Nimble and tons of body lean, yet the car rotates very well naturally - something not common nowadays on new cars.


less sketch to drive than EG EK (if you crash you'd basically die nowadays in those)

^ And the price .. !!! Few years ago, they were like $3K. Even Covid used car inflation doesn't justify $5K!

Super easy car to learn to drive manual on though.

I changed my thoughts recently that $5K is the new $3K - 2019 beater and $1.5K 2010 beater.

Gone are the days of sub $5K!

yeah man.

sub 5k half decent beaters that are fun to drive barely exist anymore...

Any thoughts on why the beater used car market has gone up so much?

I understand the 3-5 year old car market having gone bonkers due to supply chain issues for brand new cars. But for 20-year old cars? Boggles the mind, to be frank.

Is it social media - YouTube channels, TikTok, Bring a Trailer, etc.? I thought fewer young people were getting licenses overall due to cars being cost-prohibitive and structural changes in society? Or have people discovered that new cars generally are not very fun to drive?

It just trickles down.

There seems to be a growing number of low income people who just can't find a car that will get them around town. It's going to get brutal if people start losing their jobs because they can't get to them.

Maybe not such a big deal in Vancouver, but it is elsewhere.

I put my sister's '04 Corolla up on FB the other day for $5,200... 200,000+kms, a bit of rust but generally okay condition but had been rear-ended twice... I swear it was like I was the hottest girl in the world and I just signed up to a brown guy version of tinder or something!!!

I sold that thing in like an hour and could have sold it multiple times, literally went to the first guy who could run there fastest with $$$.

My sister thought she was going to get like $1,500 for it so she is over the moon. I'm a bit choked and feel like I could have got $6k or something lol!

Here's my theory:

the 2000's cars are the sweet spot right now - not sketch, somewhat modern enough, still has some amenties and the biggest thing is they are much safer than the 80-90's counterparts. Majority of them are not too ridden with electronics and don't always require dealer computers for repairs / programming in most cases, plus parts are still quite abundant in most cases. head unit a bit out dated? no problem, double din can fix that. They are currently at the bottom of their depreciation curve. Most cases on post 2010+ cars have less of those conveniences / ease of ownerships / ease of updating.

the 80-90's cars (at least the ones that we like) have became a cult type of car, so they have gotten a bit out of hand on prices and became quite unreasonable for what they are...



@68style - besides the odometer of those stuck at 299,999 those corollas are solid cars. cheap to run. cheap parts. great for delivery / uber eats/ skip the dishes imo.

A similar thing happened with my wife's old Mazda3, but I think that under $10k is a prime price range for many people. Where they can just buy it outright with some savings and don't have to arrange any financing.

Even decent 2005 - 2010 $5K Civics don't exist anymore, closer to $7-10K now. Just 3 years ago, $7-9K used to get a sub 120,000KM mint RSX-S.

As others have mentioned, new cars are unaffordable so that drives up demand for used cars. A base civic is close to $32-36K out door the now. With inflation driving the average car prices up , $5,000 just doesn't go as far as it used to.

Utility soccer kid hauler beater? 2006 Passat Turbo Wagon, 176K kms (pretty low relatively), for $3K! I think it's the 2.0T 4 cyl turbo (not as listed 6 cyl). Clean title, 'runs good'.

https://vancouver.craigslist.org/van...582964042.html

https://images.craigslist.org/00o0o_...7g_600x450.jpg

Thats blatantly a fake ad..background looks nothing like the lowermainland and no pic of license plate.

Interesting ... so people are just collecting valid emails? I mean with CL's system, it even hides your actual email, I think. Why do people put up fake ads? I mean this one is not likely to 'drive' down prices of competitors.

it's always the trees that throw it off

Buyer "Hi I want to buy your car"

Seller "okay great! Unfortunately I'm out of town for two weeks, I can send you more photos, but if you want the car I will need a deposit since lots of people are emailing me about it"

Buyer: it's so cheap I must have it

20 buyers send a 250$ deposit

Seller wins the scam lotto for 5000$, then that gets multiplied by the 5-10-50-200 ads he has running in Texas, Vancouver, Berlin, etc for cheap cars, condo rentals, and whatever else he is scamming for

Appreciate the various perspectives on the used car market.

I picked up a beater E46 convertible last year for $4K. It seems like I won the lottery or something, given the market.

IMO a lot of the value is in cars that people forgot about / wouldn't normally consider a beater.

My friend was looking at Mk7 Golf Trendline (base model, not even backup camera in 2015) with 120-150k kms for like 17k asking.

the 2nd gen MDX w/ SH-AWD & ELS or 2nd gen RDX with similar KMs were like 12k tops.

Looking for an uncreative car in this economy is incredibly problematic, but getting a lil creative seems to be ok still.

The pricing on late model VW products is crazy.

We bought our MK7 sportwagen just before the pandemic for less than 20K. The same car is more expensive today, almost 3 years later.

The MK7 wagon is a great car for what it is, but it's not worth over 20K today.

I see .. welp, that's on the interested buyer(s). I find it pretty hard to believe that people would actually plunk down $100 or $250 to secure something like this without any assurance. But there is a sucker born every day, I guess.

It happens all the time. People e transfer for goods on facebook market place all the time before seeing it in person. The seller vanishes and is never seen again.

Hell I've had people offer to send me a deposit to hold something unprompted.

https://vancouver.craigslist.org/bnc...589958341.html - can throw collector plates on this, if thats your thing

Statement holds true

There's a Corolla down my block, believe it's a 2004 model.

It has been rear ended from an accident, like completely crushed. But seems like they don't want to give up the car given how expensive the used car market is.

I'll take a few snap shots of it the next time I drive by it

I sent a 10K deposit once, cause I REALLY wanted the car LOL


But I sent it over paypal and paid the 4% G&S. Kind of dumb but for a car that popular, it was hard not to just yolo

^ :suspicious: ... what the hell was it? M3? So Paypal, you had some sort of assurance, a refund if it was funny?