Is It A Good Deal ?

Last month under West Vs. Carfax, Carfax reached a settlement in court on their pending lawsuit. Under the settlement, people who purchased a Carfax vehicle history report before October 27th 2006 are eligible for free or discounted Carfax reports. Another option is a 20% discount on a vehicle inspection for buyers who used a Carfax report on that vehicle in the past. If you don’t opt into the settlement by March 13th you lose your right to sue Carfax if you are injured because of defects in a previously damaged car that a CarFax report claimed was clean.

Tim Blake, a Miami attorney specializing in auto fraud stated, “I’ve found CarFaxes to be accurate less than 60 percent of the time.”

More info: www.westcarsettlement.com

Been browsing ads on Autotrader.com or Cars.com or Automotive.com - For New Cars ? Looking through auction listings on Ebay.com? Looked locally in craigslist.org ?

Buying cars online can be easy and worry free if you know what you’re doing and know what to look out for. Whenever you’re browsing cars online and see a price that just sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Some of those cars might have salvage/rebuilt titles, some may be a scam and some may even be an advertisement just to attract you to that particular dealer.

Here are a few tips I suggest to anyone looking online for their next car:

1) Determine the make and model of the car you’ll be shopping for (Edmunds.com might help you with consumer reviews)

2) Look up estimated market value/private party value and look up trade in value at both KBB.com and Edmunds.com, under True Market Value

3) If you need your own financing I highly suggest you try getting a loan yourself from your local bank or your credit union. If you rather not deal with them I suggest trying Capital One Auto Finance

4) Try to buy any used car for as close as trade in value as possible. I’m a dealer myself and have sold many cars online for under trade in value. Sometimes I find myself paying around trade in value for cars myself and sometimes I am able to buy well under trade in value. Its hard to say if you can actually buy your next car at trade in value, because some specific car models are very hard to purchase for trade in value, yet some are very easy. If you need some help with how much you should pay for a car feel free to e-mail me at the Free Advice link above.

5) When shopping online really important to get the VIN(vehicle identification) number for the cars. Most people automatically say run a Carfax on them, but as you might have read I prefer Autocheck. If you really want to be sure, I’d say run both.

Get a FREE VIN Check from AutoCheck®.

6) For the very overly cautious folks buying a car from another state I suggest having a vehicle inspection service check the car out for you, that can range from $99-299 depending on the location and how complete of a check you want.

FREE Extended Warranty Quote - Save $1000’s on Costly Auto Repairs.

Again if you need any help or advice feel free to e-mail me at the Free Advice link at the top of the page.

Honda has just begun notifying 6 million owners of Hondas and Acuras that they might be entitled to warranty extensions and in some cases even some money. The money is generally for customers who leased cars that were hit with excessive mileage penalties. I’d highly suggest that if you were hit with an excessive mileage penalty you promptly contact Honda or Acura Customer Service and try to make a case for yourself.

Honda says its odometers were accurate to within 3.75% on the high side and 1% on the low side, within the set standard. But it says it will extend the warranty mileage 5% and will pay lease-mileage penalties due to fast odometers, at least $6 million just for overcharges on vehicles leased directly from Honda.

Vehicles covered in the deal: 2002 to 2006 Hondas and Acuras bought from April 13, 2002, to Nov. 7, 2006. Some 2007 Honda Fits also are included.

One issue not covered is this… I’d sue if the following happened to me. Say your Honda’s warranty was good until 50k miles. At 51k miles you had a major problem like a transmission going out. You ended up paying $2500 for this repair. I’d say circumstances like this should be covered. I would definitely try to recover my money from Honda/Acura now.

I’d be happy to help out anybody who may be in the situation, just contact me at the Free Advice button above.

Chrysler is looking to be sold ASAP and there are rumors going around that GM might be interested. Diamler-Chrysler was supposed to be a “marriage made in heaven”. This marriage like most in America looks like it’s headed towards divorce. Diamler the breadwinner in the family is being dragged down by the slacking Chyrsler, which posted a nearly $1.5 billion loss last year. On top of that Chrysler just announced its cutting 13,000 jobs in the US. Go US economy!

Few options on the table right now are… try and attract some foreign car makers, I bet the chinese would like to enter the US market with a heavy foot or maybe even spin off Chrysler on to the stock market.  I’m putting my money on a European car maker buying a majority stake in Chrysler, someone like VW.

