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Comments
Bear in mind that the CR surveys that drive the reliability data are from a self-selected cohort. The people who bother to fill out the multi-page survey form either have: 1) an axe to grind, 2) lots of time on their hands or 3) a cause to promote.
My put is that those who drive hybrids would sooner be drawn and quartered (or spend a day with Rush Limbaugh) than diss their chosen lifestyle statement transportation device.
The "carbon footprint" of a hybrid, when the battery production & disposal are figured in, isn't anything to shout about, at least in a favorable fashion.
I’ve said this before and I still don’t understand this concern for the dealership/salesman making a profit. Isn’t there enough for the buyer to be concerned with on their side of the deal? Why should the buyer be concerned with what goes on at the other side of the table? I don’t think the other side of the table gives one hoot about my wallet; why should I be concerned about theirs? If they make the deal it must have been good enough or the deal wouldn’t have been made.
I told about the purchase of my first Hyundai in 2005 in post 2599 over in the Purchasing Strategies - Questions and Success Stories forum. The first dealer lowered their price by $800 dollars to match the price of another dealer so that they could make the sale. Even though they said that to sell a car for that much less than their final offer to me meant that they would be losing money. Maybe the dealer did lose money on that one particular sale but they wouldn’t have agreed to it if it wasn’t beneficial to them in the end. Possibly, to help make their bogie for the month/quarter. I don’t know nor do I care if that was why they made the deal. Dealers sell cars and I buy cars and when the numbers are right for both sides the deal is made. That’s the way business is done. I just don’t understand why I should be concerned about how and why they do what they do as long as it’s the deal I want.
What I do know is that the playing field has been pretty much leveled for at least the last 5/6 years do to the Internet and dealers/salesmen can’t be happy about that.
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
Nice turn of phrase!
If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow that.
Fusion is back from the body shop and they did a great job replacing and painting the bumpers. a trim piece or two will need to be repositioned and the hood had some scratches not there when I dropped it off.
Used the clay bar then waxed the hood. It looks great. Of course, now I have to do the rest of the car. I will do a bit each day over the next week.
Since Labor Day is next week and people start thinking about winter instead of summer, I think i will take the Fusion (AWD) over to Carmax for a quote.
Currently, they only have 1 within 250 miles. It is purple, does not have a sunroof and has 5k more miles than mine.
I can afford to go down a vehicle until next June or so and it might be worth it.
2001 Prelude Type SH, 2022 Highlander XLE AWD, 2025 Camry SE AWD
I don't think production and disposal of a battery contribute all that much to the mythical carbon footprint. It would be roughly equivalent to the "carbon footprint" for production and disposal of an equivalent weight of the vehicle itself. What would matter is the energy used to charge those batteries which, for the most part, would come from burning fossil fuels. Storing energy in a battery is less efficient than burning fossil fuel directly to propel the vehicle.
But we arrive at the same conclusion.
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
Richard
We had a teacher who once told her students that after the Christmas holidays, the students would begin their study of World War II (Eleven). On one occasion, she told her students that the D.C. (as in Washington, D.C.) stood for "Different Country". I actually figured that she was correct with that comment. :P When she tested her students, she always reminded them that "it is better to cheat than repeat". I went in to observe her class one morning. She was sitting in a corner fast asleep. She had written on the board: Wake your teacher at 11:30 and you gets to go to lunch early. (Yes, she wrote "gets".)
Result: Fired at the beginning of January!
Richard
Thanks for the update del. I was wondering how it worked out driving your beater around NYC. Sounds like fun not having to worry about dings and scratches. You might get used to that, and bring the Saturn home with you.
I remember once a taxi driver in NY told me his foot is always on the gas or the brakes, never in between. Hope you can adjust to driving when you go home.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
That's when I started using a spread sheet. I put all my figures on it. Present it to the dealership in blakc and white. No confusion....it's all there for them to see. Sometimes, I even have my check pre-printed with that amount so there's no mistaking my seriousness about the offer.
