Posted on 05/24/2008 8:37:44 AM PDT by Decombobulator
Jorge Fernandez strolls across the used-car parking lot littered with dozens upon dozens of sport utility vehicles the size of small tugboats.
With gas at $4 a gallon, many have sat there since last summer.
"The cars are literally just sitting, and it doesn't matter how much you sell them for," Fernandez says of the SUVs and trucks nobody wants anymore.
Fernandez, a wholesale auto dealer who has been in the business for more than 20 years, says SUV owners are hit especially hard. The really large ones with V-8 engines that can get as little as 12 miles per gallon in the city -- like the Cadillac Escalade, Ford Expedition and Chevy Suburban -- are dropping in value by the thousands.
The No. 1 reason for the sales slump is soaring gas prices, says Peter Brown, the executive director of Automotive News, the trade newspaper for the North American car industry.
"If gas prices stay where they are at or continue to rise, the body-on frame SUV is an endangered species and the pickup truck as a personal car is an endangered species," Brown says.
How do owners react when they're told their once-$40,000-plus vehicles are now worth less than half that?
"When they find out what you think their truck is worth, they think you're trying to rip them off or something," says Fernandez. "Small cars are gone within a week; SUVs are sitting here since last summer."
Stories of owners ditching larger vehicles for smaller ones have started to become widespread. Owners say they're tired of spending as much as 80 to 100 bucks to fill up their tanks.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Heck. I’d buy a Suburban for half-price.
I realize some people, like ranchers or construction workers, may need a big truck. But why we did not learn our lesson back in the 70s regarding gas guzzling vehicles and dependence on foreign oil is foolishness on our part. Americans have short memories.
We just bought a new 2008 Ford Explorer Limited, and it has a V8 engine. It’s a gas guzzler, but we are loving it. Since I live 2 miles from where I work, gas prices don’t really concern me.
could be that as we became more prosperous, we decided comfort was more important than good mileage.
Well, my Tahoe is paid for. It does eat some gas, but it gets me off my hill in the snow, I can haul antiques in it (which is what I do for a living) & I can sleep in it when we go camping. I feel safe when I’m in it & I can haul my whole family around comfortably. I’m going to keep it until it falls apart. It does hurt to fill up the tank though. :(
I’m thinking about finding a cheap, used Honda or something that does well on gas - just to commute to work & run errands in. I do think gas prices will come back down somewhat - they’ve had it in for SUV owners for some time now & I see this as part of the conspiracy to get rid of them.
I was at the PO one day sitting in the car going through my mail when a Suburban with a woman driver pulled in right next to me about 5 inches from my drivers door and immediately got out and went into the PO before I could even roll my window down. Impossible to open the door and get out.
I have a ‘02 Camaro so it’s impossible to climb out through the passenger side being 6’1”
When she finally came out and she pulled out I let her have it.
She was clueless and basically didn’t care.
I do have a pet peeve with woman drivers in large SUV’s. The young blonde trophy wives in the Hummers are the worst.
Something is wrong here. The article implies that the free market did something that government hasn’t been able to do for decades. We all know that can’t be true, though. What am I missing?
</sarcasm>
Looking at the EPA ratings, it’s not entirely rational, as far as what’s fallen completely out of favor, and what’s still selling. The new ‘09 Honda Pilot, a unibody “CUV,” is rated 18 city, 22 highway, and is touted as fuel efficient. Several of the minivans are rated about the same to slightly better. The Chevy Tahoe is rated 20 highway. If someone actually needs the interior space, it doesn’t make much sense to take a huge loss on getting rid of an SUV right now. But, if you don’t need the space, and especially if you have a long commute, it never made much sense to have an SUV in the first place. I just wonder how much of this is panic, and how much of it is practical decision making.
"No one has offered what I want," he says.
And now with KBB values available to anyone on the internet, he's probably going to soon wish he had taken some of his previous offers.
Drive 'em til the wheels fall off?
My favorites are the 17 year-old "Daddy's Little Princess" in the full-size SUV (that daddy bought so she'd be safe). All too often you'll read about them being ejected from their vehicles in rollover accidents because they couldn't be bothered to wear their seatbelts.
Double entendre time.
It is government stupidity that has driven up the price of gas.
You're lucky the ditz didn't move your car over by 5 inches.
I had one do that to me. She managed to get in between my car and another one, and found she couldn't open either door. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't get in without climbing over the center console, an acrobatic act if there ever was one. She couldn't get out, I couldn't get in, but yet she refused to simply back out so I could leave. She blamed me for a bad park job, even though there were dozens of open spaces further out in the lot, and I was there long before anyone else in that area parked. This was an unpaved lot with no space markers. She was just too lazy to walk an extra 30 feet or so. Fortunately, it was the other guy's door she scratched up trying to get out.
Its wake up time for all Americans, I am laughing at these morons that drive a $40,000 SUV or such (myself I have a paid for 2002 Silverado dually with an 8.1 Vortec)that are trying to sell what they own at the worst possible time to get more into debt again by buying ANOTHER $40,000 vehicle that gets better gas mileage, The numbers do not add up, at the best it would be years to break even, its all just the hype parade.
I will pay more per mile but at least the truck is paid for.
Let’s see. If I get a $40k Suburban for half price, that means I got $20k in gas money. A $4/gal that’s 5000 gallons. At 12 mi/gal, that’s 60k miles for “free”.
