I donated a 2001 truck in December. The way vehicle donations are done is that you phone the charity, and they send a contractor tow truck. No contact. It’s towed to a big auction place. After it’s sold, they send you a letter telling you the price, so that you can deduct that amount from your income taxes. I expected my rusty old hulk to auction for at most $1k. Maybe a few hundred. To my surprise, when the letter came, it had fetched $5500. Used car dealers must be desperate for trucks to sell.
In a few months when people see the crash coming, they'll hold on to their money like it was glued in their wallet. Sell now if you can.
Massive thread hijack alert, but: Autonomous cars should be readily available within, say, ten years, so 2031. But last I read, the 'average age of a car on the road' is now eleven years. This means it might be 20 years after 2031, or 2051, for natural attrition to get the 'new autonomous cars' above 85% on the road. Human-driven and autonomous cars won't mesh well, to say the least. Do you foresee something ten times the size of Cash For Clunkers to get 'older' human-driven cars off the roads to pave the way for autonomous vehicles? Who funds this?
Let the market decide when driverless cars come or if. If people want driverless cars they’ll figure out how to make it mesh
On the contrary, I am very excited for everyone else on the road to be in an autonomous vehicle. It can only improve highway flow.
It can, but what about those of us who like to drive for fun or ride motorcycles for fun? Not much fun in a car driving you around.
It’s the people who are occupying the left front seat of a vehicle in motion and NOT driving that cause most of the problems now. Let the car drive for them while they **** around with their iPhone, the car couldn’t possibly do any worse than half the people on the road now.
The confusing part is how many dealers / automakers are advertising deals on 2020 inventory still here in February
I know! The model change over was late on a few models, F-150’s come to mind. All the guys that I know are in the business tell me 2020 was one of, if not the most profitable year they’ve ever had. Of course the PPP money helped a lot of them that didn’t have to shut down.
Saturday was the first time I looked at in person, all the windows are good, all the fluids looked great (could even see to the bottom of the reservoirs), started and ran fantastic, test drove it and bought it. $2500. None of the leather seats are cracked or ripped Carpet is pretty clean No obvious rock chips in the windshield The alloy wheels are bit more corroded than I was hoping for LH outside mirror folding, spring is broke. There is no detent when folding and unfolding the mirror. Door locks sticky on one door Couldn't find any spare keys Didn't know the door keypad code (looks like just removed the diver's door panel to find the master code on the module label and reprogram) I don't know if the a/c works, the heater and climate control work great. Windshield washer fluid jelled up on the way home, the car was showing -16C temp. The roof has some small rusty spots from rock chips. Its the quietest car I have ever driven, road noise, wind noise, engine/transmission, just quiet. The steering forces are 1/2 the Chevy Lumina. Traction control seems to work pretty well, turned it off for a few doughnuts in a parking lot. Drives straight hands off, no suspension clunks/rattles. Its far from new but for $2500 I could do a lot worse and probably not a lot better. https://i.imgur.com/u9fLcOx.mp4
Had a Crown Vic of the same era, a 2002, it was a nice car. It was the top line LX, so had leather, etc., and also had the performance and handling package, which included the go fast goodies of the police package but not the upgraded chassis stiffeners. Great car, but my wife hated it, so got rid of it at about 4yrs and 80kmi.
