The most concrete conclusion I’ve come to since President Trump started his trade war is that I’ll probably never misspell the word “tariff” again. I kept trying to use two Rs and two Fs, but it’s just one R. Having now written the word 45,397 times, I’ve got it down. Tariff is the new Koenigsegg. Everything else is a little more up in the air.
I took a look at my retirement savings this morning, which is almost always a mistake when you’re in your early 40s. Not because it’s down, but because it’s up and I don’t trust it. While my investments are well-hedged (I hope), a huge drop in the economy would not be great. The success of my investments feels at odds with my general sense of where the economy is going. It’s troubling.
Of course, The Morning Dump is a car news roundup, and so I’m going to make this about cars. A new report out shows that new car inventory is shrinking, which is generally good, but a lot of that is pre-tariff inventory. I’m curious how long all of this holds together when pre-tariff inventory shrinks.
Chinese automaker BYD reported a strong first half but a weaker Q2, and everyone is going to run to talk about how this compares to Tesla, but there’s an argument to be made that Tesla isn’t as much in the conversation anymore. GM’s EV sales are going “great guns,” as they say in the Commonwealth countries, but that doesn’t mean the company is going to start producing a lot more EVs. Across town, Ford seems like a company with a ton of potential growth if it could only get its recall problem under control. It still hasn’t.
About One-Third Of New Car Inventory Is Pre-Tariff Inventory
If I didn’t have this gig, I’d want to be an economist. It’s a job with a fun mix of statistics, history, public policy, and psychology. I’m also sort of glad that I’m not an economist right now, because the world feels like it’s at an inflection point. That would normally be exciting, except it’s felt like we’ve been at an inflection point for the last three years.
In theory, something has to give, but it hasn’t. Here’s the top-down view from Bloomberg:
Economists anticipate ho-hum US economic growth for the remainder of the year and well into 2026, with steady, tariff-driven inflation buffeting consumers.
Gross domestic product is now set to grow 1.1% in the second half of the year, a downshift from average growth of 1.4% during the first six months, according to the latest Bloomberg monthly survey of economists. Consumer spending, the economy’s primary growth engine, is also seen expanding at a 1.1% pace in both the third and fourth quarters.
At the same time, economists expect core inflation — measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index — will top out at an average of 3.2% in the fourth quarter. While year-over-year inflation is expected to gradually ease through 2026, it will remain above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Slowing growth is bad. If you get slow growth + rising inflation + high unemployment, you get stagflation. That’s real bad. One of the arguments the President has been making is that the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, aka the Fed, needs to cut interest rates to counter slow growth. That’s fine, and maybe coming, but if you do that while spending is up and inflation continues, then, well, bad things happen. Here’s another Bloomberg article from this morning:
Inflation-adjusted consumer spending rose 0.3%, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data out Friday. The advance was boosted by income growth and driven by goods.
The so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy items and is favored by the Federal Reserve, rose 0.3% from June. From the prior year, the gauge picked up to 2.9%, the most since February.
The latest data, which showed a pickup in services prices, could fan concerns about a more worrisome rise in inflation as President Donald Trump’s tariffs also work their way through the economy. For now, Americans continue to spend, but it’s unclear how long that momentum will last amid rising prices and a weakening job market.
It’s worth remembering that the President sacked the person whose job it is to count the number of people getting or losing jobs, claiming they were fake numbers (they were not), because no one wants to be the President who drags the country into stagflation. Especially when, pre-tariffs, it looked like the economy had rather remarkably gotten through the post-pandemic period without a major economic shock. Inflation was bad, and remains bad, but people mostly kept their jobs.
We’re now in this position where inflation remains elevated, people are still spending money for now, but the job market looks weak, and economic growth is slowing. Something has to give, right? One of the biggest fears is that lumping tariffs on everything and killing the de minimis exemption will, at least in the near term, cause prices to go up a lot. That then results in inflation.
