Car Dealerships: The Good & The Bad

Wife looking for a new Honda HR-V. MSRP is @ $24K but the dealers want to add on 'extras' such as:

Tinted windows
Clear bra
Mud flaps
Roof Rack
Floor mats
Cargo mats

all adding up to @ $32k!

Lowest I can dicker is @ $28K

Car dealership appeals $5.5M award to woman critically injured when she was struck by vehicle​

A car dealership is appealing a decision by the B.C. Supreme Court that awarded $5.5 million to a woman critically injured when a new Jeep struck her on Central Saanich Road in 2018.

Tracey Ann Ward suffered a catastrophic brain injury in the Aug. 27, 2018 crash that killed her sister, massage therapist Kim Ward.

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US House panel opens probe into proposed FTC car buyer rule​

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. House committee said on Thursday it is investigating the Federal Trade Commission's planned rules to require new consumer protections for car buyers that are sharply opposed by auto dealers.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer, a Republican, asked FTC Chair Lina Khan to turn over documents and answer questions by Nov. 30 on the proposed rule he said "threatens harm to consumers and small businesses by making car purchases more difficult and inhibiting innovation in the industry."

A group of 17 Democratic lawmakers in June urged the FTC to "adopt strong regulatory protections for car buyers," arguing "unfair and deceptive practices involving motor vehicle dealers have widespread consequences."

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Feds Fine Toyota $60M For Sketchy Lending Practices, False Credit Report Claims​

Nov 20, 2023 at 1:31pm ET

Toyota Motor Credit Corporation (TMCC) has agreed to a $60 million settlement ordered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The lending arm of Toyota was accused of illegally preventing consumers from canceling various bundled products often included in vehicle purchases. The federal agency also states false reports were made to credit companies that negatively affected buyers' credit reports.

According to a press release from the CFPB, consumers complaining about unwanted products were often funneled to internal customer service teams where the process of getting them removed or refunded was unnecessarily difficult. The types of products aren't mentioned, but CFPB states that added costs were between $750 and $2,500 per auto loan. In some cases, Toyota dealerships allegedly lied to customers about these products being mandatory, and refunds that were issued were sometimes not for the full amount. A total of 118,000 customers called a "dead-end cancellation hotline" between 2016 and 2021, according to CFPB.

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They're after Toyota because Toyota is doing its best, within regulations, to offer what American buyers REALLY want.

And to give back. While the "American" carmakers (including the one headquartered in Amsterdam) have all moved their truck manufacturing to Canada or Mexico, Toyota moved THEIRS to San Antonio.

But Toyota has resisted The Narrative. The one about how battery cars will SAVE! THE! PLANET!!! They're resisting it for solid engineering, environmental and infrastructure reasons that dopey Woketards cannot understand.

So now it's time to take a break from Lawfare-ing Trump supporters, to Lawfare-ing Toyota.

EDIT: I should add, that Toyota Financial gave me a loan on a used Toyota truck, two years ago...a better rate than my credit union and as easy to deal with. I have NO complaints with the company, the products or their financing arm. If you aren't going to pay cash, Toyota Financial is as good as any lender.

Tesla launched its own car insurance.
These drivers say it's a lemon.​

Elon Musk promised cheaper, better, even “revolutionary” auto insurance after Tesla started losing sales because of high premiums. But understaffing left some customers waiting weeks or months for compensation as they continued making payments on crashed cars.

In February, Mark Bova purchased a used 2018 Tesla Model S. Before leaving the dealer, he bought insurance from Tesla itself, finding the initial $93 monthly premium “really reasonable.”

Sixteen days later, as he drove along the Capital Beltway to his Maryland home, he engaged Autopilot, Tesla’s automated driving system. The car started beeping and lurched left — striking a median and flipping. He escaped through a window as the car filled with smoke. An ambulance rushed him to the hospital with back injuries that later required surgery.

“I’m a former Green Beret,” Bova said, referring to the U.S. Army Special Forces. “That was probably the second-most traumatic thing I've gone through other than being in combat.”

His ordeal isn’t over. Tesla Insurance, launched in 2019 by the electric-car company, has promised policyholders “vastly better” service than rivals, as Tesla chief Elon Musk put it in April 2022. Musk also said he aimed to offer “same-day” collision repairs. But Bova says he has been battling the insurer ever since the crash.

Read the rest here:

I despise battery cars and Tesla particularly - for how it's sold, as a political symbol, and how it's being forced on us, an unsafe, slow-fueling, unworkable not-car as the interim step to 15-Minute-Cities. And Musk's leadership, particularly while he was the Hopium crowd's Golden Boy, was reckless to the point of illegality. "Taking the company private" - and watching the stock explode, while knowing he couldn't do that...that's illegal stock manipulation, and he did it for just that reason.

That SAID...now that he's partly liberated Twitter, the tyranny-loving Leftist mediuh are hell-bent on destroying him. I wouldn't trust ANYTHING published by Reuters - not even the page count on an article.

This stinks like an AI hit piece.

Casey Jones said:

I wouldn't trust ANYTHING published by Reuters - not even the page count on an article.

Click to expand...

- https://jalopnik.com/tesla-s-insurance-unsurprisingly-is-trash-1851039276

- https://www.autonews.com/finance-insurance/teslas-car-insurance-program-lemon-angry-customers-say (register for free)

- https://www.insurancebusinessmag.co...-insurance-experience-falls-short-467792.aspx

- https://www.autoblog.com/2023/11/21...e-drivers-say-its-a-lemon-totally-ridiculous/

Jalopnik is owned by Big Tech - they're noteworthy for having "auto writers" who don't have driver's licenses. Autoblog, although I don't know as much, is much the same.

Jack Baruth, a tech entrepreneur who's also a part-time auto racer, and former auto writer (TTAC, when it was run by Robert Farago; and later Hagarty's) has written extensively on his own blog about the deficiencies about online auto-writers at these sites (www.jackbaruth.com). Unfortunately, he got blacklisted - for not going with the Covid chorus and Jab Follies - and now he only writes on Substack, and only allows paid viewership. Misreading his position, once again. He's a good writer and brutally honest, but, he's fully up-front, he's high on the autism spectrum and constantly misreads trends and social cues. His limiting to paid readership is one such.

But if you fish on his old, free blog, you might come up with some attacks on the current media circus. Since Baruth is an accommplished writer and racer, and out of that world, I'd take his word before the other.

But, my point remains: I trust NOTHING the Narrative Legacy Mediuh assert, with regards to Musk, Tesla or any of its peripheral businesses. I don't find Musk engaging; but every damn thing the institutional media asserts, is defensive of their false-reality.

Automakers’ Added Subscription Fees Raise Legal Questions​

“In 2022, executives at BMW came upon a brilliant, if perverted, idea to extract more money from their customers,” Michigan attorney Steve Lehto told me in an interview. He has practiced in the fields of lemon law and consumer protection for over 30 years and hosts Lehto’s Law, a highly educational YouTube program. “They wanted to start charging customers $18 a month for subscription-based access to heated seats and, later, for using the remote-start feature — many of the things their cars already came with.”

Due to enormous pushback, BMW dropped the heated-seats fee in September. (Lehto notes that these fees are not the same as the ones people pay for SiriusXM satellite radio service, which is similar to your cable TV bill.)

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^^^^^

More Pushback Against the 'Subscription' