TTAC pricing provider TrueDelta recently surveyed its consumer panel (join via our home page) on car dealers' customer satisfaction surveys. For anyone who's ever been "pre-prepared" for a post-sale or service survey by "helpful" dealer staff, the results confirm that the fix is in. Automotive News [AN sub] summarizes Mr. Karesh's findings: "Nearly half of the respondents in the TrueDelta poll said the dealership tried to influence their survey responses. More than one in four said they were overtly pressured by dealership employees to provide perfect scores. About one in eight admitted inflating their scores in response to such pressure." AN named three names as the worst offenders: BMW, Hyundai and Nissan. And get this: two percent of respondents said dealer staff asked to watch them complete the forms, asked to complete the forms for the customer and/or offered them a bribe for perfect score. How great is that? [NB: While this website has dealt with this subject before, it's great to see the truth hit the mainstream media.]

According to The Sunday Telegraph, FoMoCo is making it easier for bidders intent on relieving the automaker of the remaining British pieces of their PAG (Premium Automotive Group). In an "unprecedented move," Ford has decided that potential buyers do not have to submit fully-financed bids for the second round. The change reflects the tightening of the international credit market; a trend that raised the cost of Cerberus' Chrysler takeover and delayed the recent sale of GM's Allison Transmissions unit. The lowered bar is a big boost to bids by two (count 'em two) ex-Jag CEOs (Sir Nick Scheele and Bob Dover), former Ford CEO Jac Nasser and Chrysler-owning Cerberus; all of whom are playing this game with OPM (Other People's Money). Indian automakers Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, however, are bound to be pissed at FoMoCo's newly leveled playing field. 

While Boston Globe columnist Tom Keane wants to save the planet as much as the next guy, he's fed-up with green policies that make things worse. To wit: Logan Airport's new policy blessing hybrids with preferential parking– which encourages people to drive to the airport rather than use mass transit. Keane attacks other green laws: prohibitions against urban density (that push sprawl to the 'burbs), Brookline's proposal to double excise taxes on SUVs (which can be more fuel efficient than cars), carpool lanes (which slow down the majority of drivers and create more pollution), cloth diapers (whose cleaning requires more energy than disposables "in some cases") and carbon trading (which encourages consumption by relieving guilt). Kean's rant against "environmental backfire" is a welcome sign that common sense may finally be entering the debate over planet-saving public policy. And if you believe that, I've got a hydrogen-powered BMW 7-Series I'd like to sell you.

Having watched the UK morph from a nation of car-lovers into a country of downtrodden, guilt-ridden motorists, I read student scribe Andy Thompson's anti-car diatribe in The Daily Utah Chronicle with a deep sense of foreboding. The globally-warmed college curmudgeon labeled the automobile a "social epidemic," decried our nation's $135b highway spending as "a giant subsidy to the oil and automobile industry" and called for a mass transit system beside every American highway. Although Thompson's diatribe shows scant regard for the facts– The Big Three are not the "rip up the trolley tracks" political force of old and DaimlerChrysler is no more– a larger, more worrying question looms. Will America's college campuses be the starting point for a Euro-style anti-car jihad? Er, no. At the conclusion of his piece, Thompson dreams of the day when the "automobile is a luxury — one that everyone owns, just uses about as often as you take the boat out." Whew!

This Sunday's New York Times carried an article about McDonald's move upscale within the Eurozone. We're talking minimalist decor, caffè lattes, Internet access and "rental iPods." The changes' champion: Denis Hennequin, the French-born president of McDonald’s Europe. When challenged about the wisdom of aiming Le Big Mac (a.k.a. Mac Royale) at les BCBG (preppies), Hennequin said he "admires strong brands that reinvent themselves to become more fashionable and appealing, as the trendy car line Mini Cooper did." Excusez-moi. The Mini Cooper is not "a car line," it's now MINI, not Mini; and the original Mini was extinct before BMW resurrected (not reinvented) the brand. D'accord?

The stats arrive via from The Arizona Star, which poured over Pima County police records from the last two years. For the mathematically challenged, .06 percent of all drivers stopped at Pima's sobriety checkpoints were convicted of drunk driving. Both the police and anti-drink driving campaigners declared themselves somewhat delighted with the results. "At least we've removed nearly 300 impaired drivers off the road," Sheriff's Lt. Karl Woolridge pronounced. Critics point out that the checkpoints' apprehension rate is no different than the non-checkpoint apprehension rate– despite costing taxpayers $142k in police overtime and tying-up over two dozen deputies during holiday weekends. In 1995, Arizona legislators pulled the plug on Pima County checkpoints due to this same low arrest rate. Lawmakers reinstated random roadblocks ten years later, when they decided that sobriety checkpoints had a deterrent effect. Good luck proving THAT theory.  

Just two years after its well-hyped launch, the sun is setting fast over the Solstice. The New York Times is casting a gloomy eye toward the momentarily once-hot Pontiac roadster, reporting that the days of waiting lists and above-MSRP markups are over. As of July, year-to-date sales are down 19% compared to 2006; inventory levels sit at the five-month mark. Even worse, the Solstice is creating no lift for the Pontiac brand, which has seen its sales nose-dive 17%, almost twice as fast as GM’s as a whole. While we appreciate the homage to our very own Death Watch column, the NYT indulges in a bit of creative math in the same article when it touts the badge-engineered Saturn Sky as a fantastic success story– even though its sales volumes are one-third below those of both the Solstice and the car that inspired it, the Mazda Miata. Still, it’s sad to see that GM’s brands are so dead that they now qualify for obituaries in the nation’s newspaper of record.

