TrueDelta

So, GM is going to allow car buyers to return a car in the second month of ownership for a refund.

Or, buyers can opt for an extra $500 rebate instead.

So, how many people are going to forego $500 for the right to return the car?

The fine print, as I understand it:

1. Dealer processing and titling fees are not refundable. Sales tax is.

2. The car must have less than 4,000 miles on it.

3. The car must have at most $200 in wear and tear or damage.

4. Only one return per household.

My wife is still upset that I returned a partially eaten loaf of bread to CostCo. (My argument then: no one liked how it tasted. What’s a satisfaction guarantee for?)

So I’m guessing she won’t let me buy a Corvette Z06 unless I intend to keep it. And if I intended to keep it, I’d opt for the $500 rebate.

Or maybe GM really does believe in its products. A friend of mine once bought a big screen TV right before hosting a Super Bowl party, planning to return it the following week. But, after having that TV in his living room, he couldn’t bring himself to return it.

Maybe GM figures that anyone who bought a GM car planning to return it would find that they couldn’t live without the car?

GM added owner loyalty bonuses for many models this month, but reduced the regular rebate by the same amount. So while people who currently own a GM car can get as large a rebate as last month, those who don’t are often being offered $1,000 to $1,500 less.

This doesn’t strike me as a good way to sell more cars.

In January, Hyundai addressed consumer uncertainly by providing job loss insurance with every sale. Lose your job? Then return the car, and they’ll make up the difference between the trade-in value and what you owe, up to $7,500.

But only if you lost your job within a year of purchase.

Later they enhanced the plan. Lose your job, and they’ll make up to three payments while you look for another one. Don’t find a job? Then return the car.

This plan was given credit for a slight gain in Hyundai sales.

GM and Ford, desperately in need of sales, figured they’d better offer similar plans, since nothing else seems to be working. How do the GM and Ford plans compare?

First off, with neither of the new plans can you return the car if you lose your job. Instead, they’ll make more payments while you look for a new one. GM will make nine payments of up to $500 each. Ford will make 12 of up to $700 each. GM will do this if you lose your job within TWO years of buying the car, double the length of Hyundai’s plan. That’s good. Ford doesn’t say, so probably just within a year of purchase.

GM adds a second benefit: if the car is “upside down” when traded, they’ll make up the difference. Well, most of it. This is something like Hyundai’s original plan to cover negative equity, but with a number of important differences. First, you don’t have to lose your job. That’s good. Second, you have to have made at least half of the payments. Not so good. Your odds of being “upside down” are much lower in the second half of a loan. Third, you must trade the car in on another GM vehicle. Fourth, when assessing how much you’re upside down, they use “NADA clean retail.” And no dealer is going to offer anywhere near NADA clean retail on a trade unless you’re paying (at least) MSRP on the new car.

So, while GM’s value protection sounds good at first glance, it will be of limited value to anyone. Instead, it’s a way for GM to advertise something that seems valuable, at very little cost to them.

There’s room for a lot more value in all of these plans, so perhaps we’ll see better ones on coming months.

Well, it was bound to happen.Factory-to-dealer incentives have reached $10,000 in the past for some very expensive luxury models that failed to sell. But I’ve never come across a $10,000 rebate–until now. Saab is on it’s deathbed, with just a slim chance of surviving. So GM has amped up the rebates on remaining 2008 Saabs. The 9-3 Aeros and the 9-5 now have $8,500 rebates. And the 9-7X, which should never have been a Saab in the first place, gets a $10,000 rebate.

So if you’ve been wanting a thoroughly conventional midsize, oh-so-American SUV with a thin veneer of Swedishness…

January was the worst month for car sales since 1982. So it’s no surprise that rebates are up.

At GM, interest-free financing for 60 months is available on most car models–for people with stellar credit.

Or take the rebate. Especially notable: $2,250 on GM’s recently hot large crossovers, $2,750 on the Chevrolet Malibu sedan (for which owners have been reporting very few repairs on our survey), and $3,000 on the Pontiac G8.

Over at Ford, there’s now a $3,000 rebate on the stylish (to some) but slow-selling Flex. Ford also offers zero-percent loans, but only for a maximum term of 36 months on 2009s. For many models, they’re offering much better deals on leftover 2008s. The 2008 Expedition and Explorer have a choice between a $5,000 rebate and zero-percent for 60 months. You can even get a $4,500 rebate or zero-for-60 on the 2008 Shelby GT500, on which no rebates were previously available.

