Ram, Ford, and the GM brands are in a constant struggle to achieve new truck superlatives. Every pickup has to be the longest-lasting, the best-selling, the torqueiest. It’s a never-ending battle, and a lot of the bragging ends up being contentious at best and meaningless at worst. Just because one specific trim of one Ford can tow 40,000 pounds and the Sierra HD or Ram HD can only tow 36,000 probably doesn’t mean much to the average truck buyer. What Ram just announced is both a boastful superlative and something that’s great for its buyers, and probably other truck owners.
The news of a dramatically improved warranty for Ram buyers is the happy way I’m going to start The Morning Dump, because the vibes are a bit mixed this week. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain scored one of the biggest union victories in a century for his members, following his surprise takeover that came after a series of controversies and arrests among the outgoing leadership. How is Fain celebrating? By getting into a massive controversy that resulted in a report that makes him look quite bad.
Will America suddenly embrace electrification all at once? Absolutely not, and I think I’ve been quite clear that this belief was dangerous for a lot of automakers. The inverse view is just as dangerous, if not more so. A country that ignores electrification and pulls support for the inevitable transition into electrification does so at its own peril, and that’s what we seem to be doing now.
That’s heavy. Let me lighten it up a little bit. Car And Driver just turned 70 years old. That’s cool.
Ram’s New Powertrain Warranty For Trucks Is 10 Years And 100,000 Miles
The Stellantis brand we all call Ram makes one kind of van and two kinds of trucks: the big kind and the even bigger kind. They’re all good, and choosing between a Ram 1500, a Silverado, or an F-150 probably has a lot more to do with personal preference than any sort of underlying quantitative judgment (unless you’re a fleet buyer).
Up until now, most modern trucks from the Big Three truckmakers came with a five-year, 60,000-mile powertrain warranty. That’s what you’ll get with an F-150 or a Silverado HD. Not so from Ram! Every 2026-or-later model will get 10 years and 100,000 miles of powertrain protection that covers the engine, transmission, transfer case, driveshafts, differentials, and axles. While it doesn’t cover fleet purchases, it’s being extended to both individuals and businesses, and includes work trucks like the Ram 5500 Chassis Cab and ProMaster van.
“Everything is more expensive, and trucks are certainly no exception. Truck buyers are financing purchases for longer periods of time, with nearly 80% of new truck loans exceeding five years,” said Tim Kuniskis, CEO of Ram. “Our customers are making a long-term investment in Ram, and with America’s best full-size truck limited powertrain warranty, Ram is making a stronger and longer commitment to our customers.”
It’s true. Loans are going on forever, and everything is getting more expensive.
This is great for people already in the market for a Ram. It’s also great for non-Ram buyers, as it’s possible that this will force GM and Ford to follow. Until they do, it’s a feature that would definitely make me consider a Ram over the alternative. While most vehicles will go 100,000 miles on the original engine and transmission, the replacement cost for a big truck motor is consequential. The peace of mind is maybe worth it.
[Ed Note: Especially for vehicles with the kind of capability these trucks have, this seems like a big deal for Ram. These trucks are rated to tow tens of thousands of pounds at absurdly hot temperatures up a steep grade; for that punishment to warrantee’d for 10 years, 100,000 miles is cool. -DT].
UAW President Reprimanded In Blistering Report By Watchdog
One of my favorite expressions is the sports cliche: They don’t ask how, they ask how many. As an Astros fan, I find this quite appealing.
Judged merely by outcomes, UAW boss Shawn Fain has been an enormous success. The UAW renegotiated historic contracts with all major Detroit automakers, added a VW plant to the roster, and has otherwise set up union workers to greatly benefit from the shift towards American manufacturing. If you don’t ask how, the how many is impressive.
Unfortunately for Fain, recent leadership got tossed in jail for various crimes, and as part of a settlement with the Justice Department, there’s a Federal watchdog whose whole job is to ask how. And he asked how it was possible that Fain stripped the Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock of some of her duties without any obvious wrongdoing.
