Car Loans
Like all sophisticates, I’ve been trained to say things like “the American car companies are really banks that make cars as loss-leaders” but I have no idea how that actually works. Indeed, since I’ve never owned a car I have only somewhat fuzzy ideas about what getting a car loan entails. But Stephanie Mencimer does a great job of detailing how the car loan business looked amidst the general credit madness:
Here’s how it works: When a customer comes into a dealership to buy a car, he already knows how much the car should cost (thanks to the Internet), but he usually relies on the dealership to arrange the financing, often because they advertise lower rates than banks. That’s when the scam starts. Many car dealers routinely load up car loans with all sorts of expensive but useless add-ons. These include such things as “theft etch,” when a dealer will spend $37 to etch the VIN number of the car onto the windshield, tout it as an “antitheft measure,” and charge the customer upward of $2,000 for it. Unbeknownst to most car buyers, dealers also routinely—and legally—bump up the interest rate offered by the bank or finance company in exchange for kickbacks from the lenders, which are often the manufacturers themselves. And in many cases, dealers encourage customers to trade in a car that isn’t worth the amount of their current loan by offering to roll the old loan into the new one, thus inflating the principal and making the loan more lucrative for the lender. That’s how people can end up owing $40,000 on a Ford Focus. This only works because auto lenders now stretch out the terms to six or seven years to make the payments affordable, a practice that virtually ensures that many cars won’t last as long as the loan. (In the 1980s, by contrast, Spinella says the average car loan lasted only three years and required a 20 percent down payment, which limited the kind of negative equity problem seen today.) [...]
The driving force behind all of these loan shenanigans is Wall Street. The automakers’ finance arms (and banks, too) have made a fortune by packaging the inflated loans made by their dealerships and selling them as securities. It’s the same scheme that ultimately brought down the subprime mortgage industry. And just like the mortgage lenders, the automakers and their finance arms must have been well aware that the loans generated by their own dealers were frequently bad ones. That’s because consumer lawyers have been successfully suing them over this for years.
I think they may revoke my “real American” card for saying this, but the whole habit of debt-financed car purchases seems like bad news to me. I can think of basically two “good” debt scenarios. One is that people and/or businesses sometimes need to take on debt in order to finance a potentially profitable undertaking of some kind. That could be starting or expanding a business, or it could be something simple like paying college tuition. Sometimes you need to spend money to make money, and sometimes you don’t have money. This is the core purpose of credit. The other is the basic non-investment case of homeownership. Since you have to live somewhere or other, there’s no alternative but to be making monthly payments to someone or other for the right to live someplace. Depending on the math, making a monthly mortgage payment to a bank could be smarter than making a monthly rent payment to a landlord.
Beyond that, you’re into “bad” debt terrain — spending money you don’t have in order to buy consumption items. Sometimes this is genuinely unavoidable due to income fluctuations. But insofar as it’s possible, the prudent person will try to avoid it. The long-term costs of carrying credit card debt are enormous and it makes a lot of pragmatic sense to avoid doing it.
Cars, even though they’re really expensive, are basically a kind of consumer good. If instead of taking out a loan to buy a car, you spend a couple of years socking away that monthly payment in some kind of reasonably safe investment and then buy the car outright when you can afford it you can save yourself a lot of money. Since everything reminds me of the desirability of smart growth and better urban planning, let me observe that smart growth and better urban planning could help a lot here. The built environment exists on a spectrum of auto-dependence, with someplace like Manhattan where it’s expensive and unnecessary to own a car at one pole. Then at the other extreme, you have places where it’s totally impossible to exist as an independent person without a car and every member of the household over the age of 16 needs a personal vehicle. Lots of places, however, exist in a kind of middle ground where either that first or second car might be desirable but is also by no means necessary. Creating more places like those would to some extent reduce the number of cars people own. But perhaps more importantly, they would give people a bit more flexibility about what they want to do and give them the opportunity to make more prudent financial decisions. If you get yourself in a situation where you need a car, then you need the car whether or not you have the money for it, and whether or not taking out a car loan is going to be serious trouble for your long-term finances. But if you just live someplace where a car is desirable you have the chance to delay purchasing for a while as you save up and in the long run that can leave you in much better shape — and with a car.
94 Responses to “Car Loans”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
12 more posts before Matt gets his merit badge for Junior Village Tool.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/12/a_special_note_re_third_way.php
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Jennifer Palmieri thinks that car loans are great, and reminds you that Matt’s posts do not reflect the views of CAP/AF, DLC or the Obama transition team.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
And you kids get off my lawn!
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
We don’t have subways here; and bicyclists are road kill; but we do know from an early age to join the credit union and be able to tell the dealer to screw his financing.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
The problem with your prescription is that in many parts of the US, if you don’t have a car you aren’t going to be able to get a job so as to have the money to “sock away” for a couple of years: you need the car immediately. But the answer in those cases is not to take out crazy loans for a new car, but to buy a used car – I’ve been doing that since I was a student, and as a result have never needed to take out a loan of any sort. There are few people who need a car for whom SOME sort of used car is not within their immediate price-range.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I think this subject is not apolitical enough.
Perhaps you should write about the joys of composting lest you make the Third Way uncomfortable. There is enough bullshit around to make composting a useful topic.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Cars, even though they’re really expensive, are basically a kind of consumer good. If instead of taking out a loan to buy a car, you spend a couple of years socking away that monthly payment in some kind of reasonably safe investment and then buy the car outright when you can afford it you can save yourself a lot of money.
This is a bit silly. The whole point of getting the car today and paying for it over time is that the car provides value today. The opportunity cost of waiting years to get a car is that… I don’t have a car. If my personal discount rate of car ownership (in the sense that I really need a car now) outweighs the interest rate, then the loan makes perfectly good sense. Now if I didn’t care if I got a car today or 5 years from now, of course I wouldn’t take the loan, but that’s not true for most people.
That’s not to say that some people don’t make bad judgements when it comes to getting car loans, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that they’re not a “good” debt scenario per se. As you routinely note, there all sorts of trade-offs exist in the “where to live, where to work, how to get to work” choice set. I think you’d get more traction for “smarter” designed communities if you emphasized the negative, unpriced externalities generated by our car culture, as opposed to lecturing people on their intertemporal chocies for cars versus cash.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
“Lots of places, however, exist in a kind of middle ground where either that first or second car might be desirable but is also by no means necessary.”
The reality is problematic here: US consumers loved cars as soon as they were invented, and by the 1920s, the wave of urban planning was to design around cars (there are numerous parts of the Los Angeles area, for instance, that are completely car-dependent and were built in the 1920s). F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, shows car-crazed teens and was published in 1920. Simply put, Americans haven’t been designing for a non-car world since about 1914.
There simply aren’t as many places as you think that can be converted to less car-intensivity (is that a word?).
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Can we get Jennifer Palmieri to do a post saying that car lenders provide great work product and Matt’s posts don’t reflect the opinion of CAP?
I actually think with a lot of these credit products you have a two-track product being sold. For people with self-control and basic math skills, there are good deals to be had by buying on credit. Just getting the product earlier is nice, plus there are things like rewards credit cards.
But for the other track, for people with poor impulse control or bad money management skills, these deals can be disastrous. And the problem is, this is the track where the credit providers make all their money. They’re willing to let some people walk away with rewards, low interest, etc., because that’s the bait that will bring in a lot of people who end up paying far more into the system than they could ever hope to get out.
So there will always be plenty of examples of consumers benefitting from easy credit, but we might have to forego some of that if we’re going to confront the problem squarely.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Well, lots of car dealers were offering zero-interest loans a few years ago, when I bought my last car. It would be stupid to pay cash when they’re willing to loan you the money for no interest. Same principal applies if the loan interest is only 1 or 2 or 3 percent. That’s good debt right there.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Commie!
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Well, lots of car dealers were offering zero-interest loans a few years ago, when I bought my last car. It would be stupid to pay cash when they’re willing to loan you the money for no interest. Same principal applies if the loan interest is only 1 or 2 or 3 percent. That’s good debt right there.
Well, put. On eshould *always* take free money. Heck, if someone sends you a 0% balance transfer offer, sanity-check the transfer fee, and put the money in a Capital One online savings account. 3.5% on someone else’s money.
Makes you long for the days when Matt was posting here at yglesias.thinkprogress.org. He would have caught this.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
David44 says: There are few people who need a car for whom SOME sort of used car is not within their immediate price-range.
That’s not always true. I make pretty good money, and due to high medical bills, single-earner family, we haven’t been able to save any. So even when I buy the 10-year-old Honda with sub-100K miles, it means a $4-5,000 hit on my home equity line, or a higher-priced commercial loan.
I do agree, however, on the no-car, no-job situation. In most of America that’s the rule, not the exception. And there are many, many households who need two cars, even if only one member works. The person working has one car, the rest of the family is stuck in some cul-de-sac somewhere with no way to get to school, to the doctor, to the store. No taxis, no public transportation. This country is in a pickle.
In an unrelated note, I’m not sure how long I can make myself keep writing comments here if Jennifer doesn’t come back and apologize.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
No, cars are a durable capital good, not a consumer good, even in most places with mass transit (i.e. not inner borough NYC). Individuals get significant productivity gains by having a car.
I live in Seattle, and I have a one-bus commute to work. Door to door it takes about 35 minutes each way. Driving it would take me about 12 minutes. That’s 40 minutes. 240 days of commuting, that’s 180 hours a year. And this is close to the ideal commuting situation, and of course I end up having to live in neighborhoods with higher rents to get bus service this good. Using the US median hourly wage of about $15.10 that free time worth $2718/year if we apply no premium to free time. We’re already in territory where buying a Hyundai makes sense. If we apply any premium or I make more than the median hourly wage, an Accord makes sense.
5 years is actually a reasonable loan length; the engineering life span on cars is probably at least 2 years longer than it was 20 years ago. Zero down with seven year loans is probably too much financing though. But debt financing the car is not a bad way to go … at least it’s a secure loan.
The problems with US auto habits are I think fourfold
(a) zero down is probably a bit crazy
(b) people trade up way more more often than they need to (this was in fact observed as a credit risk for the auto industry as a whole prior to the economic meltdown).
(c) in general people are spending a higher share of income on their car than they really need to
(d) terrible information asymmetry, especially on options.
I’m not sure that the poor/working class engage in (b) or (c), but in a downturn obviously middle and upper-middle class households will defer buying a new car, since after all you didn’t really need the last two trade-ins you did. Is it a bad business model for the auto sector to rely on heavy churn? Probably.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
The point of debt-financing is to allow you to purchase something when you cannot immediately afford it. The problem comes when you use that capacity to buy things that are outside your ability to EVER afford them.
If you’ve got a $6,000 downpayment on a $12,000 car and finance the rest, that’s not bad. If the best you can come up with is a $6,000 downpayment and you finance the rest of a $35,000 car, that’s stupid.
Mike
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I can think of basically two “good” debt scenarios.
But of course there’s also a 3rd way…..
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Adding, and we’re just totaling up the gains from commuting. When you add in errands and the like it’s a no brainer, again, unless you live in inner borough NYC. Even if you had terrific bus & train service in Anacostia you would still have better access to more retail and more free time if you drove.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Given that most people use their cars to get from home to work or school or what have you, it’s incorrect to say that they’re not, at least in part, capital goods.
