MSNBC: Sales Spike: Large sport-utility vehicles are making a quiet comeback on used-car lots

[Amerigo Vespucci]

SUVs' surprising residual sales spike
Large sport-utility vehicles are making a quiet comeback on used-car lots

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22010210 /

With oil prices flirting with $100 a barrel, who in the world would want a large, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicle? Quite a lot of people, as it turns out. In the used-car market, at least, demand for midsize and large SUVs is surprisingly strong. While still far below the boom years of the late 1990s and the early part of this decade, it's proof consumers' yen for boulevard behemoths isn't dead.

Data from Black Book, a division of Hearst Business Media which tracks used-car pricing and resale values, indicate the average resale values for large SUVs are bouncing back from their 2006 low, says Ricky Beggs, Black Book's vice-president and managing editor.
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Large SUV residual values (what they're worth after three years of lease or ownership) jumped to 48.6% of their original sale price this year, compared with less than 46% last year. That's about the same resale value as midsize cars and compact SUVs.

Beggs says many of the people who dumped their SUVs two or three years ago when gas prices really spiked have realized they need the space they had when they were driving those big Chevrolet Tahoes and Ford Expeditions. So they're buying them on the used market, he says. "People don't like the high gas prices," Beggs says. "But they have decided that they need the vehicle."



Many people who dumped their SUVs when gas prices really spiked have realized they need the space they had when they were driving big vehicles like the 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe shown here.

[dysfunctional press]

1. with the amount/type of driving we do, we could live with $10/gal. gas prices...

as far as what it would do to prices at the grocery & other stores/restaurants is a different matter.

[MADem]

2. I'd be screwed.

I don't drive AT ALL---except when I drive A LOT.

I'll go for three weeks and not drive more than two or three miles, and then I'll have to get on the road on a bit of business or what have you, and I'll drive three to four hundred miles each way.

[dysfunctional press]

4. sounds like it would be more doable than you think.

for us- we do a bit more driving than we used to, in fact- because we moved from the city to a suburb about 40 miles west...but i've only got two more trips to the storage locker, and my forays into the big city will become few and far between.

[MADem]

6. Well, I drive a very old but carefully maintained subcompact shitbox.

I won't unload it because it runs well, and it gets 33 highway and I can load it up with a ton of shit. But I really don't wanna pay ten bucks a gallon. I'd have to think about stashing away some cash towards one of those hybrids in that case.

[Horse with no Name]

3. More than meets the eye

People with purchasing power are purchasing more economical cars.
With the housing slump and foreclosure rate, high credit card default rates, etc... more people are being forced to buy from these used car lots which are inundated with these SUV's.

[hang a left]

7. Zactly!

People are trading these vehicles in or they are repos. NOONE is looking for a used SUV. This article is trying to make those buyers (if there really are any)feel better or it is attempting to induce buyers.

First of all, used car lots are for people that have bad credit or illegal immigrants. A lot of them carry their own paper, or have connections with lenders that do business with high risk customers as long as the dealer guarantees the loan. And they do. You should see their 300 pound chasers.

We have a street in our town that has a crapload of used car dealerships. All the lots front SUVs or big trucks. They have all been sitting there for months.

Smelly article.

[AndyTiedye]

5. Are People Buying them to Live in or What?

[depakid]

8. There's a sucker born every minute

Americans just never seem to learn.

[Locrian]

9. sucker right across from me

Sucker right across from me just bought a used Ford Expedition for $20,000. Gets like 11 mpg.
He's a global warming denier, end-times a comin' kinda guy.

Says half jokingly he could live in it.

[Angela Shelley]

10. They are trading their used SUVs in for new ones

Has anyone here heard the term "rich getting richer"?

[trof]

11. A friend recently bought a new Bronco. I don't get it.

She's in her late 50s.
A small woman, about 5' 3".
Middle class, not wealthy.
Kids are grown and gone.
It's just her and her retired husband at home.
(He drives a late model Caddy.)

She lives in a southern suburb, not out in the wilds of Alaska.
No off-roading for her.
The most 'cargo' she hauls around is groceries.
She commutes 40 miles a day, round trip, to work.
At about 15 mpg.

And she told me a recent fill up was over $80.
I said it's only going to get worse.
"Yeah, I guess so, but I just LOVE my Bronco."

[SoCalDem]

12. If the price gets low enough,people will be able to afford the higher gas

it;s the combination of HUGE car payments ANd high gas, that kills the budget..

Buying a used car at a low price , can make the whole issue moot.

We bought a used luxury car, knowing that it was not going to be all that fuel-efficient, but it's not our commuter car, and we paid cash, so the fuel costs, annoying as they are, are not a budget buster for us.. BUT if we had a $500-600 car payment AND $60 a tank gas, and if it was our main car, we would be up shit creek with no paddle..