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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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@mako1a said: That's cute.
The big 3, and our Oil giants are not playing. They are for sure in bed with each other. That pic proves it. Now it appears they have corrupted the police.. I believe if that BMW was powered by gasoline that little girl would not be getting a ticket. Did you guys happen to notice the officers patch that was the Detroit police.
Hoping........... Mr shift doesn't send me infront of the Edmunds review board. LOL
23 Telluride SX-P X-Line, 23 Camry XSE
Thanks Driver. I know some who think I'm about as sharp as a rubber band.
But, appreciate the nice words.
I need to be clear that I like the Dodge Ram pickup trucks and I like the name. I grew up in farm country and the Ram was an honest animal and a good name.
Here in the Midwest I do see young ladies who have picked that as their truck, but not as many as some years back. I can stereotype but some have picked Honda trucks and Toyota if they still make one--I don't follow that closely. And more have bought into large SUVs.
I think the midsized pickups coming out will once again have the distaff side buying more pickup trucks.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Buttons on the infotainment systems and the feel. I had said I was going to check the ATS out, but I never made it to the Cadillac dealer. We got busy shopping for final purchase of a car. Our new Malibu had a very good touchscreen. I don't notice a lag, but I have no other car to compare it to other than my computer experience with touchscreens. I consider the whole unit well designed for someone like me. The touchscreen buttons are duplicated on a strip of buttons below and between the manual radio on/off/volume and tuning buttons. The voice system works well, but I don't have much experience with it yet. I consider it about 1000% better than the voice control of my TomTom I've had for a year.
Just for the records, I finally decided I loved the Malibu ride and control. Bought a 2014 Malibu. The incentives and test rides won me over against the competition. It's great on the highway and local roads; it handled repaired pavement strips outside Columbus better than my leSabre. On the interstate portion of the drives over and then back it average 39 on the digital readout: 42 with slight east wind going over, and 36 into same wind returning westward.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Who says an electric car is "progress"? You're still burning fossil fuels, but in this case in someone else's back yard. I'd call it more "sideways--gress" Let's see, there must be a better english work for that....PROgress....REgress......DIgress???
Coal (or, worse yet, in the land of the lefties, nuclear) power plants supply the majority of the electric power (at the highest possible efficiency, as has been pointed out here earlier) in the U.S. I wonder how many of the people who drive these things enjoy the reality of driving a coal-powered car instead of depending on petroleum.
You can get electricity from other sources such as nuclear, wind, hydro and solar power.
I am just waiting for some smart guy to start installing solar power systems on garages that would charge up a capacitor or a battery system that would be used to charge up an EV overnight.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Congrats on the new Malibu. They look pretty smart on when I see them. Your mileage numbers are outstanding...if all cars could get that kind of mileage we won't need electric cars.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
I do. My electric car will be powered by the solar panels on my roof. This is what progress looks like. One step at a time. You can keep fighting it on the Internet your whole life, Shift, but the world is still going to change around you.
That was true at one time, but natural gas now makes up the majority at 42%. I believe that switch occurred just last year, but the changeover is occurring very rapidly. Coal is now at something like 29%, a major drop from just a couple of years ago. Interestingly, in 2013, renewable energy made up over a third of new capacity additions NOT including solar rooftop production.
Congrats on the new Malibu. They look pretty smart on when I see them.
Thank you.
I really wanted a car that was slightly more efficient and
was smaller. I've had 3 leSabres in a row with the good 3800
engine that earned 30-32 highway but were more like 22 and 24
in short driving mileage. But this car won me over in test drives, so
I've got a large leSabre for 2nd car and a great handling Malibu.
So I'm happy the Malibu's new engine did that well with just a
couple hundred miles on it for the highway.
I'm stunned by how much the electronics have been involved in
the infotainment center. If we used an Android phone, it would
be even more. Operating the system by three different ways is
real choice. It was more distracting as I was playing with the Info
Center on the way back from Columbus than if I had been texting.
Reading the instruction manual makes me feel
like I'm from another generation. Oh wait, I am from an older
generation. :grin
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Last week was a miserable week. We went through the final round of test drives and negotiating pricing for a car we wanted. We were able to settle on a price and waited for dealer to get a dealer trade car in.