The results of that inquiry are this long, damning report you can read in full here. Fain looks terrible in the report.
Without getting into the back-and-forth, Mock alleged last year that she was being sidelined because she was trying to enforce longstanding union rules over various things, including reimbursements. Fain does not appear to have seen Mock as a team player and, according to the report, colluded with another member to have Mock’s duties limited as a form of retaliation:
Her removal was not the result of dereliction of duty or dishonesty, but rather a consequence of her refusal to grant exceptions to the strict policy restrictions governing the expenditure of Union resources, including to those within Fain’s inner circle. As the investigation revealed, Fain acted on a premeditated plan to take action against Mock—one that aligned with Fain’s earlier, widely reported warning that he would “slit [the] f*****g throats” of anyone who interfered with his staff. Fain followed through on that threat by orchestrating a coordinated effort to discredit and disempower a fellow elected officer.
There are numerous instances in this report claiming that Fain yelled at subordinates and swore over various issues, including ones having to do with photos of himself and banners. When Fain did get Mock’s role lessened by the Board, he allegedly conspired to have a black member of the board do it because:
[He] “wanted to reach out to Laura [Dickerson] and LaShawn [English] as they’re African American because I know accusations happen all the time if you’re a white male.” He explained that if he overtly took action himself, he feared he would be vulnerable to accusations of racism, and that “I thought it would be better coming from [Dickerson] than me, a white guy.”
It’s a bad look, and the watchdog’s recommendation is that Mock be restored to her full role. There’s no talk of any charges, but it sounds like the watchdog is looking into bringing some charges over a pattern of intimidation.
The UAW, for its part, put out a statement (you can read the full thing here on Automotive News) saying that Secretary-Treasurer Mock “has harmed our membership by obstructing critical bargaining and organizing activities.” So it looks like they’re not backing down.
BloombergNEF Estimates 14 Million Fewer EV Sales In The US Through 2030
The transition to the electrification of cars is never any easy one, with even model countries like Finland needing both time and a great deal of financial support to be successful. The United States, under this current administration, seems to be reversing the prior administration’s plans in this regard by attempting to remove both the incentive (tax credits, loans) and the punishment (fines, carbon offset credits).
To that end, BloombergNEF thinks that it’ll cost the United States a lot of EV sales and, potentially, a place in the competitive EV marketplace of the future:
BloombergNEF reduced both its near- and long-term EV outlook for the first time, cutting 14 million battery-powered cars from its sales projections through 2030 due to the US rollback. The researcher now sees the country trailing not only China and Europe, but also the global average adoption rate until 2040.
“Global EV sales are growing, but the national picture is more varied than ever,” BNEF analysts write in the report released Wednesday. Whereas China is expected to account for nearly two-thirds of the almost 22 million plug-in vehicles sold globally this year, in part thanks to government incentives, “all major EV policies in the US are under fire.”
My neck hurts from all the whiplash.
I think that it makes more sense to shift a larger percentage of the population into hybrids first and, eventually, EREVs and EVs (especially as technology develops). That doesn’t mean there isn’t a huge chunk of consumers (probably more than half) that could, or maybe should, have at least one electric vehicle.
Happy 70th Birthday Car And Driver
Kaiser Danil Car-und-Driver is celebrating 70 years since the first publication of his eponymous magazine, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t wish our friends there a happy birthday. Car And Driver has a remarkable history, though it hasn’t all gone well. I point you to the hilarious aside from EIC Tony Quiroga in his latest Editor’s Note:
I can still remember C/D’s 50th, largely because embarrassment is hard to forget. The issue wasn’t the issue—the July 2005 magazine celebrated our first 50 in an entertaining way. It was the party we threw that haunts me. For those of you who attended our 50th birthday bash at Indianapolis’s lesser-known track, we were happy to see you but must apologize for a sparsely attended and disorganized event whose sole claim to fame is that it was better than the Fyre Festival. At least Grand Funk Railroad showed up and played “We’re an American Band.”
