Why people cant afford to buy cars anymore' the facts you need to know

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, it's Joey again, Vegas D Tech. Welcome back. I got a lot to cover in this video today, guys, concerning the 3 million. We have hit 3 million auto repossessions a year. Every morning I'm seeing all these tow trucks hitching up cars, taking them away. And in this report, we have a lot to cover today.

[00:00:19]So, let's go ahead and jump right into it.

[00:00:22]>> [music] >> Hello everybody, welcome back. It's Joey again, you're watching Vegas D Tech. And today, guys, it has been brought to my attention at the exorbitant amount of repossessions that I am seeing and tow trucks that are hauling away people's cars. And we have hit that critical threshold, guys, of 3 million annual auto repossessions per year now, quarter two in 2026, 3 million. That comes out to 5,400 repossessions per day and four repossessions per second. Now, it would be bad if it was just one repossession per second, but we are up to four repossessions per second. And there's a whole lot of reasons for that.

[00:01:20]First, I want to apologize. My train of thought, when I'm out here doing these reports, they jump around a lot. I get distracted and I come up with analogies and then I get off base, but I just have a lot of information that I want to give you. And I am not AI, guys. I'm an actual live person with an actual live issue. We're we're doing it live out here in the streets. I'm riding around on a on a little skateboard bringing to you, you know, real-life issues that real-life people in America have. And so, bear with me that I'm giving it to you true and real. So, anyways, getting back on this 3 million a year Guys, I have never heard of this number before.

[00:01:58]It is the highest repossession numbers since 2009.

[00:02:02]The repossessions have increased 43% in the past 2 years. Why are people letting their cars get repoed when you work so hard to build up your credit score and now you're going to allow your car to get taken back. Well, I can tell you, number one, the prices of cars right now, you guys have seen, are absolutely ridiculous. You know, consumers at at least average working-class consumers, they are in between a rock and a hard place. If they choose to buy an older car that's too old, then they have thousands of dollars worth of repairs that they have to do to the vehicle to bring it up to speed. And then you have emissions and smog crawling all over you to try to get your car to pass inspection every single year. So then, in in in trying to defeat that, they go ahead and they decide, "Well, maybe it'll be a better bet if I go ahead and and just get a new car that doesn't need all of these repairs." So, consumers have a choice. They can either A, choose to buy an old car, throw money at it to get it fully repaired to pass the inspection.

[00:03:03]Emissions is cracking down on people, making it more and more difficult each year to pass inspection to get your car registered. Or B, they're going to dealerships and taking a chance and stretching out their finances to try to afford one of these new cars that they know that they can't afford. What is the price of a new car? And I'm going to talk about a new car and even a newer car. Don't get me wrong, guys. Even these newer cars, you're talking about Ladies like SUVs, you're talking about anything 2018, 2020, you're still paying 20,000, 25,000 dollars for a SUV.

[00:03:40]And then if you're buying a Tacoma or a truck, you're paying 50,000 just for a basic truck, guys. We're not even talking about any just a bare-bones minimum, 50,000 to begin, 70,000, 80,000. Come on, guys, you know, the very first house that my dad bought when we first moved to Las Vegas back in the '80s was 70,000.

[00:04:02]That's how much we paid for our home.

[00:04:05]And now you're talking about going out there and having to pay 70,000 dollars for a car. Absolutely ridiculous. But what happens here, guys, is that people that know that they can't afford the prices of these cars, they're going to sit with the finance manager and they're going to work out a deal. And they're going to ask you, "Well, what is it that you can afford?" And what are they doing? Are they reducing the price of these cars? No. But what they're doing is they're coming up with creative financing to stretch out your payments.

[00:04:32]Instead of it being 3 to 5 years, now they've got programs that will stretch out your payments to, you know, 5, 6, 8 years, right? To try to make your payments look like it's more affordable, but still, I see guys here. I had a maintenance guy at my complex. He has a 4Runner and he told me he got a really great deal on it. I'm like, "Yeah, I like your 4Runner. What year is it?"