Craig, you're absolutely right that it's not difficult to back out taxes, doc fees, etc to come up with a gross number on a deal. However, you'd be surprised how many sales people that can't grasp the simple mathematical concepts to do so. Plus, if they can't take the 5 minutes to take it to the F&I office for the simple job of getting their final OTD numbers (since they can't, or won't), then I'm not of the mind that they'll be very customer focused to do the rest of the deal, either.
The best part about doing an OTD offer is the dealer can manipulate the #s any way they want as long as it matches in the end. A lot of people don't understand it that way. You may figure doc fee at $100 but the dealer charges $200, well in that case they will just sell the car for $100 less than on your spreadsheet. It's really simple math.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Icon I6L Golf Cart
I should have caught that, crossed the paragraph out, hand written the OTD price, and both of us initialize that. It cost me $400, which was the difference, we split it.
And some people try to say that teachers can never be fired! And try to turn that into a political argument. Now here's your example of one who was fired!
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I didn't wnat my customers to think about profits, overhead or anything else yet I had printouts shoved in my face showing what "others are paying" and how much evil profit holdback we would be receiving if we had the fortune of selling them a car.
I tried my best to make every deal happen but there deals made that the customers really didn't deserve. I didn't feel good afterwards and those customers usually left thinking that somehow, they paid too much.
Then there were the people who thought other people should make up for the negitive profit we should lose on their deal.
By doing research you hope to know what a car costs the dealer and thereby you should know what offer to make. Yes, that offer does allow for some profit that you feel should be acceptable. When I do it this way I am usually right. I don’t grind. Based on the knowledge that I acquire doing my research I make one offer and it’s up to the dealer to yea or nay it. I’ve been satisfied doing it that way for years. However, when I bought the Genny in ’09, the dealer had a great price on their internet site. The price was better than what I had gathered from my research. Needless to say that surprised me. I did try to get them to lower that price (because from previous purchases the internet price was just a good starting point), but this guy said that he was “all in” on that price and based on my research he was, so I bought at his price.
As for service, we have been told that the service side might as well be another company and I’ve pretty much found that this is the case. So I deal with that when the time comes, and as you said, you can always take your business to another dealer. In the case of the Genny purchase I had to do that because I bought it in Ohio.
Finally, what about repeat business? If you had clubbed the dealer to pieces on your last deal, could you expect a good deal on your next purchase? Probably not.
I’d say that based on the previous purchase the dealer should know exactly what to expect and the next purchase should go just as smoothly. They would know that a quick sale is better than no sale. A mini is not a loser and it shouldn’t be a deal breaker if they want to move a car.
I do think that it is nice to build a rapport with one dealer.
I don’t have a problem with that but my experiences have been that when you go back, the salesman has moved on to another way of life. This seems to be the way it is now but I remember my Father buying cars (even different brands) from the same salesman for about 15 years.
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
I'll bet she wasn't tenured, although I could be wrong about that.
Before you get too excited, ask yourself why she was hired in the 1st place. Clearly, someone in administration screwed the pooch, so to speak. She should never have been allowed in any classroom for even one day.
A proper interview would have filtered her out early in the hiring process in favor of someone who could actually do the job. That's how it's done in the private sector.
Looks to me to be a typical public sector screwup.
The ladies in our personnel office used to tell my secretary that they wouldn't work for Mr. Richard. He had too much paper work and too many problems. My secretary was the absolute best. She thought the way that I did---do what it takes to get the job done. Unfortunately, my successor was a lazy, good for nothing political appointee. My secretary retired a year after I left. She now works for an attorney. I like to think that she had good training. :shades:
Richard
Good question. She had been hired to meet a minority quota, was friends with a school board member, and was a cousin to the school principal's wife. In the public sector, initial interviews don't mean squat most of the time. I was raked over the coals when I went after her, and even my professional associates warned me not to touch it. I was called a racist by the local leader of a well know national organization. The school board hearing was a nasty experience. I tried to remain objective and simply produce the evidence and the documentation. Fortunately, I was backed by the parents---of all colors. Yes, she had tenure which had conveniently been transferred from two other school systems---with no waiting period. That made the task even more difficult. Her union had a good attorney. Still, the facts were indisputable.