And of course, even a purely consumer good, like a TV set, might make sense to buy with credit on the right terms. (That’s not to say the loan the car dealer or appliance salesmen has for you is ever on the right terms, of course…)
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I remember the first time I saw this gimmick was in the 70s. The 0% financing was only for cars sold at sticker price that were not moving. Essentially, you bought a Plymouth Fury Wagon for a lot more than they could sell it otherwise, and you got free financing. I don’t know if it’s different now.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
You think student loan debt is good debt? Man, are you a deluded moron. Student loans are how about a quarter of my generation has been enslaved by banks and the federal government.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
You’re missing the basic issue of liquidity which is the impetus for a lot of debt. Many business have regular, ongoing expenses (e.g. payroll), but take in revenue irregularly (e.g. upon completion of a contract, upon sales of big ticket items or during particular busy seasons). Credit lines help these businesses meet their regular expenditures when they otherwise might have difficulty. These companies have the assets to meet their obligations; they just don’t always have the liquidity to meet their obligations at the time the obligations are due.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Every once in a while Matt comes up with a post that shows how atypical his own experience is and how cloistered a life he’s led. This is one of them. Something like 90% of Americans with jobs drive to work and about 70% of all car owners are paying off car loans. His advice is well-intentioned but completely out of touch with the lives of most American workers. In most of the US, you can’t put food on the table if you don’t have a car.
See, e.g., a study of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, http://www.mobilityagenda.org/PursuitoftheDreamDiscussionGuide.pdf
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Great advice, Matt. Paying cash for your cars and driving them for as long as they don’t require major repairs is the only way to go if you’re a middle-income person who actually wants to retire someday. The main reason people don’t pay cash for their cars is that their egos require them to be seen in a more “rich”-looking car than they can really afford (which might be true if you’re a real estate agent who drives clients around in your car; otherwise, not so much).
I paid less than $10K for my 1990 Honda Civic; it still looks great and is still a pleasure to drive. And lest you think driving a “late model” vehicle makes you look like a geek, check this out: approximately once a month, someone leaves a note on my windshield asking me to call them if I ever want to sell my car!
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Umm, why don’t people just buy used cars? There’s no reason someone needs to take out 20k in debt just to get a crappy new car other than vanity.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
The option of purchasing a used car is usually not the optimal solution. First, there is a substantial risk that the car will have mechanical problems and it will likely not be covered under warranty. Used cars that are reliable enough to warrant purchase are usually priced accordingly, and rapidly approach the price of a similarly configured brand new model. This is especially the case with low mileage Hondas an Toyotas. Second, there are greater finance incentives available on new models vs. used models. Banks and credit unions charge higher interest on used car purchases vs. new car purchases. Car manufacturers (through their finance arms) use subsidized finance deals to promote new cars over used. That 0% deal is not available on used cars. And as a general rule, dealer financing offers lower rates than bank or credit union financing. But this advantage usually only applies to new car purchases. So the best strategy to use if one must debt finance a car is to be model/maker agnostic, search for the best financing deal, search for legitimate advertised price specials (like in the newspaper), purchase the vehicle at the advertised rate with the special financing, resist any add on warranty or security garbage, and hold on to the vehicle for several years after it is paid off. This is indeed as hard and complicated as it sounds. The dealers will seek to fleece you every step of the way, but if you are persistent you can pull it off. Especially if it is the end of the month and the dealer really needs the sale!
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
5 years is actually a reasonable loan length; the engineering life span on cars is probably at least 2 years longer than it was 20 years ago.
That’s it, really? I have 176,000 miles on a VW Golf that I bought in August 2000, and it still runs fine. OK, the glove compartment is broken, and I just had the brakes fixed, but this is for a car that regularly got the dreaded black dot for reliability from Consumer Reports.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Some used car dealers in my part of the world seem little more than elaborate payday lenders. You see something like the situation that emerged with houses, albeit at an order of magnitude lower: that’s to say, people buy from dealers who offer sweetened payments they can afford for the first year or so, then end up either having to refinance or hand back the keys and take the credit hit, which means they have to go to the “Bad Credit? We Finance!” people who give them an even worse deal. Combine that with the title loan places banned in NC but rampant down in South Carolina, and you have all sorts of shit.
The line that people buy too much car is about right. But they can also end up buying too little: there’s a sweet spot between “new car with dealer finance” “beater that might fall apart on the way to work” and slow-bleed you with repair costs, but it’s usually only available to people who have, say, $5k of float for the private-seller market or have the ability to get it from a bank or credit union as a relatively low interest rate.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Umm, why don’t people just buy used cars? There’s no reason someone needs to take out 20k in debt just to get a crappy new car other than vanity.
Before I bought the then-new 2000 VW mentioned above, I had a succession of three used cars (a ‘73 Datsun hatchback, an ‘80 Honda Civic, and an ‘85 Jeep CJ-7) that were in constant danger of failing on me. I owned these three cars for an aggregate amount of time less than I’ve owned my VW, and yet they each failed on me multiple times, costing me time, money, and worry. This left me stranded for various periods of time when needing to get to work, school, etc.; in industrial areas in the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert 30 miles from the nearest paved road, etc.
With regular maintenance, the one time my VW failed on me was when my battery died in 2003; fixing this cost less than $100.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I’m confused, does this post represent the official position of CAP on automotive loans? Could we have Ms. Palmiere step in and clear this up?
Thanks
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Umm, why don’t people just buy used cars?
because i don’t want someone else’s lemon.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Student loans are how about a quarter of my generation has been enslaved by banks and the federal government.
Sing it loud, Sallie, you fucker. Heck, without those book sales, Barack and Michelle Obama would still be paying off their law school loans today.
And endorsing Seth: if you can pay cash for reliable used cars, you’re likely to be better off financially to begin with. It’s the equivalent of parents who have the luxury of studying school district maps when choosing a place to live.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Actually, not even homes are usually a sane investment for the lower middle class: Generally speaking, buying a home will (a) encourage people to buy slightly above their means because it’s “forever” (b) encourage a car-dependent lifestyle because it’s easier to carpool around apartment complexes and harder around you own home (c) it encourages all sorts of unnecessary follow-up purchases “improving” the property (d) it hinders market-adequate moves and job-changes (e) it saddles the owner with long-term debt, especially problematic in a recession and (f) just as the car, it creates an asset that can be lost in a way not covered by insurance yet leave the individual with the loan.
