N.C. drivers shelling out for new wheels

Last week Jeff Carroll, a tightwad among penny-pinchers, finally broke down and bought himself a new car. He's ready to say goodbye to his trusty 1990 Honda Civic, which has an odometer showing - this is not a typo - 511,000 miles.

Carroll, a self-employed audio engineer in Raleigh, may be an extreme example of the nation's new-found frugality, where people reuse and recycle to save a buck. But like Carroll, who bought a 2012 Honda Civic last week, legions of budget-conscious motorists are buying new cars again.

Those drivers pushed up new car sales 12.5 percent in North Carolina in 2011, surpassing the national increase of 10.3 percent, for a total of 353,658 cars sold. According to data released this week by the N.C. Automobile Dealers Association, it marked the second consecutive annual increase in new car sales since the auto industry bottomed out in 2009.

As some of the single biggest outlays consumers will make, car sales are a key measure of economic recovery.

Last year's sale figures represent an incremental advance in what's expected to be a drawn-out recovery for the industry.

North Carolina car sales are not expected to return to 2007 levels - when 461,555 autos were sold in this state - until 2015, the state auto dealers association predicts.

Local dealers say they're seeing another measure of hard times: a surge in customers trading in cars with odometer readings exceeding 100,000 miles - a sign that drivers skipped one or two car replacements to stretch their budgets.

"We're getting people who are driving their cars until their wheels are about to fall off," said Gary Briddle, general sales manager at Sir Walter Chevrolet in Raleigh.

Don Jenkins' Carolina Ford in Fuquay-Varina has several dozen such trade-ins on the lot, including five with readings over 200,000 miles, said dealer Bob Jenkins, who calls them "worn-out sleds."

For his part, Carroll is feeling a bit like old Rip Van Winkle after a two-decade nap.

"We feel like we've gone from having a Fred Flintstone car to driving a spaceship," Carroll said. "There are so many new gadgets on the car we're not used to."

Don Jenkins' Carolina Ford saw a 14 percent boost in car sales last year, as did Sir Walter Chevrolet.

But those figures refer to cars sold, not how much the cars cost.

Cashing in on rebates

According to edmunds.com , an industry analyst firm, the average price of a car sold in 2011 went up by several hundred dollars.

But that's not including generous rebates that can cut the final cost by several thousand dollars.

Several local dealers say customers are buying less expensive cars, and many sales are made on thin profit margins to move the cars off the lot.

"We used to sell trucks that were loaded to the gills and economy cars that were stripped to the bone," Jenkins said. "And now we're selling economy models loaded with as much equipment as they can get, and the trucks are much more frugal and utilitarian."

The growing ranks of new car buyers include Ethel Vogel, a real estate agent who lives near Durham in rural Orange County.

She bought a 2011 Subaru Forester last year after logging 268,000 miles on her 1997 Honda Accord.

"It was costing me thousands to keep it going, and I felt unsafe," she said. "I would probably have bought a car two years ago, but I didn't want to spend the money. I held on to it until I had no other choice."

Cheryl Balser of Fayetteville offers another case study of car-owner trends. An aficionado of luxury cars, she typically replaces her BMW every year. This time she waited three years to trade in her 2008 BMW 750 LI, which had 44,000 miles on it.

And she scaled back on her tastes.

On Thursday, she bought a 2012 model Chevrolet Avalanche for $55,000. Replacing her BMW with a 2012 model that would have cost her about $88,000, she said. Instead, she'll save $200 a month on car payments.

Balser said she enjoyed the attention that comes with driving a Beamer, but is no longer willing to pay a premium for it.

"I'm, like, this thing is just too much money," she said. "I think people are enjoying it more than I am."