I was looking at the 2014 Cherokee a few weeks back but was dumbfounded that it was so much heavier than my XJ. That and the Trailhawk was pricey at ~$29K.

Since websites are loaded with click on ads, I clicked on a Grand Cherokee ad today. Talk about sticker shock!!! One model had a base above $49,000. That means you'd be well over $50K out the door.

My old XJ which will turn 50K miles next time I drive to town sure look mighty good!!!

 

:sigh:

 

Wow, I had no idea new cars were expensive. Thanks for this helpful and informative thread that isn't cluttering up the forum for absolutely no reason.

 

Whaaaaaat!?!?!?


You have an XJ with 50k on it?

 

If your XJ only has 50k you already have a new car.

 

Ya new car prices are stupid high. Heck i saw a dodge challenger selling for $42,000 not even fully loaded. Yet just the other day i saw a 71 Plymouth GTX with pretty new 440 and trans, fresh paint, all it needed was a new front seat for $19,000. You could get a real muscle car for half the price of the new less powerful plastic car.

 

New cars are certainly expensive and heavy, a lot more safety equipment, better materials and quality.

If I was going to buy new I would honestly probably be looking at something compact, new Fiesta or Focus but then I would end up having to get the ST model and that would jack up the price a bit.

 

Agreed, I just bought a new 2013 Mustang GT a few months ago, the sticker was $35k (though I actually paid around $30k) and at 3,600lbs. it weighs more than an XJ (and it is still several hundred pounds lighter than a Camaro or Challenger). But it does have ABS, Traction control, Stability control (is this really necessary on a Mustang), a ton of air-bags, and the 5.0L V8 produces 420hp from the factory and is rated at 26 mpg hwy (manual), and of course the interior materials are much nicer than the XJ or even the 2007 Pontiac G6 that the Mustang replaced.

What's even worse is you could easily pay $30k+ for a Fusion, Camry, Accord, or Altima with a few options, especially if you get a V6 or turbo.

 

Between inflation and the increased costs of manufacture from government standards and mandates it's no wonder new cars are so expensive. They've gotten so expensive that no dealerships mark up prices for the most part anything either because they won't sell cars like they used to.

Subarus are the only real exception to that (getting marked up) and even then they're only getting marked up in areas where they're more in demand than usual. They're so sought after and hard to get out on the west coast that we get people from Oregon and Washington buying them at my dealership all the time and either paying to have it shipped out there or flying here and driving back.

 

I think the Mustang GT, the 5.0, is a pretty good value. You are getting a lot of car for the price. Ford finally got the GT right again, in my opinion, the 4.6's minus the Cobra's were dogs. I think Ford is putting out a pretty good product these days.


I agree, all of this stuff has happened. Part of me wants to just buy a new car whenever I get another one. I have a hard time buying new cars, I was looking at BMW 135i and even used dealers have them listed around what MSRP is. Ridiculous mark up, go back a few years prior to say 08/09 and you can get much better deals.

I think cars are way better though, compare any American car now to the early 90's or even 10 years ago and they were awful. The interior of my 2000 Camaro SS felt like it was pieced together out of recycled Fisher Price toys.

The Cherokee is a great example, definitely not a car with superb fit and finish but it gets the job done.

 

True, I can't really complain about what you get for the money, especially compared to other cars out there today. What is ridiculous is that you can pay that much or more for many "normal" mid-sized cars. And few if any full-sized cars cost less than that.

 

Without even looking, unless its a German car. I assume most cars are starting in the neighborhood of 25k and generally that goes up pretty quickly. It seems like for a reasonably optioned mid size car these days its 30k+ Then of course you get the dealer mark up.

 

Kia gets my award for being most changed, now they put out a great lookin product and they are cheaper when compared. 100k warrenty

 

I agree with you. I was considering a Focus last year when I worked at a Ford dealership. It has more room and generally more options but only a few less MPGs than a Fiesta. I was thinking a ST or Titanium which would be in the 25-30k range. I ended up quitting my job, selling my Chevy Cobalt, and bought my 90 XJ Laredo for $2500. I'm way happier now

To the OP about the new Cherokee. It is actually resonably priced between 20-30k with tons of options. Honestly if they called it something other than a "Cherokee" I think it would be an awesome DD. Oh and those headlights on them are just wrong. I think it should be called the "Grand Liberty", "Grand Compass", or "Grand Patriot".

 

Mini rant from someone who works at a Kia dealership service dept.

In the past 3-4 years they've dumped a lot more money into Kia and the quality has gone up big time, though once you're at the bottom you can really only go up. They're still a pain to work on yourself and they're still prone to issues due to shortcuts Hyundai takes in manufacturing them. I wouldn't suggest touching anything before 2011 on a Kia.

The Forte and Rio are still cheap throwaway cars.

The Soul is pretty popular and I've only seen two come in with major issues. One needed a motor and the other needed a transmission and both were due to unique manufacturing defects. We have one woman that comes in with a 2010 Soul that looks like it rolled off the lot that day and she's got 300k miles on it.

Sedonas are prone to small issues that are random and really difficult to diagnose. They stopped making them for 2013 and we just got in the first 2014s at work this week so I can't comment on those yet. We do get quite a few over 200k miles on them though.

I wouldn't touch a Sportage, they're better than what I've talked about so far, but they've got TONS of blind spots and you can't see anything out of them if you're over 6 foot.

The new Optima, Sorento and Cadenza are nice and come with tons of features. Air conditioned seats are cool as hell and not many manufacturers are doing them yet. As nice as they are, they're still prone to small issues like all Kias still are. In the end I'm not going to pay $35-40k for a nice Kia when I can buy from a better manufacturer. Sales and manufacture have dropped off a lot this year as well. We're the number one Kia store in the area and we have 20 Kias on the lot, not because they sell well but because that's all they're sending us and most have sat there for 6 months. Our sales this time last year were 60% higher than they are now.

Their warranties are really good though and they honor them in situations where I wouldn't expect any manufacturer to. We have a woman with a 2009 Sorento with 250k miles on it that comes in, she's never come in for anything but warranty work, goes forever between oil changes and doesn't do any maintenance otherwise. She had a crank bolt break on it about a year ago and they warrantied it out of warranty. It's broken 4 times since and they've still covered it and we just put a short block in it under warranty last week.

We had a 2012 Optima get towed in a couple weeks ago, front end all smashed up from hitting curbs and ****. Inside of the car was trashed. It had 30k miles on it, zero maintenance done, tons of sludge in the oil pan, no records of any work done to it, oil was low, wrong filter was rung into it. Pulled the top end apart and the whole motor was sludged up. We thought there was no way in hell they'd warranty it. Factory rep came out and I had to explain to him why the sludge was there. They took a sample and decided it had trace amounts of coolant in it so they warrantied it and had us put a brand new motor in it.