Car Repos Surge As Vehicle Owners Are Struggling To Make Payments

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This isn’t a good sign…

We’ve already touched on this topic, from time to time, on the site, and at a greater extent on the Motorious Podcast, and the problem continues to grow. More and more cars are being repossessed, and it’s hard not to feel a little uneasy about it, but some say it’s irresponsible owners, not the state of the economy, that’s causing the surge. If you’ve seen a wrecker dragging a car down the street lately, just know that it’s one of many.

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One towing company in Tennessee says it gets about 10 to 15 repo calls a day. Repo guy, Hermes Conde, blames people mismanaging their tax returns.

“I was say tax returns, for the most part, are probably one of the biggest reasons,” Hermes Conde said. ‘People get a couple thousand dollars back from their tax returns and they go put $2 or $3,000 down and get a car and maybe bite off more than they can chew.”

Which is one take, but I would hardly say this started to trend upwards around the same time people started getting their tax refunds. Another theory that’s floating around is people spent their stimulus checks on cars they couldn’t afford, and while I do agree that happened and probably contributed to this, it’s been two years, it takes two months to get a car repo’ed.

This trend is expected to increase through to the end of 2023, and probably beyond. Runaway inflation and concerns about a recession being here, or coming, could take repos to historic highs.

Just completely speaking for myself here, but if you don’t think you’re going to be able to keep making car payments, sell your car now. There’s no reason to kick the can down the road, the repo man will find you, and it’ll be one of the worst experiences of your life.

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