Is It A Good Deal ?

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Three top investors in the automotive industry painted a grim picture on Sunday for the sector in 2008, with one executive predicting a possible slump in U.S. sales to levels not seen in 15 years.

The weakest forecast is for a possible 9.4 percent decline. But all three — Jerry York, an adviser to billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian; financier Wilbur Ross; and Thomas Stallkamp, a former Chrysler president — were more pessimistic than many in the battered industry.

“While I am very negative on the autos sector over the next 12 to 18 months, I’m just not sure how bad it could be,” York, a former board member of General Motors Corp and chief financial officer of Chrysler, said at the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit. “We all know housing is a debacle.”

U.S. light auto sales could slip to 15.5 million or less next year, York said. That would be down from near 16 million this year, a drop of 3 percent to mark the second consecutive annual decline and the lowest tally since 1998.

Stallkamp, a partner at private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, which owns several auto parts makers, said the market could slump to 14.5 million, the lowest level since 1993.

“I’d say it’s somewhere between 14.5 (million) and 15 (million), somewhere in there and it’s hard to tell,” he said. “Today, I’m a little more towards 14.5 (million).”

Such a decline would be felt throughout the sector, CSM Worldwide auto analyst Michael Robinet said.

“That would certainly be one of the worst years on record given the gravity of the industry,” he said.

U.S. auto sales fell almost 11 percent in 1991, when the economy was in recession.

Ross, an investor who specializes in restructuring troubled businesses and has assembled an auto parts empire through acquisitions, said the U.S. consumer was “pretty well tapped out” as he predicted auto sales would slip a few hundred thousand units from this year.

Most automakers have predicted U.S. auto sales next year in the range of just under 16 million to 15.5 million, with Japan’s Nissan Motor Co Ltd at the low end.

However, the crumbling U.S. housing market is spooking consumers, the investors said.

“I hope I’m wrong on 14.5 (million) to 15 (million),” Stallkamp said. “But I think the mortgage issue is going to freak people out and that will hit pretty hard in ‘08.”

Ross called it “a sort of poverty effect from house prices going down.”

The U.S. automakers’ market shares will suffer more than foreign rivals in such a weak market, Stallkamp said.

“You’re going to see some continued retrenchment in construction and the building trades that will hit the Big Three particularly,” he said.

The investors see the Big Three U.S. automakers cutting factory production instead of returning to overly generous discount deals such as GM’s zero-percent financing offers, first rolled out after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“I think you’re going to see less discounting in general,” Ross said. “Now that they have a little better control of the factories and now that the factories are a little more right sized.”

None of the three predicted a recession for the U.S. economy in 2008, but York said “it feels like it’s on the way.”

Stallkamp, on the other hand, sees global credit markets stabilizing in the first half of 2008, with the holiday shopping season a key indicator. He sees U.S. auto sales coming back in 2009.

The U.S. automakers, already slashing jobs and factory production, will “have to get smaller faster” and push for more sales overseas in a weaker market, Stallkamp said.

“Maybe I’m too pessimistic on how low it’s going to go,” he said of the U.S. market. “Maybe I live in Michigan. This is a pretty crummy place to be right now.”

(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta, James B. Kelleher and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Braden Reddall)

Source: Yahoo Financial

Great article over at HowStuffWorks.Com about “How Car Financing Works”. Goes through types of financing available, financing sources, why you should shop for your own loan and much, much more!

Remember if you need any help with financing or have any questions feel free to ask us at the Free Advice Here link above.

How Car Financing Works Article

1. First and foremost know your total car cost! Even if you don’t understand a single thing about a lease, do yourself a quick check and multiply the payments by the term, add any incentives or rebates, add any down payment, and add the cost of the car at the end of the lease (residual value).

Payments *(term) + Incentives + Rebates + Down payment + Amount due at end of lease (Residual value) = Total cost of car.

Why is this important? Simple, you can compare this to doing traditional financing. In most cases, the lease of the car should cost close to financing the car. Lease factors and interest rates vary slightly, but it is still a good gauge. If they feed you lines that lease rates are not good because banks are only offering special interest rates, then maybe you should not lease. This is almost always not true, if the banks are running good interest rates they probably have good lease rates.

2. Come prepared with traditional financing costs! This is important for step 1. Calculate the cost of the car using interest rates from 1-6% and 36-60 months. If you don’t know how to do this search our site for loan amortization or download our free loan tool for MS excel. Simply calculate the payment for 1%,2%,3%,4%,5%,and 6% and in any incentives and rebates, and down payment.

