Saki GT

jetrep

People are buying used more than ever because they don't have the money to buy new and because used cars last longer than ever before. Sure, the average car is becoming more numb and most people don't care. Who cares how much feedback your steering offers while driving aggressively when 80% of your driving time is crawling in bumper to bumper traffic?

It's not truly a $5k car either. They said they found it cheaper than most will be able to and they had to put more money and time into it.

Orjinal

x2.

vader1

I used to buy all new and I still prefer to do that on a daily, but yeah used is becoming a better option for a variety of reasons. As far as the numb over-teched cars today, if Toyota fired up the production line and started building 1991 MR2 Turbos again for a decent price I would buy one tomorrow, same with an FD RX7. NO they are not as safe, I don't plan to crash it though.

But we have a proposal here by our new governor to raise taxes and fees on new car purchases through the roof. On the Cayman I bought used, the original first year annual tag fee was about $1,000 the first year, and on a 10 year depreciation schedule, when I bought it as a three year old lease return, the tag fee was $700 and falling. If you were going to keep the car for ten years as the original owner you would have spent at least $5k for tags. If you bought a ten year old car, you paid an annual fee of $45. Our neighbor to the east, Wisconsin is $33 new or used on any car. We get screwed here. The governor proposes raising those same fees, by 20% and increasing the depreciation schedule to 15 years. If you were to buy a new say $50,000 Jeep or Telsa Model 3, you would pay $7,000 in just license fees over 15 years, but a 10 year old used car would cost you $675. Not to mention the $4k my state would charge you in sales tax on the original purchase.

The proposal is probably DOA, but since anything is grandfathered in before the law takes effect, if it looks like it would pass, I would quickly go out and buy a new car with a long warranty before it became law and never buy a new car in this state again. People who can afford a new car are evil, and need to be punished.

So if I can still have as much fun and not pay ton to my state, I would spend four grand of the savings on a lift for my garage, spend a few more on some extra tools and decent compressor and start looking for well taken care of, fun used cars. If Top Gear "adventure" episodes where they buy beat up cars with 200,000 miles on them and then torture them has taught me anything, it is that you would be surprised how far cars with a decent amount of miles will go if you put a little effort into it.

lane_viper

Cars are definitely safer these days. Advances in crumple zones, and driving features like, auto braking, and lane keep assist will be standard equipment on new cars coming out. All this adds weight, and we've seen how everything has gotten heavier and heavier. On the flip side, most all car segments perform better. We've seen it multiple times when appliance cars now keep up with or are faster than our S2k's. It's numb, soul-less performance, but performance non the less. Cars today accelerate faster, and stop better on average than 10 years ago.

I'm all about safety, but as a Car enthusiast, I'm torn at how safety engineering is compensating for drivers lack of attention, or common sense. Why do we need Keep lane assist and auto braking? Because people aren't paying attention to their driving. I guess why it gets me is it's akin to "You are too stupid to drive correctly, so we will take care of you"

I guess all that said, I wish Car manufactures went in a different Safety direction. Like disabling cell phone usage in cars except for emergencies, for example.

mosesbotbol

WRX and STI continue to stray further and further from what made the what they are. Same for the whole line up at Subaru.

vader1

When more and more autonomous systems come into the national fleet, and the first couple gruesome crashes happen that kill a few people, (and you know this will happen because there will be bugs to be worked out) the ambulance chasing lawyers will show up and we could have hundred of millions in lawsuits paid out. I just wonder if at that point the manufacturers who were racing to the technology as a profit center will wish they never increased their legal liability and left it more up to the driver and his or her insurance.

And I guess as an extension of that, will I no longer need to pay much for insurance because if my self driving car crashes into something it is not my fault and State Farm does not need to cover me for liability, it is Toyota's fault and they need to pony up for faulty software?

Say Chi Sin Lo

Thanks to all the driving aids and tech, I look like a savant when I parallel park my car using the rotational motion of my neck, pivoting action of my eyeballs, and understanding relative distances with the car's mirror.

CMK

Are you a wizard?

zeroptzero

The same thing can be said about Honda, my 2000 Acura Integra GSR is much more responsive and organic in terms of a driving experience compared to my 16 Civic EX 1.5L turbo, the entire car industry is going that route as every manufacturer will soon be using small displacement direct injected turbo motors. The exteriors of vehicles will soon all look similar - jellybean shaped - and there will be very little to distinguish them.

I personally really like the current WRX, just having bought one, and I hand it to Subaru for still building nice 4 door sedans as others are scrambling like cockroaches. I didn't care as much for the older WRX's in terms of the interior, and I was never a fan of the burbling exhaust due to unequal length headers. I'm paying the extra 30k for reliability, warranty, comfort, interior "niceness", powertrain technology, stability control, LED lighting, traction control and brake vectoring, upgraded seats, infotainment, etc. among other things.

I bought my 2016 Honda Civic thinking the assistive safety features were a benefit - adaptive cruise, collision mitigation, lane keep assist etc - but to be honest they are more of an annoyance, and I didn't go for them on my new Subaru. No ECO button on the Subaru lol, and it still uses 5w-30 oil and normal oil change intervals.