Can anyone who was at this event please tell me more about this?
Happy 70th to Car And Driver, here’s to 70 more!
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I love Addison Rae’s “Diet Pepsi” and have looked forward to her latest album, which I haven’t listened to. Instead, I’ve been listening to the new Blondshell record too much. The universe has seemed fit to deliver, so here’s Blondshell doing a slower tempo, still excellent cover of the song during her XMU Sessions recording.
The Big Question
Do you consider a warranty when you buy a vehicle? What was the original warranty on your oldest vehicle in your fleet?
Top Image: Ram
The 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on my plug-in hybrid purchases was a big reason I purchased these vehicles as 2-3 year old used cars. It’s like getting 40% off MSRP but still having 5-6 years of warranty on the most expensive parts.
The MGB came with 12 months/12,000 miles in 1979.
A 10 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty would be a consideration on a truck purchase for sure, but I already have a 2021 RAM 1500 and I see no reason to sell it and buy a new truck anytime soon. It’s not that different from what is on sale right now, and it will be less different once the Hemi comes back. I drive really low miles on my truck because it’s my camper tow vehicle and winter car, so 10,000 miles a year is perfect for me.
I don’t consider warranties at all when I buy vehicles, because they’re all too old and/or too high mileage to have any warranty left.
Well, aside from my Kia Forte5, which *would* have still had many tens of thousands of miles and 7 years left on the drivetrain warranty, but Kia made that one non-transferable, so I just got some residual bits of a few shorter warranties. The 100k miles/10 years thing would have definitely factored in if it had still been valid.
Yes. When I bought my 2018 Golf Sportwagen (S 4motion, manual) the dieselgate apologu tour warranty is what convinced me to roll the dice with reliability. For the 2018 Model Year and a couple other years around it, they doubled their 3Yr/36k bumper to bumper warranty to 6yr/72k, which was enough for me to feel comfortable with a car that I didn’t necessarily trust the long term longevity of. Ended up selling in Dec. 2022 for my CX-30 Turbo, which has a less impressive warranty, yet I will likely keep for longer because of the reduced running costs and few to no known reliability issues compared to the VW.
I have had two cars with warranties and took advantage of both. 2017 Fiesta ST had a plastic trim piece that rubbed through the paint on the rear hatch which Ford fixed, fixed, then finally actually fixed. They also redid the vinyl on the B-pillars which had started to wrinkle, and replaced the headunit because it wouldn’t connect to android auto. Its appalling that the car had those issues to begin with, but I was happy to have them fixed for free and the Ford dealer was fine to work with.
When we got my former girlfriend’s (now fiancee) 2016 Sonata bought at 3 years old, with 70K left on the warranty. Also note, this was before the class action lawsuit was filed for the Theta engine. We got her engine replaced 5 years later at about 95k miles after a year of oil consumption tests. We were lucky, but probably should have spent more for a Camry/Corolla/Civic at the time. She still has it since it has been otherwise reliable transportation and was purchased outright, but the Camry/Corolla/Civic would still be worth something.
The Fiesta was my only car out of about 10 that came with a warranty. If I didn’t have the warranty on the Ford I would have done my best to fix the paint and probably lived with the rest, I sold it about 6 months later anyway to get my Boxster. Even though dealing with Hyundai was a PITA, we came out better than most. We will have to replace her car in the next few years and I doubt it will make it all the way to 2029
(her original goal) without needing another engine but might as well drive it into the dirt.
I feel like the Fiesta needs a class action lawsuit for the single stage paint on those. My car is a city car and lived outdoors for 10+ years and the paint is peeling everywhere.
I tend to look for 3-4yr certified used cars, since they typically come with extended warranty’s. So the standard 3yr/36k is not that important. For my past two cars, I’ve purchased extended bumper to bumper factory warrantees from a separate online dealership. A 10yr full coverage may be $2400 online vs $4k from the purchasing dealership.
