The Automobile Thread

Whoa. People are going nuts. Does Toyota at least fill the back of the RAV4 with toilet paper?

 

Three words for those who are ripping off the consumer: THAT'S NOT FAIR

 

Ha, perfect. But yeah, people are panic buying for sure.

I agree that $15K over on a Rav4 is crazy town, but it does cut both ways. Sales folk make most, and in some cases all of their money from commission. If there aren't enough cars to sell, it's also not fair for them not to get a pay check. I do hope we continue not to charge a mark up, but good luck getting a car below MSRP. The next few months will be interesting. We usually have around 250 cars on hand at a given time. Right now we have about 60, and for our highest volume cars we're at 0-2 of each. Hell, by the end of this week I'll probably have more R8s available than Q3s.

 

The auto market is a prime example of how screwed up and out of balance things are. And yet, we are not in a recession (or a depression) and the stock market continues to soar.

 

I always remember that car salesman are...salesman, not car people. I learned that on the one sales job I had (in fitness equipment) when I think I was the only person into fitness working in the sales side.

With so many companies trying to cash in on the luxury SUV thing (Ford dumping ALL cars, Chevy prioritizing trucks, etc) with all the fancy infotainment system, it is going to get interesting down the line for poorer people. Eventually they will not even be able to afford the 8 year loans on a used car anymore, and the used market will be full of cars that don't even run because the chips don't exist anymore.

I am in a privileged position of not needing a car, being able to drive (or ride) anything, and know how to fix most of it enough to get me by for years to come. My E350 diesel isn't ideal, but it'll be on the road as long as there is fuel available. I want something as a second, more convenient vehicle, but I don't need it.

 

We’re technically not in a recession only in the aggregate. Services have been through a year worse than the Great Depression, but manufacturing has been through a WWII size boom that canceled it out almost exactly.

Note that you couldn’t buy a car in 1944, either.

 

All I can say is I hope the dealers have gotten their collective acts together in the last 4 years...this is what I tried to do to make it a local business (even though it's a dealership) transaction in March of 2017. And got zero traction from the INTERNET manager, of all people...

"Vic: I think it's only fair (and possibly helpful to you and your GM) to let you know exactly why you lost the sale. I ultimately went through an outfit called Autoland, affiliated with my credit union.

1. I told you exactly which vehicle I wanted from your inventory - even sent you a download of the window sticker -, stated I had my own financing, I knew what the DMV fees were, told you I had a price from someone else, and asked for yours with specific exclusions. You responded that you could match if I went with Mazda financing and did not give me a price. I would have had to come in to your dealership to find out whether or not you would be able to meet my needs. I didn't have time for that. I was selling my truck at the same time, which funded part of my down payment. Which down payment, by the way, totaled $9,500. I was a serious buyer.

2. I had my own 1.74% financing from my credit union, and was not about to go through the process again. Particularly since I don't think you could match it.

3. I'd already run the numbers...my financing will cost me less than $750 over the life of the loan. The cash back incentive is $1,000. I took that instead of the 0% financing for obvious reasons.

4. I specifically stated that email is the best way to contact me and conduct business...yet you repeatedly called me. I'm often not able to answer my phone, but can check email. I have bought many cars over the years and have discovered that this is the future.

5. The new CX-5 was delivered to my credit union and I met the seller's representative there. It took less than 45 minutes to complete the paperwork for both the DMV and to finalize my pre-approved loan.

6. I did all the back and forth prior to that by email and text message. I gave you the opportunity to do the same, but you wouldn't.

Long story short, once I had test driven a vehicle and knew what I wanted, it didn't matter which VIN ended up in my garage as long as it was that model, that color, and had that equipment. There was no reason to spend hours in your dealership. Either you could meet my terms or you couldn't and it would have been best to be up front with that.

I'd be happy to give you my business in the future if you (the dealership) can adapt to current conditions."

I never got a response, not even a "go away we don't care," from them. Think they'll wise up?

 

Speaking of salespeople....

Years ago, Jennifer and I went shopping for a Nissan Titan. It was towards the end of the first gen run so they were hard to find. We ended up at 1st Nissan here in Simi Valley. Coincidentally they were having a Memorial weekend sale. We walked in and asked for the internet/fleet sales manager. That's usually who I deal with when using the Costco Auto Program. Well, for whatever reason, I ended up with a regular salesmen. This guy was actually funny. He had just moved here from New York two weeks prior. His accent was so thick, we could hardly understand him. Anyways, he had never heard of the Costco Auto Program. I decided to try and work with him and offer him invoice OTD which I believe was around $28k. Mind you, Titans were not selling at all and this one had been sitting on the lot for almost a year. He does the typical let me see what I can do. While he was away from his desk, I noticed a sales flyer. On that sales flyer was a 2011 Titan SV with an advertised price of $24,999 OTD. When he came back with his counter, which was somewhere north of $30k, I asked him where the Titan in the add was. Turns out it was the one we were negotiating price on. They had no choice but to honor the advertised price. By trying to squeeze me, they lost $3k in less than 15 minutes. Probably the best time I've ever had purchasing a vehicle.

