Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I attended my first lunch today as a member of the Detroit-based Automotive Press Association. Saad Chehab, CEO of the Chrysler and Lancia brands, presented a new Chrysler 200 S Special Edition, a collaboration between Mopar and Carhartt. Then $28,870 car has been modified with a clean air intake, performance exhaust, sport suspension, black grille, black wheels, and black Carhartt fabric with the firm’s signature triple stitching in gray. Chehab also talked about some other special edition models, including a John Varvatos Special Edition 300C, which includes many intriguing details specified by the designer himself, and a Motown Special Edition 300.

Asked how Carhartt, a manufacturer of sturdy blue collar work clothes, was a better fit for semi-upscale Chrysler than Dodge or Ram, Chehab explained that “Detroit” was Chrysler’s thing, and Carhartt was a Detroit-based company. Also, Chrysler is the brand for hard working people who want nice things without paying a premium price for them, and Carhartt is also about hard work. As is Detroit in the American public mind, apparently.

The journalists in attendance seemed less than convinced. In contrast, the partnership with Varvatos, also approached because he is from Detroit, occasioned no head-scratching.

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For a compact sedan, the 2013 Dodge Dart is very heavy. One of the reasons it’s very heavy is that it isn’t very compact. Fifteen years ago it would have been considered a midsize car.

Compare the Dart’s size and weight with the 1998 Dodge Neon and 1998 Dodge Stratus:

 
Consider interior dimensions, and the picture is murkier:

 
The Dart’s interior is midsize in breadth, but not in terms of legroom or cargo space.

Auto makers must constantly play a high-risk guessing game. Car buyers’ priorities vary, and change over time. It takes a few years to develop a new car, so auto makers must try to figure out what people will want in the future. A few years ago different companies placed very different bets.

Chevrolet and Ford kept hearing that their cars didn’t look or feel as nice as those from competitors, with Volkswagens often touted by professional reviewers as the benchmark. So with their new small cars, the Cruze and the Focus, they vastly upgraded the body structure, chassis, and interior materials. As a result, the new cars feel far more expensive than they actually are, with the Focus having the feel of a premium European offering. Which is a good thing, as they are far more expensive than the cars they replaced. The average transaction price on a Ford Focus has gone up about $5,000 from last year to this year, a huge jump.

At the same time, Honda and Volkswagen felt that Americans wanted cheaper cars, so they removed expensive materials from the chassis and interiors of the new Civic and Jetta. The latter, until recently considered the most premium offering among compact sedans, now looks and feels among the cheapest. The new Civic is no better.

So, who’s right? Possibly everyone: all four models are selling strongly. But it’s much easier to go downmarket than upmarket. And very few people, including me, thought an American car company could sell a small car in the United States at European prices. But they’ve pulled it off. By proving that Americans will pay top-dollar for a small American car if it’s good enough, the Ford Focus deserves to be recognized as a landmark car.

Competing cars are often priced very similarly once feature differences are accounted for. But not always. Some cars are simply better values than others.

Have you found a new car that seems very attractively priced? If so, which one? I’d like to run it through TrueDelta’s car price comparison tool to see how it measures up.

When Chevrolet announced a few months ago that its new Cruze compact sedan would start at $16,995, more than a few people (who likely had not had a chance to personally experience the new car) were shocked. The Cobalt, which the Cruze replaced, had been priced nearly $1,300 lower—and had required incentives to sell at that price. Now Ford has announced pricing for the totally redesigned 2012 Focus, and it starts at…$16,995.

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TrueDelta received a record number of responses to October’s Car Reliability Survey—nearly 19,000. Updated car reliability stats have been posted to the site for 488 cars, up from 459 three month ago. There are partial results for another 370. These stats cover through the end of September 2010. Other sources of car reliability information will not cover the third quarter of 2010 until the summer or even fall of next year.

Among early 2011s, we now have full results for the Hyundai Sonata and Kia Sorento. Though in its first model year, the thoroughly redesigned Sonata has been better than average. This is not a given for Hyundai—the Genesis sedan with tech package and the Genesis Coupe both had glitchy first years. The Sorento has been about average so far.

We’ll have full results for a few more 2011s with the next update, in February. Early data on the Ford Fiesta is not good.

TrueDelta also has updated “nada-odds” and “lemon-odds” stats. These report the percentage of cars with no repairs and the percentage with 3+ repair trips in the past year, respectively. Among the covered 2010s, the Aud Q5 and Hyundai Genesis Coupe were the most likely to require repairs, and by a substantial margin. Only 35 percent of Q5 owners and 42 percent of Gen Coupe owners reported no repairs. The Jaguar XF would likely join them t the bottom if we’d had enough responses for it.

Or is the glass one-third full? Even with the worst 2010 (by this stat), your odds of a repair-free car were better than one in three. Look at much older cars, and even with the worst (the 2001 Volvo S60 and V70) your chances of a repair-free car are about one in four. This explains why, whenever a model gets a poor reliability rating, plenty of owners can honestly claim they’ve had no problems. On the other hand, with the most reliable models (Toyota Prius, Toyota Yaris, Honda Insight, Honda Fit, Honda CR-V) your chances of a repair-free car are about nine in ten.

