It's always surprised me, when talking to Americans online, how many people seem to feel they don't have access to the secondary car market.
Perhaps it's because I grew up around people who were good with their hands, but in my mind buying a used car isn't a scary matter - you visit the private seller, you look at the vehicle, you check for the things one needs to check for, and you know if it has problems or not. And if you can't do this, you've got a cousin or uncle who can.
But speaking to Americans, they make it sound like this kind of traditional working-class knowledge has been lost? A lot of folks seem positively scared of the second-hand market, and say that a $50,000 brand new car is going to save them money on maintenance.
Crazy high standards of living, in a sense!
lelanthran · 2h ago
> Perhaps it's because I grew up around people who were good with their hands, but in my mind buying a used car isn't a scary matter - you visit the private seller, you look at the vehicle, you check for the things one needs to check for, and you know if it has problems or not. And if you can't do this, you've got a cousin or uncle who can.
You could do that, sure. Or you could get a respected independent assessor. Here in South Africa we have Dekra (and others) who wil do a test of the car more thoroughly than I can (road test till operating temperature is reached, examination of the car on a lift for chassis damage/signs of repairs, oil leaks, etc, examination of car for signs of accident repair, pulling of DTC, etc).
If you go to this place - https://www.webuycars.co.za/buy-a-car/18C404984 - you'll see a car that looks good for its age on the surface with only a few easily fixable things (tail lights, brakes, etc). But the attached report shows that the chassis is twisted and that there are oil leaks. These two problems are terminal faults that I, even with a background as a mechanic, will not spot because I cannot put the car on a lift when I go to view it.
It's not perfect, but at least I don't waste time test driving a car with terminal faults (chassis damage, transmission DTCs or problems, engines without compression, etc).
It means when I look for a car, I can dismiss dozens of cars based just on the attached Dekra report, and spend more time examining the remaining ones for faults that Dekra might have missed.
nbadg · 1h ago
Additionally, a lot of people who would otherwise be in the used car market for price reasons in the US cannot afford to purchase even a used car outright, and getting financing for cars sold on the private market is, to my knowledge, not really possible.
lelanthran · 1h ago
> Additionally, a lot of people who would otherwise be in the used car market for price reasons in the US cannot afford to purchase even a used car outright, and getting financing for cars sold on the private market is, to my knowledge, not really possible.
To me, that's the biggest reason for used-car prices to be low - the market is restricted to those who have cash.
IME, the prices of cars that cannot be financed (older than 5 years) is severely constrained. I've seen a 5 year old model advertised for exactly twice the price as an almost identical 6 year old model, with similar mileage and similar condition[1].
I find that hard to reconcile with the other posters in this thread who observed that used cars are still too expensive. Maybe they are looking at used-cars that can still be financed (under $X years, for example)?
=======================
[1] Condition of both was reported by the same independent assessor - see my posting upthread
mcv · 1h ago
Ah, so this is really just another way poverty is punished. I can afford to save up $8000 for a second hand car, but people who can't, have to buy more expensive cars on a (predatory?) car loan.
lelanthran · 44m ago
> Ah, so this is really just another way poverty is punished. I
Yes, but it's not intentional like you seem to imply, it's incidental.
The intention is not to punish those with no money, its to extract the most value in every segment of the market.
Trust me, maximal value extraction is similarly going on for new cars and lightly-used second hand cars too.
mcv · 23m ago
I'm not saying it's intentional, but there are a lot of mechanisms like these that make it more expensive to be poor, creating a vicious cycle of poverty.
lelanthran · 58s ago
> I'm not saying it's intentional, but there are a lot of mechanisms like these that make it more expensive to be poor, creating a vicious cycle of poverty.
You are quite correct, but this is one of those rare cases when "learning things" is enough to uplift one from some of the poverty.
I did not start out rich enough to afford a 6 year old car cash, I started out by saving for a year (sacrificing a lot in other spheres of my life at that age, early 20s) to buy a barely running beater that I then maintained cheaply for the next 5 years.
Cost over five years, including repairs and maintenance was about a tenth of a new car price.
Many who cannot afford the cash $8k for a decent 2nd-hand car can afford the cash $2k for a dodgy barely running car.
The problems they face is being clueless about cars, repairing, etc in general.
IOW, the problem they have is not "not enough cash to own a car", it's "not enough knowledge to fix a car". The only person who can remedy that is themselves, not the market.
Looked at through this lens, this is not a punishment on poverty, it's a punishment on lack of knowledge.
demarq · 2h ago
> round people who were good with their hands, but in my mind buying a used car isn't a scary matter - you visit the private seller, you look at the vehicle, you check for the things one needs to check for, and you know if it has problems or not.
This has nothing to do with America. The rest of the world has this problem too. Not everyone is a mechanic outside of America.
alex7o · 2h ago
Come to eastern Europe, nobody here buys a new car (people can't afford it unfortunately). For that exact reason most people have retained the knowledge of how to buy a used car, and choose one that is not awful, or at least the least bad one.
mcv · 1h ago
I live in Amsterdam, and we can absolutely afford to buy new (especially if we were to choose not to live in Amsterdam), but there are reliable car dealers where you can buy a good second hand car for a decent price. I really don't see the point in buying new.
laurentiurad · 2h ago
I am originally from EE and there are reports every month on how cars cause accidents because breaks didn't work, or an entire wheel flies out of its place. Not to mention the gazillion cases of accidents caused by improper headlights.
The only reason the second-hand market works there is because most of the used cars come from Germany, and they have strict laws for checking the cars periodically. Once they roll on the EE roads for a few years, then the cracks start popping up which cause horrible accidents.
Just implying that EE is this amazing place where second-hand cars have no issues and Americans should follow the same model shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.
ViewTrick1002 · 1h ago
So the issue isn’t second hand cars but a lack of oversight.
lifestyleguru · 1h ago
In Eastern Europe I regularly hear that car disintegrated into three pieces or engine fell off after a collision. These do not happen to a car having minor crash in its history, these happen to a car which had been totaled in the past. Eastern Europe is the scrapyard of Western Europe and yet its inhabitants found a way to fell superior about their 15 years old BMWs with engine mounted on three screws.
watwut · 1h ago
People in Eastern Europe buy new cars.
IshKebab · 2h ago
Can't you just buy from a second hand car dealer? They usually give you more guarantees than private sales (for a slight premium). That's how most people in the UK buy cars.
ChiefNotAClue · 2h ago
You can, but it's usually a larger difference. A car that might be negotiated down to $5k or $6k on the private market, will probably be at $9k-$10k on the dealer lot. Plus they'll tack on document fees, and so on. In the end, you might be looking at paying double what you would otherwise for cars in similar shape and mileage.
mcv · 1h ago
Still a much better deal than new, and more accessible to people without technical car knowledge. This is how my wife buys our cars.
sgt · 2h ago
I don't know.. people have been buying used cars on Craiglist for as long as I can remember.
crinkly · 2h ago
This is how I roll. Turn up next to the £100k EVs at the office in my 15 year old turd.
I go on holiday 6 times a year for that money.
The 15 year old turd seems to go wrong less and cost less to fix when it does as well.
Notjoanbaez · 1h ago
Could it be that, as we moved most of our consumption online the idea of visiting a dealer, garage or direct-seller, has become unnatural and intimidating ?
Suddenly you are confronted with the messy, material and mechanical reality rather than the clean product pages, specifications and marketing pictures.
lm28469 · 2h ago
The average interest rate on used car loans is above 10%, they do buy used, but it's even more of a scam
borispavlovic · 2h ago
Buy the car you can afford by paying in cash, or a small enough loan that even 10% will be manageable.
lm28469 · 1h ago
This isn't the American way apparently, do you want to be a True American Patriot or some loser driving a shitbox
I still remember the first thing my bank offered me as a student in the US, a credit card, 25%+ apr, give that to a 18 years old clueless kid and you'll set them up for failure. The entire system is setup to make you think these interests rate are normal and that being in debt is a proper lifestyle
euroderf · 1h ago
> you visit the private seller, you look at the vehicle, you check for the things one needs to check for, and you know if it has problems or not. And if you can't do this, you've got a cousin or uncle who can.
I had good luck with taking a used car for a test drive, and (with the knowledge of the seller) dropping it off at a garage and asking a mechanic to spend half an hour checking it over.
