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A comment on Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent Shop Fixed It for $5k. Parent comment

Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by Spivak on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:12PM (#28515485)
As a fellow "always going to buy a cheap but reliable older car" driver I can attest that it is in fact the least stressful car buying / owning experience ever. If you need a car for the actual "moving your body to and from places" it can't be beat.

* Parts are always available and inexpensive for the mass-market models and any repair ship can get you sorted.

* If I get into an accident the most I can ever be out is $8-10k but with depreciation more likely $4-5k.

* If they don't offer you 0% interest you just buy the car outright.

* Insurance is cheeeeap because the car isn't worth anything and it's not the kind of car anyone will drive fast or target for vandalism or theft.

* You can buy cars with high mileage and still easily get another 100k miles out of it. If the thing is a scrap heap by the end who cares?

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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by AustinDev on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:27PM (#28515662)
I was this way until I got married and my neighbors wife nearly got killed in her ~2010 model lexus suv by an inattentive driver running a red light @45 mph t-boning the drivers side with 1 ton truck. She's lucky she wasn't seriously maimed and fully recovered. A 2020 Lexus might have avoided the hospital trip entirely based on the difference in crash tests for drive side impact. I'd rather my wife be in a at most 3-4 year old BMW, Lexus, Volvo, etc than a late model cheap car for the sake of my piece of mind alone.
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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by tashoecraft on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:30PM (#28515685)
I used to be in the camp of buy a cheap, old reliable car, until I realized just how much safer cars made in the past 5 years are vs the older ones. Cars are getting much safer, and I'll happily pay 5-10k more just for the insurance of reducing the chances of me being maimed or killed in an accident.
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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by vkou on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:47PM (#28515896)
This may be good advice today, but will it hold five years from now? Ten years from now? Eventually, the delta in death rates per mile traveled will be indistinguishable from zero - either because safety improvements will no longer be significant, or because we have gotten the death rate so low that the difference between it and zero will be negligible.

We're currently at a point where 15-year old vehicles have ~144 deaths per million registered vehicles [1], and 5-year old vehicles have ~40 deaths per million registered vehicles [2]. Sure, you may be willing to pay a premium to get 40 down to 10, but are you willing to pay as much of a premium to get that 10 down to 2.5? 2.5 down to 0.6?

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... (~2004 - 14.4 occupant deaths per 100,000 vehicles)

[2] https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-... (~2016 - 14 to 64 driver deaths per 1,000,000 vehicles)

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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by jonfw on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:58PM (#28516023)
The demographics of those who drive 15 year old cars and those who drive 5 year old cars are very different. I'd bet that the 15 year old demo contains more reckless/intoxicated drivers (i.e. young people)
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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by cmrdporcupine on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:37PM (#28515761)
Yep, my wife rear-ended a delivery truck in our older Audi and totalled it -- with the kids in the car; everyone was OK, but after that she would not consider anything that didn't have collision avoidance systems and safety at least as good as the Audi we had. I'm glad she wasn't in our older Kia. There would have been injuries.
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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by tashoecraft on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:40PM (#28515806)
Exactly. Though I will say there are lots and lots of people who get cars they cannot afford or pay stupid money for ones, and there's way more of them then people who can afford more but choose the cheaper car.
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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by Spivak on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:41PM (#28515820)
Money well spent honestly. I've gotten in two accidents (one of them a t-bone) in cars made 2010ish and I thought they did fine both times with us walking away with minor bruising and a sore neck. But I can absolutely respect that.
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