IIRC most fleet sales and diesels already come with 5/100 warranties.
Because you’ll roll over the 100k well before the time.
The 10-year from Ram is intended to be headline grabbing.
Warranty? No, not really. The best warranty is the one you don’t ever need to use. So far, I have had three new cars that managed that in the time I owned them. My ’16 M235i, ’17 GTI Sport, and ’18 Fiata. And I owned the VW for the entire length of it’s B2B warranty.
My gripe with these extra-long powertrain warranties is that they are typically carefully written to exclude what commonly fails. And you are at the mercy of the dealer, and there are inevitably things involved with the repair that the warranty doesn’t cover, but you are on the hook for dealer prices for. Case in point – I had a Saab 9-5 SE with the rare V6t engine. Saab would cover the first timing belt change at 60K under “extended warranty”. But they would not cover the cost of changing the idler pulleys and tensioner, which were known to not last until the SECOND belt change at 120K. So smart to replace those while it’s all apart anyway. Except the dealer wanted 2X as much money to do that little bit of extra work than having my indie Saab guy do the whole job. They literally wanted to charge the same flat rate labor as doing the whole thing from scratch. Wankers.
I assume that the warranty on my Spitfire was 1yr/12K or something as was pretty standard in the ’70s. I think pretty much all of the new cars I have bought have had 4yr/48 or 50K B2B warranties, the GTI had another year 12K on the powertrain. My ’11 BMW 128i is actually still under SULEV warranty for all kinds of emissions-related crap for another two weeks. 15yr/150K, car was Euro Delivered to the original owner June 30 of ’10, only has 73K on it.
Warranties are insurance. Insurance helps you when you are cash-flow constrained. I am not cash-flow constrained, so it’s always cheaper to self-insure.
So no. I buy for very long time-horizons, but I also don’t buy cars as “consumables.” They are durable goods, and I expect to run them for decades.
So I look at long term costs, in the nerdiest of details. I look at what consumables (fluids, tires, brakes, etc.) cost per mile, suspension costs per mile, and I even look to amortize powertrain wear per mile. For both cars, engine work (should be 20+ years out) is amortized. I know what a powertrain disaster costs.
The biggest cost is depreciation. I have one new car that won’t ever have material absolute depreciation (just some inflation-adjusted), and one used car that also won’t have any more absolute depreciation (already is floored).
If I had to buy a car as a “consumable conveyance” there are known low-TCO winners like Corollas, 4-Cylinder Camrys, Priuses, etc. I’d buy those. Heck, I’ve done Prius battery swaps as part of “flips” to sell to learn something and make a few bucks.
I wouldn’t even describe it as being cash-flow constrained. Insurance makes sense when you can pay a small amount to protect you from a large loss. I pay a grand a year for car insurance so I don’t have to write somebody a check for hundreds of thousands in the event I cause them harm. A small amount of that covers damage to my own car – a couple hundred bucks out of it. Similarly, I pay a few hundred a month for my share of employer-provided health insurance (and the drugs I am on cost more than my monthly) so if I get a million dollar cancer diagnosis, I am mostly covered . Hopefully – it’s United Healthcare, so, well, ya know.
But extended warranties really never make sense. Pay hundreds/thousands to basically pre-pay repairs that might not happen? I just won’t buy a car where I think it would likely pay off.
These long factory powertrain warranties are just a marketing ploy. Occasionally somebody will win the lottery, but not very often (and I am not lucky). They know what breaks and what doesn’t, and they will carve out what breaks as much as they possibly can. And good luck with your claim if you don’t have that “full dealer service history”. Sure, in theory they have to cover you somewhat regardless, but good luck with that, and their lawyers are better than yours, and on salary.
I would. Spyder RS engine lunches itself? Ain’t cheap, but I can afford it.