Now you have something to compare. If the total cost of the lease in step 1 is close to the total cost of the car is step two at 5%, then you know your car if purchased at the end of the lease would be similar to buying the car at 5% interest. If the buy financing offered by the dealer is 0% for this loan period then you know you have work to do as the lease is a lot more expensive.

3. OK, so you compared total cost and they equal the appropriate interest rate, am I getting a good deal? This is where leases become confusing for the average consumer. The answer is probably not if you plan on turning in the car at the end of the period. Why? Leasing in other words is financing the depreciation of the car. We have all heard the expression “the car loses value the minute you drive it off the lot”. This is true, usually in the neighborhood of 20%, this loss in value is what you are paying for in a lease. So, if you pay more than the expected loss of the car of the term you choose you are not getting a good deal.

4. Don’t put a lot of money down! This is the single easiest way to set your wallet on fire. Remember in tip #3 that you are financing the estimated depreciation. If you put money down, the dealer can put the money towards the residual value of the car and give you a low payment. If you trade you car in at the end of the lease you just lost your down payment.

5. Ok what is the proper amount to put down? In my opinion nothing. It is a lease, however, we can’t always qualify for that so do a simple check. Calculate the following: payments*term + down payment + rebates and incentives. Look at that number and then ask yourself is this how much the car is going to loss value in over the term I am looking at? For example, if you do this math on a 30K car that you want to lease for 36 months and the value equals 20K, then something is wrong. Either you payment is to high, you down payment is to high, or they did not give you the rebates. Warning, when doing this compare keep in mind that you pay interest in the lease based on the lease factor so your numbers may be off a little depending on the lease factor they gave you. If you did step one and two, then you know you approximate equivalent interest rate and you should be able to determine a reasonable amount to factor in.

6. Leasing is financing the depreciation of the car! I know this has been said before, but it is so important to understand this. There is no need to have a residual value at the end of the lease that is below what you think the value of the car is going to be at the end of the term. Your payment should be the lowest you can get while keeping the residual value high or above the estimated value of the car at the end of the lease. This seems the opposite of what you would thing, right? Well, if your residual value is higher than the car is worth at the end of the lease, then you are in effect renting the car for less while you are driving it which is the object of a lease (very important: remember all you checks in step 1 and 2, it is you check that they have applied all amounts).

7. In most cars, 36-month leases are optimal. Why? It has to do with depreciation. Any longer and your paying for a steeper rate of decline and it does not make sense to do that.

8. Never do off - term loans (i.e. 39-months, 52-months, etc)! These are designed to build in better profit margins while looking better to the consumer. I have never seen one in that is better then a traditional term loan. They might be out there, but if you go down that path be sure you know how to fully calculate everything on the loan because if you don’t you are probably better off pulling all your cash out of your wallet, handing it to the dealer, and then leaving.

Before you lease always know at least how to do the tips above and please do more homework. Leases are very easy for dealers to make incentives and down payments disappear. I firmly believe, that with out leasing the car dealers would be in far worse condition profit wise today.

Be wise, do you homework and happy leasing! Send questions out to the public in the comments!

Scammed! That’s what happened to several Web surfers who applied for an auto loan at the Allstate Auto Lending Web site, police say. I spoke with four of the people who are claiming that they were ripped off by this site, and they say they lost between $650 and $1500 each. They maintain that the operator of the Web site took their money–and their hopes for a new car–and vanished.

“I play it pretty safe online, and really never thought I would end up being the person that this would happen to,” says Karen Maxwell, a human resources manager from the Bronx, in New York City. Like each of the people I spoke to, Maxwell says she found Allstate Auto Lending listed as an advertiser in the sponsored links section of Yahoo’s search results. She applied for a loan on the site and was approved. She was instructed to wire $941 to “Bill Wallace”–the person listed as the operator of the Allstate Auto Lending Web site, which claims to be based in Santa Cruz, California. That $941 is long gone.

Maxwell is one of several people who told me that Allstate Auto Lending lured them into handing over their money by offering low interest rates and easy credit approvals for an auto loan.

