What happened to the affordable car?

This episode originally aired on May 12, 2026.

Certain cars are tied to specific decades. There were the muscle cars of the 1960s. The land yachts of the 1970s and the econoboxes of the 1980s.

The cars were affordable and could be repaired easily. The inexpensive and reasonably priced family sedan has been replaced by SUVs, minivans and trucks that are larger, more technologically advanced, and expensive to repair.

All Sides takes a look at what happened to the affordable car this hour.

Guests:

• Clifford Winston, economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
• Nile “Motormouth” Jenkins, mechanic/host, Motormouth Morning Podcast

Transcript

This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.

Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. Whether it's the family station wagon, the four-door sedan, or a two-door hatchback, at least one or two of these cars could be found in a lot of driveways. Some were inexpensive second cars to help families run errands or get to work or school. However, times have changed.

Cars are safer, more technologically advanced, and also more expensive. So is the affordable car a thing of the past? Joining us now is Cliff Winston. And economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. Welcome to All Sides Cliff.

Clifford Winston: All right, thanks for asking me.

Juravich: So you wrote a "New York Times" opinion piece saying the affordable car is dead. How do you define an affordable car? Tell me that definition.

Winston: I think as you know in the media, I do not have anything to do with the titles of any of the op-eds that I have written. The original title of that piece was something to the effect of the U.S. Could learn a from Canada allowing Chinese EVs into their country.

Juravich: No, affordable cars are dead a little snappier.

Winston: Something of that morphed into affordable cars are dead. So that certainly was not my original intent. My original intent was to point out that we are having our neighbor allow cars that are very low cost, but we cannot get those cars. So that was really what triggered my interest in it. Obviously.

A company has to sell affordable cars because otherwise they'd be out of business. But we don't like to think like economists all the time. So that's what they went with. But I think the issue is really one of chopping off a lower part of the income distribution, making it harder for them to purchase cars, new cars anyway.

Juravich: New cars, yes. So in your piece, you talk about how it's hard to find a new car that's under $30,000. There's just not very many options anymore. I mean, do you define an affordable low-cost car as being kind of like, I don't know, in more of the $20,000 range?

Winston: I define a low-cost car by however anybody who purchase one is one defines a low cost car. Right. Remember, we have to go on consumer preferences, right? That tells you what you need to know about the market.

And if you have people saying, I cannot afford to buy a new car, that's going to tell you something. And you start fishing around to where the threshold is. They'll probably start saying, as they get closer to 30,000, things are going to get tough.

So again, rather than go into definition, let's just look at consumer behavior. And at the same time, look at what firms are doing. And you can see that, again, they're sort of lopping off that part of the income distribution who would be more comfortable, let say, purchasing cars, new cars that are less than $30,000.

Juravich: And some of the examples that you give in your piece is kind of, is talking about like the Honda Civic hatchback, a Chevy Trailblazer, a Toyota Corolla. This is, and then you say, forget the Chevy Malibu. It was discontinued last year. So there's fewer choices, right? That's another part of the problem. There's fewer choice in this more, more lower cost car market.

Winston: Because my original piece intended to sort of get the point across, it got buried in all the other things. That is the problem, is what we call the availability of choice, or lower cost cars. Because again, this is all about the tariffs, that it is much harder now to get low cost cars because we're not allowing them in the country because they're being made by foreign automakers, most notably the Chinese.

You cannot buy them. You'll be able to buy them in Canada, and U.S. Consumers will be able to see that. But that is the problem. The availability of those cars is certainly affected by the tariffs, but then also the automakers themselves, who see it is in their interest to upscale. And the buzzword now for this is called premiumization. I don't know if You know, that word, premiumization.

Juravich: That's a good word.

Winston: That's the kind of upscaling we see. But it's not just autos, it's also going on airlines. So they're cutting out coach seats in favor of business class and first-class seats. That's another example of premiumization. We have sort of a phenomenon going on in this country where the market, if you will, seems to be catering more to the high-end consumers than the lower-end consumer.

Juravich: Well, talk to me about Detroit. Why are they not making more inexpensive cars? Is there a reason? Is it all the premiumization?

Winston: Remember, in economics, there are always some basic maxims. In the case of Detroit, the answer to this question, pretty much all questions about firms, it's not in their interest to do so. Profit-maximizing behavior for them is to take advantage of the protection given by tariffs.

