In our relevant tale of the 2001 Honda Civic Type R vs. the 2007 Honda Civic Type R, the 2007 did well in terms of its power, speed, etc but had some flaws in handling & finish. The 2007 was about £17,000.00 while its 2001 predecessor could be had for a handy £10,000.00 with reasonable mileage. Considering that the spoiler on the 2007 was right in the line if sight in the rear view mirror (just like the 2009 Nissan 350Z NIZMO’s spoiler), that could be a deal breaker for some buyers looking for a sporty car. Also, a 2001 has gone through the biggest loss in depreciation while the 2007 will dump about 40% in the first 18 months. So… buy the 2001, right?

Well, don’t be so fast, Speedracer! There are many things to consider when buying used and especially with cars that have a tendency (ahem- just speculating here) to be involved in street racing.

Newer cars that tend to be tuners like the Type R may appear to be well cared for on the surface but often they are driven hard regardless of the age of the previous owner (but lets be real- they tend towards the younger and younger thinking crowd).

• Accidents will be found
• Original parts will be checked
• Non-original parts will be listed

Lets put it like this:

You find a gorgeous 350z that (you could almost swear) the seller had you in mind when they customized it.

• Your insurance company won’t cover your injuries because of the aftermarket seat belts!

That Scion Xb looks like the perfect price and the thing to keep your tuner heart humming!

• But they neglected to mention the wreck. And the insurance fraud.

And that darling CRX has a modified system to die for!

• And your car may not be street legal.

Just buy smart and enjoy your ride.

Originally posted here

The Old Gray Mare Ain’t Worth What She Used To Be

Last year GM was able to trim down a quarter of its workforce- about 19,000 hourly workers in all. But the employees who decided to bail before the bailout were offered a lot more money than the employees being asked to leave now. How much more? About $120,000 each! That is right- before the slide became the avalanche on the car lots last summer, GM was offering employees $140,000 each to voluntarily leave the company. Given that they also had to forgo health and insurance benefits when they left, it really isn’t that much of an offer in the scheme of things. The employees who were either not offered the buyout or turned it down now are going to be offered a buyout package at a deep discount of $20,000 to leave and a $25,000 voucher for a ….what else……a free car.

But The Wagon Maintained Its Value?

With photos coming out recently of excessively unsold inventories of cars piling up around the world it seems that the value of unsold cars would be plummeting but they aren’t. Yet. Imagine what happens when all of these employees who take the buyouts end up with cars they don’t need but have payments due for things that they do need, like housing. The cars will potentially end up on the market and at deeply discounted prices because the employees are now deeply discounted in their employment value. Call it a Former Employee Discount. And the dealers will not make a dime from these transactions because these cars will be sold on Craigslist.

Back On The Farm

Recent ‘temporary layoffs” have hit all of the Big 3′s plants and most do not seem to have an end in site. Usually the plants shut down for 2 weeks around the Christmas holidays but this year the holiday period is extending into mid-February at the very earliest for even some of the most successful plants, including GM’s Fairfax plant in the Kansas City area. Fairfax employees have been producing two of GM’s biggest successes: the Chevy Malibu and the Saturn Aura. Currently between employee compensations from GM (negotiated by UAW 31) and unemployment benefits the workers are drawing about 90% of their normal wages but the state has been slow in paying because of the sheer volume of sudden claims coming their way. Any suggested or the inevitable forced buyout will further strain the state which has until recently maintained better than average unemployment.

(I am curious if GM ever received a $146,000,000 bond initiative that was being presented if they would make a mid-sized car at the Fairfax plant because I am pretty sure that mid-size is the new Buick LaCrosse that was already in pre-production at the plant when they sent all of the workers home for their long winter nap.)

“Forced buyouts”, you ask? If employees don’t accept the package to leave then they probably will be given a ticket to ride. And that may not include a free car.

I heard a story last month about a GM employee who had worked in the marketing department for over 15 years but still made less than the people who worked on the lines for less than 10 years. When this marketing guy left he went to another company with a nice parting bonus from GM and a $75,000 increase in pay at the next company. His value went up while the workers on the line he used to resent are being devalued every day.

This has made a lot of people angry but gosh…

If you were one of the 2K plus laid off last week by Primedia then just keep telling your wife it was because Dave was expensive and you were sacrificed to get him back (as you are a genius!!!!). Tell her I said you are, indeed, a genius.

In another round of background to this story:

The talented who were not deemed dead weight and still have jobs are invigorated and excited by his return.

