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The Internet Car Guy asked:


The “Big Three”, Chrysler, General Motors and Ford Motor Company, have been on capital hill begging for some of the bailout money that was set aside about three months ago now. How ironic is it that everyone is so eager or willing to bail out banks that have horrible business models, have made terrible mistakes, refuse to make wholesale changes, and yet people seem so reluctant to help the manufacturing backbone of this country and perhaps the world? Oh but I digress… So regardless of how we got here, or what is being done to fix things, this is actually a phenomenal time for an individual that may be in the market to purchase a new or pre-owned vehicle.

Obviously, manufacturers, both domestic and foreign, have large surpluses that they are trying to reduce. So rebates and incentives are quite large right now. Additionally but unfortunately, because of the economy, more and more individuals are forced to have their car repossessed. This creates a surplus of vehicles at wholesale auctions. This is where you get to take advantage of surpluses that drive prices down and give you a tremendous value on that next vehicle you are looking for.

Increasingly, sites similar to Seize Cars.com are becoming popular places for car shoppers who are doing more and more of their car shopping online. Sites like these are giving you a fabulous opportunity to purchase a previously owned vehicle at a tremendous price. But buyers beware, not all sites are created equal. Obviously there are bound to be more and more of these types of sites popping up everywhere, so do your homework. Reputable sites like Seize Cars.com are definitely changing the ways people buy cars. If not permanently, that at least in the near term.

Benard Worseley asked:

Honda, one of the leading Automobile companies today, realized the damage we are causing the environment that is why they are now keen in promoting a greener lifestyle through their products that speak for themselves.

When it comes to environmental commitment and leadership, Honda is way ahead of other companies. Honda introduced the ingeniously simple Civic CVCC engine. And according to them, this CVCC engine is world changing for its fuel efficiency and low emissions, the CVCC demonstrated their spirited commitment to environmentally responsible technology. Many other firsts were to follow, such as the first hybrid vehicle sold in North America and the first government-certified fuel-cell car. This legacy of innovation and acting on their beliefs is seen in every Honda product, like the 45-mpg 2008 Civic Hybrid*.

Honda lives to its vision of becoming a company that society wants to exist. Through Honda’s initiative for a cleaner environment, more and more companies and individuals are following their footsteps toward a better eco-friendly lifestyle.

Starting a new lifestyle and getting a new car that is environmentally friendly is not that hard especially if you are living in Australia. All you have to do is go to Macarthur Honda Narellan.

Established in 2003, Macarthur Honda Narellan enjoys serving their local community as well as those beyond the Macarthur District. They have a small but dedicated team that is committed to excellent service focused on their clients.

Whether you will be getting a brand new Honda car or a used Honda car, the excellent staff of Macarthur Honda Narellan will assist you.

Macarthur Honda Narellan is well known for its diverse lineup of quality automobiles, new or used. The quality used Ford cars of Honda Narellan suits those who are economical and want to save a lot. Buying a used Honda car from Honda Narellan is a good decision because not only is Macarthur Honda Narellan known for its outstanding service, but also for its reliability and honesty. Expect that when you buy a used Honda vehicle from their company, they will discuss with you thoroughly the insuring and financing cost of the vehicle you are eyeing to buy, as well as the maintenance record of such vehicle. Discussing these details is important because you do not want to buy a vehicle, marked by a number of defects; its previous owner is just trying to unload right?

Moving on to those people who are privileged to buy a new Honda, Honda Narellan is again the best Dealership for your brand new Honda needs. Honda Narellan can offer you the right Ford car at the right price. All you have to do is pay them a visit in person and experience their dealership’s service and excellent selection of vehicles. They offer their customers a modern dealership with a very comfortable environment and no sales pressure.

Dealing with Honda Narellan is a pleasant experience for me. Not only did Honda Narellan help me choose the best car tailored to my needs, they also taught me some other helpful ways to start anew and start living a green life.

http://macarthurhonda.com.au/

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.

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.