Lower-Income Americans Are Missing Car Payments | Inflation and a tough job market are making it harder for some people to pay back the car loans they signed in better times.

• they have mobility needs that are incompatible with local transit and/or make typical cars more expensive.
• they have family/other needs that mean they need a safer, more reliable car.
• they will lose their job if they are ever late, so need to prioritize reliability.
• they work multiple jobs, and/or have other requirements (child care, elder care, etc) that are incompatible with transit in their area and/or cannot be out off while a car is getting repaired.
• they are unable to DIY repair older used cars, cannot accommodate potentially extreme repair bills, and can't assess if an older car is reliable to buy in the first place.
• the financing company will not give them a loan for something that doesn't have enough value to avoid depreciating past the point of recouping losses over the life of the lease.
• the insurance company will not insure older cars at a rate that is doable for the driver.
• they don't have the lump sum savings to buy a car outright, and loans are the only way to go to be able to continue to live and meet their life demands.

I don't think I have read anything less true. I own 5 cars, 4 of which I bought post covid. The most expensive one was 5100, and it's a bloody sports car.

20-50k worth?

The last couple of cars I bought,

A Toyota with 200k miles still runs well and everything works 7 years later with 50k more miles. Repairs include radiator, CV axle, and alternator. -$3300

A Nissan G35, a complete piece of junk, broke down in less than a year with 170k miles, and not worth repairing because it has multiple issues, wiring, bad sensors, early signs of failing transmission, multiple electronic things not working, -$1000

Foxbody mustang, just about to get, 90k miles needs shocks and other stuff, but is a cool car. 5.0 5speed, garage kept, $4000 but definitely not a car for people who don't want to work on it due to it's age. It has decently good bones built Inca time where American cars were much better made.

The Toyota is of course the best, ultra reliable, great power and fuel economy, but terribly difficult to find used for a good price. I had to look at 10 different ones before I found one that hadn't been wrecked and drove straight.

Nissan is a pretty terrible buy since 2000ish, older ones are sort of getting too old to be reliable.

Fords are better then most car brands in terms of reliability but still has many issues, and they haven't been well made since the early 2000s.

Honestly these days the only thing I would buy is a Toyota or a motorcycle because at least with a motorcycle you can fix it and keep it running yourself and it's easy to maintain and repair. Modern cars are just trash outside of Toyota. Some brands are a bit better then they used to be in the mid 2000s and later, but they spend all their money in survellence and tracking and annoyer devices like the seatbelt annoyer and stuff, instead of actually making a decent car. Extreamly strict emissions standards have also made it harder to make a good car, even though Toyota always find a way to pull through. New emissions standards seemed to have been made by people who just hate cars and want to kill cars entirely, but unfortunately they aren't smart enough to realize having reliable cars is a cornerstone of a healthy economy, and you can easily make a car that gets rid of 99%ish of emmisions reliably for many years, without making terrible cars these days, it's just they want 99.99% of emissions dealt with which makes it extremely difficult. This is one reason why modern engines burn oil and are unreliable. They lose power and burn more fuel then they need after a few thousand miles. They actually end up being much worse for the environment even if they technically pass emissions when leaving the factory. Just more bad policy from the totally out of touch and corrupt rich ruling class because it doesn't affect them. They can buy a new car every year under warranty because we do all the work and they get all the money.

I'm not sure how a $2000 car could result in a $20,000 to $50,000 loan.