Picking a vehicle and then negotiating is stressful. But this time I was ready to walk away if needed. There were other choices for cars I could have been happy with. But I went in with the one offer concept in mind used by two posters here on Edmunds. We were within that range of that offer
Then I had two computers crash. One was my son's computer from college with all his math and engineering stuff on it. I was doing the regular backup with Win 7 disk image. I first did a cleanup of extra files using Windows cleanup in Accessories. Then when shutting down, the box said it was doing a Windows update. When it restarted, it couldn't boot completely. After a couple of fixes, it booted but wouldn't run a certain dll file needed for email and messaging on a game interchange program for talk among people playing.
WARNING TO ANYONE RELYING ON WINDOWS 7 DISK IMAGE AS YOUR BACKUP:
Then the real reason I'm telling this: the Win 7 disk image from Christmas vacation wouldn't load to resurrect the hard drive back to the exact way it was at Christmas. There's a problem with Windows not being able to load the image on an external hard drive. I had never heard anything about that before or I would have used something else.
The Windows evil villain ray strikes again.
We ended up going back to factory using the built in restore. At 3.5 years and lots of games installed and uninstalled, the hard drive way "dirty" and needed to be cleaned. But we were shopping for a replacement computer for the gaming capability.
Then I had a problem with my 10-year old desktop. It occasionally showed the Microsoft blue screen of death and would boot fine after reseating the SATA cable to the hard drive inside. It wouldn't see one of the two DVD's. My primary use is for 'backing up' DVD movies so my wife can watch them at leisure and then rewrite the DVD with another movie.
So I'll use my 5-year old HP laptop running XP mediacenter which Microsoft villains are not supporting after April 8. They should have just lumped themselves in with the gremlins from the IRS and made XP support expire on April 15. That would better suit their image in my mind.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Imid....congrats on the new Malibu. Just saw those at the car show. Chevrolet has done a nice job with those. Plus, they come with the motors they put in the Cadillac (2.5L and 2.0L turbo).
>
Do you think Salesfrontlines helped you be a better negotiator? Like I said, I think I can contribute about a $20K savings in my last 3 cars because this site toughenned me up.
(I shouldn't say that or they will increase fees)
lol.......Microsoft blue screen of death.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
Yes. The one poster from Louisville always talked about his one offer method. That helped. And GG goes in with his spreadsheet for his one time offer. I took my data sheet. I had my estimate of the real, not the ficticious invoice price, for the car and each of the two variable options, and I took my trusty TI-83
calculator with which to calculate percentages. I had a range of $400.
The saleslady was a longtime professional. When they pulled the 4-square and then hid the $250 pack as a Docment fee in with the tax and title square, I called them on it because it did calculate for that total. Then I reminded her that the Ohio Revised Code says that is for a time contract (loan) sale, not for a cash sale. She looked at me like I had horns. I just negotiated as though that was non existent.
My problem was the Open House sale price reduction portion of the incentives probably included some cost participation by the dealer out of their profit margin, which I estimate to be double the published "invoice price" these days. I remember when invoice was 15% below the MSRP on the sticker exclusive of shipping cost. There was an additional customer cash incentive. If anything, having the used car to trade was a negative. I had to estimate a reality figure for wholesale because it was going in the line on the back of the lot. So they were including a little on the used price. That was born out when the salesperson herself went out to shepherd the used car evaluator on how much to give. She was worried they might not estimate it high enough to suit the calculation price we had included it at.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
imidazol.....BRAVO. Great deal. Big hands clap for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0uMHAliqjo
Not a car you would actually want to drive around in, however, unless maybe it was the size of an aircraft carrier.
I'm all for change and by golly, I'm right up to date--I have just about all the toys, except for the ridiculous ones like Google Glass. I have no fear of change--I embrace it.
However, I mean real change, not the semblence of change, or progress merely to do something differently.
A Tesla is to a 1960s electric car like a modern mountain bike is to a 1910 racing bike. And keep in mind that people pedaled vast distance on those old crates, too.
That's not change, that's evolution.
There would be no Tesla without all the work of all the EVs that went before it--just like your modern jetliner is the descendant of the Wright Brothers.
So it's not the plane that "changed", it's how we used it that changed.
I do. My electric car will be powered by the solar panels on my roof.