All that in exchange for something that might not be worth passing on to ones children 50 years from now.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
You can get your “real American” card renewed here in Utah. They can’t do it for you in Finland.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Apart from the whole Third Way fiasco, there’s something kinda funny about a professional blogger telling people they shouldn’t really take out a loan to buy a car to drive to work, isn’t there?
I don’t know how far MY’s commute is, although I can probably guess.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Just for comparison, look at the 2006 Honda Civic with 45,000 miles vs. the brand new 2009 Civic. The Brand new model is only 3,000 dollars more.
A bigger problem with the whole enterprise is that folks with low credit scores can not qualify for good financing terms and end up having no choice but to go to the used lot down the street or get hosed by dealer financing at 10+%.
Being from suburban Southern California, I basically view possessing a newish car as part of my cost of living (just like food and housing). Given that, I want to minimize the cost of ownership by whatever means necessary. So in that calculation, I must consider used vs. new, cash vs. finance, and even buy vs. lease. So in 2005 I purchased a brand new Nissan Altima 2.5S with a four cylinder, stick shift and no other options for $15,500. With no money down, I financed it with a 5 year loan at 5% and have a payment of 329.90 per month. In 6 months it will be paid off and have about 65,000 miles on it and will probably run well for another 3-4 years if I’m lucky. At the first sign of trouble I’ll cut my losses and trade it in and get 5 grand or so back towards a new one.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Cars are only a consumer good if you live in new york, downtown d.c. and can plausibly substitute mass transit for a car. By and large you can’t. The problem with used cars is they break down. Which can result in similar expense levels to having a car loan, increase cost in terms of time wasted (getting towed, sitting around at dealer/mechanic), and being deprived of the use of something you are paying for. If you buy a used car from a dealer, well forget about it. The only way you should buy a used car is if you are buying it from somebody you know and where you can reasonably gauge it’s upkeep.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
It certainly is refreshing to see commenters so free-thinking that even a hint of editorial influence has them snapping and dashing themselves against the walls of the kennel…and yet, so brain-washed that they think owning a car gives you more “free time”.
Here’s a hint- when you’re driving, your time is not your own- and it’s anything but free. The balance sheet gets even worse when you “save time” by running a bunch of errands. Just how many “errands” should a healthy middle-aged person be running, anyway?
You know you’re not in Kansas anymore when buying real estate is regarded as a poor investment, while buying a car that has been designed to be obsolete in five years is seen as a good investment. Probably when this line of thinking doesn’t pan out as expected you’ll want to blame the Baby Boomers.
I will say that the total costs (purchase, repairs, fuel, insurance) of my 28-year old car, over the past five years, have been about 15 cents a mile. YMMV.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Seth, you’re really planning on only getting about 100K miles out of that Altima before it starts to break down? That seems pessimistic.
I’m not sure that the calculation of hours saved with a car at #15 really holds up. Back when I used to have a fairly long train commute I was able to substitute hours on the train for hours spent sleeping and/or reading, pretty much on a 1-for-1 basis. So I wasn’t losing anything from my time on the train. Of course, if you can’t sleep on the train and don’t read, YMMV.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Car time isn’t necessarily [i]that[/i] wasted, s.c. If you’re going to spend time listening to the radio anyway, then spending that time driving isn’t really a loss.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
This is a classic example of why so much of America cannot conceive of the word ‘liberal’ absent the adjective ‘elite.’ You write: If you get yourself in a situation where you need a car, then you need the car whether or not you have the money for it, and whether or not taking out a car loan is going to be serious trouble for your long-term finances.
You fail to understand that probably at least 90 percent of Americans “have gotten themselves in a situation where they need a car.” In most of America, simply getting to work absolutely requires one. I understand that in ever-shrinking areas of Northeastern urban America, presumably where you live sans car, there remain corner stores and businesses one can walk to and adequate public transport to places where you cannot. That simply is not the case out here where most of us live. Not here in urban South Florida; not in urban Houston or Oklahoma City or Omaha or Kansas City or Atlanta or Denver or Seattle or any of of the other major and minor American cities have had the pleasure of taxiing around in during my travels.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
LMAO. It’s great how you can look at the day-to-day existence of most of America and call it extreme. It is, but you’ve seen the resistance you get. I owned a 1977 Pinto for a few months in 1992 in Seattle, but it didn’t start much and I haven’t owned a car since. I’ve sinced moved to Boston, thence to Manhattan. These are pretty carefully chosen non-car-dependent cities. Even in Seattle — which has many walkable shopping districts and a well-developed bus system — it was hard to get around, and I bicycled over 100 miles a week to fill the gaps.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Well, sometimes you need a car to get to a job, or you have to spend an extra 2 hours a day commuting. In this area, if you work outside of downtown Pittsburgh, that’s the situation you face.
Places like NY, Washington and Boston, where you really don’t need a car to survive, are really rare in this country.
I’ve always paid cash for my cars, so I can’t say much about how hard it is to get an honest loan these days; given the level of deregulation, and the level of crookedness in the banking industry, I assume you need a degree in math to even tell what you’re getting.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
http://malechem.blogspot.com/2008/07/walkability-and-electric-cars.html
If you’re interested, there’s a link to WalkScore, which tells you how different communities fare walkability-wise.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Well I drug that car cross country to Cambridge, MA, and needless to say, New England winters, my wife’s commute across town to Chelsea through some of the worst, pot-hole infested terrain known to man, and my head in the sand graduate studies do not make for great upkeep on an automobile. I hope you’re right though and that four banger keeps on hummin’. And just in case people wonder, Cambridge to Chelsea is 1 1/2-2 hour commute via public transportation and 20-30 minutes by car…
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I found Seattle works quite well without a car, depending on what neighborhood you’re in. I was in Capitol Hill and had no issues.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:39 pm
As a matter of fact, I try to make my time driving worthwhile by studying music you won’t hear on the radio.
It’s funny to see two commenters in a row cite Seattle as a place you need a car. I earned a university degree (while working) and subsequently worked five years there without needing a car.