At the same time, take advantage of the sort of change in the income distribution where there are. A fair number of people on the higher end through gains in the stock market, through home equity, whatever, who are looking to purchase higher end products and vehicles and sell to them.

The markup is greater. The profits are greater. So basically, they look at this and say, what are we doing? Let's put our resources into selling these cars with bigger margins and make us more money. We're not in the business of just selling low-cost cars. We don't have to.

Juravich: We don't, okay, we don't have to, that's the answer. So, but what about supply and demand? I mean, if there's a demand out there, if people need, actually need a lower cost car, because in this world, you know, it's hard to get around without a car, what are they supposed to do? And why aren't, why isn't Detroit answering, like answering that question?

Winston: Again, Detroit doesn't have to, right? They're protected. Demand, you're right, there is preferences for lower cost cars, because we know if there were new $20,000, $25,000 cars offered, they'd sell. What's the problem? They can't get in. Okay. Right?

There we have it, it all gets back to the same thing, is you're protecting competitors, They're looking at their incentives. At the same time, the government's not looking to consumers and saying, okay, we know that you would prefer to get these lower-cost cars. Maybe we should allow BYD and other Chinese automakers to sell them here, but we're not going to do it. And so there's our situation.

Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about what happened to the affordable car with Cliff Winston, an economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. So you just mentioned a Chinese car company, which I think maybe our listeners haven't heard of, right, because they're not allowed to sell in the United States or they can't sell in United States.

So talk to me about what President Trump would need. President Trump has not opened up the American market to cars made in China. But say that name of the company again. It's called BYD, right?

Winston: She's thinking think of it what it stands for. Build your dreams. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's that's who they are. I think they're the leading seller now of EVs in the world. I mean that they're really Tesla's main competitor. So, and there are other ones, but BYD I think has taken the lead. And yeah, they're persona non grata in this country, along with other Chinese automakers.

Juravich: And so, um, are you saying, are they allowed to sell in Canada though? Is that what you're saying?

Winston: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The big the big news was that Canada said, OK, we will let you sell your cars. Well, basically, it was a question of allowing them. They just cut the tariff. It was it was like ours, a prohibitively high tariff, and they knocked it down to something like six percent. I mean, very, very low. So basically, they said the doors open, come on in and sell them. And so that's what they're going to do.

Juravich: So why are Japanese-made cars, you know, we can get a Toyota here, we can a Subaru here, why are other foreign-made here in America but not Chinese-made?

Winston: Remember what they did, right? We had the Japanese had restrictions too on selling their vehicles. They came here and started building them.

Juravich: Oh, I see. They're built here. That's that. OK.

Winston: Well, France plant one was, you know, the Japanese automakers coming near near

Juravich: Yeah, I know how silly how silly of me to not say there's yes There's a very very large Honda plant just just north of where I sit. Yes

Winston: Yes. So that's what happened. That helped. And others now have come and they build their cars here. But the doors, one, not been open to the Chinese. It's not yet clear they want to do it. But that's how I see this all working out, is we say to the Chinese, we're not going to allow you to export your cars here, but we will allow you to build them here under certain conditions.

You're not going to be able to get subsidies from the government. You've got to supply our security requirements, if you will, and then build them here and you can sell them. That's what I think would be the best way to resolve this. Be a win-win, consumers would get it.

Now, of course, the US automakers aren't gonna be happy, but even some have said, well, we have an opportunity for a joint venture. Maybe we'll get some ownership in one of these plants. So, there are things that can be done. To move in that direction, but you know, we're not seeing anything yet. That's for sure

Juravich: If China would come over here and start building cars in America, do you think that Detroit would respond and need to start making low-cost economy cars again?

Winston: We experience on that, right? Look at what happened when the Japanese came here. Remember Saturn? Remember the Saturn plant that was in Kentucky?

Juravich: Yes, I remember Saturn's, yeah.

Winston: Yeah, that's the kind of response you're going to get. Absolutely. If they came here and started selling those cars, see, what they've got to worry about is this. The old maxim in auto sales many, many years ago was you sell them a low-cost car, I don't know, Ford Falcon or something, and grow them through the years. And let them continue to buy your cars, maybe an LTD and then a Lincoln Continental, right?

