What's stopping you from buying a cheap car and fixing it? Why doesn't this generation know how to fix things anymore?

Dad wasn't around during childhood to pass on such lessons due to the divorce.

I have a twenty year old car. I bought it used in college some time ago before car prices went insane. I do all the maintenance and upkeep myself. It’s not terribly difficult but even basic parts are significantly more expensive now. A lead acid battery is triple the cost of what this guy paid for his whole car. Fuck, my lower ball joints were half the cost of the guy’s whole car. Not only that, it takes money to buy or rent the tools to do these jobs and above all, it takes time.

My family has been on me to get a new car but I could never afford it. The only fucking way I can afford this one is doing the work myself. And my insurance went up again despite no accidents or speeding tickets.

Idk it might be a jab at how boomers lack self awareness. Imagine buying a running and registered car for $50, or around $145 adjusting for inflation assuming he went to college in 1986, assuming 1968 is the year he was born.

Because of the metal quality obviously
In the past cars were made out of pretty good metal that was durable, the corrosion was just on outer layer, so you really could just fix the car yourself and drive it

Now you simply CAN NOT. The metal is so cheap and shitty, it's fucking ROTTEN, there are literal holes in it everywhere, the general structural strength is fucked. It doesn't matter that you can fix some issues like brakes or transmission, no matter what, your car literally can just rip apart while driving

Lol, that's a 67-72 Chevy C10. I have a 68 C10 and it's probably worth $30-40k today.

They all ended up in junk yards or the boomers bought all of them. I remember reading the white sheet and you could buy a decent rice rocket for $800 in the late 90s.

I don't know how to fix it and I don't care to learn so I buy new and then trade them in before the warranty is out. Get a new car every 6 years or so

I did that back in 2010 when you could still buy running vehicles for $500

I've got a 25 year old ek civic and parts are plentiful and cheap because of the modding scene. I can't stand new cars.

I'm willing to bet Dave had a father that had all the tools and knowledge to teach him

No trucks for sale at $50 now.

Boomers are responsible for the asset-ification of cars just like they did with houses. When they all die off the market is going to plummet because zoomers don't care remotely about car culture. Disposable chinese EVs will kill the racket off for good.

civic

that's one of the few cars where the aftermarket "performance" parts are cheaper than oem. Most other cheap cars aren't like that.
New stainless mandrel bent headers? 65$. Full cat-back exhaust that isn't an ebay fart cannon? 250$. That's unheard of. Most other cars would be 600$ and 1500$ respectively.

t. Miata guy and Civic guy. The civic is way cheaper to fuck with.

He meant as a beoke down truck that doesn't work not as the fixed up version

Are boomers the first generation to leave the country worse off, or at the very least not improve things by any measurable metric?

Seems like every other generation improved things measurably until they came around.

What happened to boomers that made them loose that rabid chemical instinct to protect their offspring? Drugs? Chemicals? Pesticides?

The issues usually seeing cars sold in private sales are usually expensive as fuck to resolve and require specialized tools and machinery.

My friend got a car thinking Nissan Skyline at $900 was a deal, issue was the motor had sucked in water and had melted a hole in the engine block. New engine neededno fix possible.

Between towing and the new engine and other shit to get it road legal I think he overpaid 1.5 thousand.

I taught myself how to work on cars it's not hard. Even in the late 2000s there were plenty of tutorial videos on youtube.

The first time I ever replaced my oil when I was 18 I forgot to put the sump plug back in and had to buy more oil and clean up what I spilled.

my insurance went up again despite no accidents or speeding tickets.

We are all paying for Pablo the illegal's hit and runs

I'm 37 and don't know how to do an oil change. I feel retarded when niggas talk about fixing the cars

Cash for Clunkers ended in 2009 (16 years ago) and only applied to vehicles getting fewer than 18mpg. Considering no one was trading in a relatively new vehicle, the ones that were traded would be nearly 20 years old. The effects have long since passed.

The real culprit is worse, and isn’t going away.