There’s a strong echo of this phenomenon in the car world. Sales have so far remained fine. They’re not increasing as much as carmakers had hoped last year, but they’re not entirely in the toilet. With all the uncertainty, though, carmakers have pulled back on some production and paused some deliveries. While this is smart for automakers to do, it might represent a belief that things aren’t going to get better when cars get more expensive.
According to S&P Global Mobility, new vehicle inventory in America dropped to 2.65 million new cars in July, which is down 6.1% month-over-month and 4.4% year-over-year. If you’re worried about the economy slowing down because of, oh, I don’t know, more expensive cars and slow economic growth, slowing production relative to demand is what you do (this gets very complex, and we’ll need a bunch of quarters of production numbers to get a better sense of it, especially as production shifts from Japan and South Korea to the United States).
Again, I think managing inventory this way is entirely logical.
The other interesting datapoint is that carmakers are also still burning through pre-tariff cars, albeit at a fast clip.
While the overall advertised inventory is down 6.1% month-over-month, pre-tariff inventory dropped from 948,000 units in June to 884,000 units in July, or about 6.8%. Right now, pre-tariff inventory makes up roughly a third of the total market.
The latest tariff action and agreements mean that, potentially, car price increases won’t rise as much as initially feared. At the same time, prices will probably go up, and automakers learned last time that they could find other ways to make their margin, which was bad for consumers. Incentives are already starting to drop, according to this report, and while 2025 MY cars aren’t seeing huge price increases, new models are.
My sense of all this is that car sales will muddle along through the rest of the year so long as the economy doesn’t crater. Next year, though, is going to be harder. Even if the tariffs do what the administration hopes and there are more big projects announced, it’ll take time to work its way through the economy. In the interim, fewer cars will be built/imported, and the ones on the market will get more expensive either through trimflation, pricing adjustments, and lower discounting.
Or maybe nothing happens? That’s also an outcome.
Is It Really BYD Vs Tesla?
I woke up this morning to these two headlines:
- “BYD profit dives 30% as price war takes toll on EV champion” – Nikkei Asia
- “BYD Profit Jumps as Aggressive Overseas Push Bolsters Sales” – Bloomberg
Uhh… what?
The short answer is that the first article is looking at Q2 and the second article is looking at the full first half of the year, so they’re both right. The temptation is to compare the future of BYD to Tesla, which would make BYD look a lot better.
There’s an argument that was made this week by analyst Tu Le that, maybe, this is the wrong way to view the dynamic. The basic premise is that this ignores the many other Chinese automakers and that BYD will probably sell more 4.5 or maybe even 5 million+ vehicles this year, while Tesla isn’t even going to sell half of that.
I think BYD vs. Tesla is a reasonable framing device because Tesla is still a massive player, including in China. However, his argument that Tesla is becoming less of a volume player and isn’t a premium brand anymore is quite persuasive:
That WAS true when Tesla entered the Chinese market in 2014, but over the last few years through numerous price reductions, they’ve pulled themselves more and more into the mass market. When Job #1 of the Model 3 SR rolled off the line at ShanghaiGiga on Dec 17, 2019 the MSRP was: ¥356K (~$50K), today the MSRP is: ¥236K ($33K).
[…]
Most importantly, traditional premium isn’t a thing anymore in the China market, if it was would Audi, Merc, Bimmer and especially Porsche struggle the way they have over the last few years in China?
Premium in China is being redefined by technology and user experience. That’s how Xiaomi is winning. Broken record: It’s really difficult to understand that if you’ve not been to China in the last several years.
Here’s the kicker though, it’s not been about BYD vs Tesla in a VERY LONG TIME as much as the media and some analysts want to make it about that.
If you continue to lower the price of your product, it’s no longer the “premium” product it was. While the price war made life a lot harder for a lot of Tesla’s competitors, and helped lower the price of EVs for some markets, it might have done so at the expense of Tesla’s aura.