 

https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging.html

 

On certain very high end bicycles, people are paying over MSRP for them. There are bidding wars for them. We are repacking bicycles that were on the floor. I know tomorrow we are packing 3 bicycles alone to out of town/state buyers. So it works in all sorts of markets.

 

I feel like this is at least somewhat brand dependent. I'm sure most of the people selling Toyotas, Nissans, Kias, etc., are just selling widgets. The sales people that I've dealt with at Euro car dealerships as a customer, and that I now work with are, by and large, car people. And more to the point I think most started as enthusiasts of the brand they're selling. Only a couple of the sales people at my dealership have sold other makes, and most of them were Audi owners before they were employees.

 

I bought my Mazda3 from Cerriotos Auto used lot. Found it on Autotrader IIFC. Listed price was great and they gave me a decent trade in. Sales guy & sales manger were awesome, but damn that F&I guy. His accent was so heavy I could barely understand him, and he talked mile a minute on top of that. And just wouldn't stop on pushing the financing, warranty & alarm. I was paying cash, so shut down the financing part. Finally warranty and alarm got down to around $1,500 I think. Actually not that bad of an investment as I wanted both (And warranty paid for itself already), but it was just an unpleasant part of a really good experience otherwise. Still sticks with me to this day. That was in 2009 on a 2006 Mazda3, and the car is still going strong! Can't afford to get rid of it, and nothing that I really want is being made. A pre-2022 GTI (Mark 7.5) might come the closest.

Still meeting my needs:

 

Haha! We exceeded the payload by at least a quarter ton that day!

 

Poor lil' thing just took it without a complaint!

 

Saw this in the parking lot at work. VW ID 4, electric, about 300 mile range. Nice look to it, about the size of a RAV 4, CRV is my guess.

 

Good thing they didn't call it the ID Ten Turbo or ID10T for short.

 

There is a shoot-out between this vehicle and the Honda CRV Hybrid in the latest Motortrend. They gave the CRV a very slight edge because it has a bigger rear seat area and because they were not crazy about the VW having rear wheel drive, not FWD. I guess that's a concern when driving in snow/rain. The VW is a gorgeous car, though.

 

I saw one on Lake the other day in Pasadena. Too small for me, but it was a nice looking vehicle...

 

I've seen a few now.

 

I thought rear wheel drive is what enthusiasts want! Now they get it, and it's all wah wah wah what about the snow...

 

Softwares updates are free(?) unless he is talking about something specific - like buying charging credits if you don't have unlimited charging. Again, half the stuff he gripes about I don't even know what he's complaining about because he is too vague.

 

I can’t speak to the veracity of the claim, but he said that the “self driving” software was not transferable when you sell the car—the next owner would have to pay the $10k for a new license.

Again, I didn’t go check that claim.

 

No. The self-driving software not only comes with the car, it gets updated regularly. That's not to say that from one year to another they might not significantly upgrade the self-driving HARDWARE. For example from the 2016 to 2017 model there was a major upgrade in the number of cameras and the processing unit. My wife's car we bought "used" but it only had 1200 miles on it. The biggest issue we had initially was that Tesla refused to talk to us - because the car was registered to someone else. Once we provided proof of sale and registration, everything was great. We bought the car on vroom.com, so it came with a 10 day free return no questions asked guarantee, and we called the Tesla maintenance facility in Newport Beach to bring it in for a pre-sales inspection. When we came in, it was almost surreal - the maintenance guy was like "this is a brand new car - we know all maintenance done to it or if it has been in an accident, so we are only going to do a full visual inspection". FWIW we had unlimited charging on the car... and it transferred to us from the prior owner.

What the Newport Beach Tesla shop looks like:

 

My bro-in-law was telling me that he has nodded off a few times in his Tesla while it was set in auto drive on the freeway. He said he woke up once at a dead stop in the car pool lane in gridlock traffic. I guess the system works?

 

When I gave Elon my $100 deposit on his Lego Truck, I did not select the auto drive option…

We’ll see if I cave when it actually comes time for it to be built…

 

We don't use the auto-drive feature, so I wouldn't pay a premium for it. That said, I know it WILL be the future of driving... it just isn't there yet. But we still turn it on now and then just for fun Our neighbor who used to commute into LA every day swears by it for stop and go traffic.

 

Now that I am driving a vehicle without even a functional cruise control I am reminded just how little automation I need. Shame you can't get these Econolines in a manual.

 

RIP Sabine she was an absolute legend. From memory she couldn't quite beat the time Clarkson set, but she did get within a few seconds. However if she'd been using this transit I don't think it would have been a problem.

I worked at Fords home of product development in the UK for a few years, got to see this up close when it was parked in the front foyer. Absolutely bonkers creation!

 

Very COOL