Chinese made cars are slowly drumming up US dealer support and you’ll probably be seeing them on the streets within the next year or two. Two of the largest Chinese automotive groups China America Cooperative Automotive Inc., or Chamaco Auto, and Miles Automotive Group recently attended the National Automobile Dealers Association convention trying to sign up dealers to sell their cars.

Chamaco is planning on entering the US market with a pickup and SUV. Hoping to sell roughly 75k cars in their first year and 200,000 in the next.\

Another large Chinese manufacturer, Chanfeng Auto Group has been displaying cars at the recent Detroit Auto Show.

The question is really going to be how dependable are these Chinese cars going to be. Are they going to be in the same league as Daewoo or come in as strong as a vehicle as Honda or Toyota ? Personally I think these cars are going to be cheaply made, cheaply sold and unreliable vehicles. We’ll see…

General Motors announced today that until February 20th they will offer zero-percent financing on many 2006 and 2007 models after an almost 20 percent drop in sales for January.

Most models sold in the Midwest and the Northeast will only be eligible for a $500 cash bonus and aren’t included in the financing offer.

This one week incentive does not include the Hummer, Cadillac and Saab models, as well as the Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, Saturn VUE Hybrid, Corvette Z06 and medium duty trucks.

My question is this… will one week of incentives really make any sort of difference?

Last week General Motors unveiled a new Pontiac sedan at the Chicago Auto Show. The new G8 will be available in both 3.6L six cylinder putting out 261 horsepower or a 6.0L eight cylinder putting out a whopping 362 horsepower, both in rear wheel drive.

CNN Story

General Motors recently announced that it will now begin providing consumers with a fully transferable five year/100,000 mile powertrain limited warranty, on all GM Certified Used Vehicles. Just recently GM had introduced greater warranty coverage for their new cars and trucks, but this announcement takes it a step farther and moves into the used car market.

The new GM Certified 5-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty with no deductible applies only to GM Certified Used Vehicles (Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile and Pontiac) brands. Saturn Certified Pre-Owned vehicles are expected to announce a similar program later this year.

Cadillac Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles, Saab Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles and HUMMER Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles operate separate programs - each of those programs has a 6-year/100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper limited warranty effective from the vehicle’s in-service date.

This past week Ford announced at the Chicago Auto Show that it is ditching the Ford Five Hundred name and going back to the Taurus as well as dropping the Mercury Montego to bring back the Sable. At the same time the Ford Freestyle crossover will now be called the Ford Taurus X.

The whole idea to drop the Taurus for the Five Hundred from the beginning was doomed. The Taurus is a name known all across the US to many generations. You have a product that is as well branded as lets say Coke and you drop it for a name that nobody recognizes. To this day I’d say maybe only 10-15% of consumers recognize the Five Hundred model, while 80% probably recognize the Taurus name.

Why spends hundreds of millions of dollars to brand a new name for virtually the same vehicle? In todays domestic auto market money can’t be thrown away like this, every dollar counts to keep Ford going. One piece of advice to Ford, drop the price of the new Taurus when you release it. Currently the Ford Five Hundred is in the range of $23-25k, while the Taurus should be debuted back into the market for under $20k.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Taurus can survive the comeback out of retirement.

Looks like the truth might finally come out about Carfax. Under West vs. Carfax, Inc. the Plantiff, West, claims that Carfax violated the consumer protection laws of all fifty states by not properly disclosing terms and conditions for, and limitations of, Carfax Vehicle History Reports. Carfax denies all of Plaintiff’s claims of wrongdoing.

On April 27, 2007 a judge will hold a hearing to decide if he will approve a settlement to customers of Carfax who purchased a report before October 27th, 2006.

Class Members who remain in the settlement can claim a Voucher good for $20.00 off a vehicle inspection by a designated third party within six months of final approval of the settlement, a Voucher good for two free Carfax Vehicle History Reports from Carfax within one year of final approval of the settlement, a Voucher for one free Carfax Vehicle History Report from Carfax within two years of final approval of the settlement, or a Voucher for 50% off an unlimited number of Carfax Vehicle History Reports (for personal, not commercial use) over 30 consecutive days within three years of final approval of the settlement. The Court will also order Carfax to make certain changes in its disclosures and contracting process with customers.

To join this settlement or get more information about the class action lawsuit, visit: West Vs. Carfax