You want to sort of grow lifetime consumers as they work through your product line, right. So that's what the Japanese have done. They came here, made these cars that people liked, low cost cars, reliable, fuel efficient, all that. People were saying, hey, they make pretty good cars, and we like them being made here.

Japanese said, you know, we ought to now offer higher priced, more luxury cars. So then the Acura was introduced, right? Honda had their line. So they upscaled, too. And now the US automakers, it's not a question of just competing with the low end. You've got to compete with them on the higher end too. Right? Because their cars are evolving. And that's exactly what the Chinese probably would do. They come here, they get a reputation, they sell their low-cost vehicles, and they say, you know, we ought to offer a fancier one. And let's call that, I don't know, CYD or whatever.

And we will do what the American companies want to do. We will get this kind of loyalty throughout a household's life cycle, if you will. And that's very powerful for a company to do that.

Juravich: Does Canada require cars to be made in Canada? Do you know that?

Winston: No, I have not heard that. Yeah, actually I don't know the answer definitively that, but I thought I might have heard it and I have not heard it. Yeah. I think they're gonna export it. They might decide to, might make sense. We'll see how it goes.

Juravich: And before we take the break, I wanted to ask you about this whole like everyone needs a big truck mentality because that seems to be like the American way, you know, all the big trucks and maybe the Detroit automakers, is that more of the premiumification of everything? So a part of the luxury things just got bigger. What's your take on the everyone needs a big track mentality we've been seeing recently?

Winston: You look, I'm an elitist on the East Coast. I don't relate to trucks.

Juravich: Well, we do out here in the Midwest, yeah.

Winston: Yes, exactly. You know more about it than I do. I mean, I don't think that that's part of premiumization. My sense was that people throughout much of the country were into trucks, and that's not a recent phenomenon. I think people like them for their work, obviously. They're very useful for certain jobs, and it's certainly part of certain cultures.

So I wouldn't put that part of premiumization at the same time. A lot of them are not cheap, and they make them well, there's lots of features in them, so on and so forth. So that's certainly going to be part of something the U.S. Automakers want to take advantage of and sell higher-priced versions of them.

Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're speaking with Cliff Winston, an economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. He's staying with us. We're gonna talk about what he calls zombie cars and we're gonna dive a little deeper into electric cars. That's when All Sides continues on 89, 7 NPR news.

Speaker 6: You know, every day on "Up First," NPR's Golden Globe nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow "Up First" wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why.

Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Certain cars are tied to specific decades. There were the muscle cars of the 1960s, the land yachts of the 70s, and the econo boxes of the 80s. The cars were affordable and could be repaired easily. However, times have changed. From insurance to repairs, cars are more expensive. We're talking about what happened to the affordable car. And still with us is Cliff Winston, an economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.

Thanks for being here today, Cliff. I wanted to talk to you about this idea of the aging car. So in your piece for the "New York Times," you wrote, for anyone on a budget, an aging car is a trap. Tell me more about that. It's just auto repairs are more expensive than ever and sometimes impossible to do yourself because of all the sensors.

Winston: Yeah, the more expensive than ever, and people holding onto them for a comparatively excessive long period of time, because it's too expensive to buy a new car. So you're sort of trapped in that way. You know, you'd like to go to a new card, but they're too expensive. So your holding on to what you've got. But then when you have to get something done to it, that's really expensive too. So there's a situation that you're now in.

Juravich: And in a piece you wrote, you talked about zombie cars. Tell me what you mean by zombie cars?

Winston: Well, they keep driving them, so they have hundreds of thousands of miles on them. They don't work particularly well. When you go and try and buy a used car, you think a good used car. You're looking at, oh my God, 200,000 miles and who knows what else has been done to it. So, it's going to filter down into the used car market.

Juravich: I wanted to ask you about the increased safety measures because I mean you could argue you know cars are safer but also all of these requirements have made them more expensive. I mean I'm not just talking about seat belts obviously we need seat belts but like the five mile per hour bumpers, all the airbags, all of the blinking lights that tell you when you're switching lanes at the wrong time and you know the backup cameras, your blind spots. Have safety features contributed to why cars cost so much?

