AC Delco and Mobil1 5w30 syn, Shell or Chevron/Texaco gas only ... replaced the heads on my engine recently at 70k miles, cleanest pistons you've ever seen ...
Didn't they put the AX-15 tranny in those?
Illusion, delusion, confusion only for retards.
Yes, look at China, morons.
America is #1!
Sometimes I feel like Bugs Bunny mocking Elmer Fudd on this site.
What's up doc?
Are you really this stupid?
A $5,000 treasury check for everyone will fix the inventory glut.
They need to have mysterious fires in the auto storage places.
I think it's called "Jewish Lightning"
Yep, I still all it that. Fuck kikes and their "PC"
time to burn or push some more into the ocean I guess
Remember cash for clunkers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System
The first bailout of the car industry.
i want a new car but can only pay $3000 for it not more
The last time I purchased a new car for under $3000 was in 1968. And it was an intermediate size (116 inch wheelbase), not some pregnant roller skate. Good luck.
There will be a huge glut of used cars soon...
The spread between new and used coming soon - will be the largest in 20 years - between the defaults, rentals terminating, and the state government market purchases being supported by the Fed terminating - it will be a blood bath
everyone who believes they are getting a good deal on new - is looking at the wrong thing - its not discount off of MSRP out of the showroom to value the deal - but the loss that you will take on the used market - 3 years out of the show room - implosion coming
There are a lot more abandoned airfields where they can store all this new cars so just keep producing !!
There are a lot of places like the following image on earth.
https://www.google.nl/search?q=new+cars+on+airfields&source=lnms&tbm=isc...
Geweldig.. schitterende
Wow. All those cars on the runways are like USTs on the Fed's balance sheet.
Simple to fix inventory to sales numbers. Blow up the inventory.
Yes -and make it look like a terrorist attack -to collect insurance and actually make a nice profit. Surely they do not have terrorist attack, act of war exclusion on their coverage. Even larry Silverstein was double insured for acts of terrorism. And he made billions on 911. How ironic that 3000 people and their families suffer such tragegy on 911 and Larry Silverstein makes billions. Rich Jews lives are truly blessed by the Almighty. As Blankfein says -they are doing God's work - and are being rewarded by God for doing so. Surely these are the Chosen people.
It is reasonable to think that the unrecoverable trillion dollar student loan debt has gone partially toward the unrecoverable sub-prime auto loans.
My car's only 32 years old. I'm not ready for a new one yet. Maybe in a few years I'll upgrade to something with a tape deck.
I'm with you, Dr. G. My current ride is a 1972 BMW, not a show car, but a solid daily driver in B-plus condition. If I ever had to replace it (No! No! No!), I would definitely stick with something pre-cupholder. Not sure about the 8-track.
I got about a hundred cassette tapes available, got "I wear my sunglasses at night" and good ol stuff like that ...
Exactly. My vehicle is 18 years old. Woul;dn't even think about a new car. Higher insurance, going into debt (big fuck no), have to worry about it getting dented, etc, etc. Just not worth it.
Driving a 22 year old Corolla. When your rocker panels start to rust out spray a little bit of that yellow household foam inside the rusted out holes. Fills the inside, waterproofs the whole thing from the inside, and holds everything together. Just trim whatever pops out of the holes. It's paintable too.
Just roll out Cash 4 Clunkers v.2 and everything will be fine. Right? Right?
Onward with the artificially inflated "economy", if you can even call what we have an economy these days.
I'd love for the car makers to hit rock bottom.
Ima love to buy one of the neo-version muscle cars like the new 700 HP GT500 Shelby Cobra or the Challenger SRT Hellcat. Just for shits and giggles. Seriously, they are pretty awesome. Twice the HP of the 60's versions and with digital handling. Even a caveman can drive one. And we will.
they really know what they're doing don't they? No wonder the CEOs and board of directors and executive management is paid so well /snark
Subprime blowouts.
My buddy has an resellers auction license and year old loaded pickups 50-60k new to broke dummies sell to saavy dealers with cash for 15 -20k.
He gets some Harleys really cheap too.
His saying is "Your broken heart is my bread and butter".
