Rolling Up the Red Carpet on Leases
July 31st, 2008 | 11:38 am | Posted in Current Events |
Last night on the NBC news, there was a story about how the big 3 automakers in Detroit are scaling back their options for leasing new vehicles.
GM and Ford are increasing the rate to lease SUV’s and pick-ups. Chrysler’s going so far as to remove the option of a lease entirely.
Hardly surprising.
At the end of a 24-48 month lease, these gas guzzlers are essentially worthless. The whole idea of ‘renting out’ this type of vehicle is a money pit for the manufacturers. That’s why it makes sense.
But at the tail end of the story, the field reporter said something along the lines of, “Americans will soon be forced to drive automobiles that they can afford,” like it was a bad thing.
My wife and I just bemusedly looked at one another and chuckled.
Wow, can you imagine that?
Only being able to drive something that you can actually afford?
How dare they!
It’s sad that things have gotten to the point in this country where you can drive a Cadillac Escalade on a welfare budget.
Evidently, that’s about to change. From where I’m standing, that’s a good thing.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
[...] an NBC News report on the Big Three automakers’ moves to discourage or totally eliminate leasing, he wrote: “Only being able to drive something that you can actually [...]
December 1st, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Running a dealerships website, I can tell you this: According to my website stats, interest in trucks and SUV’s never dropped. Not even when gas hit $4 a gallon.
Yes, sales did drop - but sales for everything have dropped across the board. Leases were reported as sales, and the drop in leasing alone was enough to cut a lot of dealers ’sales’ by over 75% - overnight.
Many would say “truck sales are down” for those same dealers, and they technicaly were since trucks and SUV’s are the big sellers for all domestics, but the truth is that “no leases” = “overall drop in sales.”