It’s heartbreaking. To see a major company that literally carried a healthy portion of America’s heartland go up in Euro-flames. I remember the beauty of it. The 1990’s minivans that completely obliterated their competition. LH sedans that were state of the art for their time. Cloud cars that had more power and road feel than their American brethren. Neons that were so good that even Toyota was jealous. Believe it or not, I still think the talent base of Chrysler is there. But to get it out… (Read More…)
I used a 15-year-old Ranger to pick up some AMG wheels this evening. The ride was . . . pleasant. Light jazz on the radio. Engine and stick shift in good working order. Intermittent wipers and ABS for the rain. Alloy wheels for show. Did I mention this thing is 15 years old? Anyhow, my mind wandered into the world of ‘what if’s’. What if someone decides to buy this truck and keep it for another 7 to 10 years? It has only 150k and the prior owner took good mechanical care of it. Paint’s cheap. Parts are even cheaper. So…
No, we’re not talking about genuine job creation or a tax holiday for convicted felons. Well actually, we are. GMAC was given one humdinger of a present last year with $12.8 billion nestled near an open fire. That fire has now consumed nearly all that money. So the question now is what you should do if you were an involuntary investor in this black hole venture. Sue? Protest? Burn an abandoned house or two? Naaahh… just let the politicians shovel the greenery of course. The latest number under the bow is between $2.8 billion and $5.6 billion. Just in time to shop for more lobbying influence. Anyone need a sweetheart deal on their home mortgage? car? 401k plan? Contact your representative stat!
I hate my *^%%! Mercedes. A year-and-a-half ago , I bought a 2002 S500 for $12,600 at a public auction. $300 of a/c work and a detail later, it looked like a million dollars. But it drove like a big fat Camry with a big fat engine. My mechanic swooned at all the gizmoids. I groaned and drove everything but that car. Everyone likes it. No one can afford it. I’m getting tired of looking at it. So . . .
What’s the first thing you notice when you step inside a car? Some folks look at the seats. Others will set their eyes on the carpet or the far side of the dashboard. For me… it’s smell. I swear at times I can actually tell what auction a car came from given the smell on the inside. Brands also give forth their own odorous emanations. Fur starters . . .
Ever have someone test drive your car and then seriously piss you off? Lowballers. Nickelshitters. Liars and scum aplenty who think they have the right to NASCAR your car? Phony little fruitcakes who drive to your place in a complete POS-mobile and then whine about a loose cupholder? Unfortunately, I’ve seen it all in the retail world and as an auto auctioneer… and I’ve created a few healthy coping mechanisms.
Why do so many folks hate SUVs? Is it angst driven? Environmental? Ideological? Or maybe a fear of domestication? I honestly don’t know and rarely did I give two flips about it until late August 2005. Once Katrina hit, the car market in the United States forever changed and so did yours truly’s viewpoint on the All-American SUV.
I love stability. Give me a world where folks can put forth a solid effort in their work and not worry about their future, and I’ll gladly join it with membership in hand. But then with too much stability also comes mediocrity. In times of yore, a lot of folks could simply get by with offering products and services that were less than world class. To put it kindly, they sold crap. But they also benefited from a playing field where the strongest and fiercest were kept far from the action and their kids inevitably got the education needed to make the laggard company successful. Auto Companies in South Korea, Japan and now China have benefited from protectionist policies that offered different degrees of medium-term stability and long-term learning for their once weak automakers. Should we follow suit?
Retirement. We all dream of that day when we can take our cell phones and chuck them in the ocean… forever. Some folks dream of painting Tahitian nudes after that beautiful moment. Others simply want to live in a planned community with everything but kids and ‘stuff’. As for me? I just want solitude. A good axe for chopping wood. A nearby library. A garden… and the seasons. Oh, and a car.
I saw the strangest thing yesterday. Driving down a country highway there appeared to be a tattered old Toyota pickup and a 1990’s Chrysler LHS spread amongst five foot tall weeds. Further peering in resulted in an Escort Wagon, 3 Oldsmobile Cutlass Convertibles and 2 Sebrings. I wondered… had Monsanto finally invented some special car seed to plague the Americas? Not yet. Thankfully. Instead it was a dealer friend who was literally hiding his compulsions amongst the kudzu. His case may be extreme since he apparently has nearly 30 vehicles strewn throughout his prairie land. But he’s not alone.
I’m sitting inside one of the largest auto retailers in the world. Khakis. Shorts. Blue shirts are wandering. Aimlessly. Finally a family of ‘fish’ enter this pond of corporate hookery. They look at the displays. And then a nice middle-aged female lady comes to make her greeting. And the fun begins…
Most folks believe that hybrids are frugal. If only it were so. Hybrids carry a price premium worth their weight in cadmium. Despite over a million sold, it’s damn hard to find a good deal on one. In five years of searching I’ve only found three solitary steals. Conventional gassers though can be as cheap to buy as a wore out mop. Name your brand (within reason). Name your size. If you’re patient enough, you can almost name your price. Gas beaters are truly cheap to buy. But to own . . .
The nearby junkyard has over 450 Clunkers, with a couple hundred more to go. Explorers, Suburbans, Town Cars, Durangos, Rodeos, and Expeditions are literally growing like kudzu. You want parts? Forget the dealership. In fact, you can even forget the parts store and mail order companies at this point. The gravy train of cheap has come to feed the hogs of yesteryear. For John Q Gearhead, this may mean that the economics of beaterdom have changed forever. Namely . . . (Read More…)
Who here would have been willing to spend $15,000 on a Dodge Dynasty? Oh c’mon now. Those trombone case red interiors were quite luxurious in the Imperial days of the Reagan era. But okay then. How about a few more Franklins for a zonker yellow Suzuki X-90? No? Maybe a Daihatsu Charade? Perhaps a Honda Ridgeline? Ten years from now I believe we’ll see a very long line of models epitomizing the worst of value and design. Your nominations? Oh . . . and no. Reincarnating the 1990’s aquatic Taurae and the Daewoo Lanos (and the hands of fate) don’t count.
No car is perfect. Regardless of the myth of brands, a Toyota can get engine sludge. A Honda transmission can go south for eternity. Even the vault that is an old Mercedes will need to be lined with the insulation of greenbacks from time to tomb. There are definitely tendencies when it comes to cars. But no absolutes. Nada. Like the game of baseball, the winners are threshed out through experience. What makes the real difference in all that time?
Recent Comments