When have most Americans ever been able to afford to buy new?
After the “cash for clunkers” thing reduced the used car market buying new made more sense because of price and warranty. You also get better financing rates on new vs used. Bought my Subaru new in 2019 and could sell it for about what I paid.
Has the US been anything but a scam since its inception?
I was told in the 90’s that in America if your car was 3 years old, your neighbor might worry you weren’t doing too well, and you could buy 6 year old luxury cars for peanuts.
Luxury cars are notorious for not holding their value, unless by “luxury” you mean performance cars, so that’s normal.
I was born after the 90s so I wouldn’t know, but generally speaking I’d always heard the average car in America is ten years old.