Only among the least reliable cars (generally 8+ years old and European) are your odds of 3+ repair trips in a year greater than one in ten.

To view the updated results:

Car Reliability Survey results

Nada-odds

For unknown reasons, a pigtail of my Mazda Protege5′s wiring harness that connects to one of the two ignition coils (which in turn connects to two of the four spark plugs) had been so badly damaged that only a single strand of wire remained connected. Surprisingly the engine performed much as before, feeling just a bit more rough at idle. But if that last thin strand of wire broke we’d be down a cylinder or even two. So it definitely had to be fixed.

The repair shop I usually use said that they couldn’t repair it. Instead, they needed a new section of the wiring harness to splice in. Neither they nor I could find someone willing to sell just a piece of the harness. The price of the entire harness is over $300. Add labor, and we’re close to $400.

I found Matt Boesch while searching for someone to repair some rust on this car. He’s done some amazing custom car work, even installing a high-performance motorcycle powertrain into a smart fortwo. Much of his work lately involves intakes, exhausts, armrests, and other custom car parts. He’s a great guy who does things the smart way, even if it’s not the easy way.

I mentioned my engine harness problem to Matt. He said he could fix it. And did, in about 20 minutes. He took the socket in question apart, removing the metal connector. He then soldered a new wire to this connector, resinserted the connector into the socket, and the rest was easy. He’d figured it would cost $40 if it took him an hour. I paid him the $40 even though it didn’t take nearly that long. (Well, at least not for the repair. Chatting about cars added another 20 minutes.) Better than new, and it saved me over $300.

Beyond the savings, it’s just good to know there are still people like Matt around, who know how to actually fix things. He’s always looking for new possibilities for mods, so if you have a need that no one is currently providing a mod for, or have a challenging car repair and live in the Detroit area, I’d certainly recommend contacting him.

Well, Henderson it out as CEO of GM, and they’re hunting for a replacement. Who should it be?

The auto industry includes a number of high-profile CEOs who get a lot of press for their big personalities and willingness to make the big decisions.

Then there is Alan Mulally, who has gotten credit for sound financial planning and team building at Ford. When’s the last time we heard of political infighting inside Ford, which used to be rife with it? I honestly don’t remember.

GM needs someone like Mulally.

It’s not important that the next CEO be a “car guy.” Nor should they be a “finance guy.” Instead, it’s most important that the next CEO focus not on the products or the profits but on the people. Enable people to do their jobs well, and these people will produce great products, and profits.

The piece I wrote when Mulally was picked for Ford’s CEO remains relevant for GM today:

Why a Car Guy CEO Isn’t the Answer for Ford

The first time I heard that GM was going to split off its European operations, I was shocked. Opel has been part of GM for 90 years. Over the past decade they’ve worked hard to create a globally-integrated organization, and GME has provided the platforms for GM’s compact and midsize cars. How could they so easily get rid of such an integral part of the organization?

At first glance, GM simply needs the cash. But they’re not divesting of their operations in Korea, China, Australia, or Latin America. Only those in Europe.

So, is GM’s poor financial condition simply providing a cover for a divorce that many people on both sides of the Atlantic have been wanting anyway?

It wasn’t too long ago–the 1990s–that Opel’s management was on the verge of mutiny. Was that rift never fully mended? Was all of the talk of a truly global orgnization just that, talk?

It’s not enough that Opel might want to split from GM. It seems that, even after 90 years, Opel has never really identified with the corporate parent. Nothing new here.

What is new: the willingness of Detroit to let Opel go.

One piece of the puzzle: Latin America and especially Asia are growing markets. Europe is not.

Another: it probably costs more to develop a car in Europe than anywhere else in the world, and it certainly costs more to make a car there. European unions are also no fun to deal with.

Then there’s the matter of need. Now that GM has GMDAT in Korea for small cars, and a increasingly capable product development organization in China, do they feel they no longer need (or even want) Opel?

Few foreign-brand cars have significant rebates. Last year’s SUVs and minivans are another matter. On those the rebates are often $4,000, even $5,000.

Mazda has added a $1,000 rebate to the new Mazda6–to be combined with interest rates as low as zero percent. Most of Mazda’s incentives on 2009s combine rebates with zero-for-36. There’s no higher rebate if you don’t take the low-interest financing. Odd.

For a long time, rebates were not available on Toyota’s hybrids. Then they were available, but smaller than on the non-hybrids. Well, this month the $1,500 rebate on the Camry Hybrid is $500 higher than that on the regular Camry.

In general, rebates are a little lower this month at Toyota. They pumped up rebates last month, and sales were still way off, so perhaps they’ve decided many people simply aren’t buying, so why give money away to those who are?

Nissan has added a $1,500 rebate to the Altima Hybrid, brining it into line with the regular Altima. Nissan continues to offer no rebate on the SE-R versions of the Sentra. It clearly thinks they’re something special.

Subaru has tossed a $3,000 rebate on the hood of the 2008 WRX. That model received more power and more aggressive suspension tuning for 2009, which has no doubt made the 2008s much harder to sell.

All in all, not much new going on with the foreign brands.