Isn't the payback period on solar cells still over a decade? I guess if you put the energy into your instead of the house, you can shorten that up, assuming your 'grid' produces enough electricity to keep the car changed.
Congrats on the new car, My sister drives Malibu's and likes them enough to keep buying them. The ride pretty good from a passenger point of view.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
You are arguing against yourself there. Bicycles today are leaps and bound beyond what bicycles were in 1910.
Not really, bicycles were mainly recreational.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
"Our new Malibu had a very good touchscreen. I don't notice a lag, but I have no other car to compare it to other than my computer experience with touchscreens."
Good luck with the new Malibu. Chevy did a nice job on the redesign.
Sorry for being the last one to respond - was just catching up on posts since I got out of the hospital.
2021 Genesis G90
Seven years in our case, and we'll produce more electricity in a year than we consume. It's intentionally oversized for our current needs. Step one in progress was the addition of 220v power to our garage during the construction phase of our new home, step 2 is the solar install, currently in progress, and step 3 will be the electric car when our Impreza is handed to our daughter. Our plan is to purchase the Tesla Model E or similar in seven years, so by then our solar installation will be fully reimbursed in electrical savings. We'll look at electrical demand with the addition of the car at that time, and consider an additional string on another roof surface depending on actual consumption.
Thanks. We're very happy with what we chose.
Sorry to hear you were in the hospital. Would you bring us up to date on what is going on with you?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Good comment on where electricity comes from. Here's the stats as of 2012
Anything on that list surprise anyone? I didn't know that nuke and wind were as high as they were, and I thought that coal and natural gas were about even by now, but maybe that'll take a few more years.
I'm also not sure what "other renewables" are.
In any event, chances are pretty good your "green" EV is powered by some sort of fossil fuel emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.
Coal 37%
Natural Gas 30%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 5%
Biomass 1.42%
Geothermal 0.41%
Solar 0.11%
Wind 3.46%
Petroleum 1%
Other Gases < 1%
Nope. Bicycles were far from recreational in the 1890s--in fact, the reason America starting building good roads was directly because of the bicycle lobby, not the automobile lobby. The auto enthusiasts just jumped on that bandwagon.
In fact, a man went around the world (well most of it) on a bicycle in the 1880s--he pedaled or carried the thing 13,500 miles.
Some car manufacturers started out as bicycle makers. Bicycling was the rage in America before the car, with thousand and thousands of enthusiasts pedaling all over the country, staging races, etc. These were strong, tough riders, as tough as any mountain biker of today.
A 1918 Detroit Electric was able to go over 200 miles on one charge, in a factory experimental vehicle using the then-new Edison battery (very pricey item in its day, much like a Tesla battery would be today). Of course, speeds were slower than a Tesla, but still---that was almost 100 years ago.
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison (good friends) planned a long chain of "charging stations" for an electric car, one that never came to fruition however. It would have been an interesting collaboration!
So really, there's nothing new about a Tesla, except refinement of the technology. Even the marketing is similar to a Detroit Electric. The DE was a very expensive car, offered to people of refinement who didn't want the muss and fuss of driving a gasoline car, or the maintenance.
Interesting. I learned something from this.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
"Sorry to hear you were in the hospital. Would you bring us up to date on what is going on with you?"
The HEP C is starting to play havoc with my immune system. All the muscles around my thorax and upper abdomen are constantly contracting causing horrendous pain. I really don't have any alternatives at this point.
But the pain is the same as you feel when your calf muscles contract causing pain where you can't walk - but this affects all the muscles in your back, sides and yor diaphragm.
Nothing seems to ease the attacks or pain - even morphine.
2021 Genesis G90
Me, too. I was researching the Detroit Electric because I'm appraising one for a guy. The car uses 14 batteries of the lead-acid type. I'm sure the car would go much further and faster with lithium batteries but with only rear mechanical brakes and all that weight, I don't think that'd be a good idea!
The owner now uses golf cart batteries which cost him $2300. He says he can go 80-100 miles on a charge....but of course, that's at 25 mph.
Henry Ford was quite gung-ho on developing an electric car with Edison. I don't know exactly what derailed their plans.
They built Detroit Electrics up to 1939!
