>>>Hi Mike,
>>>
>>>now let me try for my longer take on things...
>>>I am totally with Charles on not to buy a new one but get a 2-4 years old car.
>>>As I have been the statistician behind the german version of the "Blue Book"
>>>till the end of the last century I have some bias but also lots of data ;-)
>>>
>>
>>
>>Buying a 2-3 year old used cars has been my approach too. But right now, in the US, used vehicle prices are so high (at least for 4wd pickup trucks) it made no sense to buy used. At best a 10% savings for trucks with 30,000 to 60,000 miles of usage.
>
>Interesting. Has not happened over here yet -
>but our auto industry did not have the troubles like GM and Chrysler back then.
>And 4wd pickups are much rarer and less useful over here, although there are too many
>SUV like Cayenne, Q7 or X5 over here as we have about 7 days of snow in Frankfurt
>and nobody goes off-road with them...
>
>Deflation and/or even cheaper credit for new cars the source of that ?


Many US drivers are replacing their cars less frequently than they used to.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/autos/story/2012-01-17/cars-trucks-age-polk/52613102/1

This has reduced the supply of "newer" used vehicles. Dealers here in MT now offer a premium for "newer" trade-ins.

4WD pickup trucks are a big deal in MT, as immortalized in the Movie Rancho deluxe
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073605/quotes