Winston: Mean, there are a number of things that are put in cars that are not, unfortunately, driven by consumer preferences. That's really the bigger concern. For example, you made the comment about seat belts. Of course, we need seat belts! Why can't people choose whether they want seat belts? Why do they have to pay for them? Right? What about airbags? Those are not cheap. Right? Let's go now to what's going on now.

Juravich: Well, maybe because maybe because people don't want to die in a car accident.

Winston: Choice. Let him make that choice rationally, right?

Juravich: Mm, okay.

Winston: It's automatic braking is the next one, and that's going to be in a thousand dollars, maybe more. That's going be required on all new cars. 2029, they've got to have that, automatic braking. Whether you want it or not, it's going to be there, and you're going to pay for it. And I'm sure there will be even more.

Now, someone like me might value these things and be okay with it, But I think one of the biggest problems we have with safety is, for some reason, there's this view that policymakers ought to decide the kind of safety that people should have. And they're going to have to pay for it, whether they value it or not.

And I think that has sort of gone on in many ways with the auto industry. There's the other side of government's intervention. That is, on the one side... They're protecting automakers. So you can say they're subsidizing them. And they've certainly given them bailouts in the past. On the other side, they're taxing them.

They're forcing them to put things in their cars that are not driven by consumer preferences. Obviously, that's gonna make the cars more expensive. It'll give certain automakers maybe a comparative advantage if they're already more fuel efficient, so on and so forth. And that's really our problem.

And I might add, You mentioned about safety, cars getting better. True. But what are the number of fatalities per year in this country? 40,000. They haven't changed much. Now, yes, it is true. You put in vehicle miles, travel, things look a little better. But since mothers against drunk drive in the 80s, we really have not had anything that has been a major improvement.

In auto safety in this country, absolutely nothing. And yet, the policymakers talk about it, they put requirements in, but you can't point to those things and say they've really made much of a difference.

Juravich: Well, I talked to, so it's interesting because last week I interviewed a guy who wrote a book called "The Preventioneers" and he has a chapter in his book about five doctors who advocated for changes to cars in order to make them safer because these doctors, one was a neurosurgeon, you know, and they would just see people who were not hurt or not like killed by the car accident, they were hurt and killed by car, right?

So they advocated for things like shatterproof glass so that you wouldn't get cut by the glass whenever it does shatter. And they actually advocated for making dashboards smooth and no sharp corners, because that would help save people. So these five doctors, he named them preventioneers because they were pioneers of prevention. So he said, he would argue with you and say that whether people want the safety measures, it is saving their lives or making it easier for a doctor to fix them up after the car accident.

Winston: Cost to everybody. At a cost to everybody. Yes, I have no doubt that some of these things have done positive things to help people, but this costs money and everybody's got to pay for it. Also, it's not even getting at the root of the problem. That's a thing that doctors should be most sensitive to. What is the real problem? Bad drivers.

Well, that's about, to be honest with you, let me say something else that may enrage some of your listeners. No idea what causes accidents. As far as what we call causal evidence, there's none, absolutely none. You'll rattle off while drinking, using drugs, speeding, all that. Look at police accident report. Sure, sounds good.

Try going ahead and do basic statistical analysis to try to show this, right? You'll look at government officials with engineers saying, well, we'll do these controlled experiments and we'll show the following things. If you go at this speed, this is gonna increase your likelihood of a crash, so on and so forth. Fine, what's the problem? It's controlled. You don't have the driver out there.

You have what is known as selectivity bias. Right? This is what prejudices all these studies. None of them come to terms with that. So what we really have are a lot of explanations, but every one of them could really be obscuring the fact drivers are simply different. It's what we call, the buzzword is heterogeneity. It's the heterogeneity and driver riskiness. Which is underlying what causes accidents.

They're very idiosyncratic things. It's very hard to put in a particular safety feature that's gonna address this. There's only one thing to do if we want to address this, Autonomous vehicles. It's the only thing, autonomous vehicles. We wanna make a quantum improvement in auto safety, get the driver out of the picture. There's your problem, right?

And the way that you do that, autonomous vehicles. So it's absolutely incredible. With all the discussions at these upper ends that you get in your interviews, doctors and government officials, none of them have I see advocating that that really is the only major way that we are going to improve automobile safety in this country.

No one is pushing that. Certainly the current administration isn't that for sure. But just in general, we are not hearing anything about that. Instead, people want to advocate having other people pay for things. But is that really getting at the problem? And I would say, not much. And certainly, we can do a lot better. But that's the nature of public policy in this country.

Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about what happened to the affordable car with Cliff Winston, an economist and senior fellow with the Brookings Institute. Just before we end here, I wanted to ask you, in the past we did a show where we talked about Americans falling out of love with cars.

There used to be, decades ago, where Americans were just in love with their automobile and there's lots of advertising and marketing campaigns related to the love of the car. What do you think is attributed to the changing attitude toward cars? Is it all about the price or is there more to it than that?

Winston: You know, it's, again, I'm a boomer. So, you know, I think of the Beach Boys and I think songs about cars. Yeah. But that was my generation.

Juravich: Yeah, but why don't we do that anymore?

Winston: And so it's a different generation. I mean, I was reading today some story about boomers versus millennials at restaurants, right? Boomers apparently like to talk with waiters or waitresses and servers and sort of engage in the ambience. Millennials want to be left alone to look at their phone. People are just different.

Let me put it this way. Whatever it is they're in love with, They find different things and Apparently now, people just are not all that turned on by cars. They would like a car maybe with something they could look at, with the equivalent of an iPhone or an iPad that they could use while driving, but frankly aren't as obsessive of them as they once were. No, we're not.

Juravich: Yeah, we're not going to write a love song about our Honda Civic or our Subaru Forester.

Winston: Apparently not.

Juravich: And then one other thing is, I did a show recently with the host of a podcast called "Life After Cars," and they wrote a book called "War on Cars." And they're basically advocating for reducing our reliance on cars. Do you think it's possible for a future centered on people, not vehicles?

Winston: Why that? Why that I am enemy number one of the transit crowd, enemy number one. Talk about spending other people's money for a mode providing very little utility to the public. There you have it. No, look, I'm all for consumer preferences. I think they should be incentivized appropriately.

That is, the external costs of cars should be charged for. You contribute to congestion you should pay a toll right? Your car does contribute to pollution. Your user fees should reflect that. All that kind of thing. Fine. But the car is an amazing invention in the sense that it has enabled transportation to fulfill its purpose to enriching the quality of life in America by more than most people ever could even dream of because they take it for granted.

And what that is, it's reducing the cost of distance. The cost of distant is so important. In the extreme, to appreciate this, without transportation, you're in the caves. That's your life. Everything is done there. As soon as you get transportation, things start opening up. You start getting the benefits of a modern economy.

You don't have to work where you live. You can work further away. The lower the cost of distance, the more access you have to alternative jobs, you could wind up in getting a better match job and get paid more, right? So just in that labor market, transportation is essential. Okay, if we had time, I could go through every market and tell a similar story.

Transportation is what makes markets come alive. They're so important. The fact that we have cars is a blessing. Not a curse, it's a blessing. The fact that we will someday get autonomous vehicles will add trillions, and I mean trillions to this economy, give us benefits we cannot even imagine, and will increase our continued rate of growth.

Juravich: How far away are we from being all autonomous cars?

Winston: I'm asked this a lot. If I had to be pushed, I would say 30 years maybe. But one positive thing, back to China, they're pushing. They're pushing, they want it sooner. They are putting a lot of effort on that. And that's something that America ought to wake up to, because it's going to give them a huge advantage in many things and really help their economy.

So hopefully, global competition, which is going on now, whether we realize it or not, is going to get our policymakers to wake up and start saying, look, we need to focus more on testing and adoption of autonomous vehicles as opposed to getting in the way of these kinds of things.

Juravich: We've been talking about whether the affordable car is dead, and we've been speaking with Cliff Winston, an economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. Thank you so much for your time today, Cliff.

Winston: Glad to be on.

Juravich: And this is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're gonna talk more about the affordable car and whether or not we can get a used car and be able to fix it. That is when All Sides continues on 89,7 NTR News.

You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This hour, we're talking about what happened to the affordable car. Whether it was a winter rat, a beater, or a hoopty, more people are driving older cars for many reasons. Our next guest has been a mechanic for over four decades and recommends that you drive an older car. Nile Motormouth-Jenkins is a mechanic and host of the "Motormouth Morning" podcast. Welcome to All Sides, Nile.

Nile “Motormouth” Jenkins: Hey, good to be here. Thanks for inviting me. You're looking good. I wanted to- No one else can see you, but I can see.

