New truck prices are insane

Sherman Bird said:

Here, it also depends on the "option" the insurance companies lay out about putting a dongle in your OBD2 port and basically allowing them to monitor EVERY move you make while driving.... at a (GASP! sarcasm) 10 dollar a month discount! Whoopie!

I told my agent that my soul isn't for sale, period, and that anyone so myopic who does go for this ludicrous offer is not seeing the whole picture.

I also told the agent that the insurance company is NOT welcome to look into my medicine cabinet or underwear drawer.

Frankly the notion that people will sell themselves so short so cheap, is scary.

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You talking about the ole device that is supposed to spy on how you drive and report back so maybe a lower insurance rate? My Insurance "guy" mentioned that, I told him nicely what he could do with it, lol.

Sherman Bird said:

Here, it also depends on the "option" the insurance companies lay out about putting a dongle in your OBD2 port and basically allowing them to monitor EVERY move you make while driving.... at a (GASP! sarcasm) 10 dollar a month discount! Whoopie!

I told my agent that my soul isn't for sale, period, and that anyone so myopic who does go for this ludicrous offer is not seeing the whole picture.

I also told the agent that the insurance company is NOT welcome to look into my medicine cabinet or underwear drawer.

Frankly the notion that people will sell themselves so short so cheap, is scary.

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They already use our credit report history to set premium rates. Apparently, they've got some kind of statistical data that shows correlation between credit history and vehicle crash rates.

HEMIMANN said:

They already use our credit report history to set premium rates. Apparently, they've got some kind of statistical data that shows correlation between credit history and vehicle crash rates.

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I think they are more odious in their intent.... ANY chicken-poop reason to sell "protection" ala the old gangsters. But, I AM cynical!

HEMIMANN said:

They already use our credit report history to set premium rates. Apparently, they've got some kind of statistical data that shows correlation between credit history and vehicle crash rates.

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There is a TON of data suggesting casualty losses with low FICO scores. The big question is how long the guberment will let them go down that path. So far, so good. And before someone with a crap score and no accident history chimes in, we're talking about the law of large numbers...Doesn't mean YOU are bad, but as a group (that you belong too) the info is solid.

Scottly said:

There is a TON of data suggesting casualty losses with low FICO scores. The big question is how long the guberment will let them go down that path. So far, so good. And before someone with a crap score and no accident history chimes in, we're talking about the law of large numbers...Doesn't mean YOU are bad, but as a group (that you belong too) the info is solid.

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There is a lot of truth to this, and it works both directions. I have a perfect score and zero accidents (OK, one in 1977 - not my fault). My total monthly premium for full coverage on both my 2023 RAM and my wife's 2013 Jeep is $92. Full coverage - including glass replacement. It doesn't mean that everyone with a good score has no accidents, but statistically the odds are way less.

Sherman Bird said:

I think they are more odious in their intent.... ANY chicken-poop reason to sell "protection" ala the old gangsters. But, I AM cynical!

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You've earned your cynicism being exposed to a lifetime of corporate scammery, like me. There's some good people, but the crap claws it's way to the top.

GTyankee said:

California's Imperial Valley has 40% of the Lithium in the USA, if not the world.

EV's are suppose to save money, or are they ..
“When the California governor’s office indicated they were going to support this industry, we were thankful. That’s great,” EnergySouce CEO Spomer said. “But the first thing that happened is they put a $800 a ton lithium tax on us.

General Motors controls most if not all of that Lithium

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I haven't heard much about the iron oxide battery research Toyota is into. I think the cathode is nickel? 3x charge life of lithium ion, as well as 3x faster charge.

They trying to figure out how to make reliably at scale. Remember LiIon phones shorting and catching fire in people's pockets when they 1st came out?

turkeybird56 said:

You talking about the ole device that is supposed to spy on how you drive and report back so maybe a lower insurance rate? My Insurance "guy" mentioned that, I told him nicely what he could do with it, lol.

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HEMIMANN said:

You've earned your cynicism being exposed to a lifetime of corporate scammery, like me. There's some good people, but the crap claws it's way to the top.

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When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, My parents and grandparents were well-intentioned with the advice "Go to school and make good grades, then go to college and work for a major corporation, so they can "take care" of me!

My maternal grandfather was a pharmacologist for what was UpJohn. My Dad worked for IBM. In those cases, and at that time in history, these good people survived the Great depression, and some witnessed both world wars! So, I get their "fears", although I never lived that terrible set of realities. I can see where they developed those beliefs.

