Automotive ennui

"New-car sales are sagging in America and car makers are blaming the
housing slump or the credit crunch. I suspect something else. I suspect
boredom.

"Face it. A lot of the cars sold in America are just dull..."

Wall Street Journal article: http://301url.com/cf7

 

Much truth to that. I hesitated buying for a year because I did not know
what I wanted and nothing excited me.

 

Recently they have more TV car ads that sell you certified preowned
vehicles?

 

Well, throwing caution to the wind, I bought an 07 Malibu Maxx SS. I
don't know what "boredom" refers to in car talk, but if a sleek
design, practical family car, and powerfully fast as a personal car is
any indication of a lack of boredom, I think I've found the answer.
Now all I have to do is pay for it!!

 

The Malibu Maxx is the epitome of boredom. It's a great family car
and it's got a pretty good price on it but I'd sooner walk than have
to drive another of those miserable things ever again.

Steve B.

 

Wonder what you all think of the 2002 Corolla CE. It's pretty boring
looking but it runs great and has given me no problems which to me is
a great reason alone to own one. I'd love one day to own a sweet
looking car but for now in my life, this car has served me well in
that it looks OK and runs flawlessly.

 

I thought one could buy most of the world's cars sold in the western world
in the USA. Notable exceptions are, I think, Alfa Romeo (lovely cars, love
to spend time in garages) and Citroen.

There must be something exciting among them.

DAS

For direct replies replace nospam with schmetterling

 

Went to buy a new chevy avalanche. Found out they had a motor that cuts off
4 cylinders at highway speeds. After remembering the cadillac 4-6-8 engine.
I decided against a new chevy. Not just dull, not what I wanted.

 

Don't know how well it would work in the Avalanche but I just rented a
Impala LT earlier this month from Hertz. I drove it for about four days
before discovering it had their new engine that goes from 6 cylinders to 3.

I was impressed. Overall mileage was about 26.5 in mixed driving.
Tooling along outside Phoenix on I-17 at 80m/h on dead level or a VERY
slight downgrade showed instantaneous mileage readings in the 45-49 mpg
range.

Once I discovered it was there and dialed in the indicator in the DIC, I
simply could NOT tell when it was running on 3 or 6 cylinders without
seeing it on the indicator. Absolutely no lag or surge.

Very nice ride indeed.

How it will perform over the long term remains to be seen but I suspect
Chevy may have a winner.

 

Great on flat ground but how would it do in the mountains? What happens when
it breaks I am sure it will be CHEAP to fix. Gas mileage is not everything
you have to include future repairs too. Especially when most people run
their cars well over 100k miles.

 

Bingo. That's one of the problems with all the "money saving" or safety
technology - they do fail - not all of them at the same time, but let's
say you have 30 technological wizbangs on your car. There's a good
chance several are going to fail at some point. Some are cheap to fix,
some will cost more than the value of the car when it gets some age and
mileage on it (*especially* if you are not a DIY'er and parts
scrounger). Try selling or trading in a car when two or three
electronic things (ABS, tranny controls, seat heaters and air
conditionaers) are not working and see what that does to the value.

And God help you if an insurance company is totaling out your car and
discovers things missing or not working. They deduct fullup OEM parts
prices and labor from the value of your car for everything - whether
anyone really cares if it works or not - like that they can find.
Doesn't take long, with their fraudlently low NADA starting numbers to
get your actually-worth-$5000 car down to $2500 or less.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Another great reason to keep my '92 Corolla Wagon!

No Air Bags to fail.

Just a damend good car that gets me where I want to go without hassle!

 

While I don't doubt they can do this Bill - I have never had this happen to
a single claim. I have never had any form of deduct on a claim other than
the standard deductions per NADA - things like high mileage, lack of certain
options from the factory. Certainly never because a particular thing did
not work.

My best friend is an adjuster for a large insurance company and if this were
practice, he'd have talked about it. Rather, despite what most people like
to claim, most insurance claims pay pretty accurately.

 

We can disagree then. Ask your friend if he allows adders for upgrades
done to the car. I'm going thru this right now.

A differnt twist, but about 6 years ago, I had an adjuster stand in my
driveway and deduct full OEM price for all trim moldings from the total
out value of a car because I had gotten "new" ones (perfect condition
ones out of a junk yard) and had pulled the old ones off. Both sets
were sitting on the bench in my garage during the accident and with him
standing in my driveway doing the evaluation. I told him the old and
new pieces were right over there in the garage. He refused to look at
them and refused to take the brand new OEM part subtractor off of his
total out value work sheet.

And yes - the NADA values are fraudulently low. Easily provable with
real market numbers and with other blue books. The banking industry
uses them to minimize the loan value on a car to cut their risk on
collateral loans, and the insurance industry uses them to cut their
costs on total outs, and it's fraudulent. The adjusters are trained in
doing this, and no doubt your freind actually believes the BS he was
trained in.

Why do you think their standard line when you challange them to find you
an equivalent car for the same money is "We're not in the business of
buying cars"? It's because you just called their bluff and that's their
only way out - by not having to actually find an equivalent car for what
they're saying it's worth. Tell them you're not asking them to find and
buy one for you, you just want them to prove it's possible, and they'll
refuse to go thru the effort. Once again, you called their bluff, and
they have no answer beyond "We're not in the business of buying cars".
Run a little experiment and ask your friend if your car was totalled, if
they would find one to replace it with. See if he doesn't use that
*exact* line (that he was trained to use if he is ever challenged).

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Ditto... I have been with State Farm for around thirty years now and never have
been short changed by them. But I do see most my friends screw themselves when
it comes to insurance claims because they never even bother to read the policy.


