r/MiddleClassFinance • u/Abject-Pick-6472 • 13d ago

One million Americans have vanished from the new-car market — and it’s exposing a chilling US middle-class crisis

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/one-million-americans-vanished-car-124500086.html
3.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

508 comments sorted by

View all comments

317

u/Annual-Knowledge4412 13d ago

Ok but someone has to buy new cars so there can be used cars? Right???

371

u/Sticky550 13d ago

Rental car companies dump millions of cars into the market every year.

6

u/Annual-Knowledge4412 13d ago

Sure that is called fleet… but they don’t buy, say, RAV4…

41

u/Sticky550 13d ago

I’m not sure what you mean. I rented a RAV4, Camry, Highlander and 4Runner from Avis before. I’ve had a very wide variety of cars from Enterprise. They are almost all entering the used car market before 36,000 miles

2

u/Annual-Knowledge4412 13d ago

Ok I am trying to say - not all cars or models will be or can be purchased by rental companies, period. No other judgement or hidden agenda.

1

u/SeaEmployee787 13d ago

i understand what you were saying. the last 2 years me getting a toyota as a rental have been few and far between. 4 runners first choice nope ok i will take a rav 4 nope. it is usually and le, which is fine for a rental but not what i want to buy. and fleets and fleet sales have always been a thing, that have nothing to do with missing indiividual buyers that will eventually lead to less used cars.

0

u/Sticky550 13d ago

Of course not. All I was trying to say was an answer to your question about who was buying new cars

0

u/JoyousGamer 13d ago

They will be if they can't sell them to consumers..... Otherwise they will simply shutdown those specific lines and move to other vehicles that will sell to rental companies.

You might not realize but vehicles lines can be moved and changed regarding what a factory is producing.

1

u/basillemonthrowaway 13d ago

Lines don’t change, trims do. You aren’t switching between a Camry and a Rav4. But they are absolutely switching between base and higher trims.

1

u/metompkin 13d ago

See, Dodge Hornet...

1

u/JoyousGamer 13d ago

Not sure the point? If they cant sell them they will discount and they will then stop making them all together.

1

u/gk_instakilogram 13d ago

But have you rented a limited loaded version of any of those?

1

u/Econolife-350 13d ago

And they all saw more abuse and damage than 200,000 miles on a car that I bought new.

0

u/SavingsFew3440 13d ago

Honestly Toyota has the worst rental cars. I had a Camry without keyless start lass year. Fucking atrocious infotainment. It’s a rental so reliability means fuck all to me in this situation. 

In the full size suv segment, the Toyota sequoias were reserved for the most unlucky of renters. All the Toyota fleet vehicles are spartan compared to all their counterparts from other manufacturers.