February car buying incentives: the foreign brands

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… More →

February car buying incentives: take the zero-percent loan or the rebate?

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… More →

Latest results, in record time

TrueDelta released updated results for its Car Reliability Survey today. These include owner experiences through the end of 2008, and so are about eight months ahead of other publicly available car reliability information. Normally these results would have been released around the middle of the month. We worked extremely hard to get them out well ahead of the Chicago Auto… More →

Water pumps and timing belt tensioners

I’ve written before about timing belts vs. timing chains. I strongly prefer the latter, because they don’t have to be replaced every 60,000 to 100,000 miles at a cost of 300 to 600 dollars (nearly all of it labor). But TrueDelta’s repair rate analysis has disadvantaged engines with timing chains. Because most of the cost of replacing a timing belt… More →