I need specific, current help on car value in Philly area

**Scrappah** · 09-13-2015, 01:05 PM

Originally Posted by harsas

This is the truth. A safety inspection makes sense to me but all the eco stuff they require in some places are ridiculous. I paid $5K for my current truck. No way I can afford to pay twice that in cash and I do not want payments...

It's a toughie. It's become a real problem to buy an affordable car or truck here. It used to be that i would figure on spending 800.00 - 1,200.00 $ on a vehicle and then sink another grand in parts into it. For a budget of 2,200.00 $ you would have something fairly decent that you could expect to get 5 years use out of.

Nowadays it's pretty hard to find anything that will pass for an inspection without taking out a bank loan.

On the one hand the price of everything has gone up so you have to expect to pay more but the biggest problem as i see it is state government gone a bit too far with all of the new safety regulations. Take something as simple as a brake line for instance: If it's showing ANY rust the line has to be replaced because there's no way to accurately predict when it will fail. If one line is bad chances are that they're all bad and that's easily 600.00 $ at your local repair shop. It's great for the mechanics because they know they've got you by the nads. If you don't spend the money they take a swipe through your inspection sticker with a razor knife to invalidate it and you can't legally drive it off their property.

See .... what started out as a basically good idea ( a safety inspection ) went very wrong over time.

I probably spent a couple of years reaching out to the Governor's office, the State legislature, and the state bureau that writes the regulations without any success. In the end, everyone agreed that this thing had grown to a point where it was becoming a real problem but they couldn't agree on a solution so nothing got done. Once these laws are written it's nearly impossible to get them off the books.

The only solution is never to plant that seed because once it takes hold it will grow out of control.

Lucky you ..... you live in Florida !

**harsas** · 09-13-2015, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by Scrappah

<snip> On the one hand the price of everything has gone up so you have to expect to pay more but the biggest problem as i see it is state government gone a bit too far with all of the new safety regulations. Take something as simple as a brake line for instance: If it's showing ANY rust the line has to be replaced because there's no way to accurately predict when it will fail. If one line is bad chances are that they're all bad and that's easily 600.00 $ at your local repair shop. It's great for the mechanics because they know they've got you by the nads. If you don't spend the money they take a swipe through your inspection sticker with a razor knife to invalidate it and you can't legally drive it off their property.

See .... what started out as a basically good idea ( a safety inspection ) went very wrong over time.

I probably spent a couple of years reaching out to the Governor's office, the State legislature, and the state bureau that writes the regulations without any success. In the end, everyone agreed that this thing had grown to a point where it was becoming a real problem but they couldn't agree on a solution so nothing got done. Once these laws are written it's nearly impossible to get them off the books.

The only solution is never to plant that seed because once it takes hold it will grow out of control.

Lucky you ..... you live in Florida !

I hear you. I grew up in NY and inspections were done at the local service station. You knew they were going to find something because the $3 we paid for an inspection (then) didn't even cover their time. If you were smart you would develop a relationship with a shop by having them do some work for you so they had an investment in you as a customer to protect. It was the only way to survive an inspection. And that was in the 70's.

When I first moved to FL there were inspections but they were done in state run inspection stations. They had no incentive to find a problem. In fact, their incentive was to get you out quickly so unless you had a hole in your muffler of bad lights, you were in easy street. They shut the whole thing down at the end of the 70's IIRC.

**Scrappah** · 09-13-2015, 07:13 PM

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. I went through the inspection manual for this state to see if i could figure out a way of unraveling this mess. If one were to make up a checklist there would probably be at least sixty things that need to be checked over before passing a vehicle for inspection.

The worst part is that if you are going to run an inspection program every one of those items is necessary. Anything less ... some lawyer out there will sue the state because their client was hurt in a vehicle that passed inspection. ( This happened here and the wrongful death settlement was large. )

There's really no middle way of moderation to keep things from getting out of hand. It's either all in, or , completely out of the motor vehicle inspection business.

The big thing is the underneath. An older car might look great and drive fine but that's misleading. You don't see it for what it really is until you put it up on a lift and go through the checklist.

Most of the time it would cost more to fix than it's worth.

**gus4113** · 09-14-2015, 05:46 PM

i live in philly and my wife has the same car....a dealer wont give you anything...that car is worth more than that...buy the new car if you want and sooner or later you'll find somebody to sell to..a friend of a friend...somebody elses son whatever....craiglist be carefull..its a big city...he will probably like it..a lot going on...i.if you buy a new car the dealer would give you half price the next day on same car...its used!