Jensenman wrote: Of course there are always those who fall at the far ends of the spectrum, but statistically speaking the great majority of luxury car buyers fall in the definition of 'middle class'.
Where I work, we like to say that they have expensive houses with no furniture.
It's sad when people are driving newer 7-series BMWs on bald tires with no working gauges, complaining about the cost of an oil change, while other people see no issue at all with dumping $2500 in maintenance and repairs in, say, a ten year old Taurus.
Someone's living within their means, someone isn't.
I have seen a LOT of people who, when faced with the need for a major service ($600), a set of tires (another $600) and front brakes ($250) at ~45k miles for a total of $1450.00 (we are talking people who do not know how to fix their own cars, remember) instead opted to trade for a new car, thus spending $35K to avoid spending $1450.00. They would then come back to get their personal stuff out of their trade in, smirking at how they showed ME what they though of my big ol' service estimate. I just smile and wave, knowing in three or four years they will be doing it all over again but just getting deeper into debt, because that whole upside down thing will bite them even harder next time.