A lot of people can only think about the part of the hill where you ride the bicycle up the hill. That’s not really a balanced view, of bicycle rides or of life.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
The idea of “put the car payment into a savings account and buy the car when you have enough” is, as many people have noted, out of touch in a country where large numbers of people need a car in order to get a job in order to get an income in order to have something to put into a savings account.
However, by the same token, it is also true that the money handed over to the auto makers will tend to expand to match the size of the car loan that people can finance.
This is why de-regulation of consumer finance is a short-term macroeconomic win and a long-term macroeconomic FAIL. If the standard car loan still had a 20% down payment, and was capped at 5 years (which the increase in car life expectancy compared to four decades back would make seem reasonable), people would buy less expensive cars, on average, and there would be far fewer people with negative equity in their car.
And, indeed, if people had been less able to buy such big hunks of metal, we might not have a motor vehicle fleet that is so extremely unprepared for the multiple oil price shocks coming our way, presuming that we are able to successfully get out of the current recession.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
The really bad credit scenario is purchasing a new car. The decrease in value is as huge as it is immediate. If you want/need to buy a car, buy a used one.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Matt’s right. One of the reasons cars are so expensive is that people don’t actually pay for them; they pay ON them. They usually buy more car than they can afford. So the car loan business is great for the auto industry: not only is it their primary source of revenue, its very existence allows the companies to jack up the price of those things they make.
We’re drivers in our family, but we buy our cars with the greenbacks.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Incidentally, Matt has really nailed it, and the addicted might take heed- the car is a consumer good.
How many clues do you need? Advertising serves to create demand, so production doesn’t go unsold. You don’t see a lot of advertising for stuff you need. You see lots and lots of advertising for beer, lotteries, cigarettes, and cars.
And this isn’t “Just the facts, Ma’am” advertising, either- it’s some of the wildest LSD-tripping stuff ever seen. This you actually can blame the Boomers for- they took the LSD and the visual Pandora’s Box was opened.
If you really needed a car, you’d own a Metro Geo or a Jeep CJ-4. In fact, you could own both and use them as the season warranted for the cost of a modern sedan.
From cradle to grave the modern car is a consumer good, with a half life shorter than some apples I’ve owned. Thank god the 20th century is over and we don’t have to be modern anymore.
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
MY’s advice isn’t as out-of-touch as it initially seems. The underlying point is sound: If you can, save up some money before you buy a car. When our 1981 Dodge Colt hit 19, my wife and I started making a monthly car payment to ourselves. By the time we drove it to the junkyard five years later, we had to borrow very little in order to get a new Prius. But on the other hand, the last year in the Colt was pretty hairy.
(Yes, it’s basically stupid to purchase a new car, but we thought it was time to vote with our dollars for a promising technology.)
As for the driving/public transportation time comparison, it’s not necessarily meaningful. When I lived in NYC, I used to get a lot of work done on the subway – stuff I couldn’t possibly do while driving. Even with fewer free hours, users of public transportation could conceivably have more productive hours per day than comparable drivers. It all depends on the individual situation.
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
If you really needed a car, you’d own a Metro Geo or a Jeep CJ-4.
As mentioned above, I had a used Jeep CJ-7, and it had nasty habits like having its transmission fall into the middle of the street, rolling down a hill because its parking brake was shot, losing its soft top in the wind, not starting while at a state park in the snow, not starting after spending all day at the Coachella fest, not starting on a dirt road in the middle of the desert, leaking oil, needing its gauges replaced, having the locks on the glove compartment and lock box not work (this is important on an open-air vehicle), leaking oil some more, not passing smog inspection, getting only 15 MPG, not driving faster than 60 MPH, carrying a lingering feeling that it would not protect me in a crash, etc…. shall I go on?
The upshot of all of this was that the satisfaction I had when
I bought my new car was definitely not mere vanity.
Anyway, now the new car has been paid off for several years and I mostly just drive it on weekends because I take public transit into work.
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Borrowing for education may or may not be wise–for people majoring in Chemical or Electrical Engineering, Medicine, and such, the employment opportunities make student loans a fairly rational decision.
However, instances where Culinary Institute students run up 100K in loans so they can get a bottom-of-the-ladder kitchen job for $12 an hour is all too common.
And the number of former homeowners who have HELOC’d themselves out of their house trying to support failing businesses is not insignificant.
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Were that the US were really a continuum of transportation options. 2 hr by train from downtown Manhattan I live in a place where absolutely positively, unless you’re legally blind one must drive. It’s that or pay with your own time spent trying to make the so-called transport system work (it’s unreliable so people can’t use so it has no users so people don’t demand service and is unreliable). And worse of all the local villages strictly forbid any kind of development that might make these places viable for people rather than cars. How did people get suckered into this impoverished environment? I’m bolting as soon as I can!
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I live in a place where a car is a necessity (New Mexico). I, however, don’t think a financed new car is a necessity at all. Generally speaking, even with no money down, a new car would cost around 400 per month. Within several months, you could buy a very used, older model car – say for 2000. Stash away a few more months “payment” and you could purchase a second older car. In fact within the life of the loan, you could theoretically own a whole fleet of older cars.
I of course don’t own a fleet, but having a pair of older cars means I generally have at least one working vehicle – refuting the reliability argument. Also, buying a used fuel efficient vehicle (think 93 Civic) is arguably more environmentally friendly than purchasing a new hybrid (carbon neutral as far as production costs), though less glamorous.
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I would add that my second vehicle is not fuel efficient, but is designed to get me to the unique places that make me love living here. However it does get me to and from work in a pinch while I go about repairing or replacing the grocery getter. That probably sounds very environmentally unfriendly on several counts to your average Manhattan dweller, I suppose, but it is the reality for even someone considered a “tree hugger” where I live
.
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:11 pm
without those book sales, Barack and Michelle Obama would still be paying off their law school loans today.
Please — I think they would’ve gotten their returns on their HLS tuitions if they continued to work as attorneys.
