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Muna wa Wanjiru asked:

When we compare in the first place the SUVs with the domestic cars first there comes a thought that the SUVs are far more than worse with respect to fuel economy. With the advent of better technologies it is not a hard and fast rule that SUVs are bad in the region of fuel economy such is not the case. There are two main types of SUVs which are available in the Market today. Fuel efficient SUVs and Fuel Guzzler SUVs.

Basically SUVs are not meant for Mileage; they are sport cars. They are mainly meant for performance, speed and more speed. Today due to restriction on Carbon emissions and due to increasing competition in the market with the changing trend of people to environmental protection has given birth to Fuel Efficient SUVs. This is a major change which has taken place in the field of SUVs. Still only a few SUVs can meet the fuel standards which are maintained by other vehicles. Many of the SUV models have more weight. Speed and have less fuel efficiency when compared with other cars.

So many companies like Saturn, Ford and Toyota have engineered a golden mid way out of these crises. They have created hybrid SUVs. These cars are called hybrid since they can run on Electricity too. This Hybrid or dual nature of these vehicles is instrumental in increasing their fuel efficiency. Approximately the mileage of these vehicles is approximately twenty six miles per gallon. The best cars in this category belong to the companies like Saturn, Ford and Toyota. They are more useful for towns and cities since they are made for mixed driving. The names of these vehicles according to the companies are as follows:

Saturn Green line, Ford Escape, Lexus RX and even Toyota Highlander these vehicles are the best in this regard. This allows these SUV vehicles to be used by families.

There are three varieties of SUVs they come in market first are the varieties which are built on passenger car basis, second type of SUVs are built on the line of truck chassis and the third and the last type of SUVs are the built on the lines of Rovers. The examples of each of these types of Sport vehicles are as follows:

Examples for first type is Toyota Highlander

Example for second type is Ford Excursion

And the third type consists of Range rover and land rover vehicles.

These models vary in size, weight, utility and mileage. The four cylinder engine is definitely higher on average.

Let us consider the best Mileage SUV Vehicles:

The best fuel mileage SUVs are small in number comparatively but are there in the market. The features of these SUVs are having a four cylinder, and two wheel drive. The examples of these types of SUVs are Toyota RAVA, Saturn Vue, Honda CR-V, Ford escape, Mazda Tribute, and Toyota Highlander. These are the few examples of Fuel efficient SUVs.

Some of the SUVs are worst in fuel Efficiency – - with examples being the Mercedes-Benz G500 and even the land rovers which struggle to ***** even fourteen miles per gallon. Most of the SUVs are of this type they also offer less room and comfort.

So you are bound to get different varieties and a range of SUVs in the Market which will be either on par with other vehicles or can be of such caliber that even comparison between them and the other type of Vehicles is not possible. This means that they are not bad but they carved a different Niche for themselves in the market.

Christine Harrell asked:

The Lexus RX300 is the most sought after luxury SUV and with good reason. This model is so popular today because it is now very affordable and continues to stand the test of time in performance, reliability, and design. But with 5 years of models to choose from, you’ll want to make sure that you choose the year model that you’ll enjoy the most.

One of the greatest benefits of buying used is that consumers have the opportunity to see how various year models performed after being road tested in every day life. The longer a model is in production, the more time that carmakers have to respond to consumer feedback and perfect the model. In this article, we’ll look at the variations and recalls for each of the RX300 model years to help you choose the right used Lexus SUV.

Lexus RX300 – 1999

The RX300 is the original Lexus SUV and the one that the public instantly fell in love with. Lexus doesn’t consider the RX300 an “SUV,” but a crossover vehicle; something between a luxury auto and an SUV. In fact, the low range gearing of the RX300 makes this used Lexus SUV more of an “all weather, on road” wagon as opposed to an off-roading style SUV. For a used SUV with true off-roading power, Lexus offers the LX470.

