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Shortly after I landed my first full-time job, I decided that I would buy a car. My father–who grew-up during The Great Depression–convinced me that I should save my money for at least 2 years before making that large a purchase.
Because he worked in the same town in which we lived, and could walk to work, he allowed me to use his car for my daily 50 mile roundtrip commute to my job. Of course, that meant I didn’t usually have access to his car on weekends, but my friends didn’t object to me riding along with them, and I usually paid for their gas.
Because of my father’s excellent advice, I was able to buy a new '71 Charger SE–for cash, and that helped to set me up for never having to finance a car.
My parents’ philosophy was that, if we couldn’t afford to buy something for cash, then we wouldn’t buy it until we had the cash. In fact, they didn’t even have a credit card until they were in their 70s. When they became less able to handle things on their own, my brother and I took control of their finances and we were astounded to see how much they had amassed in savings and investments.
While my father wasn’t highly-educated, he definitely had a good fiscal managment sense, and he passed that knowledge on to me and my brother.
My Vega was by far the most unreliable I’ve ever owned. If vehicles today were made as shoddy as the Vega we’d all be broke. Counting for inflation - my car maintenance costs are considerably less then they were 40 years ago. And now post Covid with working from home and driving a lot less…my maintenance (and preventative maintenance) are at an all time low.
Debt is not necessarily a bad thing, and a car loan is one of the easiest ways to carry debt because the car is the collateral. It’s a loan that provides its own security.
My dad came to this country in the 1960’s with the idea that he would one day run his own business. He knew that the key to growing a business is cash flow and operating on credit. And the $300 he showed up here with wasn’t nearly enough!
So once he had a job he financed a '63 Fairlane on a 2 year loan. Bought a Fender Jazz Bass on installments. Took out a personal loan for $1000 to buy a stereo and TV. So when it came time for a home mortgage my parents easily qualified with good credit history. And with all that good credit and collateral, money to start and grow a business flowed. And on to success.
Mindless debt is a recipe for disaster, but financing durable goods with a long-term goal in mind is a wise thing to do. A car is a necessity, not a luxury, for the majority of us. And the stereo he paid $550 for in 1965 dollars is still sitting in my mother’s dining room!
That can be true, but my father’s aversion to debt was a winning precept, in the long run. In 1966, my mother inherited $27,000 when an elderly aunt died. A few months later, they bought a newly-constructed home for $26k, in cash, and the remaining $1k was spent on a new sofa and a new bedroom set. So, they were able to live–sans mortgage–until they died, circa 2000. My brother & I sold that home for $199k.
And, it seemed that the absence of any indebtedness didn’t prevent my father from being able to get a credit card in the '70s, when he finally decided that he should have one. The Bank of America folks gave him a fee-free credit card with a decent credit limit, even though he had no recorded debt. I’m guessing that having a fully-paid-off home counted for something with the credit card company.
When I began working, because I had no credit history, I applied for an Exxon card–which was very easy to get. After a few months of paying-off my monthly Exxon bill in full, I got a couple of other gas cards.
Following that, I was able to get a department store credit card, and–finally–a few months later, I was able to get my own BankAmericard. Establishing credit took me several months, but it really wasn’t difficult.
That was the common path to credit back in the day. Gas card, store card, Visa or MC. Earn the credit by proving your credit worthiness. That’s how we did it. Cc companies didn’t just drop a card with a $5K limit in your crib!
I think I was 16 when I got my daytons department store credit card. I used it only for clothes at their men’s store and concert tickets now and then. I think $15 was the highest balance. Later on I got a standard oil card like everyone. This was before visa and master card. I’ve always had good credit and a bank and checking account. Called dime a time checking. Ten cents for each check written.
I had a friend that went with the Red Cross down to New Orleans after the flood. They handed out debit cards and he said a big problem was many had never dealt with a bank before.
Somewhat similarly, many years ago ('70s, I think) because of a labor shortage, Chrysler decided to hire hard-core unemployed people, train them, and give them an assemblyline job. The program quickly collapsed, because people were showing-up hours late. It turned out that these people had not had to be up at a particular time previously, and had no need for an alarm clock, so the early hours were problematic for them.
