In  today's depressed market, everyone has advice on how to buy or sell a car. This time it's CNNMoney with "6 things never to tell a car salesman." First, never say "I love, love, love this car." That's like chumming the waters before you jump in the shark tank. Next, never say "I need to get a car by tomorrow." That's like chumming the waters before you jump in the shark tank. Don't tell the sales pro "I need a monthly payment of…" That's like chumming the waters before you jump in the shark tank. Also, the salesman doesn't need to know "My trade-in's outside." And if you're thinking about leasing don't admit "I don't know anything about leasing." And even if you're the dweeb on the freecreditreport.com commercials, don't let them know you think "My credit's a little spotty." That's like… I think you get the picture (and it is the last one in the series). The bottom line: do your homework before you step inside the seventh circle of Hell a car dealership. In case you didn't know.

As Autoblog (AB) didn't see fit to pick-up the gauntlet thrown down by TTAC on the Top Gear drink driving story, we'll blog one of theirs. And hey, wouldn't you know it? AB finally finds their inner snark and wastes it on an entirely sensible post on Toyota's Open Road blog. ToMoCo offers the above advise, including get on your bike (mate) and skip the drive-thru (unless you have a Toyota hybrid, of course). To which AB scribe Chris Shunk replies: "Automakers understand that the buying public is struggling with high gas prices, and the entire industry is working on new technologies to ease our financial burden. Unfortunately, new fuel efficient products are going to take a while to develop on a large scale, so for now we're just going to have to grin and bear it. That is unless you want to follow the wisdom of Toyota, which has dug deep into its core of corporate genius to give the car-driving public this little tidbit of advice: drive less. Wow, the solution was right under our noses the whole time, and we just didn't figure it out." Silly you.

The Washington Post's Annys Shin [via The News Tribune] wins the prize for the best parsing of the initials SUV: Simply Unwanted Vehicles. True dat. Full-sized SUV prices have dropped 24 percent since last year; used Chevy Suburbans have devalued as much as $8k in the past six months. With that in mind, SmartMoney has five ways to help panic-stricken owners unload their automotive albatross. First, "be your own salesperson." Since dealerships don't want SUVs and can't sell what they have, seems sensible enough. Next, "price it right." Just make sure you use chalk or pencil; values are still dropping like a stone thrown in a deep dark well. Then "advertise online." Don't worry about the fact that AutoTrader.com's SUV ads have jumped 18 percent. You should also "provide plenty of details." If you're selling something no one wants, drowning them in minutiae just might work. Finally, "build credibility" with prospective buyers by providing maintenance records (provided you had the foresight to keep them) and a Carfax report (provided you aren't selling a rebuilt wreck). Whatever you do, maintain a positive attitude. Make the [theoretical] buyer believe he really wants to assume your liability– in the same way a cheerleader tries to get the crowd on their feet when their team is down by 45 points in the fourth quarter. Hence the picture. 

I would have gone with Major Investor Liquidity Fuck-Up. But I suppose MILF's already taken. Anyway, The Detroit Free Press is waking-up and smelling the coffee, and JPMorgan (the investment bank, not the Gong Show judge) is brewing-up some sobering news. "Analysts at JPMorgan painted a bleak picture for Detroit’s automakers today, suggesting General Motors Corp. might need to raise $10 billion, Ford Motor Co. could be forced to sell Volvo and Chrysler LLC may have few if any options by late next year." Few options as in "The company could face a 'major liquidity event' by the second half of 2009 — and its options for raising capital are limited." Is a MLE the same as Chapter 11? While we await clarification from TTAC's Best and Brightest, I reckon JP's timeline is a bit optimistic. Their overall outlook, however, isn't. "The analysts note that a bankruptcy filing at any major U.S. automaker would be catastrophic for the broader industry, resulting in widely lower vehicle prices and dealing a severe setback to auto parts suppliers." (It's that middle bit that's got Toyota worried.) Oh wait! Maybe not "They sharply widened their loss estimates for both Ford and GM for the next two years, but still expect both companies to return to profitability by 2010." Gotta love that year!