[00:04:52]He's like, "Yeah, 2020." 2020, okay, 4Runner, it's pretty nice. I'm like, "Well, what did you get it for?" He goes, "Oh, yeah, I got a great deal on it. The uh dealer wanted uh 26 for it, but I talked him down to a 2350 or something like that." And I'm like, "And that's a good deal?"

[00:05:09]And he said he thought it was a good deal. I'm like, "Okay, let me ask you this question. How how much how much are you paying for this thing?"

[00:05:14]And he tells me that his monthly payment are around 760 to 780, something like that. 780, man, on a 2020 and you think you got yourself a good deal.

[00:05:24]You see, what happens is that the dealer asks you what you can afford and at that moment in time, it may seem to you that your finances will allow you to sign a deal at a certain price that you think that you can afford and it's good for the moment. But what ends up happening is that one small downtick in the economy and guess what happens, especially in Las Vegas, if you're working in hospitality, your hours start to get cut. Your department starts to get downsized. Your staff starts to get cut back. And now you're not making the kind of money that you were making before and your finances become of an issue, right? And then at some point, you're going to have to sit here and make the make the decision, "Okay, I got my rent, my mortgage, right? I've got my utilities. I've got credit card bills. I have food to pay for my my family to eat. And then I have medical insurance.

[00:06:20]And then I got this exorbitant car payment that's sitting over my head."

[00:06:24]So, let's talk about why these car prices are ridiculous as they are. Well, first of all, I was taught at a young age that the price of something is what somebody else is willing to pay for it.

[00:06:35]Also, if you have a product, your product is only worth what the market will bear.

[00:06:42]Part of the problem with these prices here, guys, is that we, the consumer, continue to pay. We pay these astronomical prices for things that are not worth it. It doesn't matter whether it's a home, home prices are absolutely through the roof.

[00:06:55]Car prices are through the roof. Even the price of a hamburger. The other day I went out there to get a hamburger, guys, and just for a basic Western bacon cheeseburger. That used to be two for six bucks. Now I go in there and just the sandwich alone is a little over $9, nine and some change for a hamburger.

[00:07:12]You know what I do?

[00:07:13]This is what consumers need to do. They just need to look and just smile and say, "No, thanks." And leave.

[00:07:19]That's it. But people aren't doing that.

[00:07:21]They're digging deeper into their savings, deeper into their accounts, deeper into their purses and wallets, and they keep popping out with the money and paying these companies this money. And what do the CEOs say out there? They're like, "Yeah, I know it's tough times and people are mad about the prices, but you know what? They're continuing to pay us.

[00:07:39]So, what incentive do I have to lower the prices of my product if the people Yeah, they're pissed off, but they're going to continue to buy it and pay for it." Now, one of the things that I do see happening right here is that instead of car lots lowering the prices and dealers lowering the prices to make it more affordable for people to afford a car, the prices are staying there.

[00:08:01]Because you know what ends up happening, guys, and I see this happen time and time again. These automakers here, they get they get corporate bailouts, right?

[00:08:10]The government bails them out. If you're one of the three American brands, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Dodge, whatever, God forbid if you say that, "Oh, man, you know, the economy is so bad, it's sluggish. Our sale prices are down, down. We're not making any money. We might go bankrupt." Well, God forbid, the government cannot let an American brand go bankrupt. So, what do they do?

[00:08:32]They put together a package and they bail them out. They give them billions of dollars to bail them out for making poor decisions, producing cars that are filled with tech that people don't need, charging them prices that they can't afford, and putting them out there on lots that nobody wants to buy. They made poor financial decisions, okay? But what do they get? They get a corporate bailout for that. And then what happens to the banks that actually pay this money? They're in arrears. They got 1.6 trillion dollars in default. What happened to them? They start crying the same nonsense about the economy is bad, inflation is terrible. And what do they get? They cry that they're going to be going bankrupt. And guess what happens?