Once they issued cheap alarm clocks to their new hires, most of them were able to show up on time, and to keep their new job.
When I was a young adult, people would theoretically kill for such jobs and nepotism ruled. Such jobs were spoken for YEARS ahead of time and if you weren’t a blood-relative of someone working there or otherwise connected to someone very high up, you had zero chance of getting what was considered a very desirable job
The only option is to make repair/maintenance costs reasonable is TO DO IT YOURSELF. Yes, I understand that not everybody can do it but those who can absolutely should.
The problem here is simple: nobody is interested in lowering repair prices. Except the owners. The utopian idea that if it costs less to the shop, the savings are passed to the consumer is naive at best. But it’s the same scenario as with everything else - the more you pay - the more they make. How is it different from, let’s say “doctors”? Can you do your own root canal or appendectomy? No. Do you want to live? Yes. Then PAY UP, loser! After all, “since when is it a crime to make money?” as one used car saleshole said when caught lying about worthless piece of junk he was trying to sell to an innocent victim.
What manufacturers can - and should - do is making repair manuals available. Toyota, for example, provides free diagnostic software while all kinds of fords fight to the last drop of [customers’] blood against “right to repair”.
I’ve never had a problem getting Gm service manuals but they aren’t cheap. I also got an Acura service manual. I have no ford experience since I never owned one but chiltons seemed to cover anything I needed for my Lincoln.
I don’t know but I do believe Toyota service manuals don’t seem to be readily available. I think all data though covers the voids but of course is not cheap either.
Once you’ve got 30-40 years of diy experience though, a lot of repairs are pretty generic except for electronics.
It seems that the Toyota factory service manuals have not been printed since about 2012 but there is access to the pdf equivalent via TIS which is a pay-by-day service. My impression is that pulling the pdf pages is a bit cumbersome and trying to download the equivalent of a paper copy (hundreds of pages) during a single-day subscription would be difficult. But for a single task job I’ve heard it’s quite good.
It’s different from physicians, or at least seems like it should be, b/c physicians band together in a sort of “union” called the AMA. This group lobbies politicos for gov’t policies which aid physicians to make more money and reduce competitors. Nothing wrong w/that, it’s America after all, money talks. Just saying.
I’m not aware of any equivalent “union” for repair shops. So the way it should work with auto repair is that when a competitive shop offers as good or better results for a lower price, they’ll soon be getting most of the business. This should cause all of the repair shops in the area to keep their prices as low as possible, just enough to make a reasonable profit and stay in business. There’s no equivalent incentive for physicians I’m aware of.
Your concerns about the availability of reasonably priced repair information are valid, but I can’t say I’ve run into that problem myself much, owning older cars.
A contrarian might say the problem is the car buyer, who insists on buying cars with all the “features”. Afterall if new car buyers demanded simpler cars, they would be considerably less expensive to repair.
Most mechanics though don’t spend ten years and half a million dollars for their jobs. In addition most doctor are affiliated with clinics or hospitals that set rates and are not on their own. Not to mention enormous malpractice rates. Also many choose not to belong to the ama with their membership fees.
Really the only comparison is that they both are services and get paid for the service, plus parts used. Joint here, joint there, box of screws, it adds up.
God bless your kind heart. I am not a huge fan of extortion though and finding excuses doesn’t help. Not to mention (in case of doctors but it also applies to mechanics) that death rate for simple things like childbirth in the US for-greed system is MANY times higher than, let’s say, in Finland.
The reason car repair is still cheaper than hellcare is simple: in the worst case-scenario, you can buy a new car but not a new liver AND dead don’t need cars at all.
If I’m offering as good or better results than the other shops in the area, I’m going to charge more than those shops, not less.
And this may seem counter-intuitive, but my experience has shown that all other things being equal, raising my prices results in fewer customer-related issues and a better class of customer coming in my door. So I would have absolutely no reason to be the lowest price shop around.
I do not think that most people really want all the nonsense which newer vehicles come with. I think the problem is dealers who order vehicles with all this nonsense, because it increases the transaction price, and therefore the profits from the sale. I think lots of people would like a “no-nonsense” car with a NA 4-cylinder engine, 4-speed automatic transmission, and not much else.