Bring it back, Dave! hasn’t rung so true since Wendy’s lost marketshare!!!

(does any one read this crap?)

The leaving and returning of David Freibuger

Oh boy. We should probably all be very grateful that is not the case.

The contemporary electric car is such a lovely romantic idea and I am not one to knock the dreamers but at the rate that the independent electric car makers are going we better keep our bicycles tuned up for quite a while.

Tesla has been a PR machine. Until recently. Delayed production has led to rumors and snafus abound. Imagine being the buyer of a Tesla Roadster. You have made a $50,000 deposit two years ago and you haven’t received your car. You hear through the grapevine that employees found out about a layoff through a blog written by the CEO to the general public. Not you, the early adopter. And then, just to make your day, you get a letter from Tesla telling you that when your car is eventually delivered you will have to pay more than you originally had agreed to paying. Even the proprietary charger that was included in the base price is now going to cost you extra. Its like buying a battery operated toy and getting home only to find out that batteries were not included even though the salesman told you they were. AND you are paying more than the $100K you signed for. {“Honey? Don’t buy the organic wine for a couple of months!”]

If that is the case then you have arrived as most of the country cannot fathom (but fantasizes) about being so “lucky”.

Aptera (yeh, I will be cliche here and say “that Jetson looking EV”) is having its own bumps. Recently they were all ready to go into production having built a 70,000+ sq. ft. facility a third of the way between LA and San Diego and no man’s land and hire on a full team for their Robin Reliant by Dr. Who vision of the EV.  Candidates were aplenty but, you know, sorry, the project is on hold for a *few* months now. They are looking for additional funding now and won’t be hiring in the near future.

What about ZAP (which is such an adorbs car that I almost forgive them) and years of false promises and bad press?

The independent gas to electric conversion companies are still around, struggling, asking for capital (remember when we used to call it money?) but are still at least a year from fully operational and that is with conditions and a $20K plus price tag to convert your car of choice.

Fact is, this is not Tucker the Movie. It isn’t even Lee Iacoccoa’s world. For years- and I mean YEARS- the venture capital world has funded and lost its love of the EV. Many a CEO has probably told their families that the dot com they walked away from which gave them a nice life would be so much better if they gambled their equity (SLASH fortune) into something green, something progressive, something that will mean something to the kids. Oh, the justification of the green. Dollars, I mean.

So now the EV independents are jumping on the bail-out bandwagon. They’re asking the government to help them when for the last several years their venture capital seeking expeditions has forced them to suffer in Aspen, San Francisco, London, Paris, Miami and other low rent districts. It has been so hard for them.

So what about GM and the myths about these PR machines? GM is a PR machine too and talks a lot of talk and has yet to prove anything EV but they are working (and I mean hard) to meet this. But why? Because of demand. Irony is that everyone loves the idea that their dollars count and for years and years Normal Joe’s have “voted” for high consumption guzzlers while their [INSERT FRIEND/RELATIVE HERE] was getting paid (and paid WELL with health care) for making the cars that they demanded.

Not that anyone really cares. It is fun to place blame. And, oh, that Joe? He is mad now. And his kids don’t have healthcare because he didn’t want to be that guy on the line.

… but everyone has an opinion despite the fact that if everyone complaining actually owned their past demands then they would realize the the fault does not lie in the car companies and that despite of the fact that you can’t wander without tripping over yet another EV company, the alt.fuel deficit all belongs to every one of us.

And yeh. I am back.

XOO,M

Sitting in front of this strip of anonymous looking workshops was a Datsun 2000, a gorgeous new Mazda RX-8 and a kitted out custom RX-7. I was drawn across the road like a magnet and was walking around all 3 cars like a complete idiot. How many girls dressed like a cross between Olive Oyl and Frida Khalo show up at a tuner shop wanting to see more? Not many, I would imagine. A young employee came to the bay door and asked me if I wanted to come inside and see more. Of course, I did! Inside was a small army of mostly RX-7′s stripped down and just waiting to be gussied up into the high performance sexy beasts that they can become. Ah- the smell of Bondo on a warm afternoon! The shop is called Asuka Designs. Here is a great video of the owner of Asuka explaining the benefit of carbon fiber bodies:

Now the interesting aspect of carbon fiber bodies is that they aren’t just for the tuner crowd anymore. The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, along with Ford, GM and Daimler Chrysler are working to bring carbon fiber bodies to all cars at a lower cost. In an article by Physorg.com, spokesman Bob Norris for Oak Ridge Labs said:

“Whereas today the cost to purchase commercial-grade carbon fiber is between $8 and $10 per pound, the goal is to reduce that figure to between $3 and $5 per pound,” said Norris, leader of ORNL’s Polymer Matrix Composites Group. At that price, it would become feasible for automakers to use more than a million tons of composites – approximately 300 pounds of composites per vehicle – annually in the manufacturing of cars.