Recalls for this 1999 model

·Exterior lights (2006): Certain CK Motorsports exterior lights sold as replacement lamps for are not equipped with amber side reflectors fail to conform to federal motor vehicle safety standard no. 108

·Headlights (1999): The headlights and taillights may not automatically illuminate in low ambient light when the headlight switch is placed in the “auto” position.

·Brake Tube (1999): If one of the dual brake lines fails when the driver applies the brake, the vehicle will feel unstable

Lexus RX300 – 2000

The 2000 year model Lexus SUV RX300 is very similar to the 1999 version in both design and performance. In fact the only difference you’ll find in the year 2000, is a trailer hitch. You may find some 2000 used model Lexus SUVs with a satellite based navigation system as this was an optional add-on for this year.

Recalls for this 2000 model

·Exterior lights (2006): see 2006 exterior light recall for 1999 models.

Lexus RX300 – 2001

You’ll find lots of new features on the 2001 used Lexus SUV. 2001 is the year that Lexus focused on additional safety with features like a vehicle skid control, a brake assist feature, a 3-point center rear seatbelt, and child safety seat anchors. Other improved features on the 2001 year used Lexus SUV are an alloy spare wheel (earlier used Lexus SUV models will have a steel spare wheel), an enlarged fuel tank, and a redesigned grill. You’ll find some different options when comparison shopping the 2002 used Lexus SUV as well, such as all black leather trim, a wood steering wheel and gearshift knob, and heated seats with dual warmth levels. Earlier year models of the RX300 Lexus SUV also have heated seats, but offer only one heat setting.

Recalls for this 2001 model

·Exterior lights (2006): see 2006 exterior light recall for 1999 models.

Lexus RX300 – 2002

With so many changes in 2001, Lexus made only a few minor adjustments in 2002. In the year 2002 used Lexus SUV you’ll find all of the improved 2001 features along with an improved navigation system. The navigation system in the 2002 used Lexus SUV includes the ability to calculate multiple routes, has simplified graphics, and allows you to preview routes. Also added to this year’s used Lexus SUV is a faster computer and a dashboard screen for playing movies.

Recalls for this 2002 model

·Exterior lights (2006): see 2006 exterior light recall for 1999 models.

Lexus RX300 – 2003

The 2003 used Lexus SUV is identical to the 2002 used SUV, aside from being manufactured one year later. By 2002, Lexus had worked out the kinks in the RX300 design, added features in response to customer feedback, and successfully grew the RX300 into a top selling vehicle. You won’t find an RX300 used Lexus SUV beyond the year 2003. In 2004, Lexus concentrated on the RX330, the successor of the RX300.

Recalls for this 2003 model

·Exterior lights (2006): see 2006 exterior light recall for 1999 models.

Those in the market for a used Lexus SUV will find the RX300 to be a strong model and a great value. The classic styling gives any year of this SUV a look that remains stylish and attractive today. Recalls are very few for the Lexus SUV, with 4 of the 5 models being recalled only for replacement lights. Today, Lexus is still on the cutting edge of SUV design with its introduction of the RX400h, first hybrid SUV, in 2005. Best of all, any used model Lexus SUV has proven to stand the test of time in performance and reliability.

Kevin Cramner asked:

Gas prices continue to soar, your SUV gets 16 mpg, and your paycheck isn’t increasing.  Consumers feeling their pockets getting empty are starting to ask questions.  Could the high gas prices just be temporary? If not, then I guess it’s time to trade the SUV in and get a fuel efficient vehicle, right?  Actually that might not be the smartest idea.  In order to answer these questions we need to understand the current SUV situation and determine what this means financially.

Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV’s) have become the norm for a vehicle purchase over the last 10-15 years.  As many cars became smaller over this timeframe compared to the cars in the 1970’s, people became interested in sport utility vehicles and why wouldn’t they?  These vehicles have plenty of leg room, a large storage area, four-wheel drive, feel very safe due to their size, and are powerful.  One of the biggest selling features is they provide a higher seating position allowing the driver to view more of the road and surroundings.