Whether it be public or private sector, political influences are strong in the hiring arena. I was over ruled many times by my boss or the school board when it came to recommendations for hiring. Perhaps my standards were too high, but I still refused to sign off on many contracts. It didn't matter. My boss would simply sign the contract in my place. Still, I have the satisfaction of knowing that my signature isn't on the contracts in some of those files. How many of the bad apples are still employed? Plenty.
Richard
I never left a dealership after buying a car where I thought I paid too much because I’m the one that provided the number that had to be met to make the deal. I don’t like to fight with myself about that kind of stuff. I also know, that no matter how good of a deal I might have gotten, the dealer still made what he thought he had to make.
BTW, how are you doing with you’re retirement now that you’ve had some time to adjust to it? I know when the weather is nice like it has been here in the Burgh lately and especially like it is today, I question why I have agreed to work as a consultant when I could be on my deck with an ice tea.
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
Knowing that people now do more research, why would dealers not be more in line with agencies like Edmunds and Blue Book? Do they actually expect customers to give them a $3,500 profit on top of the suggested retail value? It just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps Edmunds and Blue Book are the ones not in tune.
Richard
For example if KBB shows a trade in value of say 10k--then you can estimate somewhere between 8k-11k. So you have a general idea. And you would know if a dealer lowballs you when he quotes the trade in price as say 6k. So basically -these are just guides-- to get a general idea and not get really ripped off or clubbed like a baby seal !! :P
Cdn--
I don't entirely agree. I have filled out the surveys for probably 15 years (even back when they were paper and had to be mailed in). I guess I fall under your category #2, but since CR went to electronic surveys they have become extremely easy and fast; plus, you can work on section at a time and finish other sections (or not) later.
I've always been honest listing the car problems for our cars and have never tried to promote a particular brand that I've owned. I'm sure that there are participants who fudge or lie or have an axe to grind so my advice is to use CR as one source among many to narrow the list of prospects to a manageable number and then drive your choices with an open mind.
If you really look at CR objectively, there is much less of a problem discrepancy between new makes and models than there was 10 and, especially 20, years ago. The bigger discrepancy is between used models. After all, if everyone took CRs advice as gospel no one would have ever bought a Cadillac Catera!
Gogiboy
there is also a saying along the lines of "if you don't ask, you won't get". So, dealers put a pie in the sky price on the car, in case someone bites and they hit the jackpot. If not, eventually someone with a clue makes a reasonable offer, and buys the car.
I believe Mr. Shiftright refers to it as exercising their 1st ammendment rights (at least for used car sellers).
That, and you can always come down on the price (and make a big show out of it of course), but it is darned hard to go up!
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
So,say 90% of car owners have a problem and the remaining 10% do not--so the 10% can say CR is lying ,their data is false and inaccurate and their car has been good. Obviously ,not 100% will have the problem. That`s just the nature of car production. Every single car I have owned--CR`s data has been spot on. It`s almost like a science--you can literally predict the problem you can have with your car using their used car data. Nowadays,CR even lists the specific problem details for the black dots they give. :shades:
For example--Ford Windstars had a huge problem with their trannys. So you can get a poster who says -- this is total BS b`cos his Windstar ran 220k+ miles on the original tranny. SO does that mean he is correct and Windstars are reliable and CR is lying.. Dont think so .You can dislike their rating criteria-- but it`s reliability data is among the best out there and more importantly they do not take any ad revenue from carmakers unlike all other magazines or web sites including Edmunds !!
Exactly what I've been told by those who know the law in Ohio. The teachers are dismissed or some leave for another position circumventing the process of the chain of steps when the handwriting is on the blackboard, so as to speak.
My wife and I are currently working to get someone relieved of duty after a miserable year. I know we have two school board members who will hear us well. The teacher is a liar with lots of fast talk. He had connections to get him appointed to the job circumventing the search procedure in place for a committee who was selecting the replacement from several applicants. But I believe he's had enough troubles that our coming out of the woodwork to two board members who know us somewhat from church and a valedictorian dinner and a boy scout group will help nail the arms to the cross.