“This is without question a scam that deceived and took advantage of high-risk borrowers,” says Zach Friend, a spokesperson for the Santa Cruz Police Department. Friend says his department has received 6 complaints against the site, which is no longer operational. Those complaints have been forwarded to the Texas State Attorney General’s office, where the operator of the Web site is believed to be based, he says. The Santa Cruz Better Business Bureau, too, has received 12 complaints over the last four months alleging that Allstate Auto Lending took money from consumers and disappeared.
AWOL Auto Loan Firm

All of the alleged victims I talked to say they were approved for a car loan through a credit application they filled out at Allstate’s site. When their application was approved, they were told to put about 5 percent of the loan amount in escrow as an insurance policy, should they default on the loan. Each of them handed over their Social Security number, their bank account information, and a copy of their driver’s license. They were then told to use a money-wiring service called Moneygrams to send their escrow payment to Palm Bank in Bradenton, Florida.

The problem? There is no Palm Bank in Bradenton, Florida. The money reportedly went instead to a prepaid Visa credit card account. Friend suspects no one will ever get their money back.
Even the Web Savvy Are Fooled

Geoffrey Kogler, a New Jersey-based air traffic controller for the U.S. Air Force, says the day he went down to pick up a black Chevy S-10 pickup truck at the dealer was the day he realized he’d been ripped off for $750.

“I felt stupid,” Kogler says. He says that Allstate Auto Lending told him that it would transfer the money needed to buy the car he wanted directly to the dealership selling it. All Kogler would have to do was pay the $750 escrow payment to Allstate Auto Lending, and then he could pick up the car the next day.

“Not only am I out the money, but this guy has everything he needs to steal my identity,” Kogler says.

As naïve a mistake as these folks may have made, don’t write them off as Internet rubes who deserve what they got. After interviewing them, I found that they had been online for years and considered themselves Web savvy. Most were comfortable paying bills and banking online. And most didn’t fit the profile I conjure up as the type of person who falls for what is known as an advance-fee loan scam.

My point is this: Even if you consider yourself an experienced Internet user, you need to keep your guard up. The good news is that for any Net surfer, no matter how experienced or inexperienced, there are tools to help and a checklist of pitfalls to watch out for online.
Learn From Their Mistakes

Lakewood, New York, resident Dawn Hammond, like the other people I interviewed, found Allstate Auto Lending listed in Yahoo’s search results. Hammond says she was scammed to the tune of $847. Like the others, she says the fact that Allstate Auto Lending was advertising on Yahoo led her to trust the site.

That was their first mistake: It’s important to scrutinize online advertisers as closely as you would any site you find using a search engine. A study coauthored by McAfee and antispyware activist Ben Edelman found that 9 percent of sponsored results from top search engines, including Yahoo, lead to Web sites that contain spyware and scams, and could be operated by people who send spam.

McAfee offers a free Internet Explorer and Firefox browser add on called SiteAdvisor that puts little green, yellow, and red caution icons next to search results’ sites and sponsored links when it thinks you should be wary of them. Such a tool could have prevented Hammond and others from doing business with a disreputable or unknown company.
Fake Logos or Lack Thereof

Another reason that the people I spoke with said they trusted Allstate Auto Lending’s Web site was because it had the Better Business Bureau’s BBBOnLine Reliability logo on it.

The logo suggested that the site had been endorsed by the BBB as reliable, says Andrea, an Arizona resident who says she lost $1493 to Allstate Auto Lending. (I agreed to honor Andrea’s request not to identify her hometown or use her last name.)

The BBB does have a BBBOnLine Reliability seal program, but Allstate Auto Lending is not part of that program–despite the fact that it displayed the logo, says Zach Vander Meeden, a BBB spokesperson. In fact, the only affiliation the site has with the BBB is 12 complaints filed against it to the Santa Cruz Better Business Bureau, he says. Those complaints claim the site never delivered on loans after customers wired the firm money.

You should always click on the BBB logo presented at a site. Any company worth its salt should link you directly to its BBBOnLine report for your review. If the BBB logo doesn’t link directly to a report, visit the BBB’s Web site and look up the company yourself.

Another visual clue to look for is a browser icon that looks like a padlock in the bottom corner of your browser. If the padlock is locked, that means the site uses an encryption system called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to protect customer information that is typed online and transmitted across the Internet. Allstate Auto Lending didn’t utilize this security measure–another cause for concern given the sensitive information the online application asked for.

You also shouldn’t be fooled by official-looking paperwork. Hammond said she downloaded Allstate Auto Lending’s paperwork and took it to both her bank and the car dealership. “I wanted to get their opinion as to whether the company looked legitimate,” Hammond says. She says her bank and the dealership said the paperwork looked fine, and both suggested going with Allstate Auto Lending because neither of the potential lenders could offer a better deal.
Been There, Done That

Kogler–the New Jersey-based air traffic controller–says securing loans over the Internet was old hat for him. He was hoping that this would be the third successful loan he applied for and received through an Internet-based financial institution.

