Cars

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The Nissan Sentra has faced a steady stream of new competitors since the sixth generation of the sedan debuted in 2006. It remains a competent choice, but there are better options, according to Cars.com Industry Analyst Kelsey Mays.

2012 Nissan Sentra Review

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Fiat, the parent company of Chrysler, announced an alliance with Mazda to develop a rear-wheel-drive roadster, according to the Detroit News. The car is expected to be based on Mazda's MX-5 Miata and will be sold under the Mazda and Alfa Romeo brands.

The non-binding memorandum of understanding between the two carmakers, which was announced today, comes after Mazda's partnership with Ford fell apart. Mazda has been in the red the past four years, and earlier this year, the company said it was looking for an alliance partner to share development costs. Meanwhile, Fiat, along with other European carmakers, has been scrambling to cut costs and find partnerships as Europe's economy struggles.

"By partnering with Mazda, we will be cooperating with the recognized leader in compact rear-drive vehicle architectures in order to deliver an exciting and stylish roadster in the Alfa Romeo tradition," Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a statement. "We are appreciative of this collaboration with Mazda and look forward to maintaining a fruitful and continuous relationship."

At the SEMA show in November, Mazda showed off a Spyder concept of the MX-5 Miata (pictured above) and said some elements may be used in future production cars.

Final agreement is expected to be signed later this year, and production of the car is expected to start in Japan in 2015.

Fiat Announces Alliance With Mazda (Detroit News)

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You'll have loads of fun driving Hyundai's sleek and sporty Genesis coupe and you'll look good, too — especially after its 2013 refresh. However, parents should be aware that the fun stops just short of the backseat, where it's incredibly difficult to install child-safety seats.

For the Car Seat Check, we use a Graco SnugRide 30 rear-facing infant-safety seat, a Britax Roundabout convertible child-safety seat and Graco high-back TurboBooster seat.

The front seats are adjusted to a comfortable position for a 6-foot driver and a 5-foot-8 passenger. The three child seats are installed in the second row. The booster seat sits behind the driver's seat, and the infant seat and convertible seats are installed behind the passenger seat. We also install the infant seat in the second row's middle seat with the booster and convertible in the outboard seats to see if three car seats will fit. If there's a third row, we install the booster seat and a forward-facing convertible.

Here's how the Hyundai Genesis coupe did in Cars.com's Car Seat Check:

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Latch system: The backseat has room for two passengers and there are two sets of Latch anchors in each seat. The sport seats have firm cushions and the anchors are in slits within the fabric, set deep into the seat. They are difficult to access.

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Booster seat: Though the seats are heavily bolstered, the booster seat fit well on the seat. The seat belt buckles are recessed into the bolster, but they sit far enough away from the booster seat that they might be easy for kids to use.

(Cars.com)
Convertible seat: Though this coupe has fixed head restraints, they didn’t get in the way and the forward-facing convertible fit fine on the seat. It was also easy to install thanks to its rigid connectors and the car’s accessible tether anchors; there’s two of them under hinged plastic covers on the rear shelf. The rear-facing convertible, however, was difficult to install. Flipped this way, the car seat’s base blocked access to the Latch anchors, and their deep placement complicated matters. After two people tried for several minutes to install it, we ended up using the seat belt instead.

(Cars.com)
Infant-safety seat: For this car seat to fit, we had to move the front passenger seat forward a little bit. The passenger still had enough room. It was difficult to connect this seat’s traditional connectors to the Latch anchors.

(Cars.com)
How many car seats fit in the second row? Two.

Editor's note: For three car seats — infant-safety seat, convertible and booster seats — to fit in a car, our criterion is that a child sitting in the booster seat must be able to reach the seat belt buckle. Parents should also remember that they can use the Latch system or a seat belt to install a car seat.

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I've never been one of those people who dangle items from their rearview mirrors. While the law differs from state to state, in Colorado, where I live, having an item dangle from your rearview mirror can be considered an "obstruction of the driver's required view," according to a local police sergeant. It can be grounds for being pulled over and getting a ticket.

I've never felt the urge to assert my individuality from my rearview mirror, but the threat of a fine is added incentive to keep the view out my windshield free and clear.

In my state, it seems the majority of drivers is unaware of this law, which also pertains to mounting a navigation system on your dash or even having a broken or cracked windshield or front side windows. I've been keeping track of the items I've seen hanging from rearview mirrors over the past few weeks and have come up with an eccentric list:

Hello Kitty figurine

Crocheted heart

Cross and prayer beads

Mini disco ball

Handcuffs (regular metal variety as well as the pink, fuzzy kind)

Mexican flag

Graduation tassels

Bridal garter

Dream catcher

Crystals

Fuzzy dice

Work ID

Glow-stick jewelry

Cardboard air freshener

Baby shoe

Plastic football helmet

What do you have hanging from your rearview mirror (or from your "friend's" rearview mirror if you prefer not to publicly announce that you're breaking the law ... breaking the law)? Tell us in the comment section below.