Several years back I got a 12 month contract and I needed a car. After reviewing all my options, I ended up rentng for a year from Enterprise. They had a 2+ month lease program and I negotiated a deal that meant I was paying 20% less than the cheapest lease deal I could find at the local dealers. Except the lease was a minimum two years and required a lot more paperwork and out of pocket expenses. When I told my (very jewish) accountant I was doing that, she had a fit until I showed her the deal. The best part was that I could swap cars every other month and I didn't worry about maintenance or any other annoying shit. I drove pontiacs, mazdas, jeeps and ford SUVs and enjoyed every one of them.
TSLA issues 1/2 Bil in new stock with 31 Bil market cap and people stop buying cars and TSLA goes exponentially up. Its hard to be The Bear in this climate.
We just paid $16,488 (cash) for a new car with a MSRP of $20,100 (2015 honda civic). It was the first offer from the dealer's online offer-system; we didn't bother doing the "relentless bargaining" thing; it was already way lower than our credit union's buying-service deal. We're a one-car family, and our last honda civic lasted 19 years and was still fine except for little things. The dealership had/has a monstrous number of 2015s on the lot. They are absolutely desperate to unload them.
I miss the old car, though. All this electronic stuff is gross, and the rear/side visibility sucks. Have to have total reliability if you just have one car and occasional emergencies, so it couldn't be helped.
doubled
Just about to Crash!
Crash is comming any day now, almost crashed. Crash is obvious and MUST happen. Crash is a Fact it is already going on!
YAWN!
Fear spreading.
Same crap everyday since gold started to drop :) That was 4 years ago. Nothing crashed, life is going on slowly as alwasy, tommorow i have to buy bread and going to work on monday. Nothing crazy.
Once a week or so there is one nice article. The rest is just a junk.
ZeroH is a bit like an advertisement i see everyday since like 4 years. Ad says to visit some site and apply for job in my specialization. But i never visited this site.
Gold is not going up.
Palladium price: 1998:400$, 2003:300$, 2008:~400$, 2013:700$, 2015:600$
Gold price: 1998:300$, 2003:300$, 2008:800$, 2013:1300$, 2015:1100$.
Gold used to behave same as palladium or almost same, since 2008$ ppl started going crazy OMG crash :), crash happening for last 8 years *sarcasm* That so called crash is normal day since 8 years.
Gold should go down to 600$. Atm gold price is artifically high.
Look around you. Car market already crashed. Average age of car in US dropped from 6 to 13 years, cars per household collapsed, driven miles dropped 60% from 2007. Cars truly sold are about 9 millions (from 19 in 2007) and the rest is stored and crashed. See ZH story about hidden manufacture car inventory to keep people employed. I will not mention dealer inventory that car companies guaranteed buyback plus cost of the lot.
Look at corporate yields, they are borrowing like crazy and put it on huge off the balance sheet fake companies.
Look at state and federal subsidies and mandates, look at ninja car loans all that to artificially increase demand. Homeless and jobless can now buy Bentley with no money down and ZIR for decade.
Look at manufacturing recommendations for oild changed from 3k to 5k to 12k to 20k 6 month, a year or 2 or four years just to cover up the fact that people are too poor to even change oil since they are going nowhere daily. No family formation so no upgrades to bigger cars or minivans.
When demand collapse due to income collapse and destructions of savings of any kind including retirement and rampant food and rent inflation it cannot be all’s well in the auto land.
But I guest this is to boring for you.
By the end of 2017, GMH Holden, Ford and Toyota will no longer be manufacturing cars in Australia. Our Conservative government has woken up to the fact that you cannot keep subsidising a failing industry forever.
I hardly think that this is a good indication of prosperous times ahead.
By the way, those three manufscturers make up our entire car manufacturing industry, and therefore after 2017 it will be dead and buried.
They could still make cars albeit at higher prices and lower production levels. The unproductive poor should thank god for buses and the Zyklon B scarcity.
How about another cash for clunkers? This time off $5,000 off.
Cars are the new houses.
I am waiting for the subprime loans to start in the motorcycle industry.....so I can ride off into the sunset...and enjoy my midlife crisis..
I did that very thing last spring. I paid the note on the bike and it was mine. It's nice and I stole it.
So you want to sell a Bike, nice bike?
Why not list it on ZH Classifieds??
Hm... Is there an exchange for Bikes in the USA?
There is a lack of affordable new cars on the market. Pretty sketchy market and WAY overpriced for what you get.