GM Is Slowing Down Hummer EV And Escalade IQ Production Just A Bit
While BYD is on its way towards huge EV sales this year, GM is temporarily slowing down production of the Escalade IQ and Hummer EV at its Factory Zero plant. Why? Here’s what the company told the Detroit Free Press:
Production is slated to stop the day after Labor Day and resume Oct. 6. Meanwhile, the temporary layoff in place for second-shift production also is going to be extended until Oct. 6. The move impacts approximately 360 employees.
“Factory Zero is making temporary adjustments to production to align to market dynamics,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly said in an emailed statement. “General Motors updates schedules as part of our standard process of aligning production to manage vehicle inventory.”
I guess the market dynamics don’t support a bunch of extremely expensive, heavy electric SUVs.
Ford Is Recalling Newer Cars
Ford CEO Jim Farley goes on a lot of road trips. I like this about Jim Farley. If I were CEO of a major car company, I’d do the same. Perhaps he should take a few more trips to visit his own plants and suppliers, as Ford’s ongoing quality problems haven’t gone away.
Ford has recalled over 800,000 vehicles due to issues with rear brakes, tail lights and air bag issues that could increase the risk of a crash.
The wave of recalls, which also include certain Lincoln vehicles, are part of three separate notices that Ford issued on Aug. 22 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and were posted by the agency this week.
The recalls include vehicles such as the 2015 to 2018 Ford Edge, the 2016 to 2018 Lincoln MKX, the 2025 Ford Explorer, the 2025 Lincoln Aviator and the 2024 to 2026 Ford Ranger.
Even if Ford did massively improve quality going forward from, say, 2023, then the company would still have to contend with recalls related to older vehicles. It sucks, but what can Ford do about cars built before it made a big push to reduce recalls? What’s troubling here, though, is that the vehicles included are the 2025 Explorer/Aviator and 2026 Ford Ranger. Those are newer vehicles.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
In honor of Funkmaster Flex’s last show on HOT 97, I’m breaking my “I don’t want to think about Kanye West” rule to play Flex’s historic 22-minute version of the song “Otis” from the Jay-Z/Kanye album.
The Big Question
What are your Labor Day plans?
Top photo: DepositPhotos.com
What happens when we run out of pre-tariff cars?
Cars get more expensive. As has everything else.
God, I hope my 2016 (and paid off) Mazda6 continues its longstanding legacy of just being a good car. I am not really financially comfortable with replacing it now and financing something.
Ditto for my 2015 Fit. Also, there’s nothing I want.
I jumped on Ford’s “employee pricing” to order a pre-tariff Mavericks earlier this year. Should be a good truck to get me through the financial apocalypse.
L’oe Show on Sunday. Jamie Orr’s annual VW show in PA. First time I can actually make it.
What’s going on the comments are not centered in the screen? The comments are twice the size of the screen and either way you can’t read the right or left hand side of the columns. Is anyone else experiencing this? You can’t even hit comment without auto rotate on
Yeah, seems to have been fixed now!
Hoping to finish some minor improvements over at one of my rentals tomorrow – someone new is moving in October 1st. You can imagine how happy they were to find an apartment costing $575/month, utilities included. After that lots of yard work. Saturday night I’m supposed to be drinking beer with some friends. Sunday will likely entail some car detailing and I wouldn’t mind getting my ’82 XJ6 out of storage. I haven’t had that car out yet this year and still need to run a few tanks of gas through it.
Monday there’s a car show my daughter and I have been going to for the last few years so we’ll likely head back again this year. She’ll have her Corvette and I plan to take the XK8 – it’s a nice excuse for a couple hours of top-down driving. It’s the Scenic City Labor Day Car Show in Iowa Falls, the only one where I’ve ever seen an actual Trabant in person. Stop on out and look for the blue C4 parked next to either a white or black Jaguar.
Please tell me where apartments rent in this price range!!
Small Iowa towns. And they’re generally not advertised, you have to ask around. I’m likely the cheapest in my area, and that’s mostly because my real estate ventures are still a hobby. I really just like owning old buildings (and having a few extra garage stalls). I’ve also gotten extremely picky with tenants. Having a few meth-heads trash their living quarters will do that to a person.
