Have you browsed used car prices in the past year? If not, you're in for a shock!

You need at least $12,000 and that's to get a 15 year old car with over 100,000 miles. I'M NOT JOKING. I WISH I WAS.

Back in the good old days, when everything was in black & white, back in 2017, we bought a 2004 Yukon for $3500. Let's just say it needed $2,000 of work. It had 160,000 miles on it. A 13 year old SUV. And that was not a sedan either, but an SUV.

Today, even an old, high-mileage vehicle that you'd expect to get for $2,000 or $3,000 will set you back $12,000!

Apparently it's not JUST inflation, but more of a 1-2 punch. There's inflation, yes, but also all the factory shutdowns and shortages due to China/COVID has caused a scarcity of NEW cars. So all the new car buyers are forced into the used market, which drives up demand through the roof. There is only so much used inventory.

So now is a great time to be a car mechanic, I guess. Everyone is going to be forced to keep their used cars running -- because they can't afford a new car, or even a new used one.

I think this has been the situation for the past couple of years … factory shutdowns during Covid, then they started making rigs again but couldn’t get chips. As an aside, I would be perfectly happy to have a ride without all the computer stuff, at 71 I remember those days and our rigs performed their transportation function just fine.  I didn’t own a car with air conditioning until I bought a used Ford Escape in 2002.
 
Anyways, things will mellow out in a year or two (hopefully I won’t need to think about another rig until then) and the car lots seem fuller now, just from a drive by observation.  When the new car pipeline fills back up the pent up demand will bring a flood of trade-ins, and shortly after that there will be deals to be had as the car lots need to move out a large used inventory.
 
I don’t share the “paranoia” that some of the yung’uns here seem to have, and the experience of my 71 years (as well as that of my mother who passed away last March at age 100) validates that.