Maybe the plan with Cuba is to give them some fiats for all of their old American cars? There will probably some Cuban foreign aid packages proposed soon at the minimum. We can give them all of those brand new electric car pieces of shit that have been produced recently as an example of fair trade and environmental stewardship.
Maybe they already did
Son, did you ever check out the leggs and lips of the bearded lady?
And did I ever tell you that after you got hired on wall street you could do as much coke and hookers as you like?
As goes the auto industry, so goes the US economy!
It is a time to invent a new way of hoovering around.
Or to give every African family in Africa a car.
Check out the prices for what you get and that is base model trim. I looked at a few of these cars and I can't do it. It's financial suicide to finance a vehicle because you lose both ways. I have owned a quite a few 500 dollar specials and you can get some value from them if you can do some simple wrenching and have a code reader.
http://www.autobytel.com/top-10-cars/least-expensive-cars/coupes/
For you young guys out there I have some advice for you if you want a decent option for transportation. Find a earlier 2000's Chrysler Town and Country that is in good shape with lower miles. There are numerous reasons why owning a van is smart and utility is one of them. Over the past five years, I have owned two T&C's from that vintage and I sold one for profit and the wife is still driving the other. I fixed the AC and everything works. Those vans are heavy and they handle well in questionable conditions.(Minnesota roads in winter) Instead of an SUV, the Chrysler TC is where it is at and it gets better gas mileage.
I have liked both Mopar 3.3 liter engines so far. I hate the GM 3.4 liter. NEVER buy a GM with that 3.4 engine because the intake manifold gaskets go to hell and it's not an easy or inexpensive fix. Since I have owned two of the T/Cs I can't really find too much to bitch about that is abnormal compared to other manufacturers and I find the value to be there. You might look like a soccer mom but actually the "mini-van" is the best vehicle to own for a young man or any man. It's heavy, it can haul all of your stuff at once and keep the rain off, the seats can be removed to haul sheet goods for shorter distances if you are fixing on a home, you can haul your kids, get groceries, etc.
The older Chrysler TC's are a nice van to have in good running condition. They made a lot of those vehicles and it's lowbrow kin known as the Dodge Caravan. Essentially it is the same vehicle but the trim and options are much nicer in the Chrysler TC so you might as well have the options. Buyer beware. DYODD.
Buy tools.
Losses On Subprime Auto Bonds Reached 6.6% Last Month http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-11/here-s-one-sign-of-tro...
What's credit?
Easy to explain this over production because soon a lot of americans have to live in a car, can't afford a house.
Easy to explain this over production because soon a lot of americans have to live in a car, can't afford a house.
So they've been stockpiling cars again, if nobody buys them, you crush them, report a loss get the tax credits, and make new ones out of the scrap and start again.
Is that easy? Why not just not make any cars and report the same loss?
What is gained by assembling and then crushing a car?
Actually, what happens is they don't crush the cars. They sell them to the government. I mean the taxpayer.
The problem with the US auto market is that lower middle class people want to buy too expensive vehicles compared to their incomes. The consequence is that people choose very long loan terms (although low interest rates may contribute) or that people postpone purchases of new vehicles.
In Switzerland, people buy cars such as the VW Golf although they can afford more expensive cars. In the US, people buy full-size pickup trucks like the Ford F-150 or the Chevrolet Silverado despite the fact that entry-level versions of these vehicles are about 60 to 70 % more expensive than the VW Golf. And Americans are not on the average 60 to 70 % richer than people in Switzerland.
It seems as if at least Ford is preparing for a future with more sales of less expensive and/or more fuel efficient vehicles. That is probably why they replaced the E-Series/Econoline with the Transit.
Furthermore, longer loan terms are more suited to durable cars. So the aluminum body of the Ford F-150 model blends well with the current trend towards longer loan terms. If this means that Americans will prefer used F-150s to new vehicles from other automakers I guess that the result will not be less sales for Ford. But I guess that the general improved longevity of cars and trucks will reduce the sales figures somewhat. I don´t know to which extent sales of spares will improve if cars get older. The demand for body parts will probably decrease with aluminum bodies. I doubt that owners of old aluminum bodied vehicles want to pay for expensive repairs if the body doesn´t rust. So I suspect that the dealerships won´t benefit from a transition to aluminum bodies. The big winners are probably the consumers.