The lesson here: Always be vigilant when doing anything over the Internet when it concerns your personal and financial information. Unsavory opportunists prey on consumers, hoping to scam you into thinking they are someone you can trust.

Typically, scammers try to weasel their way to your money by pretending to be one of your financial institutions–sending you an e-mail prompting you to take some sort of action with your account. This, they hope, will lure you to a fake site (also known as a “phishing” site) that masquerades as the official site, where your account information is requested and then stolen.

A good antiphishing toolbar can go a long way toward preventing you from making a costly mistake. You can also update your Firefox browser to the most recent version, which includes built-in antiphishing technology to warn you of dangerous sites. Internet Explorer 7 also includes built-in antiphishing safeguards.
Take Your Time Shopping

My last tip: Don’t rush into anything online. Kogler says he was hoping to get his loan from Allstate Auto Lending so he could buy a new car to take home for an upcoming vacation. In retrospect, if he hadn’t been in such a rush to buy a car, he says, he might have had more time to scrutinize who he was about to hand over his money to.

“I thought I would be driving to upstate New York in a new Chevy pickup,” says Kogler. “Instead I got ripped off and had to drive my motorcycle in the rain.”

Each of the other people I interviewed was also in a hurry to buy a car. I can’t help but think that their rush to take advantage of what they thought was a good deal caused them to let their guard down just enough to allow a company to take advantage of them.

Avoid getting stuck in the rain yourself the next time you buy online, and be prepared and do your homework. If you end up a victim of a scam, you can file complaints to numerous consumer watchdog and law enforcement agencies.

The Texas Attorney General’s office declined to comment on any investigation into Allstate Auto Lending. However, the office urges anyone who has a problem with the company to file a complaint online.

You can also file a complaint about a suspected online scam with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is a joint venture of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. In addition, you can register a complaint with the BBB, which not only will keep your complaint on file, but will also try to resolve the complaint.

In cases like Allstate Auto Lending, unfortunately, you may have little hope of recovering your money. But your complaint will alert authorities to take action against the firm–which just may prevent others from getting ripped off.

Tom Spring - PCWorld.Com

Honda Motor Co.’s luxury Acura division topped a consumer satisfaction survey intended to measure how well U.S. car shoppers felt they were treated in dealer showrooms whether or not they bought a vehicle on the spot.
The study, released on Monday by Pacific Grove, California-based sales consultancy Pied Piper, showed Acura in first place, followed by Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F - GM - news) Saturn.

Automakers such as Toyota Motor Corp have made an effort to improve the quality of dealer service intended to address long-standing complaints that dealers can be pushy, neglectful or less than transparent when explaining vehicle features and financing options.

“The dealerships that scored well all give customers a reason to be interested other than the deal,” said Fran O’Hagan, study author and president of Pied Piper. “Acura dealers were very consistent in all categories.”

European import and luxury brands dominated the study, which was based on a combination of results from a survey of random shoppers leaving 1,592 auto dealerships and results from paid researchers posing as car shoppers.

The brands rounding out the top 10 were VW (VOWG.DE), Nissan, GM’s Saab, Audi (NSUG.DE) and BMW (BMWG.DE), according to Pied Piper.

Hagan said research showed up to 30 percent of U.S. vehicle shoppers do not buy on the same day they visit a showroom, making satisfaction with the shopping experience key for automakers struggling to find sales in a declining U.S. market.

The study ranked 12 brands below the industry average, including all three mass-market offerings from the Detroit-based automakers: Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler.

Toyota, Hyundai Motor Co. Ltd. and Honda Motor Co. were ranked at the industry average in the first-of-its kind study.

Next time you’re booking a reservation for a rental car try out one of these codes: Link

Ask the Sales Consultant: Experts who advise car dealers on how to boost sales offer their car buying advice.

Three decades ago, renowned sales trainer Zig Ziglar walked into a Dallas car dealership to buy a Cadillac Sedan deVille. He was greeted by master car salesman Chuck Bellows. The occasion may represent one of the greatest selling matchups of all time.