Rick Wagoner is a lame duck. No matter how you look at it, it's clear that the failing, flailing CEO must go. Next week, The General's Board of Bystanders will meet to "discuss" the crisis. GM's dividend will disappear, triggering fresh anxiety (and some atta boys) from the financial markets and the media. The Bystanders should push Rick out of the RenCen penthouse, to glide to Aruba on his golden parachute. But they won't. They can't. Wagoner walking would be the final straw: an admission that GM's forked. And before he goes, Wagoner's got one more job to do… 

Far be it from me to overuse a metaphor, but you know things are bad for the home team when the head cheerleader starts following the other team's plays. Right in the heart of UAW-land, Detroit News' Auto Editor Manny Lopez [reads TTAC] and mulls over the question of what constitutes an "American" car. His answer will probably piss off the Level Field Institute: as long as it's built in America with American parts, it doesn't really matter where the parent company resides. Waxing philosophical, he asks "what's more American: a Dodge Caravan built in Canada with fewer American parts or a Toyota Sienna chock full of Red, White and Blue components and built in Indiana [Ed. By non-union labor]?" Continuing along the same lines, Manny also wants to know if it's "more important to have the dollars flow back to Detroit, Dearborn or Auburn Hills or to employ American workers?" He'd better be careful or the home team fans may demand he turn in his pom-poms.

Want to save the equivalent of 30 cents a gallon on gas? The Detroit News says anyone can realize those savings if they just drive five miles per hour slower than usual. In fact, Department of Energy researcher David Greene estimates you could save $12 by driving 10 mph slower on a 500-mile trip. The tradeoff: it would add one hour to the trip (that you'll never get back). Don't get too overly zealous with your penny-pinching, though. The AAA warns that driving slower than 55 when the rest of the traffic is zooming past at 70 – 75 is "a recipe for a potential crash." Drivers in some states won't have to worry about that, though– Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont are in various stages of considering bills to lower the speed limits on highways, in some cases to 55 mph. We're monitoring sales of CB radios…

"We continue to question whether GM will be able to sustain eight different brands and over 13,000 franchises with less than 20 percent market share." TTAC? Nope. Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache, as quoted by the Detroit News. GM's stock fell below $10 a share yesterday, and the prognosis isn't good for the company whose stock has fallen by more than 70 percent in the past year. Even Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy, described by his peers as "last guy defending the [GM] bunker," said he expected GM's stock to fall to $7 and forecast "significant losses" for GM this year and next. When even the cheerleaders start predicting a losing season, the team doesn't stand much of a chance. It looks like GM could use a new coaching staff, and fast.

It's not even 9am, and it looks like we have a theme for the day: irresponsibility. Reuters reports that "A special edition of the [Top Gear] programme, aired in July last year, featured the show's three presenters in a race to the Magnetic North Pole. Two of them, Jeremy Clarkson and James May, were driving a heavily-modified Toyota [Hilux] pick-up truck and were shown drinking gin and tonics as they did so. It prompted one viewer to complain that the footage was 'grossly irresponsible.'" The show's producers had one word for the allegation: bollocks [paraphrasing]. They claimed they'd filmed the segment in an uninhabitable area of the North Pole. Just in case the Inuit population took offense that that suggestion, the BBC's Bad Boyz pointed out that they were in (on?) international waters "where no drink driving laws existed, and that the presenters were not shown to be drunk or out of control." Not to mention “that at present in the UK, it’s legal to drink a small amount of alcohol and still drive.” So that's alright then. Actually, no. "The BBC Trust upheld the complaint [made in APRIL] saying that drinking while driving "could be seen to glamorise the misuse of alcohol." So.. that's that then. Oh wait; the complainant was also peeved that the programme featured a bit about “parts of the anatomy and injuries to them that could shock." That's a reference to a frostbitten penis to you and me. Over to you Autoblog…

July 1st was truly a landmark day for Canadian motorists. In addition to the start of a cell phone ban in Quebec and a carbon tax in British Columbia, drivers across Canada now face huge penalties for driving while stoned. No longer can Canadians re-create the infamous Cheech & Chong hotboxed car sketch. The CNews reports that police can now require drivers to submit to roadside drug tests. In addition, police can force suspected stoned motorists to go to a hospital or a police station for further testing. The whopping penalty for driving under the influence of drugs: CA$1,000 (minimum) for Strike 1 and jail time for Strike 2. Refuse the tests and you've committed a criminal offense. Though it goes without saying in The Sun, all of this is in addition to any other charges for possession and trafficking of classified substances that may be brought. Bummer.