Here are more recent stats for 2013:
cleantechnica.com/2014/
Coal has been surpassed by natural gas and solar has been on a major rise over the last two years.
Imidazol97, Congrats on the new Malibu.Was color or some particular feature important in picking that car?
Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting and including an actual source. Being me, I wouldn't mind another source that agrees, but still very enlightening.
California only gets 1% of its power from coal--as point of comparison, Texas gets 34%.
These charts from PEW Research are pretty interesting:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/26/powered-by-oil-and-gas-u-s-energy-production-is-on-the-rise/
The feature that did it was the 2.5L engine and the car feel of the road during the test drive. The car was taunt on normal roads we drive with waves and tar strips in the city where we purchased. But on the interstate it was quieter than our leSabre 2003 for air noise and a little tire noise more than our new Michelin Defenders on the leSabre which are quiet. I was at 70 mph and didn't realize it. The car sticks to the road without being brutal like the cars some that others like. To each his own. There are varying tire sizes used on Malibus and this has 235x50x18 Goodyears.
I had driven a Verano with the Advanced Safety Features and I liked the cross traffic alert whle backing. I was pleased it was available in the Malibu in the car I wanted. Also the ability to get all I wanted without a sunroof being mandatory. No sunroof for me.
We (I) test drove most of the ones I wanted to try: Accord, Camry, Cruze, Verano, Impala. Wife wouldn't let me try the Kia Optima and Sonata. Their rear seats were shorter than Malibu and she didn't like the entry to passenger side with her back problems and knee.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
@tyguy, what do you do when it snows? This winter, I didn't see my roof for months.
@imidazol97
Mazel-Tov & congrats on the new Malibu!
@abacomike
I saw a White CLS550 4Matic tonight on my way home and was thinking of you. Sorry the Hep C is kicking your rear end right now. Wish I could do something to help.
2001 Prelude Type SH, 2022 Highlander XLE AWD, 2022 Wrangler Sahara 4Xe, 2023 Toyota Tacoma SR 4WD
Thank you.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Around here in sunny Colorado it's a rare day to see south facing roofs covered in snow, particularly black solar panels that can a bit warm.
2013 Mustang GT, 2001 GMC Yukon Denali
Those guys look lonely.
2020 Ascent Limited, 2024 Subaru Legacy Sport
Interesting thing happened with Amazon.com. We were waiting for the latest Jeff Archer
I had this great buying experience from amazon.com.
We had been waiting for the new Jeffery Archer book Be Carefull What You Wish For..it is #4 in the Clifton Series. It was $16 on Amazon.
My wife saw a notice on Amazon and thought she could order it for $11.
She ordered the book for $11, and then realized it was just a special for Book 3, one we already read.
I wrote to amazon to see if we could cancel. In the meantime the book was sitting in our mailbox that very day.
I wrote that we wished to return the book we had already read, and explained that it was mostly our fault for not being careful when we ordered, but partially their fault for sending an ad advertising the old book at that time. The response came back immediately.....You are a Valued Customer and So We Wii Give You a Full Refund and You Can Keep the Book.
What an incredible way to do business. We have probably bought over $1000 worth of stuff on Amazon in the last year, so over a $10 item which is about $6 their cost, they just saved us a lot of time and work returning the item. It would have cost more than that for the cost of transportation back and to restock. I am truly impressed!
In fact so impressed, I ordered the correct book for $16, and bought the new just released Harlan Coben book Missing You for $18 and they will arrive on Thursday! So, they really made more than they lost....that's a smart retailer.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
abacomike....sorry to hear of your health issues. Please take care of yourself.
Shift....while I defer to your much wider knowledge base about cars in general, I've never seen any reliably sourced published data indicating the electrics of the early 1900s stipulating they reached anything near 200 mile ranges, at any speed. The data I saw stated the ranges were around 20 miles at about 25 MPH. Fact is, Henry Ford was able to produce internal combusion cars at 1/3 the price of any electrics, and that killed them. Electrics of that time were viewed as superior vehilces given they didn't smell or make noise.
LIke the Prius, aside from Toyota, no big car manufacturer thought much about hybrids. Now, everyone makes one. And, their numbers are growing.
