z31maniac wrote:
APEowner wrote:
I have no idea if the prices are reasonable or not but I do know that when I ordered up my '01 F250 optioned exactly the way I wanted it the sticker was about $38k. That truck now has 270K miles on it and a new replacement stickers at a bit over $58k. I struggle with the idea of paying that.
Are you taking into inflation, increased reliability and pulling power, and and and and
Just simple CPI inflation takes 38k to 52k, so that's what, a 12% increase over inflation? It looks like just straight up pound for pound at minimum curb weight you get about 12% more truck, and a lot of it is aluminum now.
STM317 wrote:
In reply to APEowner:
There's no question that it's a lot of money. But $38000 in 2001 is equivalent to over $52,000 today according to The US government. So Ford is basically asking 6k more, but you get a truck that presumably gets better fuel economy, improved crash safety, lower tailpipe emissions, and increased capability. And if you can work a deal and get it under MSRP, then the gap gets even smaller.
That sounds fine and dandy but I make like 2% more money now then I did in 2001 so that's not helping....
In reply to kevlarcorolla:
I know what you mean. I was just trying to show that Ford isn't really asking much more for their product than they did in 01, at least relative to the value of a dollar.
They'd be more inclined to cut the price if it were affecting sales, but it doesn't seem to be, so there are enough people willing to pay the higher price (or willing to leverage themselves more and more) to have the latest and greatest.
The idea of paying that much for a vehicle seems ludicrous to me, but I'm pretty conservative when it comes to finances, and stubborn enough to not give an e36 M3 about what people think when they see me driving my hoopties around. Plenty of people feel differently, and I'm fine with that. Everybody has to live their life and make their own choices.
kevlarcorolla wrote:
STM317 wrote:
In reply to APEowner:
There's no question that it's a lot of money. But $38000 in 2001 is equivalent to over $52,000 today according to The US government. So Ford is basically asking 6k more, but you get a truck that presumably gets better fuel economy, improved crash safety, lower tailpipe emissions, and increased capability. And if you can work a deal and get it under MSRP, then the gap gets even smaller.
That sounds fine and dandy but I make like 2% more money now then I did in 2001 so that's not helping....
The fuel mileage is worse on the new trucks than what I get with my old 7.3L but they're better by pretty much every other metric and I make roughly twice what I made in '01 and I suppose I can afford it but there's something about the $50k number that seems ludicrous (or maybe even plaid) to pay for a truck. I probably will buy one though, thereby being part of the problem.
MDJeepGuy wrote:
Here's the issue, if I need a truck, I need a truck. Not a car, van, or SUV. What's my option? Gotta pay the price. I will also buy a full size Ford, nothing else, so a cheaper truck from another manufacturer is irrelevant.
If any manufacturer wants to get in the "cheaper truck" game, all they have to do is look at Chevrolet Colorado, Toyota Tacoma, and Nissan Frontier sales. Those are cheaper and don't sell close to the numbers of the big boys.
My 1997 Chevy pickup died Wednesday, 371,000 miles on it. I spent a little over $1000 in repairs to get it there. (Not counting normal wear items etc..) It worked for 3 companies in it's lifetime and with allowances given to me by those companies for it's use it was paid for three times over. In addition it built my house. Hauling 55,000 board feet of timbers and wood, countless tons of stone, rock, and masonry. 105 windows, 31 doors, wooden shakes for the roof, All the S.I.P.s all the ICF's, wiring, plumbing, tubs, sinks, fixtures, furniture, and nearly every bolt, screw, and nail used in it's construction.
In addition it's hauled race cars around the country, across the mountains, and over the ocean (in a ship of course)
I paid $22,000 for it in 1997 (new) and averaged nearly 18 MPG..
I'd say I got my money's worth out of it..
Wednesday night I bought a New Ford pick-up and paid $33,000 for it. If it serves me nearly as well as my Chevy did it will outlast me.. Oh by the way I've averaged 22.7 MPG on my first 1/2 of tank of fuel.. Yep V8, 4X4, whistles, and bells. The old one sits in my driveway waiting to be hauled away by a scrap dealer..