Juravich: Well, I hide on the radio

Jenkins: Perfect.

Juravich: So I'm going to start with the first question that we asked our other guest is how do you define an affordable car?

Jenkins: Well, here's what we have to here's here's something we have to put our mindset to whether you have a new vehicle that's outside warranty, it's going to need repairs and maintenance period. Whether you have a vehicle that 10 to 16 years old, it is going to need repairs and maintenance as well.

Where the affordability comes in the best vehicle in the driveway, you'll hear from a certified financial planning professional is the one that's paid for. That one, when you turn the key, you have no partnership with the financial institute. So it will automatically make you money. That vehicle, when do you turn? The key and drive it.

If you're maintaining it and keeping up with the curve of the maintenance, then you're making money. You're not losing money because you're not making a car payment and paying principal and interest and having to maintain it. Because unless you have an amazing warning program, which I don't see out there where it's bumper to bumper forever and ever.

Amen. I have yet to see that it's not going to happen, which means the normal wear and tear items, tires, fluids, brakes, belts, hoses, um, anything that wears is your baby. Anything else may be covered under warranty. But what I always say is take a look at the warning list of what's not covered. Look at the warranty list. It's shorter in the covered items.

So you don't have to deal with any of that with a vehicle that you own. And as for myself, I am not interested anymore in paying interest in principle in trading time for money to be involved in the never never plan. Uh, having to make car payments from about 35 to, you know, 35 to 45 years making a car payment. No, that's not affordable. That's crazy. That's insanity. What sanity is you own it. It's the structural integrity of the vehicle solid. Everything else is a fixable B replaceable or C serviceable. It's money in your pocket folks.

Juravich: But you also are a mechanic and you know how to fix the stuff. I am not a mechanic. And I do. Yes. And I don't know how we're going to say that. So I, I have a newer car because I want it to, I want to run and work when I turn it on. And I don't want to have to worry about it breaking down.

So, uh, talk to me about how repairs have gotten more expensive. I mean, repairs have definitely increased the average cost of a repair used to be like five or $600. Now it's between 800 and a thousand dollars for an average car repair. What, how, how can we afford that, right?

Jenkins: Well, I'm going to answer your first question first. Yes. You own a newer car. I do. I don't have any times if I had a nickel for every time I heard, well, I want the reliability, uh, take a look at what's going in the, going on in the vehicle manufacturing business right now, what they want is that by the time you get to that magic mile and cross the Rubicon of having no warranty, it's all your dime, your dime not theirs.

Not everything is covered bumper to bumper. You're not getting away, Scott free. Cause even if they have to do big repairs, their hope is, and this isn't, I'm not the message, I am the messenger. Their hope is the next big repair. Pushes you over the Rubicon to 60,000 and one miles. Now it's all yours.

So driving a newer vehicle, it doesn't give you a get out of jail free card as far as parts and labor. You're not getting a zero on that one. Sorry, isn't happening. And it doesn't happen. Now, the second part of your question is, I forgot it. Just remind me what it is. I gotta hear it.

Juravich: How expensive repairs are now. The average cost of a car repair has increased by hundreds of dollars.

Jenkins: OK, so let me let me put that in perspective for you. I'm going to talk newer car first. Yeah. The manufacturers and the dealers don't like each other. It's been that way forever. I've been watching this since 1992 develop. And here we are. We have officially crossed that rubric on.

The manufacturers don't like the dealers, the dealers don't, like the manufacturers. And where does that put the consumer? Puts them as a consumer right in between that like a sandwich. Which is the place that I don't want to be. So here's the issue. Oh, new cars are more expensive to fix than old cars. Hmm. That is a really good question.

Now I'll unpack it for it. New cars, the manufacturers and the dealers don't want you to fix your new car. So what have they done? This is where the car game continues. They have jacked up the prices of the OEM auto parts so that you get ticked off, disappointed, discouraged, toss the keys and go, I'm going to get a new one.

So you're going to start the whole process all over again. They've purposely done this. It's part of the planned obsolescence. Don't they don't want the DIYer fixing the cars for the neighbors or themselves in the driveway. So when they have to get parts from OEM, the prices are out of this world.