As he recalled in his best-selling book, ‘Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale,’ the pair sparred at length over the value of Ziglar’s trade-in and what he would have pay to get his new car. In the end, Ziglar got the price he wanted, but not before dissecting and savoring each of Bellows’ perfectly executed selling and closing techniques. Years later, he devoted an entire chapter of his book to his encounter at the car dealership.

Although consumers now have access to pricing and rebate data that no buyer had in the 1970s, few car shoppers have Ziglar’s knowledge of the selling process. There is hope, however, for the mere mortals on the buying side of the great sales divide. High-powered sales consultants to new and used car dealers naturally know a great deal about the transactions’ flip side. And they can be persuaded to share their insights.

Their advice: Choose a good car dealership. Use your information on invoice pricing as effectively as possible. And pay close attention to the “back end” of the deal where the real money is riding today. Sales consultants recommend, in particular, that buyers shop just as hard for the car dealership as they would for the car or truck. That’s what they would be doing when making a purchase if they didn’t already know many new and used car dealers first-hand due to their work.

“I think there are some alternatives that most consumers aren’t using,” says Mark Rikess, CEO of The Rikess Group, a consulting and training firm in Burbank, Calif. “I would probably check the blogosphere a lot more than most consumers are doing today. There is more and more blogging on dealerships.” Many Web searches will find much more than car dealership advertising, he says. “I would see if someone has complained about it or has said it is a great place to do business.”

In this early research phase, Rikess also recommends contacting three nearby car dealerships to “see who responds quickly and who is going to be the greatest help. This isn’t necessarily about the best price. I would be looking for someone who furnishes me with all the information I want in a timely manner.”

Once buyers identify a potential car dealer, Rikess says they should “take control of the process. If consumers have a pretty good idea of what their trade-in is worth and what they should be paying for a vehicle, they should leverage that homework, that research, upfront in the process. I might say, ‘Tell me, at a minimum, what the ball park is for this vehicle before we go any further.’ And if the car dealership isn’t amenable to that, I would probably move on.”

Presuming the consumer eventually finds the right new or used car dealer, the deal could play out the way car dealership training and vehicle financing expert Alan Algan bought his BMW Z in 2004. He paid $1,000 below invoice after researching prices and rebates. “The dealership had a couple of vehicles that had been sitting there for six or seven months, and the staff said they would just love to get rid of them,” says Algan, who is CEO of the Automotive Dealership Institute in Scottsdale, Ariz.

In this era of low vehicle profit margins, Algan has been able to buy a number of cars for $500 above invoice after he found out that the vehicles enjoyed hefty rebates and had been languishing on dealers’ lots. It’s true that the wide availability of pricing information has strengthened the buyer’s bargaining position. The right car dealership program can shave hundreds or thousands of dollars off the invoice.

But consultants point to the large sums still on the table after the parties agree on a price for the vehicle. It may well represent the only potential profit the car dealership sees in the deal. As a result, it will be especially determined to get some of it. The money will stay on the table until they hammer out the value of any trade-in as well as financing, insurance or warranty details.

“There’s been a profit shift from the front end to the back end,” Algan says. Customers can take precautions so they won’t lose ground after their pricing deal. One suggestion is not to venture into the “back end” in the first place.

“If I were going to advise a relative, and I were looking at this strictly from a consumer’s point of view, I would say don’t finance it at the dealer. Do get a low rate. Don’t buy anything from the finance office unless you definitely need it for some good personal reason,” says Jeff Bennett, a former Toyota dealer who teaches automotive marketing at Northwood University in Midland, Mich.

He adds, “Sell your car yourself, and sell it before you buy a new car, if possible.” But Algan notes that even the best deal can quickly evaporate if the car dealership doesn’t have some way of making money. If he were to walk into a car dealership and insist on invoice pricing for a $20,000 car, Algan says, “The sales staff will spend hours and hours trying to get me to move up to maybe $21,000 or $22,000.”

If he holds out, the sales manager might give him a chance to buy the car for $20,000, if and only if he agrees to have the car dealership arrange financing. “If I say, ‘I have my checkbook with me, and I’d like to write you a check for the whole amount,’ he’ll say ‘I don’t think so. Good luck to you.’ And he will let me go.”

In some situations, automakers are also helping new and used car dealers make money at the back end, Algan says. The alarm system is one example. Vehicles are manufactured with the wiring for an alarm system already installed, he says. But automakers sell the alarm itself separately, for as much as $1,200, and the price is added to the cost of the new vehicle.