You’ll eventually find that not being the cheapest and instead being on the higher end for rents (with nicely equipped, clean, and well-maintained units) makes for FAR better quality tenants that appreciate a nice place that is well maintained, can afford to pay for it, and value what they are renting. And it also reduces the number of poor quality applicants significantly. On your flip side, it also means if something like the furnace needs replacing it won’t take two years of your profits to fix it.
Very true – I also have a nice 3-bedroom house with great tenants. I’m renting that a bit under-market as well, but only because the current tenants have been there for over 10 years and I’ve only raised their rent once. Even before the current long-term tenants were there, the higher rent price on that price did a good job of keeping the riff-raft applicants to a minimum.
Yes, it’s well worth keeping a good tenant with a slightly below market rent. The best part is there is then no turnover expense or lost time/rent which more than pays for it along with knowing the tenant and how they take care of the place as well as both sides considering the relationship a win/win!
Well, rats. I’m not moving to Iowa.
First time I read that, I thought it was math-heads.
You know, they have two beers, and they give a beer to their first math friend, half a beer to their second math friend, a quarter to the next… and the next thing you know, there are an infinite number of friends in the apartment, and of course it’s trashed. Unless, of course, you are the proprietor of one of the Hilbert Hotel chain, in which case it is no problem other than catching hell from the buildings inspector.
My labor day plans are weird. My plans are to get ready to get back to work.
I had surgery early this month. Was expected to be out for 4-6 weeks. However, I’m an engineer and don’t have to do (nice way of saying not trusted to do) manual labor.
Doc cleared me after 2 weeks to return to work in an office job. Got about 3 customers that are in complete chaos because I’ve been limited to “not actually checking e-mails and keeping up with them if anyone asks” for the last month.
So, come Tuesday, it will be complete chaos as I have to suddenly jump in with both feet and take over. To make things fun, my backup has a 2 week cruise.
So, I think we are in the ? part of the glorious plan.
Tariff the hell out of everyone
Change the rates weekly
Continue to change the tariff weekly.
?
Become the wealthiest nation ever again
I hope the ? phase is short.
The last time that worked the ? phase was to have a depression, then bomb every other industrial economy back into the early 18th century.
They are smart guys, I’m sure they have a better plan.
I mean to be honest, there does seem to be the idolization of the 1950s, so maybe recreating the 1930s is a goal.
Yeah, now that guy wants to adopt Roman architectural principles to symbolize power, permanence, and dominance. Unfortunately, Albert Speer is not available.
You got the last part wrong. You meant “Become the legacy world order while the communists band together for a new world order”. It’s already under way.
The Big Question
If Telsa and Ford disappeared today, would there be enough content to do a Morning Dump?
Labor Day? Sorry, can’t afford it this year.
Trump brought the tariffs
And he also brought the Tesla chief, oh
Yeah, he’s brought the tariffs
And he’s also got that fool JD
Yeah! All around in our home towns
He’s tryin’ to break us down, yeah
He say he for peace and prosperity
But he’s killing off the regular peeps
Forcing us to pay more for our beef
Oh, now, now, oh
Trump brought the tariffs
(But he swears it is a national defense)
oh no, oh, oh, ooh
Yeah, I say, Trump brought the tariffs
Oh, Lord
(And he say DC is gonna be cleansed)
Yeah, yeah! Hear that
Tariff Don Clown always hated we
For what, I don’t know
All the time he acts from greed
He say knock it down or paint it gold,
He think everyone loves his flag poles
And so-and-so
Read it in the news!
Oh, Lord!
Just can’t take no more of his nonsense
Where is the humanity? (Ooh, ooh, ooh)
I say,
Trump brought the the tariffs
And I swear it’s part of his vengeance, yeah! (Ooh)
Freedom gonna go away one day
The National Guard’s in town, yeah
All of a sudden we see Tariff Don Clown
aiming to shoot us down
The rot, the rot is all around
In the meantime we will pay (pay, pay, pay, pay…)
But I say
Goodbye to Ukraine, no (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Say goodbye to the Gaza Strip, too
Trump wants a Nobel so bad, oh
(Ooh, ooh, ooh)
He gonna kiss old Vladimir Putin’s shoes
And what is to be must be
Every day Trump he make us more unwell
One day the bottom a-go drop out
One day the bottom a-go drop out
I say
Lie, lie, lie, Trump brought the tariffs
Lord, and he also brought that Kennedy, no
Trump brought the tariffs
Now, he’s tearing down the CDC
So, yeah
Trump brought the tariffs
Gonna bring this nation to its knees
Yeah, Trump brought tariffs
What you expect, the man got felonies
Trump brought the tariffs…
Sung to the tune of “I Shot The Sheriff (But I did not Shoot the Deputy)”, for those who are wondering…
Nice job, Canopysaurus!
Well done! You’re a poet even if ya don’t know it!
Labor Day plans – recently bought a second ‘02 Tahoe, going to work on swapping complete interiors from one to another. Everything from headliner to carpet. Can’t wait to see how many clips and tabs break in the process…..
Paul Krugman makes a good case that economists and the markets generally are completely misunderstanding the current moment.
Not reassuring unfortunately..
That’s a really long way of saying bubble.
All this news just makes me happy to have three Toyotas in the garage. The oldest one (first gen Tacoma) could use a water pump replacement, but I’ve been putting it off since its caused by a manageable gasket leak and the truck isn’t a daily.
My plans for the holiday weekend are actually very car-related, I’m taking my 8y/o son to the Utah Formula D event Saturday. I’ve said around here before how much he loves tuner cars so it should be a good time. He already thought a local drift exhibition with the Ford RTR team was awesome.
Yeap. Camry and Sienna owner myself. I keep thinking about a Used Bolt before the tax credit expires, but they I would have a Chevy in my household and that might not still be running when the sun turns into a red giant.
I just ordered a genuine Honda water pump for a Civic, from Amayama Trading in Japan. It’s about a hundred dollars less than buying the same item here from a dealership. Now we’ll find out if there will be a tariff on the package, or if Amayama will actually confirm the order and ship it, since the tariff situation is so unstable and unpredictable.
Cost and hassle of replacement (it’s part of a timing belt replacement on a 3.6, the belt’s about at half life). are why I’ve been putting it off. Since the truck is only driven once or twice a week and it only leaks a couple cups of coolant at a time, you can buy a LOT of antifreeze and distilled water compared to the hassle…
Update of the Formula DRIFT outing, my son had an awesome time. If you have a kid who is into cars and they come to your town, definitely check them out. The pits were open the whole time and everyone there (from drivers to mechanics) really knew how to make it fun for kids. He already can’t wait to go next year.
Labor Day plans. I have a new Tikka .243, a new-to-me Browning X-Bolt .308, and a new SFAR AR-10 with a 20″ barrel. Zeroing them all to probably 200 yards while playing with grains. May do 175 in the SFAR, 165 or 150 in the X-Bolt, and 100 or 125 in the Tikka.
My daughter told me she wants to hunt. I don’t have a background in it, so I am trying to learn it all fast. I am not new to shooting, just to hunting. I may also take the VDGIF safety course this weekend.
Hurricane Katrina was 20 years ago. I will be giving thanks for surviving it.
And I will never eat another Cheeto in remembrance to those less fortunate.
People will keep cars longer. Wait times for appointments at repair shops will go up. The costs of replacement parts will go up. People will wait and pay anyhow.
Used to be, if your $10k car needed $3k in repairs, you’d probably move on to another car. Not anymore. Just had a friend spend $6k to fix up a truck worth $15k at best.
As for Labor Day, holidays don’t really exist in my world, and if you hadn’t told me that Labor Day was coming, I wouldn’t have known.
Every single shop in my town is already backed up eons into the future at this point. It’s impossible to get an appointment for ANYTHING relatively soon. Body shops, mechanic shops, tire/oil change places. Doesn’t matter.