I hit a new Bentley Continental and send it into someone’s house? Can I afford it? Perhaps, but I ain’t having a good time and am between a rock and a hard place if something else happens. To me that’s cash-flow constrained, where something else happening on top would screw me.
It’s also why there is auto insurance (and why it’s mandatory in most states) because people even doing well enough can get buried by an event.
But why again, do you go for insurance? To cover against outsized events that could financially doom you. Long car warranties are the one I’ll always argue against because nearly everyone can self-insure against it by just making a different choice. Car insurance is usually legally required, also larger edge-case scenarios are tough, even if you can “survive” them.
That’s not cash-flow though. Cash-flow is what you have coming in and going out. This is more like net-wealth constrained – you couldn’t cover the bill if you wanted to, regardless of your income. Of course, too many Americans are deficient in BOTH.
But given my accounting background, I am probably being more pedantic than most about this terminology.
A very minimal level of car insurance is legally required in most places. VERY minimal. The 10K of liability coverage FL requires isn’t going to get you very far today.
We’ve bought two consecutive CPO BMWs for my non-enthusiast spouse, and the warranty was definitely a factor, as well as the fact that both still had a good chunk of their initial 3 years of free maintenance left at the time of purchase. Plus, the CPO warranty gets tacked on to the initial warranty, so I think our X1 would have still been covered past 100K, if we’d kept it that long. We replaced it with an i3, so even though it’s now out of warranty (and paid off!) our out-of-pocket maintenance costs have been very low.
Oldest vehicle in our fleet, my ’65 Corvair, originally came with 2 years/24,000 miles. It was 36 years out of warranty when I got it, but still over 12,000 miles under the cap!
When the brake actuator on my 2nd Gen Prius needed to be replaced for a second time, that’s when I started looking for a certified new vehicle. One of the enticing parts of going with a Hyundai was the 5-year, 60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper and the 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain coverage. This, and the Jalopnik review of the 2017 Elantra Sport, led me to discover the refreshed 2018 Elantra GT hatchback (the i30 for you folks in the rest of the world). I really should have gotten the GT Sport, which would have helped notably with resale value. The only work it needed during my ownership (18k-55k miles) was, oddly, to replace the starter.
https://web.archive.org/web/20171223035058/https://www.jalopnik.com/2017-hyundai-elantra-sport-the-jalopnik-review-1793927248/
I wonder if getting a 10 year / 100,000 mile warranty from the factory means I wouldn’t have to sit in some office at the dealership where someone tries to sell an extended warranty through fear and intimidation…
It almost certainly will not mean that. My last vehicle purchase was for a new Toyota. They tried to sell me a three year service contract that overlapped with the included Toyota Care and an extended warranty that overlapped with the factory warranty. Also glass coverage and some other crap that was a rip-off.
Yeah, no. they’ll try to sell an extended paint warranty, upholstery protection, and an extended warranty for the B2B coverage. Dealers gotta deal.
you’re gonna want that tru-coat
When I was at a dealer the other day, they tried to bake it right into the sticker and then tell me I was getting a great deal because they discounted the car a little then added $1500 in crap.
A buddy of mine went over to Miami to buy his spoiled-ass teen daughter a 2023 Q3. The dealer had installed a Lojack system and would not budge on bundling it into the price and wouldn’t remove it. They finally gave him a better price on his trade (he still got screwed). On the other hand, when I bought my new Forte GT in Lauderdale the F&I guy went through the aforementioned add-on crap as quickly as possible with no pressure whatsoever (bringing my own financing probably helped move that process along, though). They even threw in the floor mats, lol.
Well I didn’t even want that car. Didn’t even bother driving it, but the sales guy still brings the manager over to try and show me some “great deal”.
My brother was talked/swindled into a third-party warranty, even though the warranty was still good on his Hyundai and the parts of it he cared about transferred to a new owner. Thankfully, he was able to cancel it within 30 days after we sat down and looked at the paperwork together, and he got his money back. In general, he was pretty disgusted with how little anyone at the dealership knew about anything, but they had the hybrid he had his heart set on for a reasonable price.
