How to get the best bang for your buck

Are cars more expensive now than in the 1980s? No. While the sticker prices may have risen from an average of $10,668 in 1982 to $30,877 in 2008, they've rarely been this affordable for Canadians.

Over the last decade, car prices, in terms of how much work it takes for a Canadian to buy a new car, have steadily dropped — from a high of 24.1 weeks in 1997. Even in dollar terms, car prices are down over the last two years. According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, it took 18.2 weeks of average before-tax family income for a Canadian household to buy a new car in 2008.

We now spend less on cars because of lower MSRPs [manufacturer's suggested retail prices] on selected vehicles, more incentives, and a move to smaller, more economical cars.

In fact, our buying habits have changed drastically. The SUV and pickup boom of the 1990s saw Canadians moving into bigger, more expensive vehicles year after year. For the last decade, though, Canadian car buying habits have gone primarily in the other direction.

We Canadians also love to compare ourselves to Americans and, on that score, we're far better off when it comes to buying a new ride.

In terms of the average before-tax income calculated in terms of weeks, Canadians need more than three fewer weeks of labour to pay for a new vehicle. In 2008, the affordability of a new car in the United States, DesRosiers says, is estimated at 21.5 weeks of family income, versus 18.2 in Canada.

So what does this mean to the average consumer? Is it really a good time to buy or is that just the latest marketing pitch from struggling auto makers? What's the best car to get you through this recession? Jeremy Cato is here to help you make sense of it all.

Jeremy Cato, the Globe and Mail's senior writer for the Globe's weekly auto section, was online earlier to take questions on getting the best deals out there.

An award-winning print and broadcast journalist who has covered the auto industry for more than 20 years, Mr. Cato hosts the weekly television show Car/Business, which appears Fridays at 8 p.m. on Business News Network and Saturdays at 2 p.m. on CTV.

He is an expert on cars and trucks — the issues, the players and the products — from the inside out. He has won more than two dozen awards for journalistic excellence, including being named Automobile Journalist of the year in 1999 and again in 2003.


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