[00:09:13]Here comes the government again to give banks bailouts.

[00:09:17]Right? So, you got car manufacturers getting bailouts. You got banks getting bailouts. I keep hearing that the stock market is doing absolutely wonderful.

[00:09:25]And I'm wondering, who are all these stock market holders? The average person that I know out here, they ain't got no stocks. Their stocks are their bank accounts, their savings, and their wallets. And it ain't looking good.

[00:09:37]Every time I look at the prices of gas, it keeps going up and up and up. Do I get a bailout? Do any of these consumers out here get any kind of bailouts when they can't make their bills? No.

[00:09:47]If you can't afford your car payment, do you get a a consumer credit bailout? No.

[00:09:53]If you can't afford gas, do you get some type of a government stipend to lower the price of your gas to make it through tough times? No. But then why do these car makers, manufacturers, and banks they constantly get bailouts? What lessons do they learn?

[00:10:08]What reasons or motivation do they have to lower their prices and on the second time around do it right? They don't have any. So, it's a game that just continues to perpetuate and go on and on and on.

[00:10:20]And I don't see it getting any better.

[00:10:22]As a matter of fact, I'm writing it off right now that the car market is on borrowed time.

[00:10:28]Okay, at some point guys, what do we have like 330, 350 million people in America? Half of them are of working age, you know, where they can drive.

[00:10:37]Well, if 3 million Americans per year are having their cars repossessed, right? 3 million per year. How long before the market runs out of actual clients that are qualified to buy a car?

[00:10:53]The ones that were qualified that had decent credit, they stepped up to the plate. They swung, they hit a fly ball, or they just struck out. And now they have bad credit and they're put into that tier to where if they need to finance a car again, they're going to be put into a high-risk category and get even worse finance rates than they did the first time. At what point do they just run out of qualified people that can buy cars? And what are they going to do then?

[00:11:22]So, with the older cars here guys, you could just normally go get a battery from AutoZone, O'Reilly's, and with the crescent wrench that you have in your glove box, you can go ahead and have that thing out and a new one in in 10 minutes and be down the road. But if you've got one of these auto start-stop features in your car, you require a special battery guys. It is an AGM battery. Now guys, I'm going to speak on layman terms because the subscribers to my channel, they're not all mechanics.

[00:11:49]We have We have ladies, we have gentlemen, we have retired folks, old people, young people, all ages, okay?

[00:11:55]So, I'm just going to speak even though I'm an ex-technician, I don't want to become too technical. I'm just going to speak vaguely in general terms. But the battery that's in the car now are called AGM battery. That means absorbent glass mat. It's a different technology. The old-school batteries that are in your car are just typical flood acid batteries that are in the majority of these cars that you see out here. You can normally get those batteries for $199, put them in your car and be on your way. But the AGM batteries are going to cost more. They're going to be around 250 on up for an AGM battery.

[00:12:30]Now, you might think that you can go to a typical AutoZone or O'Reilly's and purchase that battery and just put it in your car.

[00:12:38]Now, you can do that, but here's the problem. You go and you buy this battery for $250 and you put it in your car and then 2 weeks down the road, guess what?

[00:12:47]Your car dies again.

[00:12:49]And you're saying, "What gives here, man?

[00:12:52]I went ahead and purchased this battery at $100 more than the typical price of a battery and it's dead again. Why? Here's the problem, guys.

[00:13:01]There is a module.

[00:13:05]Yeah, we're going to go down the rabbit hole here, guys. Most of these cars right now have between 70 and 150 modules. They're mini computers that run every critical component in your car.

[00:13:17]From the window regulators, from the interior lights, from the from the powered seats to the headlights, to the transmission, to the computer, the AC, they all have their own module that runs it. Now, the battery system has its own BMS, the battery management system module that sits in there that runs between the alternator, which spins and it creates power and it shoots that power to your battery, right? This intercepts it goes right in between the alternator and the battery and it monitors the amount of juice that comes out of the alternator going to the battery. And when it decides that the battery is no longer efficient or starting to become less efficient, it tells the alternator to produce less power and to provide less juice to the battery.