Havoc · 1h ago
Think people have a general aversion to buying secondhand. You see it in people building home servers too - preference for buying new even if eBay route would yield tangibly better bang per buck.
ReptileMan · 2h ago
>But speaking to Americans, they make it sound like this kind of traditional working-class knowledge has been lost?
We don't have cars anymore, we have PlayStations with wheels. Even if you are able to properly diagnose the check engine, you may need to disassemble the whole engine just to replace a 20cent sensor inside.
stinkbeetle · 1h ago
But you wouldn't buy a car with a check engine warning if you don't know how to read the code or fix it.
For the most part you're not really looking for signs of mechanical or electrical faults that will develop, you're looking for signs it has been cared for. Service history, clean interior, tires with decent tread, oil and water levels okay and aren't contaminated, starts up and drives nicely from cold to warm. That's about it.
Someone with very little auto mechanic knowledge can do that. Sure an O2 sensor might give out in the next few thousand miles, but you have to allow for some maintenance cost beyond scheduled services for older cars.
csomar · 2h ago
Two things in my opinion: Cars are now much more complex than 10-15 years ago. And the secondary market is more expensive. It’d make sense if the discount is big enough but if it is not, you are gambling.
New cars require less maintenance and usually come with 1-3 years of warranty.
lelanthran · 2h ago
Assertion #1
> And the secondary market is more expensive.
Assertion #2
> New cars require less maintenance and usually come with 1-3 years of warranty.
The more people who purchase because of Assertion #2, the less true Assertion #1 is going to be.
So, yeah, as someone who has only twice purchased new (and regretted the financial hit both times), I actually am in favour of convincing more and more people to strain their finances to buy new, knowing that a lower demand in the secondary market means lower prices for me for the same used car.
If more people purchased within their means and bought secondary, I'd be paying a lot more each time I bought a car.
Moru · 44m ago
Yes, this is very much the case here in Sweden. When people started thinking about environment and second hand became fashion, all the second hand stores suddenly became as expensive as buying new. I have always been buying second hand so I'm a bit miffed.
Hamuko · 2h ago
You can get used cars with a warranty too, since a lot of manufacturers have certified pre-owned programs.
For example a 2025 Mercedes-Benz C300 is $48,450 but a certified pre-owned 2022 Mercedes-Benz C300 is $32,820, and you get whatever is remaining of the original warranty + 12 months. I'd say that's a pretty decent saving, especially considering that it's still the same model (current generation is 2022 and onwards).
donw · 2h ago
I can think of a couple of factors.
One, there's a big urban/non-urban split in American culture. The former are far less likely to know anything about working on cars, nor are they likely to have a friend or uncle that can help.
That cohort is very over-represented on HN.
Second, there's a lot of shady stuff happening in the used car market, and you really do need to be on top of things to not get scammed. We're talking that's absolutely illegal, but also difficult and expensive to enforce, so if you get stuck on the wrong end of a deal, you're just going to eat those costs.
aprilthird2021 · 1h ago
I don't get this at all. I'm an urban know-nothing about cars. The current car I have I bought online from a private seller. I insisted on taking the car to a 3rd party mechanic for an assessment. Paid for the assessment, then bought the car.
It is spending maybe $400-$500 to save potentially over $10000
rsynnott · 47m ago
I mean that’s probably more an excuse, because they want the shiny new car.
onecommentman · 1h ago
If you’re working a regular job, you need a reliable car in the US. New cars should be, and nowadays are, more reliable than used cars with unknown provenance. Just donated a sedan I bought new 25 years ago that didn’t have a spot of rust and the motor was still great. Desert living…
Just didn’t want to chase down exotic material failure modes at that point and wanted the enhanced safety features available on new cars to protect my old body. I don’t own a lift nor an air compressor. I’d feel like a damn fool if I got hurt working on my own old car. Fixing my broken old body would be much more expensive than having a professional with the proper tools repair my old car. Can pass that dealer-maintained car with a clean conscience to someone who has the tools and expertise.
Nowadays, you can expect 20-30 years from a new vehicle, properly maintained. Especially in the desert. When you spread that buy-it-new premium over 25 years, it’s worth buying new just to know the exact provenance of the vehicle you’ll be driving over the next quarter century.
Hamuko · 2h ago
>you check for the things one needs to check for, and you know if it has problems or not. And if you can't do this, you've got a cousin or uncle who can.
You don't even need to do that. You can just find a mechanic to do a PPI on the car, so they'll check for any issues and read the errors codes to see if there's something funky.
bravetraveler · 2h ago
I'd guess perceived status. That, or, they want a tank: another arms race for Baby (Crushing|Saving) Machines. Modern cars keep growing.
I've bought exactly one new: will drive it until the wheels can't be put back on. Before that, probably a dozen second-hand. I now make silly amounts of money, am American.
All this to say: used cars are best cars. Terrible purchasing experiences await regardless.
edit: "In for a penny, in for a pound", right? :)
henry2023 · 2h ago
I’ve got a group of friends in Huston and it’s pretty crazy to me that to them having a “car payment” is almost as expected as having a cellphone bill. One of them didn’t even recall the sale price of his main vehicule, he just knew he could afford the car payment.
No comments yet
dnissley · 3h ago
The car market right now makes no sense to me. Interest rates are high, prices are high (inflation + tariffs), unemployment is rising, inventory is low, and yet car sales are booming? What gives? People panic buying before tariffs have a bigger impact?
fzeroracer · 2h ago
It's more that in America, cars are for the most part an inelastic commodity. It's very, very hard to hold a job and maintain your life without a car except in the densest of metro areas. Since the population is still growing, sales of cars keep going up and people get trapped in predatory loans or conditions. Used cars are also harder to find and more expensive, which pushes people into these predatory conditions.
I think it's a really poor indicator for the future. America literally cannot function without cars, and if people cannot afford cars they cannot afford to work.
apsec112 · 2h ago
A ten year old Honda Fit is like $12K, pretty fuel efficient, and probably reliable and low-maintenance (I owned one until recently). People aren't buying $50,000 new Ford F-150s because they just need a working car to go to work and the grocery store.
MangoToupe · 2h ago
> People aren't buying $50,000 new Ford F-150s because they just need a working car to go to work and the grocery store.
Let me introduce you to half of my block. And I live in a city with fantastic public transit where you don't even need a car. I see those loan notices in mailboxes....
carabiner · 2h ago
It's millennials moving out of cities into the suburbs and deciding they need a car. Guess what the bestselling car in the US? Toyota RAV4.
freddie_mercury · 2h ago
The Ford F-series and Chevy Silverado both outsold the RAV-4 by significant margins.
"Car" typically means "passenger vehicle" in common parlance, at least in the US. A lot of truck sales like you point to are fleet sales for work vehicles, so this person is probably pointing more towards non-fleet sales, where the RAV4 is indeed the top seller.
bloqs · 1h ago
for some reason the one-two punch putdown style of this relatively pedantic reply has me in stitches
FirmwareBurner · 2h ago
> and yet car sales are booming? What gives?
Maybe some people need a car to get to work, plus maybe they also want good optics with it, not wanting to be perceived as "broke" by the rest, so they splurge on a new car without any thoughts on financial responsibility just to keep up appearances.
close04 · 2h ago
It’s the optics part that breaks the camel’s back. Any decent car goes from A to B. Only expensive cars have the “optics”. The car is a status symbol that carries you around, and the poorest are the most “vulnerable” to need such a status symbol to compensate.
It mirrors perfectly the luxury fashion industry where more branded merchandise is bought by broke people than by rich ones (unbranded luxury goods are a different beast).
dnissley · 2h ago
I would disagree for a different definition of optics. As someone else who replied to me mentioned, the top selling vehicle in the US is the Toyota RAV4. Based on the many people I personally know who own them, this is a vehicle that says "I'm doing just fine thanks" even when that is very much not the case.
close04 · 1h ago
“Optics” just means you care about how the situation looks like to you or others.
Having a RAV4 when a Yaris would have done the job is optics. Sometimes having any car at all is about optics.
As I understand one of the primary reasons is also that people do not finish the previous car payments and just roll them forward to the next new car. Dealerships and loan makers of course enable that behaviour.
thelastgallon · 4h ago
Which eventually might be good? The repossessed cars will need buyers and they will offered at lower rates?
toomuchtodo · 4h ago
Nah, they will be sold into the used car market at whatever price the market will support while charging the highest interest rate possible.
