Car sales and the recession

[rtj]

I was at a nearby dealer a week ago for warranty service. They had probably 8 Tacomas on the lot. One of the managers said trucks aren’t selling as gas prices are so high. Weird, six months ago you had to put a deposit on a truck they’d get in a month.

Crazy post-COVID economy, I guess. It will be interesting as the chip shortage is supposed to be easing.

 

[BBShark]

I was looking for a 2-3 year old, low mile Ford Explorer in the fall of 2019. You could find them for $25K. In January 2020, Covid hit. So, I kept my old Tahoe the pandemic scare went from "15 days to shut down the spread" to months to years. This summer I went looking again. Now that same Explorer with 70K miles (4-5 years old) is $25K.

January 2020 was day 1 of inflation, high gas prices, flat stock market and no end in sight for the Covid scare. I finally bought one last month (and kept the Tahoe). My thinking was keep money invested and resulting in inflation eating away 10% of its value or take the money out and buy a vehicle cash. I think, in the long run, buying the vehicle is the better option.

Looks like the chip shortage will be solved by the government throwing billions of (taxpayer) dollars at Intel and others. My bet is that 80% of that will be skimmed off by (gov't friendly) contractors and it will be 5-7 years before it makes any impact.

 

[rtj]

Yeah, it is a real cluster ____.

All through Covid there was bargain after bargain. The big short guy is telling everyone the crash is imminent, but he’s been saying that a while.

 

[phantomjock]

We drove up to Annapolis to prep the boat for sail/sale on Saturday July 23, 2 days 1200 miles, I-10 to Jacksonville the I-10 north. We saw very few Semis on the road (Saturday) - maybe 5-certainly less than 10 BOTH DIRECTIONS! Fewer on Sunday. But I stopped counting the number of Trucks (ig Fords/Dodge/etc.) with a 5th wheel trailer heading both North and south, when I got to over 20 - each way. Return trip - again over a Sunday then Monday - Semis back to more normal flow, and the trucks/5wheel too. Weird.

 

[rtj]

Trucker protest maybe? Yes, seems weird.

Diesel fuel is pretty high. Maybe locomotives are hauling more.