[00:14:09]To the point that components inside of the vehicle no longer start working.

[00:14:13]You're going to start losing uh functionality like uh uh your heated seats will go out. Some navigation stuff will go out. GPS, entertainment center stuff, that stuff will start to come offline as your power comes down. So, you take it into a shop, they run their diagnostic and they say, "Ah, we see here you got a service light for the BMS is saying that the uh battery is no good." You're like, "How can that be? I just replaced it with a new one." Ah, here's the problem. It needs to be reprogrammed.

[00:14:45]The BMS battery management system still thinks that you have the old battery in your car.

[00:14:53]And it's only going to allow the alternator to charge that battery up to a certain percentage or provide it less power. Well, the technician is going to have to plug in his computer and reflash that BMS module and tell it about the new battery in order for you to use it to its full efficiency. So, you're going to end up having to uh buy a new battery from the dealership, let's just say 250 bucks. Then they're going to charge you another 150 to reprogram and flash the BMS in order to accept that battery. So, now you're at $400.

[00:15:27]Yeah, $400 for your battery. And uh welcome to the game, guys. Welcome to the game of subscription where you don't tell your car what you want it to do, it tells you what it wants you to do.

[00:15:39]Another situation here guys is a the transponder that you your little transponder in your key that you your little key fob. Oh, yeah. It's all nice and everything when you guys can uh you know, just walk up to your vehicle and it automatically unlocks the door for you because you have what's called a proximity sensor inside of your inside of your fob. And it communicates to your car that you are the owner of that vehicle and it will automatically give you access to the car without having to unlock it. The car will automatically unlock. You don't have to put a key in the ignition no more. You could just automatically hit the start button and it will start for you. But then here goes a situation where that transponder, the battery just ran out.

[00:16:17]And you're just thinking, "Oh, damn. My my fob no longer works."

[00:16:22]And you're like, "Okay, I might need a battery." You pull the old one out, you pop a new one in.

[00:16:27]The fob starts working, the the alarm goes on and off, the door locks, unlocks, it's good. You get in your car and you go to hit that start button, nothing.

[00:16:37]Nothing. Why nothing? Well, because in this situation, your fob has lost communication with the computer in your car.

[00:16:47]When you go to When you go to hit that start button, you'll either get a flash or no flash on the dash showing you with the key and it says that the transponder does not communicate with the car. What does that mean? That means you're going to have to bring it to a locksmith or you're going to have to bring it back to the dealer in order for them to plug in their computer again to run software to unlock or reprogram your car in order to use that fob. Let's bring it up to one more thing. What about one day you go in your car and you start it and you go to take it out of gear and your transmission won't come out of park. You're like, "What gives here, man? The car's running, but I can't get it out of park."

[00:17:22]>> [sighs and gasps] >> One of your friends runs the codes on your car and it says, "Ah, it is the transmission module." The TCM, transmission control module not communicating with the car.

[00:17:33]So, obviously it's not going to work, right? What is that? It's another module. So, you know what? Those are pretty expensive, but your friend tells you, "Hey man, you know, I think I can get a used one off of eBay and it's going to run, you know, $150, whatever."

[00:17:46]So, you go ahead and you buy it, it gets delivered to your house.

[00:17:49]He pops it into your car, clicks it all in place, start the car, and again, it won't come out of park. What gives, man?

[00:17:56]Right? You just replaced the module that it said was bad. It's not bad, but here's the situation. Those modules, they are key-coded to the VIN number of the vehicle that it came out of.

[00:18:08]So, being that that came out of another car with a different VIN, your computer does not identify it and does not approve of it and it doesn't work.

[00:18:16]What gives? Now you got to have this vehicle towed again to the dealer, then the dealer has to clear that old VIN number out of that module and program it with the VIN number to your car in order for it to be accepted by the computer and to run. That is another 150 or more.