I think that governments all round the world should have imposed small tax breaks for aluminum body vehicles long ago. Unitary body cars should not be made of steel. Especially in the past, when cars generally had a rather poor protection against rust, aluminum would have made sense. Unfortunately, the extra cost of aluminum bodies was hard to combine with the limited purchasing power of European consumers. And the longevity of drivelines in the past did not match the longevity of aluminum bodies. The only automakers which perhaps could have replaced steel with aluminum were Mercedes-Benz and producers of ultra-expensive cars (some expensive Italian sports cars, like the 1968-69 Ferrari Dino 206 GT and the 1957-64 Maserati 3500 Superleggera, featured aluminum bodies). It is no coincidence that the first mass produced aluminum body car was the top-of-the-line Audi, the A8. If Volvo in the late 1960s had continued its strategy to prioritize durability to everything else I guess that more affordable aluminum bodied cars could have been launched as early as in the 1970s. But since it is more expensive to make an aluminum body as safe as a steel body and Volvo had begun to prioritize safety I guess that the 1970s would have been too early for an aluminum Volvo. But I think that Volvo made a mistake when they did not give the new XC90 an all-aluminum body.
A lot more vehicles are getting plastic body parts closer to the ground to avoid rust. I have always wondered why car makers don't just make those parts easily removable or replaceable even in steel or aluminum. But of course, a 10 year old rust bucket needs to be replaced, while a 10 year old car without rust just needs a tune-up.
The problem with the US auto market is that lower middle class people want to buy too expensive vehicles compared to their incomes.
Wasn't that a big part of the mortgage problem?
"The problem with the US auto market is that lower middle class people want to buy too expensive vehicles compared to their incomes."
Actually, your statement is an interesting one. I would say that you have to ask yourself where that decision actually comes from. Automotive tastes are nurtured by the marketing folks. It's just not cool to have crank down windows, and the lack of all the rest of the typical anemities they pile in. But it's almost a necessity for the manufacturers to include all those extras, to make the margins necessary to run their operation. For instance, try walking onto a US car lot and ask to look at their two wheel drive pickup trucks. You won't find any. Most people in the US need four wheel drive like a fish needs a bicycle. How about 4x4 pickups in Florida that never go off road? And trailers were towed just fine with two wheel drive for years. The government adds a LOT of cost to cars. A lot of what the government forces into cars is not necessary. But people are brainwashed to accept it. And there's the key. Because I agree with you, most people buy more than they really need when they buy a car. By just saying "no", things will be forced to change. It's called "free markets" driven by informed consumers. The government will have to back out, or watch the entire industry fold due to high costs. Ten year car loans is not a solution. I'll bet on the government screwing it up.
"By just saying "no", things will be forced to change. It's called "free markets" driven by informed consumers. "
Oh, yeah. Just TRY walking into a car lot and insisting that because you are under 5' tall, an airbag is a SAFETY HAZARD in your vehicle. That you don't need or want power windows, an onboard computer and entertainment system, or a stereo, and the only child-proofing you require is a cage in the back cargo deck for emergency use. The consumer has no control over what features do or do not come with a car, unless he/she/it is willing to order directly from the factory, wait six months or longer for the order to be produced, file mounds of paperwork in the matter of the airbags, and pay outrageous shipping charges -- not to mention having to buy this item brand spanking new, which is the worst waste of money in terms of automobile purchase as you lose half your equity the instant you drive off the lot.
At least my 1997 Suburu doesn't have an automatic "emergency" transponder tracking my location everywhere I go. Yet.
Faeriedust:
“[- - -] The consumer has no control over what features do or do not come with a car, unless he/she/it is willing to order directly from the factory, wait six months or longer for the order to be produced [- - -]”
My comments:
In Europe, more cars are ordered directly from the factory than in the US. The dealer inventory is generally a lot smaller in Europe.
It seems as if Swiss consumers are less inclined than American consumers to buy vehicles they don´t really need.