It would definately make me consider a Ram if I was looking for a truck. 10 yr 100k power train is one of the biggest reasons we bought a Mitsubishi.
Too long a warranty makes me suspicious (which tracks with the 10/100k players) and I drive so much that I don’t consider it much, though I also buy lower end cars with few features.
Considering that quality control seems to have tanked post-pandemic, warranty is definitely a consideration in opting to adopt newer engine/propulsion tech.
Until recently, I’ve never had a warranty, and in that purchase, the new battery warranty on a 6 year old car absolutely made a difference.
Also, this is a genius move for RAM. Kudos. I like their logic too, fully embracing that they sell vehicles most can’t afford without long loans. I was not expecting this, but I welcome it.
No. The last new vehicle I bought was 22 years ago. In general I buy a 3-4 year old car coming off a lease that may or may not have a remaining warranty.
There is a step down in vehicle price when the warranty expires so longer warranties might mean higher priced used cars.
The distinction between Could and Should here is huge. I own two cars and a bike. At least one could be EV, but there’s no convertible option and my CUV needs to be the bulletproof reliable year-round 500+ mile road trip option. I’d be open to swapping the bike over, but cost is steep. If policy changes could to should, however…
Warranty is absolutely a consideration for me. Ironically, on my Soul (bought new in 2013, sold 2025) I never needed to bring it in for warranty work. Not once.
When car shopping earlier this year that 5/60-10/100 Kia warranty played into my choice. I was pretty torn between the Mazda3 Carbon, the Jetta GLI and the Kia Forte GT. I liked the Mazda’s looks, the Jetta’s conservative vibe, and the Kia’s aggro demeanor and high equipment level. In the end, that warranty helped push the Kia across the finish line (plus I honestly did like that little sucker).
My oldest vehicle would be my ’95 Miata, which I’m pretty sure would have had the standard-issue 3/36 warranty.
Even back in the sh*tty days of mid-90s VW, with their paltry 2/24k warranty, they offered 10/100k on the powertrain.
I consider it all but useless. Now, if you’ve got a new hybrid system or whatever, it’s a little more useful for adoption, but a full-ICE powertrain shouldn’t NOT have 100k on it. Period.
I admire some of what Kunisikskisis is doing, but this is more window dressing than anything. Show me a 5/60k bumper to bumper instead.
Another thing a long warranty tends to do is put more maintenance burden on the consumer to prove everything perfectly, including in some cases using the dealership service center or risk voiding. That also adds more touchpoints for upselling of everything from services to new vehicles. It’s a calculated risk. If they allow full DIY, that’s decent.
I heard bad things from the service advisors at the Chevy dealerships for the Silverado all the time, Ford quality is not their best but RAM has been consistent so far, if they are putting that warranty that means they trust their product enough. We took a 6 year loan on the Pacifica and I made sure at least to have a warranty during that period just in case.
Like the article said, these purchases are more expensive and repairs are more complex, having a warranty during that period of time is just a peace of mind.
lol – well, thats what we call a statistical anomaly
On its face, I do like the warranty being longer, but I also know that depends on the dealership experience (for both buying the vehicle, and getting it serviced for warranty claims). For example, just on general vibes in the comment sections here, I gather Hyundai and Kia would be a lot more popular with better dealerships on average, but in spite of their decent warranties, the dealerships drag them down.
Nope
Maybe the increased warranty will up the take rate for the new I-6 and eventual hybrid. I’d be more keen to consider a Ram with that safety net.
If I ever bought new. In my middle age I’ve owned exactly one vehicle new enough to be covered by a warranty.
I have a car that does still have the Protect O Plate card in it. I cannot find the actual warranty sheet anymore, but it was 24 months or 24,000 miles as I understand it.
I’m sure RAM will do everything they can to deny any and all warranty claims just as much as possible.