Now I'm gonna shift the gear for you into two. We're gonna go into gear number two, the older automobile. Here's the deal, baby. We have huge resources for aftermarket parts, parts that are under license to reproduce. You have a lot more choices in parts for the older vehicles at reduced costs. And I'm going to give you an example.

Speaker 8: Okay.

Jenkins: 1997 Jeep TJ Wrangler rescue. We rescued this vehicle from the wrecking yard to prove a point. Could I put that vehicle back on the road in six to 12 months for under five grand? The at the answer to that question is yes, I did. How long how long will it last?

That will go till I say I've had enough because mileage to me. And you, you hit me with the amazing question. Yeah. Well, you're a tech. Yeah. I just had that on my podcast this morning and I said, okay, I heard somebody say, but you're at tech. All right. Do I get my parts for free? Do I have to put labor in to put all those parts on? Yes. Where do I take my time from making money other places? So I'm losing money while I'm fixing my own car. So am I paying for the labor? Yes.

Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News, and we're talking about why an older car may be a more affordable option, and we are talking with Nile Motormouth-Jenkins, a mechanic and host of the "Motormouth Morning" podcast. It sounds like what you're talking about here with cars is the idea of the right to repair, because that's going on right now with iPhones and all of your smartphones.

They've made it so that there's no way to repair it, and there's all this legislation, the right repair. So do cars, do we need that type of legislation for cars? Do we need to tell the automakers that we need to be able to repair them? They need to make them in a way that they are repairable.

Jenkins: Well, you've hit the right note because I was very involved with the right to repair act since 1992 and they can't block us here in Ontario. So we have act, we have full access, the dealers and the manufacturers tried to block us from even being able to load software into a computer.

So you could diagnose a computer for a customer, and then you've got a computer with no software. So then you got to hog the thing onto a flatbed over to the dealership so that they can charge you an incredible amount of money to load the software. They can't do that anymore. So on your side of the pond, you're just fighting the right to repair. Now we've been fighting it since 1992 and winning and winning in court. We've won it in court that it can no longer block us from access to information to fix any automobile. It's against the law.

Juravich: So there's always that worry, though, whenever people are buying a used car. You know, a lot of people are interested in buying a new used car, especially since there are no affordable cars, but they're worried about, they have a fear of purchasing a lemon. How do you ease these concerns for them?

Jenkins: Well, first and foremost, before you own a skunk and a mink coat or a pig with lipstick on and you've thrown the cash down and now it's in your driveway and now it is your problem, you need to, if you're buying it privately, it's a scary place because you know, when the lips are moving, they're generally lying.

And I got bit one time and I knew the fellow was lying for his wife. Cause I asked the right questions that I could see there was a problem. On the car, so I asked it and poised the question again, and I still got the same answer. Well, we're not really sure. So here's how you do it. I'm a fully licensed mechanic for over 44 years.

Get the car to a technician that you trust to give it a full evaluation. That means soup to nuts. Even if you have to pay that tech $200 to do that, would it not be money in your pocket if you say thanks, but no thanks after you see the list of repairs that need to take place. So you want to see the good, the bad, the ugly and what's waiting for you in the weeds. If the person won't allow you to take it to your tech, that's a red flag, throw it in. It's not the last car on the face of the planet. Move on to the next one.

Juravich: Between the technology and the increase in the use of plastic parts, do you think that some of the expense for repairing cars is just contributed to that cars are not made as well as they used to be? Is that true?

Jenkins: They're built like junk, and I'm gonna explain that. The more plastic they use, what is plastic? I'll ask you that question. What is plastic.

Juravich: I don't know what you mean, yeah, right? It's not- What is it? It's no metal.

Jenkins: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Petroleum. It's gasoline. OK. Yeah, OK. So I feel sort of a little bit of sympathy and empathy for the car manufacturers because the government has cafe and then we're not talking latte or double decaf for the half calf. We're talking cafe, which in English means you have to reach these fuel mileage targets no matter what. Well, how are we going to do that? The manufacturer says.

Speaker 8: Make the car lighter.

Jenkins: Yeah, the government says, I don't care. You have to meet those mandates. So that's why we're seeing a lot more plastic and plastic in an engine bay. I'll give you an example. Valve covers, intake manifold, air intake system. The plastic can't handle the heat where you have under hood temperatures four times higher than my 1967 Chevy pickup with a 327. And you can hold a picnic under the hood with four people.

