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Long Term Test F-150 Purchase Process: The Best Way To Buy a Car

By on August 5, 2011 in Editorials, Features, Long Term Tests

By Kevin Gordon

I constantly find myself cringing when I am at a car dealership and I witness the following happen: Kenny “The Sap” Consumer walks into his local Honda dealership and is greeted by “slippery” Sam the salesman. Kenny says he is interested in a Honda Pilot, one “with the DVD system”. Sam the salesmen says that he thinks he might have one or two of those available, but immediately begins to explain how popular they are. Both people walk off to make a copy of Kenny’s license and Kenny the poor sap has taken his first steps towards paying thousands more than he needs to when purchasing a car.

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Wieden+Kennedy Gives the Chrysler 300 a Bad Fuel Economy Rap

By on August 3, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

Paging through the September 2011 issue of Automobile magazine today, I was looking at an ad for the new Chrysler 300 that had the tagline, “Luxury Feels Better Earned,” and I really liked the message.  If you’ve worked hard in your life and come into some measure of success, it probably feels better to treat yourself to some luxuries.  In contrast to “trust fund babies,” hard-working folks who put in the time in their chosen profession probably have a better appreciation for where they’ve come from and how arduous it was to get to their current station in life.

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Ask the Autosavants: Will the VW Beetle Drop Its “Chick Car” Rep?

By on July 19, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

From the moment it was first displayed, Volkwagen executives have gone to great lengths to point out that the new Beetle (not the New Beetle, mind you) will appeal much more to male buyers than did the previous model.  Of course, when the Beetle’s first publicity stunt is a giveaway on Oprah, I’m not sure how serious VW is about boosting the testosterone levels of their classically-shaped hatchback.

Nonetheless, even the press release makes no bones about the company’s intent to shift Beetle buyer demographics from a 65/35 female/male split to something closer to 50/50:

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Are Gadgets Ruining Cars?

By on June 28, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

Gadget blog Gizmodo had a post yesterday entitled, “The Gadgetization of Cars is Kind of Ruining Them.”  As a lover of both cars and gadgets, as well as cars with gadgets, I took interest in the article. In it, author Mat Honan discusses a recent JD Power and Associates press release that dinged US automakers for high-tech, hard to use navigation systems that consumers called a “design defect,” and therefore lowered IQS scores according to Power.

Gadgets, if done well, are excellent and improve the experience and customer satisfaction. JD Power is not really a reliable gauge of quality, because it lets car buyers ding their cars for “quality problems” even though the things are working as designed. The issue is that the design is poor – like MyFord Touch. MyFord Touch is a cool concept, but a capacitive touch interface without any tactile feedback means you have to take your attention off the road and look at the location of the button, aim your finger carefully, then wait for Ford’s laggy, bug-filled processor to catch up to you.  The reality of MyFord Touch doesn’t live up to its hype, and Ford knows it – and is hopefully addressing it post-haste.

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Japanese Auto Manufacturers Demand Weaker Yen

By on June 9, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

The Japanese Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (JAMA) and the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers’ Unions (CJAWU) released a joint statement yesterday demanding that the Japanese government take immediate steps to reduce the strength of the yen.  The current exchange rate between the yen and dollar is about ¥80 per $1 USD.  Three years ago, it was ¥110 per $1 USD, so it’s gained 27 percent on the dollar in a fairly short timeframe.  (A lower yen-per-dollar number means a stronger yen.)

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What Happened to the Tundra?

By on June 6, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

Way back in the 2007 model year, you may recall that things looked quite different in the auto industry. Neither GM nor Chrysler had declared bankruptcy; GM was still the world’s largest automaker. Ford had just bet the company that its latest restructuring would fix their problem once and for all. Toyota was on a seemingly unstoppable roll, with month upon month of increasing sales (often at a clip of 10 percent over the year-earlier period).

There were certainly storm clouds on the horizon for the Detroit Three. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were losing money, the credit markets were drying up, and there was a major threat brewing against the last bastion of US automakers: the full-size pickup.

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Study Says Most Drivers Would Fail Written Driver Exams if Re-Tested

By on May 27, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

If you’re more than 32 years old, chance are that you’ve now been driving for more years than you have not been driving.  I got my license at age 16, so I just passed the two-decade mark behind the wheel this past spring.  I’ve naturally become a better driver during those 20 years, doing a better job of anticipating others’ actions, knowing how fast (or slow) to drive in various conditions, and becoming much better at understanding the physics of car control.

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GM Could Regain “World’s Largest Automaker” Title in 2011

By on May 4, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

It’s not easy being number one.  And, if you listened to GM executives after their company lost the global sales crown in 2008, being the biggest doesn’t matter, but being the best does.

And now, in a curious twist of fate, GM is poised to re-take the global sales crown from Toyota for 2011.  GM held that title for three quarters of a century, and Toyota stands to hold it for just three years (2008, 2009, and 2010).  So what’s behind this shift?

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Chrysler To Refinance Debt, Repay Government Loans

By on April 28, 2011 in Editorials, News

By Chris Haak

Probably due to its much larger size, GM’s bailout and repayment of some government loans has drawn far more attention than the assistance provided to Chrysler has for the past several years.  Chrysler doesn’t even get the perk of a derogatory nickname like “Government Motors” has.

Former “Car Czar” Steven Rattner’s book described how the Obama administration was split nearly 50-50 on whether Chrysler was even worth rescuing, and not everyone is certain of the viability of the now Italian-American automaker in the coming years.

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Lexus Boss Mark Templin Predicts a Dismal Future For His Brand

By on April 28, 2011 in Editorials

By Chris Haak

Auto executives are, by nature, an optimistic bunch of people.  They’re always on the verge of catching onto the next big trend, of turning around operations, yadda yadda.  Therefore, I raised my eyebrows more than a little bit when I saw what Lexus general manager Mark Templin had to say about his brand’s future.  It wasn’t optimistic; it was downright melancholy.  In an interview with Automotive News, he conceded the luxury-vehicle sales crown for 2011 with seven-plus months remaining in the year.  The reason?

He’s blaming the Japanese earthquake, which has done great harm to the auto industry supply chain, but in particular, to Japanese auto manufacturers.  Many Japanese OEMs still are not running at full production, including heavyweights Honda and Toyota.  Toyota, in fact, said that it was not likely to resume normal production until November, a full eight months after the March earthquake.  Lexus is particularly affected, though, because the majority of the brand’s models, with the sole exception of the RX crossover, are built in Japan.  In post-tsunami Japan, local auto production is a disadvantage.

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