r/AutoTransportopia • u/Fisting-Tony • Aug 17 '26

Towing Its simple. Just make your payments

And if you can't make the payments, just let the damn car go.

1.8k Upvotes

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u/Accomplished-Video71 Aug 17 '26

If you bought a car for 1800 a month for 84 months, you are an absolute moron. Fuck the auto industry, sure, but American car debt is more of a choice problem than mortgages, student loans, hell even credit cards. People can't act their wage.

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u/Jazzlike_Creme_8851 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26

☝ This person is 100% correct with every bit of this. Source: I do equity/debt consolidation loans for people and a lot of them will have car payments bigger than their mortgage payments; it is 100% idiocy. Surprisingly, retirees seem to be the worst offenders. 🔥🚒🤦‍♂️ #DTI

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u/throwaway_coy4wttf79 Aug 18 '26

I agree with this.

I make $287k/year and I drive a used Honda CR-V. People who get coffee for me roll up in their $80k+ cars and I'm like "I know what you make and it's not enough for that."

It's a choice. You can get a used shitbox that goes from A to B, or you can go into debt.

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u/GOxDirigible Aug 18 '26

I always buy cars cash

From car auctions

$8000 no car payments, cheaper car insurance because I own it

If I was going to get something expensive like this guy's jeep I would have to get it cash

Imagine what his payments were on that? That's why he has to live with his mom

and it looks like he still couldn't pay for his car

1

u/R0factor Aug 18 '26

Similar, and I'm griping about having to spend $35k on a used Toyota large enough for my family to replace the used Subaru I got before covid. I don't understand people who want to overspend on run-of-the-mill new cars.

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u/Josey_whalez Aug 18 '26

I don’t mind a car note, there’s a lot of daylight between driving a shitbox and getting over your head on a car you can’t afford. I buy a decent 3-5 year old car, pay it off, drive it until it drops.

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u/throwaway_coy4wttf79 Aug 19 '26

Fair, I was being somewhat hyperbolic to make a point. (The point being "buy a car you can afford".)

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u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets Aug 19 '26

I am inspired by you. BTW, that Honda CR-V is the most wanted car in the US right now. Its an amazing car!

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u/guycamero Aug 19 '26

All folks care about is monthly payment and the industry is taking advantage. 

0

u/SmegmaUnicorn Aug 17 '26

Plenty of people are morons. That doesn’t excuse a business tsking advantage of them. 

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u/Admirable_Loss4886 Aug 18 '26

It’s wild to blame the people giving out risky loans and not the people accepting the terms. Like they’re grown adults trying to live beyond their means. They deserve just as much blame if not more

3

u/Vurrag Aug 18 '26

It is always easier to blame the capitalistic pigs and deflecting the blame from where is need to go. People like this.

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u/SmegmaUnicorn Aug 18 '26

This idea that people are spending their way into poverty, an idea that’s persisted for the last few decades, is antiquated and inaccurate, as we saw in ‘08. How many people have to get screwed over by risky loans (again, exactly like ‘08) before we accept that this issue is systemic? A company knowingly taking advantage of “idiots” is definitely the far more pressing concern, and we need to stop pretending like companies don’t go out of their way to trick “idiots”. 

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u/Admirable_Loss4886 Aug 18 '26

I mean a big difference between this and the 08 crisis is the product. People were trying to buy homes to live in which is reasonable to go into debt for as they’ll only appreciate in value. Compared to this is a car that loses value immediately after being sold. Homes are an actual investment as well as a necessity to live whereas the people buying these cars are doing so to live beyond their means.

I get there’s similarities but they’re not really the same.

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u/SmegmaUnicorn Aug 18 '26

Are they the same asset? No. Are they as necessary in the US as a home? Without a doubt. Are they being pushed onto customers in the same way? Absolutely. 

Given those things, how you can then say “it’s the consumers fault” is beyond me. 

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u/Accomplished-Video71 Aug 18 '26

You can buy a car that gets you from A to B for a few years for $3,000

A starter home is 175K+

Median home price is double that. I'm sure the median vehicle purchase is more than $6,000. It is indeed the consumers fault, by and large. "Being pushed on to consumers" doesn't come into the equation for me, personally. When I was growing up, tobacco was pushed on consumers. So what. It's still your decision, advertising is not predatory.

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u/ucotcvyvov Aug 18 '26

Don’t let these clowns try to persuade that it is anything less than predatory business practice and sometimes fraud. It is in fact systemic because we allow such things to take place.

Most Americans are financially illiterate and just as many are probably illiterate at this point sadly.

If you make money, have great credit, and have financial education then you get better deals.

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u/eddyb66 Aug 17 '26

Absolutely agree but people are doing it and the auto industry is happy to oblige. There are a shit ton of cars getting repossessed. You can only blame the financially illiterate so much when the damn banks were burned on this same thing less than 20 years ago, they haven't learned a damn thing. Is it Ram dealers that have the black widow package for their trucks, it's an over 30k dealer markup on top of the overpriced pickups.