Not only did consumers have a desire for SUV’s, but they wanted larger SUV’s.  The big three U.S. vehicle manufacturers, Chrysler, Ford, and GM, were making extremely large profits on these vehicles.  The Ford Excursion, Chevy Suburban, Hummer, GMC Yukon, and Chevy Tahoe are the largest SUV’s on the market.  These vehicles were being bought by families, shuttle drivers, and small business owners.  Due to a tax break many small business owners and mostly anyone who could write off the vehicle as a work related expense became consumers for these enormous vehicles.  They were able to write off almost the entire cost.  This encouraged lawyers, doctors, accountants, and real estate agents to buy these SUV’s, when they really have no use for this type of vehicle.

The U.S. vehicle manufacturers and consumers were both happy until the one major flaw of SUV’s was magnified.  These vehicles were gas hogs.  Hurricane Katrina started to reveal this flaw in 2005 when this hurricane caused disruption to refineries.  Gas prices soared above $3 a gallon.  Prices would start to come down as the refineries got back into full production, but not down to where they were before the hurricane.  This was due to the price of a barrel of crude oil rising to over $50.  In 2004 the average price of a barrel of crude oil was $37.  This brings us to July 4th, 2008 as the price of a barrel of crude oil is now over $145 and the price of a gallon of gas is over $4.

This has caused U.S. vehicles manufacturers to slow down and terminate some SUV lines which have been their most profitable over the last decade.  Consumers are now buying small fuel efficient cars and hybrid vehicles.  The problem for many consumers is they are looking to trade in or sell their SUV’s to purchase a fuel efficient vehicle, but there are not many takers for at least what the consumer feels is fair value.  Typical supply and demand has caused very fuel efficient cars and hybrid vehicles to sell for the ticket price or above.  SUV’s are selling way below ticket price since there are a lot more sellers than buyers.  Vehicle manufacturers are overloaded with SUV’s and the dealerships can’t sell the ones they already have on the lot.

Just this data makes it seem foolish to trade or sell a SUV at this time, but the financial numbers is what will really influence the decision.  There are many different situations a consumer might be in.  A consumer who is not able to afford fueling their SUV might need to trade their SUV in.  Perhaps there is no loan against it and the value of the SUV is high enough to get them an equally or lower priced car.  This means they directly cut down their gas expense and haven’t changed their monthly budget.

Some examples using numbers can probably give everyone a general idea to help with their decision making.  $30,000 is close to an average cost of a SUV.  To set-up this example we will say John purchased a $30,000 SUV four years ago.  With zero down and a 6% interest rate his payments are $580 a month and he has a current loan balance of $6000.  Let’s also examine Joan who purchased the same year and model SUV for the same amount but her loan is paid off.  Currently, a dealership is offering $9,000 for the SUV.  Therefore each consumer has sunk costs of $21,000.  Also this means John will have to use $6000 of the $9,000 trade in to pay his existing loan.  His balance of $3000 will go towards his new purchase and all of Joan’s $9,000 will be put towards her new purchase.  We will take a look at these situations in two different ways.

First we will look at the situations by monthly budget.  Since car payments are monthly payments we need to determine how much money is spent on gas each month.  We will use the current average U.S. gasoline price of $4 a gallon.  Joan’s roundtrip to her full-time job each day is 30 miles.  On the weekend she drives on an average 100 miles.  Therefore, Joan drives 1,000 miles a month.  At 16 miles per gallon she pays $250 a month.  Currently she doesn’t have a monthly car payment so her monthly total for gas and car payment is $250 a month.  Joan is looking to purchase a car which is the same model year as her SUV.  The car costs $15,000, but gets 27 miles per gallon.  After her $9000 SUV trade-in her monthly car payment will be $116 (using 6% interest rate).  Her monthly gas expense will be $150.  This equates to $266 a month for gas and car payment.  Her monthly expense for a car payment and gas is actually higher now which is mainly due to her only getting $9,000 for her SUV.