There's air flow on these new cars. Air flow is critical. If you break something off on the front that you did in the parking lot, going to the big W store and you go, Oh, that doesn't look important. Yes, it does. It's called an air dam. We need to get as much air under the hood as possible because the valve covers start leaking because they start to decay.

The plastic can't take the heat, but here's the other thing. You have an oil leak. Oh, it's not a big deal. Let it go until it lights on fire. The car is done in eight minutes. When it, once it catches under the hood, cause all the plastic, it's what? It's petroleum. It's gasoline. It's over. It's all over. That's why we're seeing more car fires than we ever have.

Juravich: Since you're in Canada, I wanted to ask you your opinion on American-made cars versus non-North American cars, right? So if you got to pick, if you were just telling everyone in the world what car to buy, is there a brand that you recommend? Do you have a favorite?

Jenkins: You're going to love my answer. So for 31 years on radio, that's the top question I would get. I'd hear motorboat. What vehicle would you buy? And I would give them my top 10 based on me seeing in the service bays myself hands on pattern failures on automobiles. They all have weaknesses. So here's my answer, I'd spend all that time doing consumers report.

And, uh, checking out blogs and whatnot. And those are only people's opinions. You can ask a person that has one of the worst pattern failure vehicles on the face of the planet. Would you buy another one? And they go, Oh, this one's been great. Now ask somebody else that's had one that's been, you know, an absolute. Hoopty. I can't wait to get rid of it. It's absolutely evil and it's eating my pocketbook.

So here's my short answer. Buy the one you like, but do your own homework. And I have a system I've set up for people that gives them a guideline. You go to the dollar store, you get a little spiral bound notebook that you can put in your pocket. And then on each page is gonna be an automobile you're interested in, okay?

So if you have six, You have six picks of vehicles you like You go to every dealer that has each one of those cars and you tell the salesman, talk to the hand. The ears aren't listening. I'm not here to buy. I'm here to road test. You road test every single one of these cars and each page is the vehicle you're road testing on one side, draw a line, one side things.

I like the right side deal breakers don't like about it. You may not be able to park it. Mama might say, you know, it's got a blind spot. I can't see squat when I'm trying to park this thing. It's uncomfortable. The seats are killing my back. Those are deal breakers. Drive all six, then take and look at your list and go, this one and this one and this had the least things I didn't like.

So deal break, go and drive them again. Now you're going to, you're doing what I call list finesse. You're going from six down to three. Down to two, down to one. What are you gonna do with that last one? Now you're going to talk to the salesman about, I want that car for a weekend, and this is where you put that vehicle through the whole regiment of what you need to accomplish daily with kids, with pets, going to the cottage, whatever it is, to see if that vehicle can actually perform the way you need it to perform for the things you need to do.

That's the vehicle you pick at the end of the day. You go, you know what? The seats really aren't comfortable. I didn't really like the ride. It's got a terrible blind spot in the back. I didn't t notice. So before you own it, make sure it's a fit for you. So that's why I say pick what you like, but do your homework to make sure that that vehicle is right for you because you could give me the nastiest vehicle on the road that has pattern failures as long, the list as long as your left legs, and I'll put 500,000 miles on that thing.

Juravich: Just to end on, we only have 30 seconds left, so you have to answer it quickly. But how do I know I found a trustworthy mechanic? What would be your dead giveaway?

Jenkins: A dead giveaway would be that that technician is working to keep your vehicle on the road for you and he's making you aware of things that need to be done ahead of time instead of you finding out on your own things are going wrong. So as a tech and my having my own shop for many years, my job and my guy's job was to make sure that our customers vehicles were not being towed into our shop on the of a flat bit. And how do we do that? We do that because we're watching out for you, not selling you what you don't need, but selling what you do need. And that is maintenance.

Juravich: We've been speaking with Niall Motormouth-Jenkins, a mechanic and host of the "Motormouth Morning" Podcast. Thank you so much for your time today.

Jenkins: You're welcome, thanks for having me.

Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This hour, we're talking about what happened to the affordable car.

If you missed any part of today's show, listen back at our website, wosu.org slash all sides. Also subscribe to the All Sides podcast and every episode is available in the WOSU mobile app. I'm Amy Juravich, this is 89. 7 NPR News. Thanks for joining us.