From the report this is based on (pages 6-7), there are simply not enough cars to meet demand due to manufacturers constraining supply to maximize by price. Similar to new construction housing in the US. Tariffs make importing cheaper foreign made vehicles untenable. It’s an economic extraction doom loop.
Hamuko · 2h ago
Auto loans defaulting seems to suggest that the car market does not support the current rates and prices.
Perhaps it's because I grew up around people who were good with their hands, but in my mind buying a used car isn't a scary matter - you visit the private seller, you look at the vehicle, you check for the things one needs to check for, and you know if it has problems or not. And if you can't do this, you've got a cousin or uncle who can.
But speaking to Americans, they make it sound like this kind of traditional working-class knowledge has been lost? A lot of folks seem positively scared of the second-hand market, and say that a $50,000 brand new car is going to save them money on maintenance.
Crazy high standards of living, in a sense!
You could do that, sure. Or you could get a respected independent assessor. Here in South Africa we have Dekra (and others) who wil do a test of the car more thoroughly than I can (road test till operating temperature is reached, examination of the car on a lift for chassis damage/signs of repairs, oil leaks, etc, examination of car for signs of accident repair, pulling of DTC, etc).
If you go to this place - https://www.webuycars.co.za/buy-a-car/18C404984 - you'll see a car that looks good for its age on the surface with only a few easily fixable things (tail lights, brakes, etc). But the attached report shows that the chassis is twisted and that there are oil leaks. These two problems are terminal faults that I, even with a background as a mechanic, will not spot because I cannot put the car on a lift when I go to view it.
It's not perfect, but at least I don't waste time test driving a car with terminal faults (chassis damage, transmission DTCs or problems, engines without compression, etc).
It means when I look for a car, I can dismiss dozens of cars based just on the attached Dekra report, and spend more time examining the remaining ones for faults that Dekra might have missed.
To me, that's the biggest reason for used-car prices to be low - the market is restricted to those who have cash. IME, the prices of cars that cannot be financed (older than 5 years) is severely constrained. I've seen a 5 year old model advertised for exactly twice the price as an almost identical 6 year old model, with similar mileage and similar condition[1].
I find that hard to reconcile with the other posters in this thread who observed that used cars are still too expensive. Maybe they are looking at used-cars that can still be financed (under $X years, for example)?
=======================
[1] Condition of both was reported by the same independent assessor - see my posting upthread
Yes, but it's not intentional like you seem to imply, it's incidental.
The intention is not to punish those with no money, its to extract the most value in every segment of the market.
Trust me, maximal value extraction is similarly going on for new cars and lightly-used second hand cars too.
You are quite correct, but this is one of those rare cases when "learning things" is enough to uplift one from some of the poverty.
I did not start out rich enough to afford a 6 year old car cash, I started out by saving for a year (sacrificing a lot in other spheres of my life at that age, early 20s) to buy a barely running beater that I then maintained cheaply for the next 5 years.
Cost over five years, including repairs and maintenance was about a tenth of a new car price.
Many who cannot afford the cash $8k for a decent 2nd-hand car can afford the cash $2k for a dodgy barely running car.
The problems they face is being clueless about cars, repairing, etc in general.
IOW, the problem they have is not "not enough cash to own a car", it's "not enough knowledge to fix a car". The only person who can remedy that is themselves, not the market.
Looked at through this lens, this is not a punishment on poverty, it's a punishment on lack of knowledge.
This has nothing to do with America. The rest of the world has this problem too. Not everyone is a mechanic outside of America.
The only reason the second-hand market works there is because most of the used cars come from Germany, and they have strict laws for checking the cars periodically. Once they roll on the EE roads for a few years, then the cracks start popping up which cause horrible accidents.
Just implying that EE is this amazing place where second-hand cars have no issues and Americans should follow the same model shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.
I go on holiday 6 times a year for that money.
The 15 year old turd seems to go wrong less and cost less to fix when it does as well.
I still remember the first thing my bank offered me as a student in the US, a credit card, 25%+ apr, give that to a 18 years old clueless kid and you'll set them up for failure. The entire system is setup to make you think these interests rate are normal and that being in debt is a proper lifestyle
I had good luck with taking a used car for a test drive, and (with the knowledge of the seller) dropping it off at a garage and asking a mechanic to spend half an hour checking it over.
