2021 Car Purchase

 

In anticipation of attending a social event 500 miles distant from our home we pondered whether or not to trust our ten-year-old ride to make the journey.  After careful thought the decision to-not was made and the first alternative we explored was to engage a rental vehicle from Enterprise Rental service.  That fee would approach $700 and we soon realized further exploration would be wise.   At last, we decided to trade-in our decade-aged vehicle for new.  

Then, we learned about the impact of the Covid pandemic on the new car market.  It happens that when the Covid crisis bloomed vehicle manufacturing braked to a halt, or close to a halt.  Automobile assembly workers were closed out of factories in addition to managerial decisions to contract production due to anticipated plummeting demand.  

What was a good business manager to do?  In order to stimulate demand the “C” suite geniuses opted to offer zero percent interest rates for new vehicle purchase contracts, and, get this, 84 month contracts were freely available.  Demand surged.   However, the demand surge wasn’t confined to vehicles.  The demand for consumer electronics surged well ahead of the rejuvenated vehicle market.  All of that caused the already impacted computer chip demand to be sadly inadequate.  

The same thing that disrupted the automobile industry - halt in production - caused computer chips to become scarce.  It all got worse when the industry that manufactured computer chip manufacturing devices was unable to satisfy demand for its products.  

That demand “onion-peel” effect, where the existence of an economic component is dependent on the existence of a related, but subservient component, meant that the automobile we hoped to purchase was almost nowhere to be found.  

The Google digital search engine enabled me to survey vehicle availability among more than two dozen Chrysler dealers in California.  I’m pretty sure that I could have viewed inventory status for all of the California dealers if I had not previously located the car of our choice.  

Three Chrysler Pacifica vans were offered for sale in Ventura, California, a short 166 miles from Beaumont.  We made the grueling three hour drive to Ventura and completed the purchase.  Three hours later we headed East with smiles on our faces.