I don’t expect an automatic car wash to clean my car particularly well. As long as it takes the bird shit and obvious dirt off and doesn’t scratch my paint, I’m happy enough. I’ll do the wheels myself. But if the machine’s going to leave water drops all over the surface, so that I have to chammy [ED: Chamois?] every damn square inch of the Beast’s sheet metal, what’s the friggin’ point? I might as well have washed it myself. I’ve never been in an automatic car wash that A) washed all the dirt off the back end of an SUV and B) dried a car properly. I’m sure there’s an association somewhere that’s already got an e-mail teed-up for this one; something about the 85th percentile of automotive shapes and hi-tech blowers. Never made the tech guys. If car wash owners weren’t trying to save a few pennies on electricity costs, the line would proceed slowly enough to let a couple of hair dryers finish the job. And what happens if I complain? They offer me a free wash. I’ve got an idea! How about YOU come out here and dry my car by hand, instead of peddling refined sugar, corn syrup, starch, fat, salt and nicotine whilst waiting for the day you have to say, “I can’t open the till, I swear!” Just sayin’.
As a former car salesman, I can tell you that relations between the front line troops and management is usually no better—often much worse—than the relationship between the dealership and its customers. To wit, this email just in:
I used to work at —– Toyota in —–. My friends working there told me that during cash for clunkers, —– cut the sales commisions on the cash for clunkers deals by “packing” the gross of the deal with a bogus internal charge to screw the sales reps out of money. Pretty pathetic. The dealers get a bailout, raise the prices on cars to the consumer, and cut the salesmans commission. You might see if this was an industry practice. PS. I work for CARMAX now and I love it. It’s like car sales heaven. Tom
I can hear TTAC’s audience wincing at the headline. It should be “differently,” not “different.” Of course, if you imagine this executive exhortation spoken by an Italian mobster—a reasonable re-imagining given the fact that Chrysler is now controlled by Fiat—it still doesn’t work. In that case, it should be “We gotta do business different.” Preferably preceded by the word “Hey.” This ode to illiteracy appeared in a dealer document comparing Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep advertising’s effectiveness to that of Ford and Toyota. (Guess who scored higher?) So, did anyone notice the literary mistake? Seriously; you can concentrate on what Chrysler plans to do different before it goes Tango Uniform, or you can wonder why these guys never, ever sweat the details.
Our man Bertel Schmitt sees President Obama’s decision to place a 35 percent import tax on Chinese-made tires as counterproductive political pandering. Unless the Prez decides to please his friends in The United Steel Workers (ex-employer of the current chief of the Presidential Task Force on Automobiles, Ron Bloom) by slapping a tax ALL imported tires, production of said rubber will simply shift to another low-wage country. As the Wall Street Journal points out, US tire sizes mean that could take a while. The WSJ counts the cost to consumers.
According toThe Brisbane Times, Holland is fed up with drug-related tourism. Moves are afoot to restrict dope and hash-peddling coffee shops to domestic clientele. You can understand the local’s frustration, what with non-Dutch automobiles clogging their roads in their occupants’ efforts to spend billions of Euros in-country.
Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Zoom, two other southern border councils, announced last year that their eight coffee shops would be interdicted from selling cannabis from next Wednesday in a bid to push back some 25,000 drug tourists per week.
This should make an end, the mayors explained, to the long lines of foreign cars on their roads, hundreds of youths hovering outside coffee shops on weekends, and illegal drug dealers attracted by their presence.
No surprise there. Any automotive analyst worth their salt could have told you—did tell you—that Uncle Sam’s $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program was going to suck the oxygen right out of the showroom. Really, this is one for Johnny Carson. HOW BAD ARE THEY? They’re so bad that salesmen who boast, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!,” know they’re being ironic. Pause. The Associated Press doesn’t “do” irony. (Nor, apparently, sales stats.) Still, their article on September’s new car sales drought is not without merit, suffused as it is with Glengarry Glen Ross-type quotes from starving dealers, caught in the no-man’s land between no inventory and no customers. Here’s the stripper version . . .
TTAC commentator greenblood has a question for the group:
Since our first child was born, we don’t have time for everything we used to do. So my wife has been taking her ’09 Escape to a Valvoline instant oil change location nearby. They have been pushing fuel injector cleaner every 3,000 miles. Although we aren’t dumb enough to pay the add’l labor charge to dump a 1/2 qt of cleaner in the fuel tank, I am wondering about the benefits of fuel injector cleaner in general and the need to use it periodically. Something tells me every 3k is ridiculous, but I would like to know what the Best & Brightest have would recommend.
So I get an email from my Mercedes dealer, one of those “throw a bunch of marketing stuff together and call it a newsletter” deals. Fair enough. Times are tough, even for the upmarket marque. And like many a pistonhead, I like to treat my vee hickle to something nice every now and then. Hmmm. Rubber floor mats. Mercedes-branded, tailored to my GL. As this will be the Guzzler’s first New England winter, yes, please! I know they’ll cost a fortune. But I don’t want to buy them from you-know-who and support Car and Driver more than I have to (which is not at all). And I’m too busy ethical to sleaze some for a review (which I would have to write). So I make the 25-minute trip to Inskip. The parts department’s Mercedes-branded product area is a mess. The shelves are mostly empty and thoroughly uninteresting. There’s a whole case of M-B caps—obscured by their plastic wrappers. The parts guy is on the phone. No eye contact. And I wait. And I wait. And I wonder why a car dealer can treat people like shit and neglect a potential profit center and then blame the economy for lousy business.
General Motors is a nationalized automaker. But it can’t stay that way forever. Its federal taskmasters have decreed that GM must return to public ownership before the Congressional mid-term elections, in 2010. Makes sense. If GM is still on welfare at election time, GM will be an enormous political liability. A symbol of Big Government gone bad. But GM can’t possibly achieve profitability within that time frame. Even if it had the brains, it doesn’t have the time or money to build what needs building, to fix what needs fixing. The new car market sucks and GM’s product planning, reputation and branding are in tatters. So New GM’s doing the only thing they can do: putting lipstick on the product pig and sending it off to market. This “May The Best Car Win” advertising strategy will backfire. Badly.
In three day’s time, General Motors customers can (may?) buy a new car from any of the nationalized automaker’s four remaining brands safe in the knowledge that they can (may?) return the car for a full refund. The exact details of the deal will hit GM stores this weekend. While we await a look at the fine print (a.k.a. “other restrictions”), I called up GM to get as much inside dope as I could snort. GM’s Director of Communications for Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing, Pete Ternes, told me dissatisfied car owners can return their GM whip between 30 and 60 days after purchase, as long as the customer doesn’t damage the car or put more than 4k on the odo. The refund covers the purchase price and sales tax and . . . that’s it. If you’ve got negative equity rolled into the deal, you’re still on the hook to the finance company. If you go for any dealer add-ons, kiss that cash goodbye. This much we knew from the press release. Here’s the new bit: GM has budgeted for a three percent return rate, although Ternes says New GM expects the number of bounce-backs to be “one percent or lower.” So, what happens to the car and who pays for the depreciation?
What’s happened to MINI’s advertising? The car company that defined clever TV commercials, highly effective viral marketing and rockin’ real-world signage has dropped their cute ’n‘ quirky post-modern arched eyebrow cock-a-snook-at-SUVs play up the handling and performance in a “less is more” kinda way branding message—most recently exemplified by their MINI Cabrio campaign. Now MINI’s going for simple shock tactics. Note to BMW: a brand is a terrible thing to waste. Note to MINI girls: fuck you, too. [Thanks to Seth L for the link.]
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