Years ago, when someone had a used car he wanted to get rid of, he had basically two choices; sell it privately in the newspaper (or Craigslist later on), or bend over and take whatever the dealership would give him.

But now there are probably a dozen options. There are multiple private seller platforms, and several used dealers who make offers on the spot. Carmax, Carvana, Driveway, GiveMeTheVin… some come to your house and make an offer. Too low? It’s good for a week, so schedule with two other companies then drive to Carmax. Then sell to the highest one.

That’s why prices of used cars are so high. It’s a legit bidding war for every used car. And since there are so many poor brown people (grown fucking adults who can’t afford new vehicles), the market is huge.

I know how to change oil, pads and calipers but I would not have to knowledge to fix up a complete fixer upper or have the tools. It's not something you can do at first from just videos
I do home renovations and a lot of people think they can DIY a big job bc of the available resources. I've yet to see a single person that thought that way not absolutely fuck it up outside of small weekend type jobs

It is (((illegal))) to drive a car without all the modern (((safety features))) and (((insurance))).

In the US they went and destroyed a shitload of used cars so people would buy new cars. The market never recovered. You used to be able to get 200-500 dollar shitboxes which are now extinct.

2025

cheap car

u wut

There isn’t anymore. You can’t find a car for under $1500 anymore

we can affort new vehicles, but older just have a better design

also they are easier to fix and not this

You need a house because apartments won't let you fix cars in the parking lot, and it's illegal in most places to do it on a public street.

Cars have been disposable items for 40 years.

That fact the all the new vehicles are overprice shit can has increased price of all the old usable vehicles by increasing their demand.

They had nothing better to do back then than learn how to work on cars. I've got video games to play, porn to watch, threads to troll

I only know how to change oil and change a tire. Yet this is enough to make most normies around me think I’m a mechanic

t north Texas

Now my Mexican and redneck friends? Those dudes are wizards

What's stopping you from buying a cheap car and fixing it?

Nothing, I don't live in a gay country that scrapped all it's old cars like you LMFAO

You can’t afford a new vehicle because you’re a nearly-unemployable brown person. You’re part of the problem.

that definitely not the only thing that happened. Car manufactures rather produce less more expensive cars to gouge the consumers on a necessity.

population becomes browner

huge mystery as to why they can’t afford new cars

Where the fuck am I? I thought Anon Babble knew the score.

Oil and filter for my truck: $135

Drive through oil change place fee to change oil in my truck. $149.99

I stopped changing my own oil.

Why aren’t cars from 2009 really cheap? Is it “much cash for clunkers”? Those were the cars people traded in their “clunkers” for. Where are they? Aren’t there a shitload of them?

I bought a car for $50

Cool. Nowadays any car that starts is worth 2k-3k regardless of condition or mileage. That's 1.5-2 months of work at $15/hr for a car that could literally die on you at any moment.

After covid they became insanely expensive. Hell i saw a 99 Toyota Tercel priced at $3k not too long ago

why?

”covid”

Good lord.

Please read this:

car sales are all about getting retards hooked on 30 year car loans now, hence the huge price tag

If you guys hate boomers so much why do you just go on a generational genocide? I assume you're all a bunch of young guys. Why not form your own militia and start offing everyone 50 and above, including your own family members.

cars aren't the problem

Multifactoral. Something modern humans seem unable to comprehend.

Pay cash or put down a large down payment. You need a vehicle. It needs to be reliable. You can buy someone else’s problems or a mystery that could shit the bed in a few years or buy new and not worry about it for a decade.

Only white people do this because only white people can both afford it and plan for the future (brown people don’t understand this; it’s like a superpower to them).

It's not just one thing. Used cars went crazy during covid bc the production of new cars plummeted. The prices haven't fallen since.

If 1968 is that guy's birth year then he entered college in around 1986. At that time $50 was equivalent to $145 today. Where can I buy a running and drivable truck for $145?

cope

You don’t know what that means, again, because you’re brown.

