On one hand I agree with a lot of the replies about how all cars have gotten massively expensive, but also I do generally agree with you. Like, yeah, it’s absolutely awful that Americans can’t buy a reasonably affordable station wagon with decent mileage to haul around their 5 kids these days, and the light truck loophole needs to be closed.

But also, I swear to fuck, the number of people I know that are lower/middle class schmucks who scoff at the idea of driving something that’s small, boring, and efficient is part of the problem. It’s a weird situation where it’s getting harder and harder to live within one’s means, but also so many people seem adamant not to.

Yeah my reasonable vehicle isn’t able to do everything I might want to, it wasn’t new, it’s not the fanciest car, and it isn’t engaging in the arms race that our roads have turned into. But I paid cash, I get good mileage, and it’s good enough. I’m what would be considered lower middle class to the boomers. I don’t make enough money to get the nicest, fanciest car or to drive a giant expensive suv and also have good finances.

I will say though that many Americans simply cannot pay cash or go without a car. When for most of the country busses in a major city come once an hour (and if you live in the affordable suburbs, it’s a single commuter bus) it’s often either vehicle ownership or unemployment. And cities with good public transit are generally pretty expensive. But you need to actually develop the financial literacy to understand what kind of loan you can take on and what kind of car you can have. You need to stop thinking of a car loan as a fixed cost that once it’s paid off it’s time to buy another car, and instead once it’s paid off it’s time to start putting that money aside for your next car so you take less of a hit. Americans don’t save even when we can, we take more debt than is reasonable and buy above what we can afford. Until that pattern stops we’re going to continue moving towards longer loans with more expensive payments.