SUV Owners Trash Vehicles, Turn in the Keys
Theodore (Shorty) Mantle
June 2, 2008
Disgruntled purchasers whose luxury SUV’s have declined in value are walking away by the thousands, refusing to make their loan payments.
Before walking away, many former SUV owners are stripping their vehicles of headlights, air filters, hubcaps, seat covers, cup holders and more. Some take the tires with them, drain the oil and siphon out the gas. In extreme cases, the engines have been removed, leaving just a shell for the repo man to load onto his truck and haul away.
Even when vehicles are not stripped, vandalism is becoming more of a problem, with cracked tail lights, smashed windshields, slashed tires, and badly dented doors.
Some former SUV owners blame the economy. “Things are tough all around,” complained Walmart greeter Pasty Whitearse, whose software engineering job was outsourced to Bangalore, India. “The last thing I needed was to hang onto that thing when I was underwater by $25,000.”
Others blame the president. “It’s Bush’s fault,” said Lexus owner Kimberly Einstein. “Instead of spending all our money in The Iraq and you know, like such as South Africa, actually, and the Asian countries we should use it to help U.S. American SUV owners, I personally believe.”
Similar sentiments are being expressed by the increasing number of former SUV owners who intentionally set fire to their vehicles to collect on the insurance, rather than continue to make monthly payments. “Hey man, Bush lied, cars fried!” said Stanley Bongster.
While most underwater SUV owners don’t opt to burn up their vehicles, or trash them and turn in the keys, virtually everyone agrees the government should do something to stem the rising tide of repo’d SUV’s. “Nobody wins when car prices decline,” explained auto industry analcyst Red Buttler. “Spending billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up SUV prices just makes good sense; it’s clearly the right thing to do.”
Already some local governments are taking action. In Stipend City, Pennsylvania, public school teachers are being given $15,000 tax-free grants to help with the purchase of their first luxury SUV. And Californica public union employees can now apply for subsidies of up to 50% off the price of their own spiffy new show cruisers. Of course any private sector workers who apply are told to go straight to hell.
National Association of SUV Owners spokesman Willy Lieman is confident that as long as government assistance continues, the SUV market will soon turn around. “Owning their own luxury SUV is still the single biggest and smartest investment most Americans will ever make in their lifetime. The good news is we think by the end of this year prices will resume their normal trajectory of 12% to 15% annual increases.”
This was written by Theodore (Shorty) Mantle. Posted on Sunday, June 1, 2008, at 2:18 pm. Filed under Ream Estate, eCONomy. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback. |