You need a vehicle

kek no I don't.
I'm a hermit. I live a block away from the grocery store. I live next door to my clinic.
No, I don't.

keep coping

this thread again

Dave Plummer is a scumbag. If you thought windows was anti-consumer, you should check softwareonline dot com. Dave personally authored RegistryCleaner.

tldr; Dave was scamming retards on the internet before that job was outsourced to indians

Not all old cars are fixable. There are some cars that are less than 20 years old that you’ll have a lot of trouble to source parts for simply because they’re scarce, and you can’t go to the junkyard because that particular car is rare. This is where you have to start dabbling in PLC and CNC machining and fabrication and it’ll cost you.

in 1968 you could be still pulling silver quarters out of your change. $50 is 200 silver quarters. Current metal value $5.90 each. $1180 total. You can find a running beater for $1180. Fact: someone gave me a mid 1990s Toyota 4x4 pickup. I now have about that much in it. Started it up today.

my current situation will last forever

You’re either not white, a retard, or a literal child

You can find decent running and driving cars and trucks even still today for 3-6k.

Just have to accept the fact it's going to be a shitbox with multiple accidents and more than one thing broken on it.

Just bought a beater Toyota solara for 3500$ last week and it has multiple cosmetic dings bashes and scrapes and the driver side window doesn't roll down and the suspension is old and bouncy, probably needs new shocks but otherwise it's solid. The interior even looks brand new.

Just have to be patient and jump on a deal just as soon as they're posted because you've got about 5 hours after it being posted before someone else grabs it first.

Sad even the shittiest cars imaginable still go for 1500$ not even running but thats how it is

You said "you need a vehicle" not "you will need a vehicle."

some random programmer, who worked at Microsoft for a couple years, now thinks he's a celebrity

cheap car

Those "cheap" clunkers are now selling for what they were purchased for brand new, yet are 15 years old and have 200k miles on them.

Do fixer uppers even exist anymore?

gave me

Give it back, pay your dues and bootstrap yourself another vehicle.

You can unironically find them all in Mexico being used and maintained to this day.

You can replace your PCM with a special Arduino, but it's illegal, because rich people need to make money too

Here in Lithuania and I presume whole EU government has a program where you can get few hundred euros to buy escooter or an electric car for a barely working car and it gets destroyed after you sell. The parts of the car are not even sold. Love seeing what I pay in taxes making my life more expensive.

Any car in US after 2001 or so has a immobilizer and they're super annoying to disable if the ecu is changed. Dealerships or locksmiths aren't cost efficient at all.

$1000 gets you a shitbox car with a totally fucked transmission, probably doesn't even start

Checked

I don't care about your anecdotal fallacy or that dumb silver quarter thing you said. Even if the latter was relevant you would still be wrong because there is no running and driveable TRUCK for sale at $1180.

You know what would be really a really funny joke? if criminals hacked into these and stop people mid drive, that would be really funny wouldn't it? Funny, haha! Who would do that? What if they did it all at once? That would be a great prank.

Not every car has wifi or net capabilities dipshit

theres absolutely nothing stopping me from building my own EV ATVs and charging stations, only i dont have the money. after donald first term, the universe decided i dont get to make money. i dont have my independence. if i made even a little money, like 20$ an hour, my life would be rich

Commie fucking government made it so that inspections are digital now and are filmed and sent to the MOT. They're saying I need brake dust covers on all four corners to pass safety, even though they fall off after three years due to corrosion and only marginally lengthen the lifespan of the rotors. Only Toyota sells them so I have to buy overpriced OEM parts, and to top if off I have to disassemble the fucking wheel bearings to be able to get the front ones on. The days of buying beaters for 1k and driving them to the ground is over, I have to spend more than that just to pass safety this time, let alone the crazy inflation on used cars.

Nope, you just need to broadcast the incorrect code to the transmitter and the engine will die. It's you can just broad cast it louder to and shut down vehicles in a huge radius, from any radio dish. You can even run it through insecure IOT devices that lack firmware updates like a fucking plague.

hey I live in saskatchewan
I probably know that guy

This truck, in this condition, would be 5-10 grand in a metropolitan area today.

t. car guy

They will after 2026 thanks to Biden's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Brake dust covers ... what the fuck ... and how is this a relevant inspection item?

