I bought my 20 year old infiniti for 14k, 10 years ago. I think most people will be in serious issues when they suffer a 14k bill for a fender. I think if do a large overhaul including a full repaint on my car it would cost less than 14k

Most people will just suffer the insurance deductible though.

If your vehicle costs that much for a "simple" repair you're going to be suffering from expensive insurance too.

So... pretty much everyone these days?

It's a third of $40k, "three times less" than $40k would be -$80k

"X times less" is actually a technically meaningless statement, but colloquially would mean 1/X. There's nothing to be gained by being pedantic over that

It's just annoying to see, like when people write "less then" or "should of"