Carbon fiber is 1/5th the weight of ferrous counterparts used in automobile manufacturing while it has the same strength properties which if used in even half of the structural and semi-structural elements in a car can reduce the weight by 60% and reduce fuel consumption by 30%. Greenhouse gases and emissions could be reduced by as much as 10-20%.

Not only would these cheaper and strong fibers be made of recycled plastics, lignin from wood pulp and cellulose so therefor better for the environment, safety tests with the new fibers are showing that they are just as strong, if not stronger than ferrous materials. Cars made with plastic elements are neither as strong, good for the environment (PVCs keep us relying on the oil industry) and to a real car enthusiast- plastics, in my opinion, do not allow for good design integrity. Additionally, the better that they learn to make low-impact carbon fiber, the cheaper it will become which will inevitably lead to less expensive car that utilize any fuel source- especially alternative fuels.

Interestingly, although carbon fiber will eventually go down in cost to the manufacturer, don’t expect to be getting a Tesla Roadster for any less than current retail price. Part of the development and sales of that vehicle are counting on lower manufacturing cost of both the carbon fiber body and the batteries so that eventually, they will be actually able to make a profit on the high performance Roadster.

So while you may chuckle at the kids and older kids driving around in a tricked out tuner with a tail end that makes their car look like a grocery cart with a really big handle, many of the components that they are experimenting with to make their cars more high performance can change the way that all of our cars are made eventually to be lighter, meaner and greener.

Originally posted here

Cars get crushed every day but not just in the junk yards where wrecked and unrepairable cars go to die.

Which cars are getting crushed?
Some cars are squeaky clean, have leather seats, full navigation systems, V6′s or V8 engines with far less than 30,000 miles on them. They still have that new car smell and in some cases, will still have bits of protective film covering the interior parts. For the most part they could never be considered damaged except for the odd scratch or ding that comes from brushing against the car or pulling a suitcase out of the trunk. Most of them are so new that they are not even on the dealers’ lots yet so they are considered pre-production vehicles but are made pretty much the way subsequent ones will be made. Later ones are just made faster.

Who is crushing this lost tribe of cars?
Their makers. The automotive manufacturers, foreign and domestic.

What was their crime?
They were review cars for journalists, film cars for advertising placement in big budget movies and television shows and sometimes were just lenders to high profile (and sometimes B-list) celebrities. Sometimes they only sat on an auto show floor for the public to crawl in and out of. They were part of the marketing engine.

Why are they being crushed?
To tell you the truth, not by the choice of the manufacturers. No creator likes to see their offspring, their pride and joy, the result of years of hard work reduced to an over-sized smashed can. Some of these cars are such special editions that they have features and packages that will never be seen in combination again and could be valued at an extremely high price (if they even could be sold). But they have to crush them. The government requires that they destroy them. These cars are usually off the same production line that the cars come from for safety tests and so are licensed to the manufacturer but the title is not transferable. You cannot legally register one of these cars even if the manufacturer sold it in a charity auction. A rogue auto employee couldn’t even hide one in their garage forever; the government checks up on these things!

The cars are not even allowed to be dismantled so that parts like seats and stereos can be reused because the government knows that eventually someone would build their own car out of refuse. Mind you, perfectly good, often high end refuse.

I am not pointing fingers at any manufacturer in particular because they are all held to the same standards. Maybe this will make some of them uncomfortable that I am even telling you this and I want to reinforce to them that, on this point, I am on your side. What would be better for brand building than to see rare editions turn up in auctions like vintage rare edition cars can and sell for ridiculously cool prices?

And to those of us who have driven these cars: I feel guilty and sad when I see my time end with one of these cars destined to be destroyed. Sometimes I wonder if I have played a part in a wasteful destruction. What I do know is that the manufacturers don’t like it either. It is an unspoken death because their hands are tied.

All that I know is that at a time when the car makers are being criticized for wasteful behavior it is makes sense to sometimes look further than the actions and try to get to the reason. There are always blatant examples within every company (automotive and non-automotive related) where waste can be highlighted in the media. It is sometimes the unspoken waste resulting from an industry held to standardized practices for safety and the environment directly by the government and the manufacturer swallowing, taking their lump and trying to move ahead that should be reported.