My father-in-law has a 2010 GMC Acadia that (I think) needs an engine and the shop he chose doesn’t even have a rough timeframe of when they can get to him. This was after he called around to several others. He couldn’t even find a shop willing to let him tow it there as they had no room on their lots.
Same here. Just three hours ago I was finally able to get a repair quote—the car has been there since last Friday. The two other locations I use were booked even farther down. It’s a little unsettling that the reason is people are holding back on new car purchases, repairing their old cars, and doing it before tariffs affect parts prices. That doesn’t spell good news for long term economic stability.
No real labor day plans. I’m going out with my wife tonight as our anniversary is tomorrow. We can’t do it tomorrow because it’s our daughters birthday party and we’ll be exhausted afterwards. Sunday I’m going to get a morning of dirt biking in before the heat hits. Maybe a BBQ on Monday? I dunno.
congrats to you all. wish you the best.
Thank you!
And here I am moving the last load of my stuff out of my STBXW’s house. But I am hoping for a sail or dirt bike ride Sunday, too!
So the tariffs are messing with the economy exactly like Paul Krugman predicted it would? Wow. I’m shocked.
At this rate, those same January 6thers will all be out of jobs soon and will want to storm DC again… but this time they might hit a building OTHER than congress.
And for the folks here who live in the states (like this old gray alien does), I strongly suggest checking out international media to really get a good perspective on how the rest of the entire planet sees us in 2025.
I have yet to see a single policy come out of this administration that puts people over oligarchs.
Every single move these goons make is explicit in its goal to inflict pain/harm on everyday people here in the States.
MAGA hates knowledge, children, minorities, and anyone else that doesn’t parrot their propaganda. I keep hearing from local Guardians Of Pedos that they’re okay with causing pain for others as long as they’re told it won’t be as bad for their families as for “other” people.
Labor days plans. Stay at home, try to do something positive for my community. If I look at everything going on in the news through the lens of a geopolitical AI arms race, things make a lot more sense even if doesn’t make me feel any better about the outcome. It does however make me want to be a better neighbor and to build stronger local connections.
Thank you for keeping it positive, M K!
Good reminder I need to do better myself (literally one comment later).
Labor Day: Mackinac Bridge Walk with my son. It’s been on my bucket list for years, and since I hit the big seven-oh a couple months ago, it’s time. It’s a Michigander thing, iykyk. 🙂
always wanted to but I think I’d freak out!
It is fun! A bit scary to walk in the lane that is only a metal grate, but the other lane feels solid.
Happy Birthday. I hit 70 in January and it’s quite a shock.
I had brutal work travel this week, so my intent for the long weekend is to get as much sunshine on my face as possible while moving as little as possible.
What happens? As I believe the kids are saying, we Find Out.
As someone born in the FO times, I wish I’d have at least gotten to enjoy the FA period.
I’m not the only one that has to rely on auto suggest to spell tariff correctly. And considering why we have to keep using this word, there’s another R word that has two R’s.
What Happens When We Run Out Of Pre-Tariff Cars?
I keep thinking about this. When is a good time to buy? Bite the bullet now, or wait?
A SuperCrew F150 ticks all the boxes for my next vehicle. I was looking earlier this week out of curiosity and saw some dealers have leftover 24’s with big discounts. My local dealer has a few spec’d just like I’d want for 7,500 off sticker. STX w/FX4 Crew cab for 46k and change, used ones aren’t much cheaper.
Jump on it? Or wait, hoping rates come down? Decisions, decisions. The price of these things are only going to go up, especially with steel and AL being tariffed.
Getting into a ’24 in late ’25 would have me in a truck with low mileage for the year, which would help later with resale. I do almost 20K miles a year, it would be like starting off with -40K miles. Putting a lot of miles on is one of the things that has stopped me from buying new. but in this case by the time 2026 rolled around I’d have a 2-year-old truck with only 7 or 8k miles on it.
buy it now and refi if rates go down. I assume the 7500 is in lieu of 0%?