Brakes working, working lights ... tires have some tread ... inspection passed?

unless you know a very specifically poorly designed system, it will not allow a restart, but it will not simply shut down.
The auto manufactures are far from perfect, but they're not as dumb as they may seem.ynnvt

i have a car
whats your problem ?

Bet

C4C didn't do jack fucking shit to the used car market.

Ford Explorer was the #1 vehicle that C4C took in.

about 10,000 explorers.

more than 3.3 MILLION explorers have been built.

It was something like 2,000 miatas.
Some models were only 1 or 2.
They took a bunch of trash off the road that wouldnt have made it to today anyways. Car models like Lebarons and other absolute shitboxes.

Stop scapegating C4C as some boogeyman.

1990 Mustang with the 5.0 and some mods. Body shot, suspension shot, needs tires and one rim is bent. Interior needs a redo. 15k no lowballers i know what i got

OK BOOMER

There are some cars that are less than 20 years old that you’ll have a lot of trouble to source parts for simply because they’re scarce, and you can’t go to the junkyard because that particular car is rare.

The trick to getting a cheap clunker is to find something that was extremely popular, yet became unpopular/superseeded since.
People still love 90s and early 2000s Miatas and Civics. Hence finding a good deal on them isn't the easiest. Clapped out 200k mile Miatas are going for 4k now. A once extremely popular car thats.... still extremely popular.
But a 2004 Honda Odessey? Nobody wants one of those nowadays, But they were absolutely everywhere 15-20 years ago. There will be multiple ones (in nearly perfect condition aside from a rear quarter panel collision) in every single junkyard, so getting parts is cheap and easy.

... but they still won't go for less than 2000$ running/driving/passing inspection.

You can replace your PCM with a special Arduino, but it's illegal, because rich people need to make money too

Most states its perfectly legal. NH is 20 years and older. MA is 15 years and older.

t. Drives a turbo miata running on a speeduino (and blew it up 8 days ago at palmer).

Depending on the car, sourcing parts can be a problem and can get expensive. It's cheaper to spend more and buy a car you don't have to fix.

If that's the case, why did I just buy a 2006 Nissan Sentra? I swear you Anon Babbletards are incapable of saying anything that's true and just make shit up as you go.

Brakes working, working lights ... tires have some tread ... inspection passed?

Some states are like that. Some aren't.
For some reason MA's inspection is basically that. If the car is 15 years or older, they give zero fucks to modifications to it. I've had inspection people just lean on the wheels to check bearing play, honk the horn, turn on the lights and do the blinkers, and then wheel the car back out and give me a passing sticker.
NH "live free or die" is somehow stricter.

Those Odysseys have some of the worst transmissions, buy one and put aside 4k for a new one when yours eventually blows. The good deals I've seen lately are for 2010~ Mazda 3, can find a decent example for around 3k all day.

It's crazy right? The car drives great but it will fail the inspection for some asinine shit like that. I used to think the premier was based for scrapping the registration fee for cars and emissions tests, but he turns around and approves this bullshit.

I guess you're right. I know honda autos from the early 2000s were absolute garbage.
Still my point still stands. Find a reasonably popular car that isn't popular anymore. No nostalgia buys, no "cheap fun weekend car", no "old truck that can still be used for towing". The Mazda3 is probably a good example of this. I'm pretty sure a friend of mine bought one for 3k in 2017, drove it for 2 years, then sold it for 3k when he moved cross country.

My favorite car I had was an 03 Honda element, I would never have gotten rid of it if they still made the parts for it but certain problems were so common that by the time it broke, and the car was only out of production for around 10 years, the parts I needed were just not there, and the fixes became unreliable and pretty ghetto. I did have a civic I bought for dirt cheap, but it was a piece of junk (it was in very bad shape when I got it), and no amount of fixing in the world would have made that particular one worth keeping. It isn’t as easy to upkeep older cars as it should be. I’ll never understand why they don’t just put out “classic” versions of cars, bare bones just radio and AC shit from the 90s again, even without the metals, just cast the shell in the same shape. So much potential there. I know it’s regulations, but why does Mexico get to put out the same Beetle for 70 years and Russians get those shitboxes the same for all of eternity but we can’t just put out classic versions of cars? Fuckin sucks

I still have a mazda 3 from 16. Runs great.

boomer jim fixed the suspension himself (paid dues) after it broke from the constant assrailing gay sex he had in it at the gay cruising park after dark

Its a pain in the ass but can be done. Money, time, effort. Everybody pays for a car somehow.