I learned my lesson when someone stole my 1966 Baja VW. I paid extra to
have the ins policy show the value of the car at $3,500 so the insurance co could
not screw me if it got totaled or something. Or so I thought. LOL
When the adjuster told me I was just throwing money away doing that because
it makes no difference to the actual replacement cost I thought I was screwed for sure.
Then she asked me why there were no receipts and maybe a photo if the car was worth
more than normal value of $800. Boy was I mad when I went home to get them.

Later I get a phone call and she says "I am sorry" but this just does not add up to $3500
so I can not pay you $3500, will I accept $4,700.!

Boy did I feel like an idiot that time. LOL

Dan

 

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 07:14:39 +0200,

And when has this not been true?

I'll admit it, my Accord is boring, it just goes where you aim it,
reliably, economically, comfortably. Then what?

J.

 

Ditto my '92 Corolla Wagon.

I like for a car not to be exciting.....

 

It would run on 6 cylinders, what else? I gave you a figure of ~ 26.5
for MIXED driving. That was Phoenix, Scottsdale, Chandler, the 101
loop, I-17 up to Camp Verde and back, etc. Around 450 miles all told
for the week.

No, mileage isn't everything. Neither is anecdotal information from you
concerning a DIFFERENT product that GM had out what, 15-20 years ago,
representative of what a SIMILAR engine is capable of today.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say that this mixed mode Chevy
engine delivers ~ 25% better gas mileage (~21mpg vs 26.5mpg) . Over
100K miles - and I agree that most folks keep their cars at least that
long - at ~$3.00/gallon gas, that's a measly $3000 savings in fuel
during those 100,000 miles. This system appears to be largely
electronic based and just shutting down injectors so what would a blown
computer cost? a bad injector "switch"?

I admitted that the longevity factor is an unknown also. You seem
close-minded on the subject so this certainly isn't my attempt to
changer YOUR mind, only to clarify my opinion as one who's actually
driven, under realistic conditions, this new engine from GM.

I think I'd roll the dice. If you want to stand there and say "It
didn't work 15-20 years ago so it won't work now - without even trying
it - because you obviously are smarter than the engineers at GM who
designed the thing... be my guest.

 

In fact, I know he does. As well, I've experienced that with every claim
I've ever submitted through any insurance company.

Were those trim pieces part of a prior claim that had been paid Bill? What
was the background information on why you needed new trim, and it was not on
the car?

Though... it generally runs pretty true to street prices on cars. I don't
see how you can call it fraudently low.

I have never heard such a thing. In fact quite the opposite is true. When
my daughter totalled out my car about two years ago, the insurance company
even provided a print out of several cars in the area of like
make/model/etc. and their current selling price.

He might, but it is true. They are only in the business of covering your
financial loss relative to the condition of the car at the time of the
accident.

Our experiences differ greatly. I've had the displeasure of dealing with
two totals over the past two years, and both of my experiences radically
differed from yours. I received uplifts for added work we had done on the
cars and in both cases received either the high end of what those cars were
really selling for, or more than the high end.

 

Well, then we are basing both our claims on two very opposite real
experiences. Just because your friend is ethical doesn't mean the
industry in general is. Progressive (the insurer of the other driver
that ran me off the road last week and that I had to chase down for two
miles before he stopped) is refusing to add value for *ANY*
enhancements, other than for alloy wheels - and that only because NADA
lists wheels but nothing else.

They are absolutely refusing to add for my adding higher-end OEM radio,
300M instrument cluster, larger 300M brakes, and some other things to my
Concorde.

Prior claim? Where do you get that, and why would you assume I was
doing that. But the answer to that is no. It is exactly like I said -
the original black paint on the trim was peeling. I went to a junk yard
and got perfect conditon chrome trim (from a higher trim pacakge).
Pulled the old trim off my car a week before the accident, hadn't put
the new trim on yet, and the accident happened during that week. That's
it. So you think I was trying to defraud the insurance company. The
adjuster didn't even suggest that. He was just being an asshole and
helping his adjustment records by fraudulently devaluing the car to the
max. By the way - that was on a Mazda - their OEM parts prices are off
the charts - and that was what he was subtracting from the vehicle value.

You haven't done honest real world comparisons then. Nor have you
compared the condition of the crap you find on the market and level of
maintenance. IOW - you didn't actually look at the condition of the
vehicles that were selling at the low end NADA values. You would not
want to drive a car that was actually selling for the NADA value. Well
- maybe you would, but I wouldn't.

(see below where you contradict yourself on that point)

Well, I can't choose the quality of the insurers of the people who
destroy my cars, can I. The experiences I have had are that they refuse
to do that - they will stubbornly point to the NADA book and insist that
that is the only value thay will recognize.

Yet above, in direct response to my saying "Why do you think their
standard line when you challange them to find you an equivalent car for
the same money is 'We're not in the business of buying cars'?" you said
"I have never heard such a thing. In fact quite the opposite is true."
You're contradicting yourself. Now here you just said "They are only
in the business of covering your financial loss relative to the
condition of the car at the time of the accident." So which of the
contradictory things you said is true?

But that's just an obfuscation factor on their and your parts. You are
pretending to have missed where I said that I was not asking them to
find a replacement car and buy it for me. I was asking them to prove
that they could find one in the pre-accident condition of my car for the
actual selling price of the NADA valuation.

But because your experience is different, mine is invalid - that's what
you're saying. Next time, I will put the world in stop motion just
before he/she hits me or runs me off the road to get the credentials of
their insurer and then let him/her know whether I will allow them to
continue the accident. Geez.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')