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Mike Hogan didn't expect much for his trade-in, a 13-year-old stick-shift Subaru Forester SUV with 129,000 miles on the odometer. He'd have been happy with $1,500.

The dealer offered $2,750.

"I suppose I undervalue my used cars because I drive them for so long," said Hogan, a 49-year-old who is the director of a domestic violence program in suburban Milwaukee. He handed over the Forester, his wife's car, last January and bought her a brand-new Kia Soul, a car that starts at $13,900 and is one of the cheapest on the market. It was the first new car Hogan bought in more than a dozen years.

"We are both long-time used-car buyers," Hogan wrote in an email. "We most often try to purchase low-mileage used cars that are only one or two model years old. … Given the inflated prices at the time, we did not consider seriously any used models."

Believe it or not, the dealer will likely still make money. Cars.com's national inventory shows dozens of 1999 Subaru Foresters with more than 100,000 miles, and the median listing price is just shy of $5,000.

Three years of depressed new-car sales have driven used prices to historic highs. Recent evidence suggests possible relief, but it will likely take years, not months, before used-car prices come back down.

Low Sales, Fewer Cars

Such is the result of new-car sales below 16 million, which is what we've seen every year since 2008, when the economy crumbled. From 2008 to 2011, recession-wracked car shoppers bought more than 19 million fewer vehicles than during the earlier 2000s. That, in turn, affected the number of used cars on the road today, available to used-car shoppers like Hogan.

New-car sales handily outpaced the number of cars being scrapped by at least 3 million from 2000 to 2007, according to CNW Marketing Research:

(Cars.com)

*Projected
Sources: Automotive News, CNW Marketing Research, Bloomberg News

The total number of vehicles on the road ballooned over that period. In 2000, the U.S. had some 205 million cars on the road, or 73 cars per 100 Americans, according Polk and census data. By 2007, that number had grown to 241 million cars, or 80 cars for every 100 Americans.

Then came the recession. From 2008 to 2011, Americans bought just 48 million new cars, while junkyards scrapped around 47 million used cars. Predictably, total cars on the road plateaued at around 240 million. The number of Americans driving them continued to grow, however. In 2007 there were 80 cars for every 100 Americans. By 2011, that number had ebbed to 77.

Fewer cars in circulation drove up used-car prices, particularly as drivers hung onto their vehicles longer and longer . A collapse in auto leasing in 2008 exacerbated the situation, leaving the pipeline dry for late-model used cars in 2011 through today — the types of cars Hogan and many others typically zero in on when car shopping.

The result? The average used car went from $9,022 at wholesale in December 2008 to $9,878 three years later, according to Automotive News and ADESA data.

The numbers hit home when you consider Cars.com data for some of the most popular car searches. Look at the Ford F-150, Ford Mustang, Honda Civic, Jeep Grand Cherokee and Toyota Camry. Across the five models, listed prices for used cars 5 years old or newer have increased 29% since April 2009, easily outpacing the relative increase in MSRPs across the same span.

(Cars.com)

Source: Cars.com data. Each average included used-car listings on 5-year-old and newer cars each April. (For example, April 2009 had 2004-2008 models.)

A Slow Road Back
What needs to happen for the high prices to reverse? Exactly what is happening in 2012 — just more of it over more time. New-car sales are up 10% through the first four months of the year, and analysts surveyed this month by Bloomberg News expect shoppers this year to buy 14.3 million new cars, a 12% gain by year's end. CNW projects around 12 million cars to be scrapped this year, which signals that the total number of cars on the road will climb once again.

Used-car demand has been falling in the meantime, but could that be due to shoppers making the same choice Hogan did? In 2010, shoppers bought 3.2 used cars for every new car, according to CNW. In 2011, that ratio fell to 3.0. The ratio has seasonal variations, but shoppers through April bought 2.3 used cars for every new car — down from 2.4 cars in the first four months of 2011. Any way you slice it, the relative demand for used cars is falling.

That, combined with a slow but steady influx of used cars, means prices will fall ... slowly. Average wholesale used-car prices fell 2% year over year in February, which is the most recent data available from Automotive News. Auto Remarketing, a used-car publication, noted that auto leasing has stabilized — around one in five cars — since early spring 2011.

The relief will be slow. The bulk of 2011's leases won't turn over until 2014 and beyond. February's average wholesale price for a used car is just $31 less than last December's.

The progress is slow, but it might work out in time for Hogan's next car. While his wife drives the Soul, he hopes to get a few more years out of his 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan, which he bought in 2007.

"I am hoping to get another three or four years out of our Toyota Sienna," Hogan wrote. "And I expect, by then, you will be able to get good value in low-mileage used cars again."

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