Depreciation Distasters ... and how to sidestep them
If the purchase price is too high, or the resale is too low, the funding gap – paid by you – is excessive. Sadly, people often get the purchase right, but they forget all about depreciation. It’s no good saving $10,000 up front if you lose $15,000 more to depreciation
Negotiate smart: Separate your transactions
When you’re buying a new car, you're usually conducting three simultaneous financial transactions: Buying the new car, selling the old car and purchasing the finance. Dealers love this, because it makes them rich. You need to checkmate them on this.
Buy a car that's in stock now
Dealers buy new cars on credit. Holding those cars on the showroom floor incurs a hefty interest bill every month. Every new car dealer is motivated to sell any car on the showroom floor because the interest from holding it is literally burning a hole in his pocket
When to Buy a New Car
Timing is everything. Buy your next new car at the end of the month, because dealers have aggressive sales targets. The pressure to sell is immense – and it ramps right up at the end of every month. That's when you need to be in the dealership, with your finances ready
Smart car finance: fully maintained chattel mortgage
VIDEO: Banish car ownership's big bills (or at least average them out) with this revolutionary new car ownership method. Makes it dead easy to budget the cost of car ownership.
Beat Car Dealers - Part 6
Turn the tables on car dealer rip-offs
If you're in the market for any new car, at the lowest possible price, fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Beat Car Dealers - Part 5
Turn the tables on car dealer rip-offs
If you're in the market for any new car, at the lowest possible price, fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Beat Car Dealers - Part 4
Turn the tables on car-dealer rip-offs
If you're in the market for any new car, at the lowest possible price, fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Beat Car Dealers - Part 3
Turn the tables on car dealer rip-offs
If you're in the market for any new car, at the lowest possible price, fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Beat Car Dealers - Part 2
Turn the tables on car dealer rip-offs
If you're in the market for any new car, at the lowest possible price, fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Beat Car Dealers - Part 1
Turn the tables on car dealer rip-offs
If you're in the market for any new car, at the lowest possible price, fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Kia Optima Video Review
If you're in the market for a Kia Optima fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Below is a transcript of this video
Hyundai Veloster Video Review
If you're in the market for a Hyundai Veloster fill in the contact form on the right of this page >>
Below is a transcript of this video
Tough at the Top: CEO Salaries Out of Control
The US Treasury has handed GM CEO Dan Akerson a $9 million slap in the face
Perhaps because of the pesky detail that General Motors still owes the US taxpayer the paltry sum of $25 billion, GM’s largest shareholder (the US Government) has stepped in and capped CEO Dan Akerson’s salary at just $9 million – less than half what the other big boys get paid.
Bastards.
GM CEO Dan Akerson
- $9 million income
- $173,000/week
- $34,000/day
Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne
- $22.2 million income
- $427,000/week
- $85,000/day
Ford CEO Alan Mullaly
"Yeah - mine is the biggest." Ford CEO Alan Mulally on the size of his package, recently
- $29.5 million income
- $567,000/week
- $113,000/day
Holden Bailout: $275m 'Bullshit Bridge'
Experts reveal world championship bullshit bridge-building secrets (opinion)
There’s a gulf between the absolute truth and an outright lie, and it can be spanned only with a bridge built of bullshit. Building bridges of bullshit is a real skill (often called, erroneously, ‘PR’ or ‘communications’). There are weak bullshit bridges and strong ones, but even a bullshit bridge built by a master bullshit bridge builder tends to have a half-life of about a week – just ask Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton … or any man who’s ever been caught with his wheels hanging out of the wrong garage during an unauthorized service.
Read more on the $275 million bailout, and the $12 billion we've spent keeping oversaeas car makers going, the demise of the large locally built car in Australia, plus the potential plan to cut manufacturing jobs despite the government funding.
Two of the best bridge builders/spin doctors in Australia – really impressive, elite performers; true masters of their craft – are
Holden to Cut Manufacturing Jobs?
Parliament erupts with Holden job-cut speculation despite ink only just drying on latest $275 billion taxpayer bailout
South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill yesterday refused to tell Parliament how many jobs will be cut at Holden’s Elizabeth car manufacturing plant.
Holden won’t tell opposition leader Isobel Redmond how many jobs will go – and Jay Weatherill won’t tell the public, which footed the bail-out bill: “[I won’t] put in the public sphere any material that Holden has not,” he said
Inside the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore Sales Crash
Why the large Aussie car is terminal – despite the $13 billion you paid to save it
The demise of locally built Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon sales is accelerating. Back in 2003, Ford sold 73,220 Falcons. At the end of 2010 Falcon sales had dropped to 29,516 Falcons – a reduction of 60 per cent in seven years. Then, in 2011, Falcon sales, incredibly, fell another 37 per cent – to just 18,741 units.
The Holden Commodore hit its stride in 2002, with 88,478 Commodores rolling out into the hands of buyers. Despite spending $1 billion developing the VE Commodore (some of it even GM’s own money), Commodore sales fells to 44,387 by the end of 2009 – a 50 per cent drop over seven years. A slight rise looked like the light at the end of the tunnel for Commodore in 2010 (one per cent, or an increase of 1569 sales). But that was short-lived: By 2011 Commodore was well established in a terrain-warning trajectory, too, finishing the year with just 40,617 sales – a year-on-year decline of 12 per cent.
The Ford Falcon limped out of the blocks in 2012
How Corporate Arrogance Killed the Ford Falcon & Holden Commodore
Extreme Corporate Arrogance
Holden and Ford each spend an eight-figure sum every year refining and promoting their image to the public through advertising and below-the-line marketing. They are very effective at cloaking the dubious public policy that supports them in a mist of red-blooded Aussie virtue.
The unique Aussie-ness of Holden in particular is a veneer at best. You only need examine more deeply the hugely successful ‘Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos & Holden Cars’ advertising campaign of the 1970s, with its catchy jingle and the golden tonsils of radio and TV voice legend Ken Sparkes it cemented Holden as an Aussie Icon. It was in fact a hasty rip-off of a US ad campaign for ‘Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet’…
In response to my post on the $275 million deal, a Holden insider sent me the following, via Twitter (@cadoges, if you feel like bailing me up in 140 characters or less): “I don’t have a business degree but a $275 million investment for a $4bn return and 16,000 jobs sounds like a smart investment to me…”
It’s an example of the kind of institutionalized, conditioned arrogance at play in these US-based companies. For starters, the $275 million isn’t an investment – it’s a grant, a donation. We’re not getting it back.
How Ford & Holden Killed Their Cars
Apart from those who object to the use of public money to keep factories owned by overseas interests open only in the name of jobs and not viability, there’s the pesky notion that customers have sound, hip-pocket reasons and commercial considerations underpinning the desertion of Holden and Ford's locally made cars by formerly loyal customers.
Business Customers
Business and government fleets have been for decades the foundation upon which Holden and Ford’s factory outputs have been based. (When you own a factory, the pesky imperative is that production must equal sales – and customers buying dozens of cars at a time are a real