John’s roundtrip to his full-time job each day is 60 miles.  On the weekend he drives 100 miles.  Therefore, John drives 1,600 miles a month.  John pays $400 a month in gas.  If John purchases this same car, then his monthly gas expense is $237.  After the $3000 John will be able to put towards his purchase, his car payment is $232.  His total expense for gas and car payment will now be $469.  John will actually save over $100 a month.  However he was in the last year of his SUV payments and now his car payments will continue for five years.

The second way we will look at these situations is to determine the break even point.  We can determine how many miles it will take in order to make up for the loss on the SUV.  The loss on the SUV is not the $21,000 sunk cost, but the difference in trade-in value from the time before gas prices skyrocketed to the present time.  The sunk cost has to do with trading in a vehicle for another one.  We won’t use the $21,000 since we are strictly looking at if the SUV is worth trading in just to get better fuel efficiency.  Before there was a large increase in gas prices, a typical SUV like John’s and Joan’s would have a trade-in value around $14,000.  Now the trade-in value is $9,000 which equates to a $5,000 difference.  In using cost accounting we need to determine the sale per mile and the variable cost per mile.  The $4 per gallon gas price needs to be converted to a cost per mile since we need to get the break even point in miles.  The sale per mile is just the SUV’s fuel cost per mile.  This is $4 a gallon divided by 16 miles per gallon which equates to a cost of 25 cents a mile.  The variable cost per mile is the car’s fuel cost per mile.  This is $4 a gallon divided by 27 miles per gallon which equates to a cost of 15 cents a mile.  Next we determine our contribution margin per mile which is the sale per mile of 25 cents minus the variable cost per mile of 15 cents which results in a 10 cents per mile contribution margin.  Finally we use the $5,000 loss and divide by the contribution margin per mile of 10 cents which provides the answer of 50,000 miles.  The break even point of 50,000 miles is the amount of miles that need to be driven in the car to recover the $5,000 loss on the SUV.   To simplify the problem we simply converting both vehicles’ cost of gas per mile and took the difference.  Then we divided the loss on the SUV by this difference.  It will take Joan over 4 years of driving the car to recover the SUV loss at her current usage and it will take John over 2.5 years.

The future of the gas prices is unknown which makes the future value of the SUV unknown also.  However, we know the value of an SUV has dropped significantly.  If we could have predicted this drop, then trading in the SUV before this occurrence would have avoided the $5,000 decline in value.  The problem is most SUV owners couldn’t make this prediction so they are presented with the situations we have examined.  In these examples we only looked at the financial numbers which alone didn’t strongly favor trading the SUV in for a car.  Also, like in the stock market, it doesn’t make sense to sell low and buy high which is currently happening when SUV’s are traded in for fuel efficient cars.  When we consider the advantages of a SUV which have led them to their popularity over the years it doesn’t make much sense to give these advantages up.  Perhaps the next time a consumer is ready to buy a new vehicle they won’t purchase a gas guzzling SUV, but for current SUV owners it makes sense to continue to enjoy the great features of these vehicles.

soft666 asked:


National Car Rental, Quality Through the Years

The National Car Rental is one of the oldest and the pioneer in the car rental business. In 56 years of business, the National Car Rental has pioneered amongst its most famous, the one way rental feature, for those people who’d want to rent a car in one town and leave it in another, which makes it more convenient for the renter.

National Car rental was also the first car rental company to computerize its reservation operations. With the introduction of “Telemax” computers to their system, reservation process ahs improved moving to a faster and more hassle free renting.

And since the airline industry deregulation in 1976, causing increase in airline travel costs, national car rental gave flat rates for car renters, who chose renting cars rather than flying.

National car rentals is also one of the earliest companies to start corporate account business back in the 70’s. Through this program, National has focused on the corporate traveler more so than any other company. It was also the first in the rental industry to start a frequent renter program. It was also the first to use paperless car rentals and use computers to make dealings faster; they called this the “Emerald Club” and the “Paperless Express Rental Agreement”. The “Emerald Aisle” program enables customers to select the cars that they want, with paperless ease, bypassing the rental counter, and getting them on their way faster and more efficiently. The “Choice Rental Process” in addition enabled customers to choose the exact car that they want, and “QuickRent” that gives non Emerald Club members to skip the rental counter when they complete the deal online.

