Alex Johnson – Journalist at Large

Cross-posted from msnbc.com, where it originally appeared. To read it in context, with all information boxes and art, click here.

When Debra Neel went to check out used Jeeps recently in Indianapolis, she left with a bad case of sticker shock.

“We were looking around $4,000 or $5,000 for a good used car for a teenager,” but “you can’t find them anymore,” Neel said. That was readily confirmed by Bob Falcone, president of Falcone Volkswagen, Subaru & Saab in downtown Indianapolis.

Falcone said that a couple of years ago, Neel might have been able to get the 12-year-old Jeep she was considering at her $4,000 to $5,000 price point. The 2000 model on the lot, after all, has almost 90,000 miles on it and gets only 16 miles to the gallon.

Its price tag today: $13,900.

“It’s unbelievable,” Falcone acknowledged. He said the used car market is the strongest it has ever been in his 34 years in business.

Prices to soar 30 percent year over year
Dealers and automotive analysts say it’s the same across the country. A variety of factors, including the nation’s weak economic recovery, high gasoline prices and the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, have converged in recent weeks to send demand for used vehicles skyrocketing and supply plummeting, said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of Edmunds.com, which tracks new and used car prices.

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