“h” is right — student loans are great when it’s for a lucrative field, but not if you don’t have good job prospects when you get out.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Look, no-one is a stronger believer in public trans than I am. I grew up in and around Boston, and didn’t even get my driver’s license until I was 23. From 1996 until 2001 I worked in downtown Boston (financial district) and later on the waterfront, and took the T to and from work even though the commute was about 35 minutes longer than driving would have been. Why? Well my employer paid 50% and then 75% of my T pass, and the minimum $$ to park my car would have been $20-ish in downtown Boston and then $6-ish at the waterfront, per day as opposed to $11/month for the T pass. So it made economic sense, and I did it.
My daughter lives in metro DC now and takes the Metro to and from work. Before that she lived in Manhattan and took the subway everywhere. Big believers in public transportation, we are.
That having been said, MattY really needs to do some research among real people living in real places with real jobs, that aren’t in the city. You buy a car because you need one, to commute and to shop. You finance it because you don’t have several grand lying around (and no, Matt, its not as easy as just saving up). You buy new because machinery, even good, well-designed machinery, wears out. Upkeep on a new car is relatively low – although that is offset, to be sure, by financing and insurance. There’s also a convenience factor: a new car is much less likely to need to spend time in the shop. A used car? Who knows.
And the generalizations in comments above? Just that – generalizations. Most people do NOT buy more car than they need or can afford. Some do, sure, but not MOST. Many choose to spend a bit more on a foreign brand, because of the reputation for reliability vs the big three. And having bought new in 2001, my truck is now paid off, and running like a top, and I’m likely to keep it for several more years.
But the point of all this: There’s NO PUBLIC TRANS from anywhere near my house to anywhere near my office. Its only a 8.5 mile, 12 minute commute, but there’s no way to do it except by car. No, Matt, bike isn’t a reasonable alternative. I’m 63 years old, and this is New England. We just got a foot of snow over the weekend, now frozen solid. There are no bike paths; the road between home and work goes over a high, very windy, narrow bridge which local drivers treat as a speedway.
And yes, there are absolutely auto-financing ripoffs – just as, we have found, there were home-financing ripoffs. HL Mencken was right, after all. I’d hope readers of this blog would be smarter, generally.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Please — I think they would’ve gotten their returns on their HLS tuitions if they continued to work as attorneys.
In all probability, but the point is that it took them till 2005, after years of paying out more per month than their mortgage. And they graduated in the early 90s. Today’s law graduates can literally mortgage the first couple of decades of their working lives, and it’s easy to imagine a talented law graduate deciding to forgo public service and… continuing to work as an attorney.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
It is possible to start at the bottom of the used car ladder and work your way up to a new car that is not wholly financed, by judicious trading, saving money for large down payments and working the dealer. Once you are in a new car, if you trade every couple of years, you get high trade-in value plus cash to basically keep yourself at a very low level of debt-to-value.
The problem is that such a scheme requires real discipline (I’ve seen it done, but I’m not in that position myself, having been a user of public trans for most of my adult life). In the car-buying sphere, discipline seems to be a quality sorely lacking.
I will also add that if an owner properly cares for the modern vehicle, 10 years is a quite reasonable life expectancy. Really, there is no reason why a good car can’t be bought new on a 4-year loan and that gives 6 years of amortized usage.
Thanks.
mp
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
It is possible to start at the bottom of the used car ladder and work your way up to a new car that is not wholly financed, by judicious trading, saving money for large down payments and working the dealer.
Yes, precisely. While a car really is a capital expense, regardless of what MattY erroneously claims, there are cars to be had for the same price as a down payment that are dependable enough to give you enough time to save up enough for a new car. It’s about both discipline in accepting that your car will not have all the latest gadgets and about knowing that the new car you do purchase will be just what you can afford.
buying a car that has been designed to be obsolete in five years is seen as a good investment.
There’s nothing about cars that will make them “obsolete” in five years. These days, an average car will last 10 years/120,000 miles before giving you a significant amount of trouble. A car of above-average reliability will make it to 15 years and up to 200,000 miles, if you’re willing to keep it that long.
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:02 am
Every time I’ve heard of retail car sales going down, I’ve wondered how they ever could have gone up. Why would anyone buy a new car? A mentor of mine used to quote her long-deceased husband, who had been a car dealer himself: “You lose a few thousand dollars just by driving your car off the lot.”
If you’re determined to buy a brand new car, there’s no reason not to go to a reputable car dealership and get a car with a few thousand miles on it already. You’ll save, oh, $10,000 or so, and you’ll have the same car.
Used cars have always suited me just fine. There’s a real sense of freedom in not having a car payment at all. I can’t imagine the woman quoted in the LA Times article linked from the Mother Jones article who traded in five different cars over four years. What hubris!
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:03 am
The basic problem here (just as with educational costs and housing costs) is that the cost of goods and services in the US has increased at a far higher rate than incomes have. This has become (over the last 35 years or so) so commonplace that it is not even considered as the basic cause of second-mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loan debt, etc. In the 1960s a middle-class income could easily handle house and car payments. Incrementally, in the years since then, corporations have had no difficulty in making record profits, mostly by limiting the salaries of and foisting off health-care and retirement costs on their employees. Too many people not being paid enough is the root of this problem.
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 am
Car financing doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. 5 to 6 years out, even the Hondas and Toyotas sell for *much* less than the new versions if you shop around, and they can last for at least that long again if they’re well kept up. While there’s nothing certain when buying a car (new or used), if you can see the maintenance records, do an online vehicle history check, test drive it, and take the car to a trusted mechanic to check out, you’ll probably be okay buying a mid-life used car. (I don’t know how much hassle it is to do all this with a dealer; I’ve always bought from private sellers.)
Even if you have to borrow to get a car the first time, if you can pay off the loan in 3 years for a car that you can keep for at least 6, then just keep “making payments” after the loan is done– except put those payments into a savings account for the next car. It does take some discipline, but it’s money you’ve already been setting aside, and it gets you out of having to rely on car credit from then on. (If it turns out you can get a great credit deal next time, fine– but you won’t *have* to take a less than desirable deal due to borrowing constraints.)