Ah yes, the ole Hyundai model
perhaps, but certainly in the day and age of 6.2 and 5.3 GM v8 lawsuits and early failures as well as NANO v6 Fords dropping valves, the way to gain trust in the 3.0 Hurricane is to warranty it for longer. I think itis a good strategy if they truly have faith in the design and assembly process.
And even if they don’t have that faith, getting more sales will help the business be able to absorb the losses from failures, and there’s no better way to determine failure modes on an entirely new engine than by selling a lot and seeing what comes back broken.
I read on another site the warranty isn’t transferable to the second owner, so, yeah.
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I hate to be a wet paper bag but the logic behind the new warranty is really bleak.
“Truck buyers are financing purchases for longer periods of time, with nearly 80% of new truck loans exceeding five years”
That’s insane to me. This was done because RAM warranties have been running out long before their loans are paid off. Woof. I understand liking trucks, I understand buying a truck to do truck stuff, etc. But the vast majority of these customers are being played like fiddles…and it’s not sustainable.
Except it is not just trucks. Sure, there are some trucks that are terribly overpriced, but the vast majority of basic people haulers are also itching up around the 50K mark. Depending on your raises over the years, this might still mean a 5-7 year loan if they focus solely on monthly payments.
You’re not wrong!
And dealers are great at using the 4 square to keep bringing people back around to the monthly. I recently learned the horrifying truth that my girlfriend does not know the term of her loan, the interest rate, or how much she still owes. Just how much she pays monthly.
She did not let me come with her when she bought the Venza. I have also learned that she bought the glass insurance from the dealer and didn’t even know it. She had her windshield replaced by her auto insurance instead, so she could have actually used it and didn’t.
She’s smart about a lot of things, but not cars or finances.
I also worked with a woman who managed to be $10,000 underwater on a $15,000 car. She wanted to trade it in to get out from under the loan and I don’t think she understood that the $10k would be rolled into her next loan. These 6-7 year loans hide a lot of issues from people.
My wife has 3 degrees from elite universities and is a nurse practitioner who’s a big deal in her field. She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Whenever she gets her CRV serviced she calls me to double check how many ways the dealership is trying to rip her off. Every single time they recommend 4 figures worth of services that she either doesn’t need or we’ve already taken care of.
It’s insane how manipulative dealerships are and that they’re just allowed to get away with it….even the smartest people I know aren’t immune to getting got.
This is exactly why I tell every single one of my friends to let me at LEAST pass over their cars before they take it into a shop for repairs. If I can do it in under an hour, I will, and if I can’t or don’t have the time, I can get them a detailed list of what a car does and does not need. Ironically, I live in a college town/area, with a lot of highly educated people as my friends, and it’s worse here than other area’s I’ve been.
Many of the shops/dealers around here know that people are either 1: A college student who’s parents will give them carte blanche to get their kid home safely, or 2: book smart people who don’t know a differential from an alternator, and make enough to afford the add-ons.
Certainly can agree with this on the repair shops as well. I have my mom call me when they “recommend” repairs when they change her oil. 600 dollar brake repairs on a job that literally takes 15 minutes per wheel is insane. Especially when the job is only for 2 wheels.
No a basic people hauler is not around the $50K mark. A 2025 Civic is larger than a 90’s Accord and starts at $25K. The almost 50 mpg Civic hybrid is less than $30K.
People are buying way more car than they used to and taking out longer and longer loans to pay for them.
Right, the current *average* new car price is around $50K which supports that there must be quite a few under that price.
Yes and no. It’s nice to have a good warranty, but it sucks to have your vehicle in the shop even when it’s warranty work. I got rid of my Niro because I hated dealing with the local Kia service department and won’t get another Kia in the near future because I had it in too often dealing with warranty repairs.
A good warranty with a shop I know will take care of me? Better. A vehicle I don’t think will need to go in for warranty work at all? Ideal.