Power windows are now generally standard equipment even in economy-class cars in Europe. Air condition, too. The extra cost price of power windows is probably less than $50. It doesn´t make a vehicle much more expensive. Ordinary air condition units without climate control are bit more expensive but I reckon that most consumers who have experienced cars both with and without air condition don´t want deny themselves air condition. But up to the late 1990s Swedish consumers generally preferred more horsepower to air condition. They chose the optional GLT package with 30 extra horsepowers but the same amount of piston displacement and torque for their Volvo 850s rather than air condition. It almost seems as if automakers in Europe initially had to force air condition on the consumers. I suspect that it was more cost efficient from a production point of view to let both European and American versions have air condition as standard equipment and that this contributed to make air condition regular standard equipment.
Amazing. A genuine contribution to the understanding of auto markets and how economic and profit considerations interact with government mandates and consumer needs. Am I correct in guessing that you are actually Swedish? American schools rarely produce this combination of intelligent thought and expression.
80 % of the text books in engineering, business administration, marketing and economics used at Swedish universities are American. The lectures are generally summaries of the text books. Swedish instructions and manuals for laboratory lessons are not better than American equivalents. I would rather say that they probably are a bit more sloppy than their American equivalents at some universities. But generally I assume that Swedish university educations are about the same as their American equivalents.
However, I know that an American female student who had paid for education at the Söderturn University (one of the worst universities in Sweden) sued the university for poor quality. It was so obvious that the education was crap but Swedish laws did not allow the university or the government to refund tuition payments no matter how bad the education was.
The Swedish 9-year compulsory school and high school education are now a disaster according to the latest PISA studies. About half of the student can not speak Swedish. Student are playing with their smart phones during the lessons or screaming to each other. Well, maybe I´m exaggerating somewhat. But believe me, Sweden is a country headed south. The reason why Sweden so far has not faced more serious problems is that it doesn´t take great efforts to export wood and pulp to Europe. But as more people will have share this steady source of income the GDP per capita figures will most likely not grow like in the past. Therefore, Sweden is probably a country headed south. (I guess this was slightly off-topic.)
Excessive production of anything is a First World Problem if there ever was one. How many cavemen ever worried about overproduction of bear meat and caves?
Can't the car makers just hit the brakes on production?
oh wait ...wait ...their brakes don't work (!!)
Unintended acceleration!
Your cash in your account in the Bank.
Bailed in!
In lieu take 1/2/3/... cars
Problem solved
Time to start an automotive repo business.
2015 is a UAW contact year and 2011 was the last UAW contract year. The car companies always build inventory leading into contract negotiations. All of the dealer lots are full in the event negotiations falter. Look at the charts again comparing 2011 and 2015 inventory builds.
Indeed. The reason for the production ramp is to use as a bargaining tool in the ongoing UAW negotiations. Every time the industry is threatened with a strike it ramps up production and builds inventory. This is a padding against a strike, and also a demonstration to the UAW that the industry can withstand a strike. In similar circumstances in past years the auto manufacturers have filled the desert around Phoenix with thousands and thousands of new cars in anticipation of strikes.
DMV are subcontractors. Prisoners create free license plates, and the State charges 800% mark-up.
Nice one here. Park this rig in your suburban cul-de-sac and let your neighbors know what is up. Better yet, start wrenching on it with impact wrenches at 6:00 AM on a Sunday!;-) Seriously, I can't believe that a man can find this much steel for sale anymore at the price asked. Too far to go get for me but some ZHer in the outlying Chicago area it would be worth a look.
If you keyboard commandos out there are aware that if you ever really want a true revolution then you are going to need trucks like these to do it and a lot of them. This is a market oriented site and these trucks are not always going to be available. I see them dissappearing at an alarming rate.
I realize that not everyone is going to see the value that I see in these old haulers. They are beat up but if you can wrench you can make them come to life. To me, they are a thing of beauty. I don't care if everything does not work perfectly anymore because that is not the point. Fix it. After all, I am not bringing a fucking Prius to the fight.
'not bringing a fucking Prius to the fight'
Like driving a white flag...
Check out the original 1960 Ford Galaxie in this one. That car has class. If it was produced today I bet the MSRP would be $249,000 plus first born.
https://archive.org/details/Wonderfu1960
It was a world that most of us young' uns never got to live in.
Deekras (dears), USA car companies make mostly junk and are supported by USA government. On a level playing field, most fo them would not even be around today. It is all nonsense to think that this industry is going to pull USA out of hot water. Japanese and German technology is already way ahead. Face facts - the industry in USA is dying fast.