TESLA has proven that a performance electric car can be made....and made with a car that is viable in everyday driving demands. Moreover, that people want to buy them. It's simple economy of scale until the price goes down. More exciting, I can honestly see myself buying one.
While just one small data point, I was at a mall, in a tiny community, about 10-15 miles from my house recently. They actually had electric plugin stations in their parking lot. That's in a small town in OHIO. That tells me the infrastructure is coming, too.
Fact is, hundreds of thousands of electrics are currently being sold throughout the world. That number is not going down. Matter of fact, that number is going up....exponentially.
Advances in battery tech, weight savings, performance, etc are the things that are making electrics more viable then they've ever been. To me, the revolution is coming because of the economies of scale for electrics.
Congrats on the purchase of your new Malibu. What model is it, the LT or LTZ? We have a 2008 and it still rides and handles like when new. I love the new Malibu but it could be an even more appealing car if Chevy had duplicated the interior console styling of the Cruze. That styling definitely makes the Cruze look upscale and in the Malibu that would be a home run.
Enjoy your new Malibu and thanks for supporting the domestic economy.
Really sorry to hear that. Hope things get better for you soon.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
Welcome to Amazon. I've been a Prime member since son went to college. We have bought most of his books since sophomore year through Amazon. They buy back books that are in Excellent condition and they recognize you purchased the same book earlier. Their shipping back is free. A couple of occasions they have handled things in a similar way that makes me say "Wow." As long as there's no flim flam going on from the customer, it appears that the easiest and fastest way to handle something is within the customer service agent's hands.
I have used their Chat method for instant contact on a problem. I have used their phone contact, where I use my account to get to that point, and they call back immediately instead of giving me a number to call them and wait through phone trees. They have straightened out my mistakes in ordering while on the line or Chat. They have explained other things carefully. These contacts are followed by email evaluations.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Love me some AMAZON PRIME. Talk about customer service coexisting with good pricing....:)
As luck would have it, the NYT had this article this a.m......
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/business/tesla-fights-for-a-place-to-park.html?emc=edit_th_20140318&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=67156851
Personally, I think Musk is one of those visionaries. As such, spreading a little pixie dust is mandatory to get the "vision" out there.
As they say, history repeats itself. Back in 1908 or thereabouts, Henry Ford had a similar problem with ALAM (Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers) but he prevailed. Using this precedent, it won't be long before Tesla will be able to sell its cars directly to the final consumer in every state.
Mr. Shift, an avid student of automotive history, would you care to share some of the ALAM's shenanigans of that era?
Have you Amazon Prime junkies heard about the price hike from $79 to $99?
I've been away for two weeks and spent Monday and yesterday reading the 25 pages of posts that I missed. We took my BIL to Florida so that he could enjoy his lovely home there one last time. We ate out a couple of times but he mainly rested in the warm sunshine on the patio. It proved a major task for him to just shower and dress each day. Though a difficult trip, we enjoyed visiting and recalling happier days of our many travels together. My wife sat with our BIL at times so that I could get my sister out of the house. She desperately needed to vent and make plans for the future. When we returned home, my wife and I had two days to get ready for the Miss North Carolina event at our house. With much help from our housekeeper and gardener, we were prepared on time. At the event, we raised a little over $54,000 for the book purchase project for school children in need. Our 150 guests really pulled out their checkbooks for this one. The 50 guests who were unable to attend were kind enough to send in their donations. It took two days to clean up from that affair and get our home back in order. We're just now feeling a return to normalcy.
In my absence from this thread, I can see that the academic bar has been raised to new and awesome heights. I always knew that my fellow posters were intelligent and insightful, but you have truly conveyed that opinion to a much larger horizon. Within the last two weeks, you have covered 15 different topics, some of which were in great depth based on sound research and careful reasoning. Being more of a liberal arts and visionary learner, I stand in complete amazement of my fellow posters who have such a vast amount of technical knowledge, reasoning abilities, and critical thinking skills. Because of my inept ability to comprehend some of these topics, I won't have many responses, or at the very least, those responses will be short. Rather than doing my usual 100 posts following an absence, I'll try to address a few things in one post.
In memory of Mac: To be continued
Richard
Amazon customer service is awesome. The CEOs of other businesses should be forced to attend an Amazon Training Camp until they "get it".
Now if they could figure out how to make a profit.....