Chrysler’s doing even worse than other car manufacturers, with sales well under half what they were a year ago. So it’s now having another go at employee pricing–which you’ll find on this site.

As is usually the case, rebates in most cases have been trimmed by $500 to $1,500 compared to levels before this offer, so the end result is that actual transaction prices aren’t much different. There are some exceptions–Chrysler actually increased the rebates on its once-popular minivans. Paradoxically, rebates are larger on those car models for which some demand remains. Chrysler appears to have given up on the others, perhaps realizing that no amount of incentives would make much of a difference.

In the past the SRT high-performance variants were usually excluded from rebates. Not anymore. On the 2008 300C SRT8 (which should still be easy to find) you can choose between $5,500 in rebates or zero-percent for 60 months PLUS a $1,000 rebate, in both cases on top of employee pricing.

What’s the best deal, the financing or the cash? TrueDelta’s pricing tool can help. Price a vehicle against itself, then on the results page specify zero percent financing for one car and the market rate for the other. Hit the button to rerun the comparison and you’ll see payments both ways in a second or two. The zero-percent financing is usually the way to go–if you can get it for 60 months.

Next time: incentives on foreign brands.

As it becomes clear that auto sales aren’t going to be picking up any time soon, even Toyota is relying on rebates more than ever before. And, unlike six months ago, small cars are also getting significant cash on the hood. You’ll find a $1,500 rebate on the Corolla, a $1,250 rebate on the Matrix, and even a $500 rebate on the Prius. No, not big money compared to the $5,000+ rebates on some conventional SUVs–that segment remains extra dead despite the collapse in gas prices. But these are the largest rebates I’ve ever seen on these models. I was especially surprised by the $500 on the Prius–Toyota’s signature hybrid has never had a rebate before.

Auto sales are so low that even Toyota has just announced zero percent financing for most of its remaining 2008s. Others, including GM, are doing the same.

Usually the maximum term is 36 months. If you can swing the resulting payments, how much does the zero percent financing save you?

You can actually find out using TrueDelta’s Vehicle Price Comparison Tool. Just compare a model with itself. Then, on the results page, you’ll see a box to convert the results to payments near the bottom of the page. The lowest rate available is shown in that box. Select zero percent for one of the cars and the rate you can otherwise get for the other, and simply hit the button.

GM started a new “employee pricing for everyone” sale today, and it will run through at least September 2nd. I still had the formula to calculate GM’s employee prices laying around from the last time this sale was run, three years ago.

So, with a few tweaks, it’s now on the site, making TrueDelta the only non-GM site I’m aware of to provide these prices.

About those tweaks: the “employee discount” is $75 less than it was three years ago–no big deal. But Saab and Saturn now share the regular GM formula. This means slightly higher prices for Saabs, but prices about $400 lower for Saturns.

Rebates were shaved by $1,000 and even $1,500 in a few cases, but still this sale looks like a good one.

The most heavily discounted vehicle: the Chevy TrailBlazer-based Saab 9-7X, which carries an $8,000 rebate on top of the employee price.

I’ve uploaded incentive information for April, and at nearly every mainstream make rebates are higher and special interest rates are lower. General Motors is an exception–widespread bonus cash went away–but as in many previous months they’ll probably load on the bonus cash in the latter half of the month.

I did come across one curious exception. The rebate on the Toyota Yaris was reduced (in the Chicago region at least, the one I post incentives for) from $500 to $100. A $100 rebate? On a car? Surely they can’t be serious. Maybe they left off a zero?

Rebates can change as often as every two weeks, though most manufacturers have at least a monthly rebate period. Problem is, no one wants to barely miss a higher rebate when buying a car, either by buying a few days too early or too late. What to do?

When I last bought a car, I did so at the end of the rebate period. A helpful dealer actually suggested filling out the initial paperwork that day, but then waiting until the first day of the following rebate period to complete it and take delivery, to see if the incentives changed. This way, they could file the paperwork for either rebate period, since there’s a short grace period for doing so.

As it happened, the factory-to-dealer bonus went up by $500, so I ended up paying $500 less. But the change could have gone the other way, and having begun the paperwork during the previous period would have protected me. (Or so I was told.)

Once the paperwork has been filed with the manufacturer, though, the deal is final. If the rebate goes up a day later, you’re out of luck.