In reply to frenchyd:
According to the inflation calculator, that 22,000 in 1997 is 32,635 in today's money. So seems your new Ford is a good deal. I hope it serves you well for another 20 years!
SVreX
MegaDork
2/18/17 6:26 a.m.
I'm jealous of you guys that can use inflation calculators and say everything is OK. Has your salary increased that much?
Mine hasn't. Not in 20 years.
I'm not even sure what inflation means any more. I used to think it meant everything goes up (including salaries), so it was kind of OK. I don't think that any more.
paul
HalfDork
2/18/17 7:13 a.m.
I'm just happy you can still get a new 4x4 tacoma for $24-25k OTD. Loving mine...
paul wrote:
I'm just happy you can still get a new 4x4 tacoma for $24-25k OTD. Loving mine...
Off subject, how would you rate the topper?
SVreX wrote:
I'm jealous of you guys that can use inflation calculators and say everything is OK. Has your salary increased that much?
Mine hasn't. Not in 20 years.
I'm not even sure what inflation means any more. I used to think it meant everything goes up (including salaries), so it was kind of OK. I don't think that any more.
That's undoubtedly a big problem (and one that turns political fast), but not super relevant to the discussion, unless automakers can no longer find buyers for these new trucks because they're all broke. Pickups have gotten more expensive, but no more expensive than everything else has become, that's all looking at one of those consumer price index inflation calculators shows.
Next subject, college tuition. 
We've already been through the inflation vs income discussion, including actual data vs anecdote.
frenchyd wrote:
MDJeepGuy wrote:
Here's the issue, if I need a truck, I need a truck. Not a car, van, or SUV. What's my option? Gotta pay the price. I will also buy a full size Ford, nothing else, so a cheaper truck from another manufacturer is irrelevant.
If any manufacturer wants to get in the "cheaper truck" game, all they have to do is look at Chevrolet Colorado, Toyota Tacoma, and Nissan Frontier sales. Those are cheaper and don't sell close to the numbers of the big boys.
My 1997 Chevy pickup died Wednesday, 371,000 miles on it. I spent a little over $1000 in repairs to get it there. (Not counting normal wear items etc..) It worked for 3 companies in it's lifetime and with allowances given to me by those companies for it's use it was paid for three times over. In addition it built my house. Hauling 55,000 board feet of timbers and wood, countless tons of stone, rock, and masonry. 105 windows, 31 doors, wooden shakes for the roof, All the S.I.P.s all the ICF's, wiring, plumbing, tubs, sinks, fixtures, furniture, and nearly every bolt, screw, and nail used in it's construction.
In addition it's hauled race cars around the country, across the mountains, and over the ocean (in a ship of course)
I paid $22,000 for it in 1997 (new) and averaged nearly 18 MPG..
I'd say I got my money's worth out of it..
Wednesday night I bought a New Ford pick-up and paid $33,000 for it. If it serves me nearly as well as my Chevy did it will outlast me.. Oh by the way I've averaged 22.7 MPG on my first 1/2 of tank of fuel.. Yep V8, 4X4, whistles, and bells. The old one sits in my driveway waiting to be hauled away by a scrap dealer..
So your house has 105 windows and 31 doors??.
Also why would you waste your time,fuel and abuse your own truck to haul all that stuff when the suppliers deliver for free?.
SVreX wrote:
I'm not even sure what inflation means any more. I used to think it meant everything goes up (including salaries), so it was kind of OK. I don't think that any more.
It's better not to think of inflation as being about prices. Inflation means that the value of money has dropped because the supply of it has increased. Money is like anything else of value, it responds to the laws of supply and demand. Increase the supply and you decrease the value (inflation). Most money these days is "paper money", meaning that the amount of it in circulation is chosen by the government rather than being fixed by association with a precious commodity such as gold. Governments are free to increase the amount of money in circulation by printing more, this is effectively a tax on everyone in the economy because the government now has more money, but the value of that money came from decreasing the value of everyone else's money.
