Where have all the cheap cars gone?

I've been scouring CL here lately for a decent daily driver for my younger sister. Requirements are that it be under 150k miles, less than $2500, clean title, 30+ mpg hwy, and not be a complete pile of crap. I guess I'm asking for the moon here. My searches are coming up with buptkis, nada, nothing.

So where did all the cheap DD's go? The 2000 era Focus hatchbacks? The 2000 era Neons? Celicas? and you can forget anything Honda under $6000, it's all riced out swapped junk. Hell, even a Cobalt, there are 5 of those in CL right now that match my search...5, of those 5, 2 have blown engines, and none are the 2 door coupes. I mean how many of those did GM sell? Millions upon millions? It's crazy. Is CL not the place people sell cars anymore? I don't do facebook, so FB marketplace is out if that's where all this stuff is going.

Are people just hanging on to cars longer and driving them into the ground now? What's happening?

A quick scan of facebook marketplace suggests that is where all of the cheap beaters are now. 

t25torx said:

What's happening?

I've been asking the same thing about 4x100 wheels.

In reply to t25torx :

It seems to be going that way here as well. There are a few decent deals right now but the vast majority is people selling junk for big dollars, or trying to. The best deals are on FB for sure.

It's tax season where all the cheap registrable/drivable cars get sold fast. People flipping a few lower end cars a year who can afford to buy 2-3 in the holiday season low ball desperate people, then sit on them until after the beginning of the year when lower income people are using tax return money to buy a vehicle. We're nearing the end of the cycle and May/June you'll start to seeing more  sub $2,500.00 cars start showing back up.

Scan $2500 Trailblazers.   There were 30+ of them on Chicago Craigslist when I was considering selling mine for $2500.  

Right now 68 listings come up at $2500 or less.  Of course getting 30mpg....

I second NOT A TA’s comment.  March/April usually seems to be a bad time to buy a beater, since people got their tax refund, or a loan for it.

Its been noticeable on my local CL, but not as bad as I’ve seen in past years, so I’m not sure what’s up.  I know the IRS is delaying refunds more as an anti-fraud measure, so maybe not as many people have cash to burn yet.

edit:  With regard to the OP’s quest for a car, how about Buick LeSabres?  I see 3.1 powered ones with reasonable miles with some regularity.  Should be able to do 30 MPG on the highway, if you aren’t a lead foot.

They're all being horded by people who think they're going to build a challenge car someday.

eastsideTim said:

edit:  With regard to the OP’s quest for a car, how about Buick LeSabres?  I see 3.1 powered ones with reasonable miles with some regularity.  Should be able to do 30 MPG on the highway, if you aren’t a lead foot.

You're not going to see 30mpg in a 3.1 anymore. I had a 3.1 Cutlass Supreme back before the E10 gas we have now and on long trips I could just barely get 28-29. So 30 is out of the question for sure now. I've noticed that the EPA estimates are a lot more accurate now that they adjusted them for E10.

Fb marketplace is the new craigslist. 

I buy all the sub $500 neon up ;) 

I have been buying more vehicles off Facebook market place than anywhere else recently. 

The car I bought was off let it go. 

Lof8 said:

Fb marketplace is the new craigslist. 

That's really frustrating, I won't use FB. 

Also, Cash4Clunkers wiped out a large portion of a generation of used cars. Vehicles that didn't get turned in are now really old and haggard. And the other stuff is too new and expensive. At least that's what I saw around here. The cheap used car market never really recovered from that.

Lof8 said:

Fb marketplace is the new craigslist. 

Until the scammers find FB Marketplace... then we wait for the next low scam option...

I also suspect the rather high price of new cars these days (safety features, gadgets etc) is driving the price up on drivable old cars.

NickD said:

Also, Cash4Clunkers wiped out a large portion of a generation of used cars. Vehicles that didn't get turned in are now really old and haggard. And the other stuff is too new and expensive. At least that's what I saw around here. The cheap used car market never really recovered from that.

 Surely crushing a bunch of sub-18mpg Explorers and Grand Cherokees that would be close to being registered as antiques in 2018 didn't kill the used Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla market for a decade.  The program only accounted for about .25% of registered vehicles in 2009.  If anything, there should be a huge influx of cheap 2009 Corollas and Focuses in the next year or so.

Cash for clunkers itself isn’t the big factor anymore, as far as I can tell.  However, the bottom falling out of the new car market from 2008-2011 probably is.  Fewer 8-10 year old cars out there than usual.   Late model used prices appear to be dropping, though, due to a string of record setting sales years recently.

Used car lots are filled with cars well over 100,000 miles. That means that the private market is left with some serious junk.  Still...

129,000 miles, no rust, $3500

106,000 miles, $3500

91,000 miles, $3500

Any car less than  $2k or so likely has something wrong or about to be wrong that's going to cost you another  $2k to fix. For a car that you can put gas in and drive you are looking for a $4k car now.  Think 4-5 year old Mirage/Versa/Aveo with @100k or 6-10 year old Focus/Saturn/Mazda3/Corolla  with 150k.

Floating Doc said:

Lof8 said:

Fb marketplace is the new craigslist. 

That's really frustrating, I won't use FB. 

Same here. I still can't believe people use it, after the current privacy issues and also that it's just a data mining service for advertisers.

All of you who bag on those who buy new cars, calling them fools. Those fools took your advice and decided to buy used. The supply is drying up. Congratulations, cheapskates.

Appleseed said:

All of you who bag on those who buy new cars, calling them fools. Those fools took your advice and decided to buy used. The supply is drying up. Congratulations, cheapskates.

Oh no I encourage them to lease the pricier ones as depreciation is a bitch.  Win.  Win.  Win. 

It's my fault. I have money saved up so everything went poof.

Facebook seems to be the key to cheap cars right now. Even there your currently dealing with the income tax return inflation. My friend was looking for a car not long ago because his omni was totaled in a hit and run. Alot of 500 dollar cars are currently listed for 1200+ because of tax season. 

I begrudgingly signed up for Facebook a little over a year ago.  If you dont fill out a bio or include every detail of your life in your profile and set the privacy to max then there isn't much in the way of targeted ads.  I rarely post outside of groups so the signal to noise is way lower.  People that complain about what they see on facebook only have themselves to blame, the algorithm is quite good at give you content similar to what you've viewed in the past.

As for the original question, tax season is upon us so a $200 car with a bad trans has turned into a $1000 mechanics special and you just have to wait for midnight to hit and then it back into a pumpkin (or a lemon, if you will). 

And finally, FB vs CL.  CL has a high signal to noise ratio with all the fake ads and the response time from sellers of FB is way better.  Throw in the fact that people over share on FB and you can see if they are worth dealing with up front and you waste way less time.

Saabs are real cheap.  Last month I picked up my daughter a 2006 Saab 9-3 Arc 2.0 turbo.  Car is immaculate.  $2000  Only thing I could find wrong with its appearance was the Saab badge on the trunk was faded.  There was a brand new one inside the trunk.  My dad just looked at a 2008 2.6L 9-3 convertible with 114K miles that was $3500, but he is holding out for a Mercedes SL.

Atlanta. Duh.

No seriously. I was cruising craigslist for $2,500 and under last night and found a ton of great buys. That said, I don’t give a E36 M3 about mileage.

Hoping to look at this tomorrow or monday.