This thread again? We had this earlier today. Give it a rest

I'm not a poor fag.
I buy cars new.
KYS OP

$50 in a time when the mean wage was $8 per hour: 1 day's work

What a tough guy

The effects have long since passed.

Not really. I think in my whole life I and my spouse put together have owned 10-15 cars, and maybe 2 of them were from after 2009. In 2014 I drove a '77. Removing the cheapest, oldest cars from the rotation fucks up the marginal car sale because it causes a domino effect.

Cars are completely different and far more complicated now

2006 Sentra

Program was run in 2010

Use your brain for a second. Your car was 4, at most 5, years old when cash for clunkers was in full swing. That isn't what the program was targeting.

In the past there was a progression. If that system had maintained, there'd be a pretty big chunk of mid 90s cars still on the road. They'd be run down to the point of being pieces of shit mostly, but they'd still probably be every tenth car on the road. Another tenth at least would be cars from up to about '05. They'd be janky, but you wouldn't have to be a mechanic to keep one running. Then the early 10s cars would be next. Cheap humble cars.
Getting rid of all the 90s cars and a lot of the early 00s cars means all three tiers of customer compete for the late 00s early 10s cars, driving the price.

the best part is they're selling their properties to blackrock, not to younger generations

Bump

everything he did in that case is illegal now, and cops have automatic scanners. you need to spend min 5k on a car now, also insurance. nigger is bragging about getting a fully functioning car that is basically disposable (imagine that) for cheap like its an achievement.

Used to be, your father literally put these things together from the ground up for a living. Learning the trade from him in the backyward was a no-brainer. Today, your father is likely an office worker. The most technical thing he's done is re-figure out how to send an email every time they update Outlook on his work PC.

Miss those days, weren't too long back either. Bought a decent bucket for 1k at the start of 2020, got a written safety for it for cheap and it lasted this long. New ride cost me around 5k after all these new safety rules around parts that don't even impact performance.

broke down

doesnt work

He fixed the brakes and flushed the heater. I did a fucking head gasket job on a v8 to keep my shitbox running and I’m not a mechanic.
Also consider that even at $2 an hour that’s 25 hours of work.
At $20 an hour today you would be lucky to get anything that runs for $2000 - 100 hours work.
And that’s not to mention you would have to put enough money into it to pass the inspections these boomers didn’t have to worry about.
I’m beginning to hate the boomer as much as the jew

Insurance (or inspection) isn't required by some states. But just the cost to register a car alone is > 50 $

That car probably didn't have a valid title if it was that cheap. You can't get anything, running or not, with a valid title for under 300-400$ nowadays, since that's the amount a scrapyard will pay you for scrap.

At $20 an hour today you would be lucky to get anything that runs for $2000 - 100 hours work.

The ONLY times you get deals like this are if you fix a simple issue on a friend or neighbors car as a favor, and then they decide to just give it to you for cheap once they are done with it.

My grandma gave her mid-2000s subaru legacy with 140k miles to the neighbor's college-aged grandson because he helped her replace the battery and she was moving out.

My first car was a ratty old datsun that my dad came across and bought for me for a few hundred dollars and we spent a few months basically replacing or repairing almost everything so i knew the car inside out and back to front before i even got my license. It taught me a great deal and made me more mechanically minded as i was a useless nerd at the time who only knew vidya. Its one of the few things my dad did that I'm really glad he did and im forever grateful.

10 quarts of oil (which is more than you need in any truck) costs like $60 and filters are like $5. Wtf u talking about