The reason not to think of it in terms of prices is that while a decrease in the value of money does result in an increase in prices, lots of other things also act to change prices of goods. Technology improvements mean that some goods can be produced more cheaply than they could previously, this will tend to increase the supply and thus drop the price. Conversely, using up limited amounts of a commodity will decrease the supply, and raise prices.
Inflation is hard to measure directly, CPI is an attempt to measure it by averaging out the change in value of a broad array of consumer goods. This is hard, because the nature of goods changes over time. A gallon of milk is a gallon of milk, but a car from the 1960s is pretty different from a car today. Today's cars last much longer, cost less to operate (fuel, maintenance) and are much safer. How much would a 2017 F-150 cost in 1960? It's impossible to say, they didn't exist in 1960, the technology to build one just didn't exist.
So CPI is about the best measure of inflation that we have, but it's a long way from perfect. If your salary hasn't kept up with the CPI over the last 20 years that doesn't mean inflation doesn't exist, instead it probably means that you are working in a field for which the demand has decreased relative to supply over that time period and so employers are not willing to pay as much for it.
In reply to codrus:
IT may not necessarily be that some people who see stagnant wages are working in a field with decreased demand. The posters who have mentioned it in this thread all reference the same time period (late 90s, early 00s) as being near an income peak. The economy as a whole was doing very well at that time too. Perhaps the best it's done in a long time. This was just before the dot-com bubble burst and some incomes may have been partially inflated due to the overall nature of the economy. So their baseline expectation for income was determined at the height of the economy, rather than a more normal time frame.
FWIW, I just found the original sticker for my 2003 Ram 2500 Quad cab diesel. It listed at $35k with not a lot of options. The diesel was 4600, tow package 275, power driver seat 460 and a few other things. Far from fancy, yet it has been a great truck for 150k miles. I was offered $9k as a trade-in in 2008 when the world was falling apart and no-one wanted big diesel trucks. Im about to put it on the market for $11k.
Funny, my 2003 Dodge 1500 SLT 5.9 quad cab 4x4 all options but leather and heated seats special ordered two tone stickered at $35k but as with most new trucks I drove it away at $27k.
Judging by what we service at work the most, not even counting the fleet trucks that actually see truck like use there is plenty of trucks still being sold. Why cut the price if the formula is still working? Im no genius and have no desire to own a new truck but i do understand if i can sell something for 5k easily im not going to cut the price to 3k just because i can. We get everything from base model gas v6 trucks too fully loaded and lifted diesels. Most of what we see are 2014+ because the rust belt is hard on trucks.
One funny trend ive noticed is ram trucks seem to be replacing the chevy and ford trucks in the local fleets. they seem too sticker for less in this area then the competition. kia could offer a full size truck that matches every performance and comfort value of the current big 3 and none of these old farmers would even look at them. Brand loyalty is huge among guys who use there trucks to feed there familys.
So I am lucky enough to have my original window sticker.
The MSRP was about $49k new in 2008.
I built the modern version of my truck on GMCs website as close as possible (there are all sorts of new stuff that wasn't available when my truck was new)
Only $10k difference in an almost a 10 year span. I mean, it makes sense for an HD truck more than a half ton, but people are buying the half tons hand over fist, so their inflation is much higher.
Also the Diesel engine killed the price. It was sitting at $49k, then the Duramax is a $9000 option, so it knocked it up there.
Basil Exposition wrote:
FWIW, I just found the original sticker for my 2003 Ram 2500 Quad cab diesel. It listed at $35k with not a lot of options. The diesel was 4600, tow package 275, power driver seat 460 and a few other things. Far from fancy, yet it has been a great truck for 150k miles. I was offered $9k as a trade-in in 2008 when the world was falling apart and no-one wanted big diesel trucks. Im about to put it on the market for $11k.
Cummins is almost 2x that now. Think it was around $8900 option.
In reply to kevlarcorolla:
I was waiting for a picture of this hotel-sized house with 105 windows and 31 doors myself.
Not doubting it, it's just that those numbers make it likely 5x larger than my house.
Slightly off topic and Bloomberg. So. 