National car rental is now affiliated with many different companies, all to improve the customers renting experience. These companies include, Air Canada, Air Miles, Air France, Alaska Airlines, Alitalia, America West airlines, American Airlines, ATA airlines, Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia airlines, Midwest airlines, Lanchile, United Airlines and Northwest airlines all having frequent flyer and miles/kilometer programs that can be applied to car rentals as well, some of these airlines even consider national car rental miles, for air miles.

Other affiliates include Coast Hotels and Resorts, which give lower rates for national customers that stay in their Hotels, Hilton Family of Hotels, which let you ear 250 HHonors form their Hilton Honors Points and miles, for every rent from national car rental, as well as American Express who lets you earn points when you’ve enrolled for their program for national car rental.

Aside from all the discounts a features that you will acquire through their affiliates, National Car rentals offer a wide range of vehicles for you to choose from, the classes of cars that you could possibly rent form national cars are endless, the types of vehicles that you’ll be able to rent are classified as subcompact, compact, intermediate, full-size, premium, luxury, sports utility, Mini van and convertible.

National Car rentals also have special offers for their customers, one of which is the “Last minute specials to go” which offers different specials every week at different locations. The other special, the “Great internet rates – Book ahead special’ gives discounts fro those that reserve their cars early in the internet. The weekend value Rates – Book ahead special offers lower weekend rates. National car also offers internet only discounts also a book ahead special, which applies to mini vans and SUVs.

 

 

 

 

David Patullo asked:


National Car Hire was founded in 1947, as National Car Rental.  The company began with 60 locations, more than 800 cars, and a string of 24 independent car rental companies.  The company incorporated in 1958, and quickly gained acclaim as the best national car hire company for local, personal service.

National developed many industry firsts, including one-way car hire for people who wanted to drive from one city to another and leave the vehicle at its destination.  National was also the first car hire company to use computers in its daily reservation process.  In 1976, National Car Hire started another first, as it began offering flat rates to rental customers.

The company was also the first to begin a frequent renter’s program it calls, “Emerald Club.”

National Car Hire also started an express car rental program that utilizes information already stored in its computers to expedite the rental procedure to the point where it takes only seconds to make a transaction.  The company has since streamlined it service to hurried renters even more with “Emerald Aisle”, which allows them to pick out their own cars and move along without filling out any paperwork at all, eliminating the rental counter entirely, for those customers.  National has also started “Quick Rent” which gives online customers the ability to bypass the rental counter just like “Emerald Aisle” renters.

There are several classes of cars, makes and models available for hire in Canada.

If you are looking for an economy car, you can rent a Suzuki Swift.  A compact car rental will get you a Nissan Versa.  For a midsize auto, you will be supplied a Dodge caliber.  A Ford Fusion is considered a standard class automobile.  You can even rent a Toyota Prius, standard hybrid.  If it’s a full size car you’re after, you can choose a Chevrolet Impala.  Perhaps you prefer the premium quality of a Buick allure, or the luxury of a Chrysler 300C.  If you want to drive with the top down, the Chrysler Sebring convertible is available.

You can hire a Dodge Caravan minivan, or a Ford Escape mid-size SUV.  As a standard SUV, you can drive off in a Ford Explorer, or try the Ford Edge, which is rented as a full size crossover.  Chevrolet Tahoe is offered as a full size SUV, and the Chevrolet Suburban is a premium SUV.  If you are in need of a pick up truck, you can get the Chevrolet Colorado as the standard model or the Chevrolet Silverado as your premium choice.  If these makes and models are not available, a similar auto of the same category might be offered.

Multi-passenger vans, cargo vans, crew cab pickups, moving trucks, and even flat beds are also available for hire.

There are locations all over Canada, so you can rent from almost anywhere.

So, if you are going for car or truck hire in Canada, to go with experience and selection, you probably want to go with National Car Hire (National Rental).