I haven’t looked into it too closely, but I think you are correct. I saw last night that one needs to take delivery by 9/2 in order to get the 0%, the $7500 off is good till 9/30.
I don’t want to make a snap decision this weekend, so no way I’ll be able to claim the zero % unless they extend it.
I looked around a bit and found a rate of 5.69 for a 2024.
Often the 0% rate is also tied to a short term, so that may or may not work for your financial situation. I’m seeing ~4.5-5.5% auto loan terms.
I’m with you on the new vs used truck market. I bought a CPO Ram 1500 last year. Minimal discounts (if any) offered on new at the time, and I was shocked to see the used trucks 2 years old were selling for what they sold for new after discounts then. I still had to expand my market nationally (ended up flying to ATL and driving it 2k home).
I took a discount from the dealer for financing through them, but refinanced a few months later at my local CU and dropped a few points. I did the math both ways. Suggest you do the same with loan terms that work for you. Calculator.net has a simple but effective auto loan calculator I’ve used a lot when shopping and considering various loan terms.
I looked into it and you’re correct, the 0% was for 48 months. I’m also seeing mentions of 2.9% for 72 months from Ford on 2024’s, and some dealers are showing 3.99 -4.99% depending on term.
This paired with the employee pricing is ultimately what prompted me to trade in my still fine 2010 F150 with 160k miles in for a 2025 F150. Feels like prices going up soon & I’m hapy to lock in my truck of choice for another 10 years
This is kind of what I’m thinking. 10 years puts me at 200K miles, which I think is completely do-able for an F150.
Plus, I just really want a brand-new vehicle. I’ve been driving for 30 years now and have never had one. There are very few vehicles I’d want to spend brand new money on, but I think it makes sense for a truck. I especially like that the Ford is aluminum, I won’t have to worry about the body rusting out, and starting from new I’ll be able to have the frame treated right away before any starts to form.
I started at 6 years old with my 4Runner, a lot of damage had already been done.
And you mentioning employee pricing reminds me that I’m pretty sure my employer has some sort of affiliate discount with Ford.
This is nice to have as a backstop, but especially on a leftover ’24 you can almost certainly do better just by negotiating.
This, too! You might be able to get the 0% combined with discount off MSRP. Or discount beyond the $7500. Set a price you feel is reasonable. Talk to the sales manager if you feel like the salesperson is wasting your time, or just get up and walk away. Salespeople will call you for weeks if they know you’re serious. The manager knows those ’24s on the lot get more expensive for the dealer by the week.
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve since found a 2025 spec’d the same, but in a better color, (the 24 is white and looks like a fleet truck) for not much more. I think the 24 should have more of a discount.
Call your insurance company with the VIN and price out what the insurance would cost. Also check with the county to see what the registration fees would be and for how long until they come down to what you are currently paying. Both will likely be FAR more than you are currently paying and could end up being at least a couple hundred a month, i.e. something you’d perhaps want to take into account.
Good call! I’m pretty sure reg fees are flat rate based on vehicle type, renewed every 2 years. Luckily, we no longer have no excise tax, that was about 400/yr when I first got my 4Runner. I usually check with my insurance guy before buying anything, so that’s the plan.
“What Happens When We Run Out Of Pre-Tariff Cars?”
Um – Fewer people purchase new cars because they’re even less affordable – which then drives up the values of pre-owned cars?
I’m working to set up appointments to sell houses like I do every weekend.
And if I have no appointments, I guess I’ll hang out at home trying not to spend any money.
I just sent a web message to a local agent to look at our house and suggest projects that would make it the most attractive to buyers. He got back to me within 30 minutes and said he could be here Tuesday morning.
He asked if we were looking to purchase, and when we said we were, but outside of the U.S., he said that it is happening fairly often in my neighborhood.
Anniversary weekend which means brunch and an art fair with the wife. Otherwise hoping to hit the beach, mow the lawn, drink some beer in some order.