Most of this government regulation stems from emissions and safety concerns but to such a degree that one European luxury manufacturer will not import its very saleable models because they are handmade and the government wants a dozen or so to crash. These regulations also are the reason that a lot of American manufacturers do not sell their best models in the US.

RIP all of the 2009 cars conceived by artists, executed by engineers and have now gone to meet their maker.

XOO,Michelle

Originally posted here

My parents had a 1967 yellow Mustang that I drove quite a lot! It carried Heidi, the 1984 Goddard High School Homecoming Queen, on the back in the parade down Main Street in my hometown of Roswell, NM (she may have looked like a California Princess but it was my car). I was also allowed to take it out of town with 2 friends my senior year for an uneventful weekend at Mustang Island in Texas (a gift from my mother when she felt sorry for me because I missed my Senior Spring Break when I had mono).

I remember when my parents found that car. We were driving from Roswell to Horseshoe Bay, Texas and while driving through Brady, Texas (the disputed “Heart of Texas if you ask my friend KIRK) and there it sat: all restored in a showroom window of a vintage brick car lot. This was the early ’80′s. I think my parents were making more money than they ever had in their whole life, deservably so. We’d had some pretty cool cars previously, mind you! But never an old one and never a convertible. There are funny things that I miss about the Mustang: the little pedal I could push with my left foot to make the windshield wipers pass when I drove through sprinklers, the air vent down in the floorboard where fresh air could come in while the top was up and listening to only AM radio music stations.

Oh! the 1980′s! My friend Ruby flipped her Fastback one day with other friends in the car while skipping school to smoke. My dad’s brother Raymond, one of my heroes, bought his own red convertible vintage Mustang which he proudly kept garaged until he died earlier this year. As my cousin Shawn said, “unless something changes some minds, dad’s will be joining my two ’65 hardtops after we get things sorted out.”

The 1980′s also saw an era of new Mustangs that honestly, were so ugly to me and I blocked them so much that I didn’t even acknowledge their presence. That trend continued until 1994 but by that point, I guess, I became a non-believer and it wasn’t even a viable car to consider wasting time thinking about.

In 2005 that all changed. The Mustang made a comeback and Ford had obviously had a re-think: pretty is as pretty does. When someone I know was looking for a new car I persuaded him to buy an ’05 coupe (I still love his car & he doesn’t love it as much because he can’t carry his band’s equipment in it so well).

Last night, despite the current pre-shock economic trembles affecting the manufacturer, Ford revealed the latest Mustang. The 2010 version still has that look and performance that made me fall in love again but this time the object of my affection has been in the gym, eating right and is ready for a new era of fans.

Is it the wrong time to introduce this car? I don’t think so because we can’t force muscle car lovers into hybrids or PZEVs or even 4-cylinders. It just ain’t American to shame buyers for so many reasons. It isn’t even like Ford should be chastised for the improved model: it isn’t significantly different enough from the previous iteration that they wasted precious engineering hours to detract from their ability to develop extremely well executed hybrids, PZEVs and low MPG models. (Is it un-American to suggest that GM wasted hours/days/years on the new Camaro from SCRATCH when they should have pursued not making a muscle car to compete with the Mustang?)

Yes, I am sentimentally attached to the Mustang. I cried at the big Reveal last night for both its history and its future.

Originally posted here

Pop quiz hotshot, how do you find that right car that’s going to make you get down on your knees and go, “Oh yeah!!” Take this little quiz in order to get on the road to driving!

QUESTION #1: What kind of car should you look into?

A) One that you need.
B) One that you want.
C) One that talks to you like in the Stephan King movie Christine and eliminates your enemies.
D) Both B&C

QUESTION #2: HOW MUCH YOU SPEND ON A CAR?
A) What you can afford determined by payments at 20% of your monthly take home pay.
B) On par with what you spend each month on crack.
C) On par what you spend on crack and hookers
D) All of the above

QUESTIONS #3: WHICH ISN’T ADVANTAGES OF LEASE YOUR NEXT CAR?
A) You can drive a better car for less money
B) No trade-in hassles
C) You can drive a new car few years.
D) You are not hassled with owning commodity

QUESTION #4: WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF BUYING OVER LEASING
A) It makes financial sense when interest rates are low over leasing.
B) No miles penality
C) You don’t have to worry about anyone spray-painting “Honky Lips” on the side of your vehicle.
D) Both A & B
QUESTION #5: WHAT ARE OTHER COSTS OF OWNERSHIP TO CONSIDER?

