Comments by "Comm0ut" (@Comm0ut) on "Dealers SCREWED SUV Buyers... Now They're Paying The Price!" video.

  1. Buying a new vehicle in 2025 is for the very rich or financially incompetent. No one NEEDS a new car which is fundamentally a toy purchase. Unless your home is paid off and your retirement invesments so fat you can retire in comfort today, expensive toys are foolish and repo rates bear that out.
    3
  2. Makers blame unions for their own greed. Run the numbers over time and see how wage stagnation works. (I knew organized labor had no future in the US except for key effective unions so I enlisted instead. Americans want everyone else to work for free.)
    3
  3.  @richardross7219  If you find a clean southern vehicle (worth the effort for those in the rust belt) that matches yours (which is from a good era) the existing van can be used for parts.
    2
  4.  @SSfighter909  It is and if you choose an older but sound body (sheet metal condition and lack of rust is more important to long truck life than current drivetrain condition) and either have a competent local (like my machinist who builds race engines with the timing slips and photos to prove it) shop overhaul it or buy a crate engine a good used truck can go decades more. I own nothing newer than 2000 and all mine are high mileage bought used. My Silverado as expected needed an overhaul on the 4L60E gearbox (good design, shit execution which is easily corrected during overhaul. My 1997 F150 needed a gearbox long ago and my 2000 F150 (which supposedly had the hydro-lock fix but that didn't save it) needed an engine so I swapped in a used one. No way I drop big money on vehicles. I buy clean southern trucks running or otherwise and sort them out at leisure. I only pay a few grand tops for trucks so I don't need credit, and doing my own wrenching (which saved me absurd money since I began with my first vehicle in the 1970s) gives me control and lets me take my time which most shops (I've wrenched commercially too) are under pressure not to do. The best hobby one can have is vehicle mechanics and all the young people working on late models prove it's doable. Gender matters not either (my wife was a USAF helo and fixed wing crew chief) and learning on an older truck while you have something else to drive is a great way to build experience. Even if you make mistakes (everyone does, it's part of learning) those cost less too. Paying off my homes early because I refuse to buy new vehicles is why I could now buy (most) modern garbage barges for cash which not being stupid I refuse to do because I'd rightly feel dirty. If you want decent truck (and SUV) years, early LS-engined Silverado and relatives and similar Fords (research on forums not just Youtube) are good machines. I own more than one of both (including a free F150 from a friend I helped with his Harley, which are also dead easy to keep running long after the original owner is dust. I'm crippled but that didn't stop me since learning basic rigging and lifting means I can move or lift whatever I like. So can anyone else.
    2
  5. Keep it from rusting and there's no reason you shouldn't get thirty or more years out of it. I plan maintenance and upgrades well in advance. I also buy my "next" used truck in advance and sort them out while my current ride is fine. Zero downtime for me and I can work at leisure.
    2
  6. This lifelong mechanic agrees with you. Condition not mileage is key and good vehicles reasonably maintained last decades outside the rust belt.
    2
  7.  @jsd354  Better yet don't buy new vehicles unless you are absolutely debt-free, your home is paid off and you have enough retirement savings retire TODAY. I practice what I preach and don't use any of the scummy "financial advisors" who spam Youtube. I retired at 47 on just an Air Force pension and modest savings. It was not at all difficult.
    1
  8. The old bumpers were still easy to total at speeds over their limit and they cost more than plain chrome. Newer front ends offer superior crash protection for the driver and passengers although that's counter-intuitive to non-mechanics. The ancient times when I was a lad were before rubber bumper inserts and they were a bloodbath. The stats don't lie about that.
    1