[00:18:36]Actually, when it comes to the TCM, I've heard that that right there, the cost of having a TCM uh reprogrammed can be anywhere up to $1,000 to run that.

[00:18:47]Guys, this is just robbery.

[00:18:50]This is just ransom.

[00:18:52]Welcome to the world of electronic ransom where you no longer own your vehicle, your vehicle owns you. So, guys, there's many reasons why people just give up. They're like, "I can hardly afford the payments that I'm making on this car. I'm doing everything that I can just to make my payment and then anytime some basic maintenance stuff comes up on my car, stuff that you should be able to normally do yourself, you can't do it without the intervention of a certified repair facility or the dealer having to reprogram your car."

[00:19:22]And people just throw their hands up.

[00:19:24]They just they can't do it no more. And thus, the repossessions. So, guys, I don't want to be, you know, all bad news. So, you know what? I'm going to give you the Cracker Jack surprise. You know, every Cracker Jack box has a surprise in it. So, if I can give you guys any kind of advice um of what to do if you were looking at buying a vehicle, right? And you need to buy yourself a used vehicle. Let me give this guy a chance to get by.

[00:19:51]If I can leave you guys any kind of advice as to what vehicles you can get in the used market, I'm going to say that if you have a 2011 or older, if you currently have one or you are considering buying a vehicle that's 2011 or older, that's the sweet spot for you.

[00:20:08]Because those are the years of vehicles right there where you still have control to of repairing your car. Those are the years that you can still repair your own vehicle. You can go buy the part, plug it up, bolt it up into your car, start it up and be about your way.

[00:20:24]Beyond that guys, you're dealing now with auto start/stop, you're dealing with all this reprogramming, and you're dealing with security gateways on your car that's going to make it more and more difficult for technicians, repair shops to repair your vehicle, absolutely taking it out of your and my hands. I know how to run a basic hand scanner, and I do have a full-fledged scanner that I know how to read, but not even I am able to help you in this situation cuz it requires subscriptions in order for me to bypass the firewall, and these shops are the only ones that can afford to do that or the dealer.

[00:21:00]So, my advice here guys, man, it's going to come down to, you know, it seems like America's going to be going back to Cuba, you know, to where people are not driving cars that they want, they're driving the cars that they can afford.

[00:21:12]And unfortunately, if you can afford to get yourself an older vehicle, you know, something that is 2011 or older that is not loaded down with a whole bunch of tech, that's where you want to be. And I'm noticing right now that people are holding on to these older cars for longer. Um, on the used car market, I'm seeing all of these cars nearly 200,000 mi to 250,000 mi, and people are still asking $6,000 for these cars cuz they know that they're holding on to the last frontier of cars that are repairable by you. But anyways guys, that's everything that I have for you today. I don't want to keep going on and on and on about this. This is going to have to be a series of videos cuz I have a lot more information to give you. And if this video here and the content that I'm making is going to help you in any way to make a better buying decision on selecting a vehicle, then I've done my job, then then my channel has helped in some sort of way, which is all I really want to do. So anyways folks, I'm going to go ahead and get out of here and close this video out, get [music] it edited, and get it out to you. Thank you so much. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe. Share this video with your family and friends so I can help them out as well.

[00:22:26]>> [music] >> And do me a favor. If you guys can, take a look at your notifications and make sure that they're hit. I have a lot of subscribers telling me that they're not seeing my videos [music] come up on their feeds for whatever reason the YouTube algorithm is not feeding them.

[00:22:39]And I try to make two to three videos per week now as I try to give more content that [music] I promised you that I would. So yeah guys, thank you so much again for coming out with me and spending some time out here doing a neighborhood walk and talk.

[00:22:52]>> [music] >> You guys be well. I'll catch you guys on the next video upload. Joey Vegas D Tech, you guys be well [music] now. Bye.

[00:23:07]>> [music]