So all the people who feel teachers are examples of lifetime jobs are wrong.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Richard
Once an employee hit the ten year mark, they were very difficult to fire. They could call in sick and get paid from the first day and a lot of people took advantage of that.
If they happened to be a minority then they were near bulletproof. I had a two inch thick file on one of my guys but they made me keep him and suggested I try harder to "retrain" hi. What a joke.
Then Affermative Action came to town. We we instructed to hire ONLY minorities and some of the ones already working there were promoted to management positions that many were totally unqualified for.
At that point, firing a minority was impossible UNLESS they were caught stealing.
I was good at catching them.
I honestly think that was one of the things that hurt Sears the most.
I left to go into business for myself shortly thereafter.
Really having mixed feelings about retirement. I keep feeling guilty. I've never not had a job since I was a 13 year old paperboy.
Keeping busy around the house. Work downtown at the Food and Clothjing bank as a volunteer one day a week. That is TOUGH, humbling work and someday I may tell a story if that's OK.
Joined the Kiwanis and plan to do more volenteer work and I'm going to attend a class and probably be a docent at our local Fish Hatchery. I have a lot to learn about salmon!
At the end of the term, she found the dealership switched papers, and she was just leasing the truck.
It is an interesting story;
Bill Heard Chevrolet - Texas
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
Really? Go back & read Richard's post #57746, in which he cites an example of a teacher selling drugs to students. That's about as bad as it gets, but it still took 18 months & $125,000 of the taxpayers' money to fire that bum.
If that teacher had been a private sector employee, he/she would have been frog-marched off the premises in 15 minutes. That's because most private employees not covered by a contract can be fired at any time for any reason. It's just too bad that the public sector doesn't work that way.
You can spin it any way that you want, but when the dust settles, it's obvious to anyone paying attention that tenure & teachers' unions are bad for students & bad for taxpayers. (And for the record, my wife is a retired career public school teacher who happens to agree with me.)
1. The really great ones. They ones who care about their students and go far beyond the norm to make a difference in the lives of their students.
2. The ho-hum ones that do an adequate job and can't wait to retire.
3. The lousy ones that shouldn't be allowed to walk into a classroom as in Richard's example.
Just the old Bell Curve that applies to any profession.
Something else to keep in mind when evaluating CR's ratings: because cars are vastly more reliable today than they were 20 years ago, the data that would have earned a car a rating of "much better than average" in 1990 or 1995 will only qualify it for a "worse than average" rating today.
In other words, today's "average" is much better than yesterday's "average".
If you've been a CR reader for any length of time - I've been reading it since the 1960s & subscribing to it since the 1970s - you should know this. CR reminds its readers of this from time to time.
So as far as most buyers are concerned, just about any car sold today will be acceptably reliable. Thanks to cut-throat competition, there really aren't any dogs out there any more. That's why I don't rely as much on CR's reliability ratings as I once did, although I still read what CR has to say about a car before I buy it.
Yes, you are right, and it seems it was a pretty big operation. When you named the dealer, I found this information:
For the last few years, Bill Heard's dealerships generated numerous complaints for questionable business practices such as advertising cars they didn't have, selling lemons and sending out fake recall notices to attract customers. The online report from the Houston office of the Better Business Bureau includes numerous warnings, including this relevant passage:
The BBB worked in conjunction with Dateline NBC on an investigation of Bill Heard Chevrolet's advertising practices. It was alleged on film that this company did not have the cars in stock that they were advertising and that they immediately tried to sell a higher priced vehicle than the one advertised. Any time you make a purchase, it is best to comparison shop prior to making a purchase.
The Office of Consumer Affairs in Georgia issued 16 actions against Heard Enterprises in the past 15 years with total fines of approximately $280,000. There is at least one deceptive advertising case pending against Bill Heard, but the bankruptcy has thrown that into question.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
Almost every 2nd ad on local TV channels is that of a new car dealer. But fraud among new car dealers is pretty rare I guess. It mostly occurs at shady used car dealers or at BHPH lots and in service mostly at national service chains like Midas,Just Brakes,etc or again at a shady mechanic. New car dealership scams or frauds are relatively very rare compared to those BHPH lots. :sick:
Richard
Peopel used to expect cars to break and for things to need replacement.
