The WORST Cars to Buy | Doug DeMuro
Key points from the YouTube transcript:
Car Depreciation & Resale Value:
- EVs and Luxury Cars: Electric vehicles and large luxury cars (Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series, Bentleys) depreciate significantly.
- Cybertruck: Resale value is dropping, but not as drastically as initially expected. Demand remains surprisingly robust.
- Optimal Buying Time for Luxury Cars: The ideal time to buy used luxury cars is a balancing act between price drop and potential reliability issues. Older cars (7+ years) may be cheaper but risk significant repair costs due to age and out-of-warranty components. The optimal timeframe varies depending on the make and model and the buyer’s risk tolerance.
Luxury Car Maintenance & Repair:
- High Costs: Maintaining and repairing high-end cars like Bentleys and Rolls-Royces is extremely expensive. Reliability is often a secondary concern for initial owners who only keep the vehicle for a few years.
- Post-Warranty Issues: Problems arise for subsequent owners after the warranty expires, as parts become expensive or unavailable, and technology becomes outdated. Manufacturers prioritize the initial owner’s experience.
Technology’s Impact on Resale Value:
- Outdated Technology: Rapid technological advancements in cars can negatively affect resale value, making older models less desirable due to outdated infotainment systems and features. This is similar to how older smartphones quickly become obsolete.
- Over-the-Air Updates: While over-the-air updates can help maintain functionality, they can’t entirely prevent obsolescence of hardware not initially included in the design.
Manual Transmissions:
- High Demand for Used Manuals: Used cars with manual transmissions (especially sports cars like Ferraris and Porsches) command significantly higher prices than their automatic counterparts.
- Lack of New Manual Cars: Despite the high demand, few new cars, especially high-performance models, are offered with manual transmissions. The automakers cite the superior speed and performance of dual-clutch automatics as their reasoning.
- Missed Market Opportunity: The speaker argues that automakers like Ferrari and Lamborghini are missing a significant revenue opportunity by not offering limited-run manual transmission versions of their cars, even at premium prices.
- Aston Martin Conversion: Aston Martin offers a manual transmission conversion service for older automatic models, highlighting the existing aftermarket demand for this modification.
In short, the discussion centers around the depreciation of various car types, the high cost of maintaining luxury vehicles, the influence of technology on resale value, and the surprising lack of new manual transmission cars despite significant market demand for them.