A) The deprecation rate of specific models.
B) The amount of investment needed for the upkeep of fuzzy dice to hang from the review mirror.
C) Insurance rates for the model.
D) Costs of hydrolic jacks for your tires
E) Both A & C

QUESTIONS #6:IS IT IMPORTANT TO SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT VIA PHONE BEFORE YOU GO FOR A TEST DRIVE?

A) Yes. This will give you an idea of the business atmosphere.
B) Hell no. Show up in last year’s Halloween costume and scream, “It’s party time.”
C) All of the above.
D) None of the above.

QUESTION #7: Should you let the salesman’s pitch distract you while you test drive.
A) Absolutely. Show the man some respect. He’s got some stories to tell.
B) No, so turn up the radio as loud as you can on the Spanish language station.
C) No. Listen for the sound of the car and try to drive on a terrain similar to your normal driving route.
D) ALL OF THE ABOVE

QUESTIONS: #8: WHERE ARE GOOD PLACES TO RESEARCH YOUR FUTURE VEHICLE?
A) The Internet
B) Newspapers
C) Dealerships
D) A meeting of the Ron Howard fan club.
E) All but D.

ANSWERS
1) A
2) A
3) D
4) D
5) E
6) A
7) C
E

CONGRATULATIONS! AND GOOD LUCK IN FINDING THE RIGHT CAR FOR YOU! ]]> http://missmotormouth.com/2008/11/find-the-right-car-that-will-make-you-go-%e2%80%9coh-yeah%e2%80%9d-quiz/feed/ 0 http://missmotormouth.com/2008/10/could-car-makers-learn-from-hot-wheels/ http://missmotormouth.com/2008/10/could-car-makers-learn-from-hot-wheels/#comments Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:58:26 +0000 admin http://missmotormouth.com/?p=43 Mattel is officially worth more than GM, could the car manufacturers have something to glean from the toymakers? It is no mistake that the manufacturers of toys and cars share many steps of the design process but diverge very quickly when it comes to the actual manufacturing of their product. Where they also obviously split is with the marketing. When the toy car is designed [[Continue reading]]]]> Now that Mattel is officially worth more than GM, could the car manufacturers have something to glean from the toymakers?

It is no mistake that the manufacturers of toys and cars share many steps of the design process but diverge very quickly when it comes to the actual manufacturing of their product. Where they also obviously split is with the marketing.

When the toy car is designed it will usually take under six months to get it onto the shelves. A real car will take about four years to get put on to the lots. The reality is that car manufacturers have to retool their plants and go through rigorous testing for safety and efficiencies so a bulk of that four years is understandable. There are exceptions to this industry standard of fermenting a car: the design to production process of the new Buick LaCrosse which will be released in the US at a record-breaking two year mark. How did they do that? Technically the car went through the same four-year design to production process but, like a Hot Wheel, had a significant amount of its development done by extremely talented Chinese designers and engineers. By the time the LaCrosse hit the shores of the US manufacturing plant that also makes the Malibu and the Aura was ready for its new addition.GM may have made a lot of mistakes in the last years but embracing their foreign teams for products like the LaCrosse and the G-8 (Australia) is a smart move.

Mattel introduces about 300 new designs every year. Car manufacturers, obviously and understandably, introduce far less new models. When Mattel begins the marketing process for new designs they do it in series; for example, the toy cars being released for the Christmas season exclusively through Wal-Mart will be paired instead of promoted individually. When a new model of a real car is introduced its costs the manufacturer approximately $100 million per model. If that manufacturer, say like Chrysler, has multiple brands and introduces the same platform model across a couple of different brands ( Chrysler and Dodge), the marketing expenses will be $200 million. Reducing the total number of models shared by the brands is one of the ways that Chrysler has more recently been trying to save money.

It has been said that Mattel employs a professional who serves as a marketing consultant to increase the “whine factor” in its advertising so that parents will get so tired of their children whining for the latest model that they will break down and buy the under $10 toy. Car manufacturers have really stubbed their toe on this concept by supporting the tradition of the most highly desirable cars being out of reach monetarily for most consumers and keeping affordable cars boring, lacking quality and nothing to whine for. Maybe the auto manufacturers could borrow the psychiatrist to help them out.

Miss Motor Mouth

Originally posted here