Ok, Mike - which guide/issue are you referring to? I don’t see a numerical score for reliability anywhere (and even if there was, what would a 5.5 or a 7.1 actually mean in real life?)
I’d love to see someone actually spend $7k on a 13 year old Camry. That’s ludicrous.
KBB private party value for 13 year old comparably equipped cars with automatics and 156k on them:
1997 Camry: $2,540
1997 Accord: $2,665
1997 Taurus: $1,690
A 2000 Camry has a kbb private party value of $4,210.
The price you quoted for the 13 year old Camry is 67% ABOVE KBB suggested retail value. The price you quoted for a 10 year old Camry is 200% above KBB private party value. A dealer can certainly ask for prices like that (some dealers here were asking $5k for a 97 Taurus like mine), but you’d have to be galactically stupid to pay that price, and that doesn’t make the cars worth that much.
Oh, and a base model 10 year old Taurus LX has a kbb private party value of $2,305.
That’s $1,905 below the Camry LE, but it was a cheaper car to begin with… The Taurus went for ~$15,750 new (invoice after rebate), vs. ~$17,900 new for the Camry (invoice w/no rebates available)
I was disappointed with the fuel economy ratings of the Aveo. A car that small should get better fuel economy.
Unfortunately, buying stock in a company doesn’t usually help the company itself…
I beg to differ. When you buy a stock, you increase demand for that stock. Demand for stock puts upward pressure on the price of the stock, and every company wants the price of its stock to increase. If nobody bought the stock, even from a private seller, the price would decrease or remain stagnant.
Absolutely - buying the stock increases the price of the stock. However, all that does is keep the shareholders happy, which keeps management in their jobs. It doesn’t affect the health of the company. In fact, the company’s health causes the stock price to change, not the other way around.
Again, as an example, if you buy a share of Walmart from me, Walmart doesn’t get a cent of that money. I get the money, and then I can invest it somewhere else. Obviously I’m not going to buy Walmart stock with that cash if I just sold the stock. I might invest it with Target. That certainly isn’t helping Walmart.
The ONLY times that a stock purchase helps the company whose shares are being traded are during IPOs or issuances of new stock. That’s the only time that the company gets any money from the transaction.
Also, I just looked at Autotrader (which lists dealer asking prices, not the actual value of the car) for a 50 mile radius around Manchester, and found these 1997 listings:
Camry LE $3,500 / $4,900 / $5,100* / $4,499
Camry XLE V6 $6,495
Accord EX $4,977
Accord LX $3,995 / $2,998 / $2,988
Taurus G $3,999*
Taurus GL $3,995 / $2,295
- = VERY low miles
At 10 years old, I see for premium listings:
Camry: $9,995* / $8,400 / $6,977 / $6,400 / $5,997
Accord: $8,999 / $7,111 / $6,995 / $4,995^ / $4,499 / $2,600^
Taurus: $2,999^ / $2,700^ / $2,500^
^= over 140,000 miles.
When you get to standard and featured listings, you’ll find some Tauruses around 100k or less on the odometer, and they’re asking $4000-6000 for many of those. Still a little less than an Accord or Camry of the same mileage, but nowhere near $9k like your quote… and not a single Camry or Accord is listed for more than $9,995… and you’d have to be stupid to pay that, as KBB is around $6,250…