Ontario's struggling manufacturing sector took another blow yesterday. CNews reports that Oakville, Ont-based automotive supplier Polywheels has shut down indefinitely. Workers arrived for their 7am shift on July 2 only to find the plant closed and shut down notices posted at the entrances. The workers, represented by the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), were surprised that the company shut its doors without warning. "I'm upset because this is a good factory, they had good, good benefits," emotes a local worker in a moment of unionist entitlement. The Toronto Sun reports that American Axle's own strike, which halted production of Polywheels' bread and butter models (e.g. Sierra/Silverado) was a body blow for Polywheels. The subsequent rise in gas prices was the coup de grace, according to another worker: "We figure out how to bring the price of oil down and we'll all be fine." Easier said than done, I suppose. [Thanks for Michael Kirouac for the tip]

In the nineteen-eighties, Ford CEO Donald E. Petersen's recipe to save Ford from near-bankruptcy was "higher quality products… emphasizing smaller, more efficient cars." It worked, propelling Ford past Chevrolet to world-record profits. Current CEO Allan Mulally is banking on essentially the same ingredients: de-emphasize trucks and rejuvenate the car palette with global platforms largely designed in Europe. Ford's future, perhaps its very existence, is riding on it. Is the recipe still golden?

At the recent Toyota Environmental Forum, ToMoCo’s Executive Vice President outlined the company’s five-point plan for a “sustainable mobility society.” Green Car Congress charts the ch-ch-changes. 1. Further development of gasoline- and diesel-fueled combustion engines; 2. Hybrids and plug-in hybrids; 3. Alternative fuels, including synthetics and biofuels; 4. Electric vehicles; and 5. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Masatami Takimoto revealed that gasoline and diesel will remain the corporate mainstay. To that end, Toyota will reduce vehicle size and weight and introduce a new family of engines with start-stop, direct injection, forced induction, HCCI and variable compression. The automaker will hybridize all its vehicles lines by 2020, increasing NiMH batteries density. Li-ions are heading for city electrics and plug-in hybrids; the plug-in Li-on Prius hits the streets in 2010. And here’s the kicker: Toyota’s working to leap-frog Li-ion technology. Takimoto says a practical and cost-efficient EV demands a technological breakthrough. Maybe GM’s Volt isn’t so much a “Hail Mary” pass as an intentional out-of-bounds throw before it gets sacked by the “Sakichi” battery (named after Toyota’s founder).

Back in Chrysler's salad days, Dick Dauch was the much-admired head-busting manufacturing boss in an executive suite lined with power players like Lee Iacocca and Bob Lutz. Competing egos served as a check on individual power and privilege. My, how things have changed. Lee's pimping with Snoop, Lutz is nutz (and well-paid for it too) and Alex Taylor III is dissing Dick (in his own special way). Taylor's talking about the American Axle CEO's "less appealing side." In fact, Taylor's "pin the tale of D3 woe on the greedy bastard" profile reveals that American Axle is a public company in name only. Get this: American Axle's corporate address is One Dauch Drive. Son David was recently promoted to President and COO, after other son Richard quit working for dad. And the compensation committee paid Dauch over $18m last year [yes, that's $3.95m more than we thought previously]. Of course, our man Alex can't quite step-away from the pom-poms: "There's no question that Dauch has built a successful company, and he has done good deeds for the city of Detroit by locating his headquarters within city limits. But he has left American Axle grievously unprepared for the market shift away from sport utility vehicles." What about Dick's charitable work? And where was Taylor's self-righteous sarcasm last year, when Dauch pulled down $3.9m plus?