It’s been a few weeks since I sold the Golf Sportwagen back to the dealership from whence it came, and it’s still there if any of you would like a very clean Golf with no present water issues. Since then, I find myself peering out the kitchen window at the empty driveway space where the Golf used to reside. And it makes me have many thoughts, impractical thoughts.
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Category: Sales
With used-car prices soaring, retailer CarMax has been busy swooping up used vehicles to flip for sale.
That could be a solid strategy since the chip shortage has left new-car dealers bereft of vehicles on the lot.
The Volkswagen Passat is dead. At least in America.
2022 will be the last model year for VW’s mid-size sedan.
The 2021 Summer Olympics, set to be held in Tokyo starting Friday, are proving to be quite unpopular, at least in Japan. And apparently, Toyota has taken notice and pulled the plug on its planned local advertising during the Games.
Late last year I put forth some thoughts about the future direction of Infiniti, largely about how the company was on a downward trajectory. Looking forward, the brand needs a major change in direction – not much has changed since December when I wrote that piece.
But one might then logically ask “Where did the company first lose its way?” I’m going to answer that question right now. Let’s take a little trip to the Before Times, in 1990.
Chevrolet’s C8 Corvette has been in demand.
So much so that some dealers are commanding markups up to $100K over MSRP.
A little under two weeks ago, yours truly wrote about President Joe Biden’s plans for cutting tailpipe emissions and helping to encourage the shift to electric vehicles.
I laid out three basic philosophies that are at play in the debate as to how best move consumers en masse from internal-combustion-engine cars to EVs.
Sorry, diesel fans. Just three years after introducing a Power Stroke diesel for the F-150, Ford is dropping the diesel option.
And doing so with haste.
I touched on it in the newsier post about used-car prices down below, but in normal times, scribes like us sometimes advise our family and friends who are car shopping to buy used, because a lightly used car can be in like-new condition and cost significantly less. And someone else has taken the initial huge depreciation hit.
These are not normal times.
According to car-shopping site iSeeCars, there are currently 16 models that will cost you more used than new.
16!
That is, how shall we say, unusual. And, obviously, not good news for the used-car shopper.
The appointment was made, and the Golf was in the shop for the headliner fixes and trim panel repairs after a most irritating morning appointment to trade keys. The same thoughts kept returning to mind continually, forcing me to consider a salient point: Did I want to continue with this sort of ownership experience years into the future?
Short answer? No.
The pandemic isn’t over. But a good chunk of the United States is returning to normal, and at some point, the pandemic will peter out in the rest of the world.
How long that takes is anyone’s guess. And beyond the pay grade of anyone who contributes words to this hallowed site. But we can hazard a guess as to how post-pandemic car sales, perhaps with some assistance from an analyst.
We don’t normally pay too much attention to pony-car pissing contests or quarter-to-quarter sales battles because, well, they aren’t always interesting and/or newsworthy.
What happened this past quarter caught our eye, however.
We reported last fall how Volkswagen-owned Bugatti had its future products on hold, given the financially turbulent and awful year which was 2020. In addition to the global pandemic cutting production, sales, profits, and everything else, VW was pouring lots of development money into its I.D. electric vehicle lineup.
At the time, there were mumblings that EV startup Rimac was in talks to purchase the brand from VW. News broke yesterday of a merger, where Volkswagen and Porsche are not entirely out of the picture.
Given the constant hassles of Volkswagen Golf ownership lately, and how every media outlet is shouting “Highest Used Car Pricing Ever” as loudly as possible, I’ve been pondering selling the Golf to a dealer. No Facebook idiots, no trade-in for something else, just a sale.
Here in The Current Year, there are many companies that purport to give you both the best deal possible and make the car selling process seamless. I found out this week what five such companies are like in the early stages.
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