We don't have cars anymore, we have PlayStations with wheels. Even if you are able to properly diagnose the check engine, you may need to disassemble the whole engine just to replace a 20cent sensor inside.
For the most part you're not really looking for signs of mechanical or electrical faults that will develop, you're looking for signs it has been cared for. Service history, clean interior, tires with decent tread, oil and water levels okay and aren't contaminated, starts up and drives nicely from cold to warm. That's about it.
Someone with very little auto mechanic knowledge can do that. Sure an O2 sensor might give out in the next few thousand miles, but you have to allow for some maintenance cost beyond scheduled services for older cars.
New cars require less maintenance and usually come with 1-3 years of warranty.
> And the secondary market is more expensive.
Assertion #2
> New cars require less maintenance and usually come with 1-3 years of warranty.
The more people who purchase because of Assertion #2, the less true Assertion #1 is going to be.
So, yeah, as someone who has only twice purchased new (and regretted the financial hit both times), I actually am in favour of convincing more and more people to strain their finances to buy new, knowing that a lower demand in the secondary market means lower prices for me for the same used car.
If more people purchased within their means and bought secondary, I'd be paying a lot more each time I bought a car.
For example a 2025 Mercedes-Benz C300 is $48,450 but a certified pre-owned 2022 Mercedes-Benz C300 is $32,820, and you get whatever is remaining of the original warranty + 12 months. I'd say that's a pretty decent saving, especially considering that it's still the same model (current generation is 2022 and onwards).
One, there's a big urban/non-urban split in American culture. The former are far less likely to know anything about working on cars, nor are they likely to have a friend or uncle that can help.
That cohort is very over-represented on HN.
Second, there's a lot of shady stuff happening in the used car market, and you really do need to be on top of things to not get scammed. We're talking that's absolutely illegal, but also difficult and expensive to enforce, so if you get stuck on the wrong end of a deal, you're just going to eat those costs.
It is spending maybe $400-$500 to save potentially over $10000
Just didn’t want to chase down exotic material failure modes at that point and wanted the enhanced safety features available on new cars to protect my old body. I don’t own a lift nor an air compressor. I’d feel like a damn fool if I got hurt working on my own old car. Fixing my broken old body would be much more expensive than having a professional with the proper tools repair my old car. Can pass that dealer-maintained car with a clean conscience to someone who has the tools and expertise.
Nowadays, you can expect 20-30 years from a new vehicle, properly maintained. Especially in the desert. When you spread that buy-it-new premium over 25 years, it’s worth buying new just to know the exact provenance of the vehicle you’ll be driving over the next quarter century.
You don't even need to do that. You can just find a mechanic to do a PPI on the car, so they'll check for any issues and read the errors codes to see if there's something funky.
I've bought exactly one new: will drive it until the wheels can't be put back on. Before that, probably a dozen second-hand. I now make silly amounts of money, am American.
All this to say: used cars are best cars. Terrible purchasing experiences await regardless.
edit: "In for a penny, in for a pound", right? :)
No comments yet
I think it's a really poor indicator for the future. America literally cannot function without cars, and if people cannot afford cars they cannot afford to work.
Let me introduce you to half of my block. And I live in a city with fantastic public transit where you don't even need a car. I see those loan notices in mailboxes....
Also the RAV-4 isn't a car, it is an SUV.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/best-selling-cars-us-h1-202...
Maybe some people need a car to get to work, plus maybe they also want good optics with it, not wanting to be perceived as "broke" by the rest, so they splurge on a new car without any thoughts on financial responsibility just to keep up appearances.
It mirrors perfectly the luxury fashion industry where more branded merchandise is bought by broke people than by rich ones (unbranded luxury goods are a different beast).
Having a RAV4 when a Yaris would have done the job is optics. Sometimes having any car at all is about optics.
From the report this is based on (pages 6-7), there are simply not enough cars to meet demand due to manufacturers constraining supply to maximize by price. Similar to new construction housing in the US. Tariffs make importing cheaper foreign made vehicles untenable. It’s an economic extraction doom loop.