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:07 am
30+ years ago, my first car loan was also my first major debt. I had no student loans. I had no credit cards. Also, there were no other monthly fees I had signed up for chipping away at my discretionary income. I was not paying something each month for cable/satellite TV access cell phone access and Netflix and TIVO. Today, it is far different. By the time they graduate, too many have already committed too much of their income before deciding to buy a car. That makes saving for a down payment even harder. The answer is not just buying a used car. It is looking at and managing ALL your debt.
People who spend all their income each month are in crisis and many don’t really know or understand how dangerous a position that can be. They are now finding out when they cannot qualify for a new loan and their credit card limits are reduced leaving them with no available credit. Employers are cutting back hours and lowering wages further stressing already strained budgets. I sense a growing effort by people to start cutting back and living within their means. The net of that over time will be an increase in personal savings which is something that is long overdue in this country. But the next five years will be very painful.
Cheers,
LoneStarJeffe
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 am
For my very first job out of college, having a requirement was a basic requirement. Living in Oklahoma, where the culture is based on the car, there’s no getting around having a car. There’s hardly any public transportation to speak of, and everything’s so spread out that even if you did find a bus route even near where you need to go, during the limited hours the buses run, it would take you 2 hours to get to a destination that would only take 30 minutes if you drove your own car.
Yes, infrastructure would be great, but that’s a long way off, and since it takes 10 years for national changes to hit here, well, I’ll have to keep my car. Which, by the way, I bought new — first new one in 20 years of car ownership! — and financed through my credit union at a great interest rate, which really pissed off the financing officer at the car lot.
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:55 am
…is where your commentary should have ceased, Matt. You’re a brilliant guy, but you have this annoying habit of getting all abstract about stuff that most of us are acquainted with through actual experience.
Investing the equivalent of monthly car payments and buying when you can afford to is a good idea, but unimaginable to an overwhelming majority of Americans.
Besides, money invested in the last year has lost more of its value than any car…
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:08 am
“You lose a few thousand dollars just by driving your car off the lot.”
Are you driving an investment or a vehicle? I’d be inclined to agree with you if I were in the habit of trading in my car every few years, but I’m not. When I bought new I was looking for something much more reliable than the used cars I was accustomed to (see above). A used car is that many years and that many miles closer to becoming a headache, plus it’s always a bigger question mark than a new car, since you’re never really sure of what its history is.
Furthermore, I knew that after several years, a car that I’d owned since it was new would be worth more to me than it would be worth as a trade-in. I knew this because up until a couple years ago, I put more than 20,000 miles a year on my car. How much do you think I could get for a 9-year-old vehicle with 176,000 miles on it? And yet I’ve been getting utility out of this vehicle for several years since I’ve paid it off and don’t see any reason why I can’t get a couple more years out of it, too.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 am
This is rarely a problem if you buy 3-year old cars from new car dealerships. These are almost entirely products of 3-year leases. They are usually models with good reputations, which were serviced by dealers because the leases came with service contracts. You can watch the internet to see when a company dumps a fleet of leased cars back to a dealer and get a great buy. They are a huge savings over buying new.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Dealers say this, but it isn’t true. They compare loaded used cars with base price new cars. I looked for moderate miles (30k to 40k) 2006 Toyota Camrys. With common features they go for about $16,000. A new Camry starts at $19,000, but with comparble features to the used models, they go for about $27,000.
One more thing, this won’t last. People and businesses will not be throwing money away on three year leases with the regularity that they have been.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
A lot of these comments illustrate two great trends of the past 30 years that I’m happy not to be a part of.
First, a lot of people say Matt is ‘lucky’ to live where he doesn’t need a car. It never occurs to them that Matt might like to be like the guy in the car commercial who drives out of the Loop and is in the Canadian Rockies when he arrives home. Matt just understands that this is a fantasy.
In reality, Matt has just put down a sizeable chunk of change for a condo on transit lines. That’s not luck, that’s pluck. Go thou and do likewise.
Secondly, one commenter says cars aren’t engineered for obsolescence and the next says you just gotta have the latest ’safety feature’. But you know what older people on SS like? The 92 Buick Skylark! And probably the highest mileage car in the world? An early 80s MB taxi that racked up over four million miles driving on the backroads of the former Yugoslavia- a little more challenging than the roads faced by the average American driver.
If you’re talking about need you’d do what the people around here do- buy an early-90s Metro or Escort, or even a Pinto if the price is right. They all get better mileage than 98% of the cars on the road in America.
Memo to Adam Villani- I said CJ-4. Everyone knows the Jeeps from the 80s were crapburgers. My mechanic tipped me not to take one as a gift.
Yes, you might be trapped in a situation where you absolutely need to sign on the dotted line. How long that goes on, however, is up to you.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Almost all of the bump in price for the new car options was from a bigger engine and an automatic transmission. These are only called options so they can advertise a lower price for a stripped down version. It is very hard to actually find a new 4-cylinder Camry with a standard transmission for sale. Only a small amount was for the sound system.
It generally works out that you pay roughly $250 per month every month for the privelidge of driving a car that is 3 years newer than an alternative (until you get to really old cars). When it comes to safety and security, I can put that $250 per month to much better use in other ways.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
It is virtually never the case. It is almost always the case that it is the most popular models. Leased fleets are not bought on personal whims, but rather on business decisions. When you are buying company cars, you want a model with broad acceptance and few problems.
The one thing you do need to watch for on fleet resales is very high mileage. Many of those cars get over 20,000 miles per year put on them. I saw one 2 year old model (probably close to 3 years in service) with 84,000 miles on it.
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I keep whipsawing between laughter, contempt, and pity. It’s amazing the gyrations people will go through to try to convince others – and thereby justify their own decisions – that buying cars on credit is a necessity.
You’re out of touch, Matt! Much of American NEEDS a car! Yes, but they don’t need THAT car. They don’t need a NEW car. They don’t need a LUXURY car. Etc etc.
That used car is someone else’s lemon, I don’t want that! Yes, you’re right – far better to buy your own brand new lemon at twice the cost.