Well, as fate would have it, I DID go to work for a world wide oil services company right out of high school. That company did take care of us employees in terms of decent, livable wages and top tier benefits. However, too many times in the nearly 3 years I was there, lay-offs were a palpable reality as Nixxon and Ford had to deal with oil embargos.

I had always had the passion to fix cars for a living and chose dealership level work to gain access to factory training.
But that scenario was and is still rife with betrayers and backstabbers. That is enough fodder for it's own book.
I'm cynical largely due to those in my presence smiling in my face and turning on me over and over and over.
We technicians were burdened (illegally) with costs of risks to the dealer owners. Garbage such as them illegally docking one's pay for things like them refunding repair costs to loud, screaming customer because said customer screamed murder, looking for free repairs. Also, we were illegally made to sign a waiver that if we had an accident in a customer's car, we were held responsible for the deductible. Those are just a couple of examples of why no one wants to fix cars professionally today.

Sure, the factory training was and likely still peerless in thoroughness and clarity. But the dealer personnel are almost never graduates of any human resources training. Typically they were just apes in suits. These dynamics may have changed, but in reading these posts on this forum and the other forums I'm on, it seems not.

For me, freedom from the oppressive idjits of dealerdom and independent shops was obtained by working for myself.
I've never been happier than not having to be handed BS on a platter as an end around to screw me out of what I'd earned.

Boy, did I ever fall for that mistake. My folks thought they'd fixed post WWII prosperity forever, and taught that to us.
How naive can you get when all the rest of history shows otherwise. People haven't changed, and won't. DNA mutations take generations.

I bought a 2017 1500 sport new, Quad cab, Heated steering wheel, seats, mirrors, big screen display, Ram box, power everything, Paid less than 40K back in 2017,
Same truck today is 80K , WTF?

Everybody complains about the prices every couple years. I bought an '85 Dodge D150 and it was $10,000. I thought that was insane. I bought a '20 Ram 3500 Laramie Cummins HO dually and that was around $75,000. I thought that was insane too and also the price of every other new truck I bought in the years between those two.

Stating a price and date without using monetary inflation calculator for comparison means nothing - just numbers.

Someone mentioned the reasons for high Insurance rates

If i were to get insurance at one Zip Code, in the "BAD" part of town,
i would be paying twice the cost of the Better part of town.
The Officers write more tickets & there are more Crime & Accidents in the bad part of town

Wadejesu said:

I bought a 2017 1500 sport new, Quad cab, Heated steering wheel, seats, mirrors, big screen display, Ram box, power everything, Paid less than 40K back in 2017,
Same truck today is 80K , WTF?

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Special paint (sic) (wink)

I've got a 2015 that I was hoping to replace next year, but I think they've priced me out of the market.

Brought my durango in for oil change (package was included when i bought the truck) and update computer flash. While walking the dealership lot I cam across a reg cab long box 4x4 hemi "work truck"
Zero options ,not even a hitch. $56,000 Canadian ....seriously wtf!

Wadejesu said:

I bought a 2017 1500 sport new, Quad cab, Heated steering wheel, seats, mirrors, big screen display, Ram box, power everything, Paid less than 40K back in 2017,
Same truck today is 80K , WTF?

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Right... WTF?

I wrote about this late last year in another post. There was a massive jump in pricing that happened some time after 2021. I got a 1500 Bighorn 5.7 in December 2021. The base price on it (without options) was $39k. Fast forward to the 2023 models (might have been in 2022, not sure) and the base price with no options was up 20% to $49k. I bought mine with options for $45k and as it stood in late 2023, a new version of mine with the same options was sitting at almost $60k! For a 1500 Bighorn. I'm keeping mine forever, I refuse to pay that much.

Now that the UAW got what they wanted, here comes another price increase

The prices were driven by corporate gouging during the pandemic supply freezeup caused by corporation's own just-in-time supply system to squeeze every dime out of their suppliers.

It backfired spectacularly as we all know, but they used the opportunity of the own screwup to gouge us. That "inflation" was never rolled back when supplier gridlock was slowly broken.

Now, Ram price gouging is the only thing keeping Stellantis afloat. They really deserve to fail. The management, that is, not the workers.

I mean, when they start floating 10 year loans for a depreciating machine, you know it's upside down.