Is this a sign of the apocalypse?

"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher) 01/27/2018 at 01:51 • Filed to: To the shelter!

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I made some comments on the FP about financing new cars that got quite a big response this morning (ok, technically yesterday, but whatever). I had several people reply to me. Here’s where it gets weird: they were all civil and rational responses and discussions.

That’s gotta be end of days, right?

Here’s a tiny human on a scooter.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > shop-teacher 01/27/2018 at 02:06

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I think a lot of people are less concerned about e-bragging and want to actually have a good deal for themselves as well as others.

...FOr most groups anyways...Today in Focus ST boards, we had someone say that Ford needs to stop elling the ST to protect his resale value and had multiple people agreeing. The majority of which were first time or young car buyers who were depending on the resale to make their “investment” worth it.

As someone who will go on record as saying that the FOcus ST was not a good buy at full price but is an excellent buy at a 25% discount......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA......Yeah, no. They’re ford focuses. They make like a million every year. They’re otherwise disposable cars. Have fun.

AestheticsInMotion > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 01/27/2018 at 02:12

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I have a friend with a FiST who won’t shut up about how “valuable” his black ‘14 Fiesta is becoming. Seriously, every damn day, another text - “now that Ford isn’t bringing over the Fiesta, my value has been skyrocketing, dude! I’ll definitely be able to sell for more than I bought it, EASY.”

*blocks number*

CTSenVy > shop-teacher 01/27/2018 at 02:15

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SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > shop-teacher 01/27/2018 at 04:12

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Rationality is a disease. Ragnarok is the only reasonable response...

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 01/27/2018 at 08:10

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They don’t make a million in the ST package, considering they haven’t even sold a million MY13-17 Focuses in the US. About 6% of the MY13-14s and 4-5% of the MY15-17s sold were STs of any trim. If you break of down further, the trim packages and colors split them even further. My car is very rare, far rarer than most Corvettes that old guys go to car shows with lawn chairs and silly plaques to show off. Out of ~8.4k cars, just over half had sunroofs, 2.5k came in the ST3 trim, and about 1k were painted white. Likely fewer than 200 were ever produced like mine that year (and I’m responsible for 3 of them).

As for production, there are twice as many Escapes (same platform) as Focuses produced per year for the US market.

If anything is to blame for the decline in used prices, it’s the preferences of car buyers, the manual transmission, the way people modify them, the way they beat them, and the kind of people willing to buy them used. They’re far from common cars, even among hot hatches (GTIs are far more common), so simple rarity doesn’t seem to help resale value. If they stopped making them you might have some small subset of the Jalop market looking for them, but they’re not the types to pay top dollar for a used car, even if it’s a unicorn.

All that said, resale doesn’t ultimately matter to me. I bought the car because I enjoy cornering like a crazy person without risk of a speeding ticket, so it is perfect for me. 3 years in, I have 14k miles. I have historically bought 5-year-old cars and kept them for an average of 8 years before replacement (which is pretty long). I had estimated 13 years with this car based on that and possibly stretching to 15. At my current amount of driving, it’ll take at least 20 years to simply hit 100k miles. While not the best return I’ve seen on a car, that’s pretty cheap transportation that makes me grin like an idiot... I still suspect I’ll ultimately replace this car with an autonomous car subscription and/or buy a Tesla Roadster sometime around 2035, but we’ll see.

vondon302 > AestheticsInMotion 01/27/2018 at 08:21

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As a guy who bought a new 2013 Boss 302 at sticker I’m still laughing that someone thinks there gonna make a profit on a Fist.

Price of Boss 45000 new and good ones go for 30000 to 28000 now.

Depreciation is a bitch.

shop-teacher > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 01/27/2018 at 08:29

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Hahaha! Investment! That’s a good one!!

shop-teacher > AestheticsInMotion 01/27/2018 at 08:30

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Delusional!

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > vondon302 01/27/2018 at 08:38

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How many of those were produced? That’s actually pretty good for a 5 year old Mustang. Mustangs in general are so common that they’re all dragged down... My friends with any model basically keep them forever because their transportation value exceeds their resale until they become classics due to survival.

The FiSTs are pretty rare, but people willing to buy them are also exceedingly rare. People seeking them will know the way a modified one was probably beat on, which further depresses the resale. I’m pretty sure the DCT problems in the regular Fiestas and Focuses have quite adversely affected values, too.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 01/27/2018 at 08:46

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Aside from people that bought on waiting lists in 2012, nobody pays MSRP for a FoST. Take the sticker price, subtract $4-6k, and you’ll get roughly what people actually paid. I have a window sticker claiming $31,770, but I didn’t even pay that much after all the taxes/fees involved. Mine was a special order and completely loaded, too.

The ST1s can be purchased new for under $20k... I don’t know any car this cheap that retains much resale value, even among Toyotas.

vondon302 > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 01/27/2018 at 09:03

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About 9000 total between the 2012s and 2013s including Laguna Secs models. I knew I was throwing money in the air but I wanted one new performance car before I die and this is it.

Btw my wife drives a 2016 Fost with the monutune 275 kit dealer installed. For smiles per dollar that car is hard to beat. You can get a hell of a deal when you buy one in winter.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > shop-teacher 01/27/2018 at 09:50

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I don’t know but I want that elite

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > AestheticsInMotion 01/27/2018 at 10:49

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Poor guy.

TeamPunkassRacing > AestheticsInMotion 01/27/2018 at 10:49

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He should check into resale on that FiST. I sold my 2 year old, 29k Recaro equipped and modded (stg 2) Molten Orange FiST for $14k last month. A car I paid $23k for 28 months earlier. The dealer offered me $11k for it, so I think I got super lucky selling it for $14k.

A local guy bought a similar ‘17 FiST for $20k brand new a few months earlier

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > vondon302 01/27/2018 at 10:50

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But, but mine is special.

/S

BaconSandwich is tasty. > vondon302 01/27/2018 at 11:23

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It entirely depends on which end you are on for depreciation. I’m just wishing depreciation would hit harder on the cars I’d like to buy. :P

vondon302 > BaconSandwich is tasty. 01/27/2018 at 11:39

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Truth

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > vondon302 01/27/2018 at 12:12

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What does the dealer-installed Mountune kit do to the torque steer relative to stock? I’ve been contemplating getting it done now that my 3/36 warranty is about to expire, but wouldn’t want to make it less fun to drive.

shop-teacher > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 01/27/2018 at 12:44

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That’s my winter project. I picked it up cheap this fall, last registered in 2009. I cleaned out the gas tank this week, and I just picked up some new fuel line and a fuel filter for it. Should be ready to go once I put it back together and slap a new battery in it.

Wanna buy it?

vondon302 > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 01/27/2018 at 12:57

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Not much of a difference in my opinion. I think this is how the car should have came from the factory. We got the exhaust too. So much more fun. Highly recommend both. Pricey but I’m happy. If your not worried about warranty you might go the next kit up. I would of but wife’s brand new car so warranty compliance was important to me. Plus the dealer installed for free if we ordered thru them. Win win

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > shop-teacher 01/27/2018 at 13:54

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Awesome. I need to get my aero80 badck on the road

shop-teacher > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 01/27/2018 at 15:27

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We’re having an unseasonably warm spell, so I went outside while my kids were napping and put most of the fuel line in, and put the tank back in. Unfortunately the fuel filter I got is too big.