At least thats what GM’s Bob Lutz seems to think. I generally think its their lack of interesting cars, bad design, poor fuel economy and better competitors, but that’s just me.
Sure, people are having trouble paying their mortgages lately, but I bet the drops in auto sales are not as significant at Honda and Toyota, where innovation, fuel economy and reasonable prices are priorities #1.
I know some of you that are not here in Los Angeles have cheaper gas, but this is just insanity. Yesterday while riding my bike to tennis lessons, I stopped at a gas station to put air in my tires (and don’t get me started on the $.50 for air charge). Price for regular 87 octane gas was $3.69! Need Super? $3.89. Craziness.
Granted, my wife still has a car as she commutes and her job is 14 miles away and it is getting more and more expensive for her to fill up, but I am very glad we have made the move to only having one car. Summer is not even here yet and gas is already this much? This summer is going to be a killer for commuters and travelers.
This months Kiplinger’s showed up the other day, and I found this particular article about auto body shops pretty interesting. They listed 7 things that you need to know, and I wanted to briefly mention them here along with my thoughts.
1. That minor fender bender will be a major expense.
Oh don’t I know this one all too well. Back in my spending days, I had a beautiful Audi A4 that was involved in a very minor accident with the rear end of an old beater pick up truck. Sure it was my fault, but there was no damage to the truck and the front end of my Audi was dinged pretty bad, even though it was only cosmetic. Total cost? $5,500. Yep, you read that right. My deductible was $1,000, but the total was over $5,000 for the repair. Ridiculous.
This is the 4th and final of my posts on buying a new car and paying the price you want. Part one of this series can be found right here, part two right here, and part 3 right here.
The next step as I mentioned before is to send letters to 3 different dealers in your area telling them you are looking to buy asap and that you are contacting 3 different dealers to see who can offer the best price. I wanted to give a sample letter to send to the dealerships, so here you go. Feel free to edit as needed, but the basic premise is the same…you are being upfront and honest about what you are doing, and whomever gives you the best price will win your business.
This is part three of my posts on buying a new car and paying the price you want. Part one of this series can be found right here, part two right here and part 4 right here.
If you remember, we were using the 2007 Honda Civic 4 door in the EX trim level, automatic transmission and no navigation as an example. To see all these parameters put together online, check out this link to Edmunds.com. But just in case that link decides to disappear, lets look at some actual numbers from this page.