If buyers say they are tempted to buy a $300 alarm at a big-box electronics store, the car dealership’s staff might gravely warn them that its installation could void the vehicle’s warranty if it damaged the on-board computer. Then comes the counter-proposal. If they buy the manufacturer’s alarm, its price could be rolled into the financing and cost just an extra $12 or so a month.

“This is legitimate,” Algan says. “It’s a good product, it’s built specifically for the vehicle, it’s covered under the warranty, and the dealer makes another $800 or $900 on the alarm system.”

Bennett stresses that car dealerships need be profitable, and not just so they can prosper. They need good cash flow to provide good service. Firms operating on a shoestring have a tough time doing that, he notes.

The bottom line for the customer: A single mechanical breakdown far from civilization could easily wipe out the gains from even the most exquisitely negotiated deal. That’s another good reason for finding a good car dealership in the first place.

By GARY HOFFMAN, AOL AUTOS Source

Tampa, Florida — If you’re in the market for a used car there are many precautions you need to take.

Jayson Rosenberg says he learned the hard way. He bought a Jaguar at Jaguar of Tampa. He says he thought he got a good deal, until someone looked under the hood.

“They thought it was a rebuilt car, when I was getting my oiled changed.” Jayson says.

Jayson said he was unhappy with the car he bought so he returned to Jaguar of Tampa to try and get a different car. And he says when he asked about the damage he was told it was never in an accident. He says they told him they painted the front of the car to get the love bug damage off.

That’s when Jayson called 10 News and we wanted to find out what, if anything, was wrong with the car.

“There is existing damage on this vehicle, potential problems for the owner.” says the manager of Caladesi auto shop, a collision specialists certified by triple A.

We asked them to go through the car inch by inch.

They told us, “there definately was an accident, multiple panels have been affected, something has been impacted into the hood. Everyone of these bolts has been tooled, meaning this fender and hood have been off.”

We asked Jaguar of Tampa about what Caladesi discovered. Rob Elder, the owner of the dealership told me on the phone he had no knowledge of any major damage from an accident.

However, 10 News has uncovered police reports and repair invoices showing the Jaguar in one accident in July 2003 in Bradenton where damage estimate was $2000.

There was another accident in California. This one more serious — 15 to 20 thousand dollars worth of damage.

Jaguar of Tampa gave this car a 140 point inspection and certified the vehicle was in good working condition.

According to state prosecutors, “It is not a crime to not disclose previous damage to a car,” but buyers who have been sold damaged vehicles can go through civil court to seek restitution.

Again, Mr. Elder denied knowing about the damage. He also denied our requests for an on camera interview, but he did send us a written response saying when Jayson brought the car back to the dealer “There was disagreement about the condition of the car.” He also said his dealership is consistently recognized for its quality customer service.

Carfax also gave this vehicle a clean title, meaning no accidents. But that’s no guarantee. In fact Carfax representatives say “There is no way for us to know about every accident that may have occurred in a cars past.”

Meanwhile Jayson says he wants everyone to learn from his experience. He says, “One thing I’d like to see happen is for people to be aware and get it checked out.”

Source:Reginald Roundtree, Tampa Bay’s 10News

Faulty Air Bag Replacements Put Consumer Lives At Risk

CENTREVILLE, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Industry experts estimate that as many as one out of 25 previously damaged vehicles may have non-functional air bags. Con men purposely replace deployed air bags with anything from packing peanuts to stolen units. This growing scam is threatening the lives of used car buyers everywhere. To help consumers protect themselves, Carfax now makes the air bag deployment information in its database available for free.

“No question, air bags are a lifesaver,” said Larry Gamache, communications director at Carfax. “To best protect yourself, follow these two important steps: Use the free Carfax air bag check and always have your mechanic test the air bag system to ensure it’s functioning properly before you buy. Do not assume your car’s air bags will deploy when you need them, because most victims of this scam may never know until it’s too late.”

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, nearly 20,000 lives have been saved by air bags deploying in an accident. As the height of used car buying season quickly approaches, consumers need to be on the lookout for scams like air bag fraud that can threaten their safety.

“While we don’t know about every air bag deployment, we want consumers to have access to what we do know,” added Gamache. “We also encourage all of our customers who have information about a previous air bag deployment not currently in our database to tell us so we can further help consumers steer clear of this scam.”

Consumers can log on to www.carfax.com/airbag to access the free Carfax air bag check and can report air bag deployment information using the “Tell Us What You Know” link on all consumer-purchased Carfax Vehicle History Reports.