Screw it, shooting fish in a barrel is boring.
The simple reality is that buying things on credit makes them cost more, period. Usually it’s interest so you’re paying $1.10 or so for every $1 worth of thing, but sometimes you get “lucky” and find 0% interest deals or the like. If you think that’s actually free money then I have a bridge to sell you. Everything costs somewhere.
Even if you believe that you HAVE to finance your car and you HAVE to buy it new and you HAVE to get that more expensive vehicle, you could make a little more payment to yourself and someday get to the point where you could buy a car cash. Then instead of paying a total of $28,533 over 5 years to buy a $24,000 car at 5% interest you could spend that $4,533 on something else. Even if it took you till your retirement to pull it off it would be a worthwhile venture.
I’d bet my fully paid-for car that not one person here crowing that car loans are necessary is doing that, though.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Don W actually understates the matter. In my experience a dealer will charge twice what a private party selling the same car for cash will. With that kind of difference you can take the private party car straight to an auto shop and have them fix whatever might go wrong.
It ain’t rocket science.
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
People who buy used always seem to compare the sticker price new to the best deal they can get used. In reality you need to compare the best price you can get new with the best price you can get used.
If you’re looking at something like a corolla or a civic that will hold 80% of it’s value after 3 years – you often find that the total cost of ownership difference between the two cars is negligable.
In my case my new car was 0.9% financing, $1000 cash back, $1000 owner loyalty, and I got it for invoice – I compared that with a 3yo used example of the same model and it turned out buying new was cheaper.
If it’s cheaper I can’t see why you wouldn’t go for it.
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:35 pm
This thread goes back and forth. First we hear about people too poor to save for a car or move to a bus line. And these people have to buy a car on credit to get and hold a job. And the next thing we hear is that buying a new car can make sense because blah blah blah.
So make up your minds already, or just admit you like that new car smell. Anyone who can afford a new car can certainly afford to live on a bus line and they’re probably right that they don’t fall in the class of people most frequently abused by automobile dealers.
Just don’t confuse the hard-luck story of the new car buyer with the hard-luck story of the guy who actually needs a car to get to his minimum-wage job on the graveyard where the buses are afraid to go. Those are two different stories entirely.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
RE: #83 serial catowner
Exactly, my whole life revolves around my apartment and where I work.
On top of that I have no family, no friends, and no hobbies. I have no need for live music, good drink, good company, good shopping*, or green space.
* I order everything including my toilet paper from Amazon.com.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:51 am
As others have posted here, some car loans are good, some are bad. Matt is probably over-generalizing a bit.
In May 2004 I walked into a Honda dealership to buy a new Accord. I had several thousand available to put down, but was offered zero-down 2.99% financing through American Honda Finance, and I took it. (BTW I had a very good experience buying the car through Costco’s car buying program. If you’re a member, I recommend it.)
So there’s been no drama, no finance weirdness. The car will be paid off as of March 15. Total finance charges will be just under $1600 over 4.75 years. A little over $350 per year on average. The car has a little over 62 kilomiles on it and I expect to drive it as long as I decide to drive a non-hybrid gasoline powered car. Judging from previous experience with Accords (my last was an ‘86, bought used in 1989, which I drove to 210K miles and sold for $1000) this car has about 13 years and 150,000 miles left in it. But I expect the viability of driving a gasoline-powered car to end well before this car’s otherwise useful life is used up.
I’m not going to argue with Don W that a car loan is a NECESSITY. It was just a convenience. And I did, in fact, pay about $1.10 for every $1.00 worth of car. But OTOH I got to keep — and use — the money that I would have paid 5 years ago for that car. Or put it in the bank and earn interest (probably averaging round 2% APY, more in a CD of course, but I didn’t go that route.) If I’d shopped for the right CD I would probably have come out ahead, paying (in present dollars) around $0.95 or even $0.90 for every $1.00 worth of car I’d bought. It’s that pretty basic thing of present value/future value and discounting.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:57 am
And oh — I’m a working musician and music teacher, with regular part-time jobs at varying distances from my home (2 to 32 miles on a regular basis, one way). I haul a guitar (or two), music binders, often drums, amplification equipment, and the usual assortment of cables, pedals and whatnot to each of the approximately 7 places I work at on a regular basis. That doesn’t count the one-off gigs I play. If anyone wants to let me know how I can do that on public transit, I’m listening.
I don’t “need” a car. I’d just have to switch careers to do without one.
December 30th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Last comment. I bought new because, and only because, I discovered that new Accords with Costco pricing cost the same — in some cases even less — than comparable ~3-year-old Accords were running at dealerships. (I didn’t look at “used car” lots but at the used-car annexes of new-car dealerships, which are admittedly more expensive, but IMHO your odds of getting a good used car are much improved there.) And I didn’t want to take a risk with a private party deal w/no warranty.
I’m not shilling for Costco, btw. I checked the Internet departments of a couple of other local dealerships and they offered within $200 of the Costco price. So deals are available, or they were then.
January 10th, 2009 at 6:31 am
I like to a drives car-bmw verymuch Because it’s good!!!!
http://www.car-bmw.fusionthai.net
January 14th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Car loans is favorable of any of them.
——————-
juliana
January 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
It is an interesting post.
————
juliana
http://www.talkingcarloans.com
January 21st, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I really can’t help but question the wisdom of making car loans easier to come by. Every personal finance expert on the face of the earth — from Suze Orman to Dave Ramsey — will tell you that taking out a car loan to buy a new car is one of the stupidest things you can do.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Great site. Good info
March 14th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
xanax
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:51 am
tramadol
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:18 am
viagra
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:51 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:58 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 4:35 am
I bookmarked this site, Thank you for good job! viagra
April 11th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
iwyxrp whunqta bhpu dqwcupf aqcgho aihysrje jwlc
April 16th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Good Day. Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.
I am from Belgium and learning to speak English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Cheap international airfaress, international flights, cheap airfares, discount airline tickets, cheap flights, airline consolidators, international airfares.”
With respect
, Slevin.