It's a media truism: when the principles are tight-lipped about a big story, speculate away! Case in point: The UK's Observer quotes unnamed inside sources who say Ford and General Motors have threatened to "leave Detroit and take their car manufacturing operations overseas" if unions "don't agree to a massive pay cut for hourly paid workers." First, why would GM and Ford spend hundreds of millions on relocation expenses just to make a point to the UAW? Second, no one expects a massive pay cut for the union's hourly workers. Third, Ford and GM have already moved large chunks of their car manufacturing operations overseas. To suggest that Ford and GM could/would go nuclear– shutting down mission critical U.S. operations in response to union intransigence– is just plain silly (even for a New York City-based reporter). Building on this imaginary doomsday scenario, BloggingStocks goes one step further. They postulate that the UAW will strike if they can't get a sufficiently large union-controlled health care fund from GM and Ford (of Chrysler we hear nothing). Sorry guys, but it's the bus you don't see that kills you. 

In a collectors' market overrun with million-dollar Mopars and other obscenely-priced oldies, what's an average schumck to do when he's bitten by the automotive nostalgia bug? BusinessWeek brings news of the next hot thing in classic collectibles: Pintos, Pacers and Gremlins. According to McKeel Hagerty of Hagerty Insurance, these darlings of the disco era are beginning to increase in popularity and value. If rarity is an indicator of collectibilty, anything surviving from the 70s should be a hot commodity by now, given they rate at which most rusted out within their first three years.

You wait all decade for GM to produce a high-tech, high mileage, low emissions vehicle and then the company shows up in Germany with three. Just-auto [sub] says The General will place the following models on display at the Frankfurt Auto Show: 1. a Corsa equipped with a stop – start diesel electric engine with a lithium-ion battery-powered alternator starter 2. a 'Flexpower' Vectra with a two-liter turbocharged engine that can run on a bioethanol/gasoline mix and 3. a Corsa with a superclean 1.3-liter CDTI ecoFLEX engine. The latter is no concept vehicle; the world's smallest common rail diesel (75hp) will go on sale in Europe next year. Its debut will be shared with a natural gas-powered Corsa and Zafira– vehicles that can run on both compressed natural gas and the standard liquid energy source. Gentlemen, place your eco-bets.

Chrysler is sending the Sebring to China. The Auto Channel tells us they're going to inflict launch the critically panned midsize on the Chinese market in October, where it'll do battle against Camry, Accord and the new Ford Mondeo. The rental car companies needn't worry, though; they won't stop producing them here. They'll be building them in Beijing along side the 300C currently in production under a joint venture with Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. You could say that sending the Sebring to China is fitting retaliation for the tainted dog food and lead-painted baby toys sent here, but I couldn't possibly comment. 

The last time a Volvo was sexy, so was (Sir) Roger Moore. Just as The Saint titillated the fairer sex, Simon Templar’s Volvo P1800 had heel-and-toe types salivating. Shortly thereafter Moore was persuaded to abandon his Swedish whip for an Aston. By the time the English actor got into Bond-age, Volvo had turned deeply dull. Sexy was scrapped, safety celebrated. Stylistically, Gothenburg’s designs adhered to a Ty Webbian template: “Be the box. Be the box.” While Volvos slowly evolved away from the rectangular gestalt, they never quite shucked middle-aged mindfulness. The new C30 aims to change all that. 

KAIT TV says 18-year-old Roger Turley of Wynne, AR listed his used truck online, asking $1500. A week later, UPS delivered a check for $4999. “I thought ‘something’s not right there.’ And then, we got two checks.” The mystery bidders then asked if Turley if he’d accept a cashiers check, take his $1500 out and wire the balance of the funds back to them. Instead, Turley turned the checks over to his local bank. The bank confirmed he’d been sent worthless paper. "We would have been in trouble if we had taken the $1500 out and sent them the remainder,” Turley reflected. “We would have been liable for all of it." The Cross County Sheriff's Department is looking into the matter. Meanwhile, you have been warned.

TTAC's writers and readers have been saying GM's biggest problem is a massive identity crisis. Now marketing guru Laura Ries is telling the RenCen bunch the same thing about Saturn at The Origin of Brands. Ries takes The General to task saying "Saturn doesn't have a product problem, Saturn doesn't have an advertising problem, Saturn has a ginormous branding problem. What is a Saturn? What does it look like? Who is it for? Who knows." With a few notable exceptions like Corvette, her comments could apply to any vehicle that has come out of Detroit for the last, oh… 40 years or so. Maybe Motown's marketing mavens will listen to one of their own. Look! There goes a pig-shaped flying car! 

It's been three weeks since The Big 2.8 automakers began negotiations with The United Auto Workers (UAW). So far, neither side has said word one about their progress, which Wall Street and other industry analysts [wrongly] consider the key to Detroit's future. According to the news hungry scribes at the International Herald Tribune, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. The Trib trotted out Global Insight auto industry analyst Aaron Bragman. "'Historically, both sides have aired grievances publicly when things were not going well. If things were going poorly you'd be hearing a lot of saber rattling." Apparently oblivious to the "Yeah, TOO quiet" school of thought, Bragman then shared a little inside information. "From what we hear, they're sitting down and they are making some serious propositions back and forth. We'll see what comes of it." David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, agrees. "I think they're making pretty good progress, and I think there is a mutual understanding of what they have to do." For this they they get paid?