> There is a car-debt crisis
To what degree is this caused by car prices versus Americans' compulsion to keep buying new cars? Anecdotally, the folks I know struggling with car payments are almost exclusively in the latter bucket. But I'm open to having my mind changed with data.
If people didn't buy new cars there would never be used cars.
Tell that to Cuba.
Not entirely true; there are at least the lease, rental, and commercial fleet markets supplying predictable inventory of used cars to the public market.
I have 2014 Tesla S which which I recently had drive unit and battery replaced ($20k total). my friends all think I am nuts, but they all have $1k+ payments (some for 72m) while I haven’t had a car payment since 2017 and won’t have another one till 2036 :)
If your friends dumped $20K into paying off those loans they’d be a lot closer to paid off or maybe paid off completely, though. And that’s on a newer, lower mileage car.
I’m all for maintaining vehicles and keeping them on the road, but I don’t think you’re in a place to criticize your friends with $1K car payments after putting almost 2 years worth of those payments into a car that’s over a decade old.
Who paid the $20k?
What are you thinking about getting next?
How many miles?