I had a great-uncle in the 70’s that would only buy one or two year old used Caddies, usually for half-price. He got to drive in comfort on the original owner’s dime.
Yes lot’s of those SUV drivers were already upside down from their prior car even before they bought the SUV. It’s sad or laughable-don’t know what to call it. The American people have lost all sense of reality when it comes to debt. “I want it now” mentality. Just like those commercials for people wanting a lump sum payment from a lawsuit or annuity. “It’s my money I want it now!!!”
Your dually is paid for so you cab always park it and an get a cheap used econobox to drive around in and sell the dually later. I figure with a duallie you are using to pull either horses, an old antique car or for work.
wait until people start walking away from the payments-there will then be an “auto industry crisis” and deadbeat borrowers with car loans will be the next thing that the Dems in congress will want to “bailout” in order to save the US auto industry.
That's kind of the way I look at it.
I bought a one-owner Amigo back in 2003, not out of any great desire for an SUV, but I needed something high, with big doors, to get my now-deceased mother-in-law, and her huge old dog, to their respective Docs.
I really don't need that anymore, but, it's paid for, well-maintained, and gets about 22 MPG- which is not bad for a heavy box, going down the road.
I look at all this new, "economy" stuff, and think, "My God, you used to be able to buy a decent house for that!"
You'd have to drive day and night, for years, before the gas savings would equal the cost.
[I]Yes lot’s of those SUV drivers were already upside down from their prior car even before they bought the SUV. It’s sad or laughable-don’t know what to call it. The American people have lost all sense of reality when it comes to debt. “I want it now” mentality. Just like those commercials for people wanting a lump sum payment from a lawsuit or annuity. “It’s my money I want it now!!!”
Your dually is paid for so you cab always park it and an get a cheap used econobox to drive around in and sell the dually later. I figure with a duallie you are using to pull either horses, an old antique car or for work.[/I]
I drive it because driving a BIGGER vehicle gives me a margin of road respect, even from the trophy wives in Hummers. I can haul almost anything I wish from a load over 2500 pounds of gravel in the bed, a 30’ fishing boat or pull starting a concrete mixer to start it in cold weather, its also my service truck and has warning lights and strobes, I commute 26 miles RT to work and in 5 days I burn a half a tank or about 17 gallons at around average of $77 a week.
If I bought an econobox I risk my life by other morons who fail to see me, I risk my life if a moose crosses the road in front of me here in Alaska and I hit it, course either way the vehicle gets damaged but my injuries could be much worse in a crumpled accordion of an econobox thats so low to the ground the moose is then thrown into the windshield and into me.
And finally I lose the respect of a well built vehicle, almost all economy cars are also economically built with lightweight materials and many years down the road are worth absolutely nothing. I see auctions of perfectly maintained fuel guzzlers with big blocks from the 50 and 60’s that sell at big auction prices. Cannot say the same about those small imports unless its a Mini Cooper or Austin Healy but they are not that good at fuel consumption either, they were sports cars.
The reality is if you cannot afford to play the game then stay out. I have friends that own big motoryachts, they pay $5.00 a MINUTE running a pair of Detroit Diesel 12 cylinder engines at cruising speed. Something like 65 gallons an hour!
My next vehicle purchase may be a diesel powered H2, or the new 450hp Camaro or a 41’ Hatteras boat, I can afford it even if fuel goes higher but not wastefully its all about priorities, you have to give up something else or get into a higher wage bracket, eliminate all other debts. My house is paid for, so is my truck, so these fuel costs are not making me go broke, they make me think about giving up the other blings in life that are not really necessary.
Please explain to me how a family with 3 small children is going to get 3 mandatory car seats into their small compact care and still be able to carry a couple of bags of groceries!!
This is just another example of the MSM trying to manipulate an action (ditch your gas guzzler) by implications. I am on the road alot and have no decline in the number of SUV’s I see, nor have I heard of anyone panicking to get rid of them.
Do it how my family did it back in the 60's. Put the smallest kid up on the rear shelf and stack couple kids on top of each other. We got by without child safety seats and that other frivilous stuff. LOL
Ever tried to fit four car seats into a minivan?
It doesn’t work too well...
My mother used to hold me on her lap while my dad drove and my older brother and sister sat in the backseat. It never occured to them that this wasn’t safe, even though baby seats were already around by that time. I am surprised we never got pulled over! I’m also thankful nothing happened.
You have too many kids = population is killing this planet and you are driving a polluting minivan to boot. (sarc)
Actually I’m overpopulating the planet and driving a SUPER-polluting Chevy Suburban. :-P
I’m going to the special hell...
Everytime you drive your Suburban a little kitten dies.
No decline because many dealers are refusing to take them in on trade or will give you very little for them so people are just keeping them for now. I drive by a local auto auction every so often and the lots of full of used SUV's rows upon rows. Hundreds of acres of them just sitting. A friend just bought a new Tahoe. The dealer was so glad to get rid of it he even threw in his quarterly rebate he gets from GM. Dealer would not take his old Tahoe in on trade. Flat out refused it.
This makes for an interesting post but the number of these drivers is statistically insignificant. I have been keeping a notebook beside me for sometime listing the number of full sized SUV’s out there and the types who are driving them. I cannot ever remember seeing someone who looked like she was 17 driving an SUV. I do not doubt that you once saw this but come on this is not a common occurrence.
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