Now, when their A/C compressor go's bad after 100,000 miles they feel like they are some kind of a victim and search for a fourm to whine about it!
I was on the board of a Union for a while. There are people even the union does not want to defend but they are required to do so or end up at the other end of a lawsuit.
My favorite old story was when Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ, whose clerical folk we represented, shoved through a contract (which is much easier for an employer to do than you would ever imagine) insisting that all off time - sick, vacation and personal - be combined into one pool called PTO (paid time off) which is now very common. Of course the total days off were fewer which was teh whole idea but that's not relevant to this.
So, a year down the road they try to dismiss a worker who was a notorious sick leave abuser. You know the types - if they get 15 sick days in a year they will by some miracle be sick exactly 15 days - frequently Mondays and Fridays. So they dismiss here and she comes to the union to defend her.
We had no real defense but again we're legally obligated to defend her. So we come up with the best thing we can - that she wasn't abusing sick leave because in the contract there is no such thing as sick leave. You can't abuse something that doesn't exist. We won. We weren't thrilled about it but what could you do?
Folks need to wake up to the fact that there will always be losers no matter what the venue. And many will be protected even without tenure or contracts. The waste in the public sector is right up there with the public sector. Welcome to the human race. It will never change.
Defenders of tenure & civil service unions invariably cite workplace politics as a reason why tenure is crucial. I've never grasped the logic behind that argument. As long as people have worked together in groups, you've had workplace politics.
If you can't deal with the political climate at your current job, quit & find another one.
The waste in the public[sic - you probably meant "private"] sector is right up there with the public sector.
Nope. It's not even close. I should know because I've worked in both sectors. As soon as you eliminate the profit motive, you also do away with the need to control costs. Throw in civil service tenure & work rules, & you have an environment ripe for waste.
That's not to say that there aren't hard-working, competent government workers who genuinely want to do the best job possible. Many, if not most, are like this. But the bad ones are truly awful, & getting rid of them is an ordeal. When I was a Federal civil servant, I worked with a fellow who was nicknamed, appropriately enough, Captain Zero. He was far worse than useless, & the rest of us had to do his work in addition to our own. One manager who tried to fire him - unsuccessfully, as it turned out - spent so much time on the paperwork that he - the manager - was criticized on his next performance review for neglecting other job duties. So he gave up & resorted to "volunteering" Captain Zero for jury duty several times a year.
I never saw anything like that in the private sector.
It's clear you fought the good fight. Thanks. It's a pity so few do so -- at least that's certainly the perception.
Daughter-in-law #2 was an administrator in the Kyrene district here in AZ, and she tells similar stories. Between you and her, there are several fewer rotten teachers out there. A drop in the ocean perhaps, but something to hold on to when all seems lost.
A friend of mine who served in the USAF had occasion to visit Offutt AFB a few decades ago. At the time (and maybe to this day) there was a guted minuteman missle on display. Rumor was that it was a monument to the Civil Service -- it didn't work & you couldn't fire it.
They glossed over any problems their reader surveys said were good ones.
Pander to their subscribers instead of advertisers.
Pander to their subscribers instead of advertisers.
People just couldn't predict the Toyota problems were there, it surprised everyone.
CR doesn't have advertisers, so they don't really care about pleasing any company.
They report it as they see it, but can't see something even Toyota didn't see.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
How about this new phenomenon of female teachers seducing young male students?
My question is, why didn't that ever happen to me?
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
2013 Mustang GT, 2001 GMC Yukon Denali
Then, as luck would have it I traded the Solara for a 2010 Avalon (5 rating) just before the gas pedal thing. They really threw me a curve on that one. No one could have predicted that amount of bad publicity. However, Avalon is still a great car.
2013 Mustang GT, 2001 GMC Yukon Denali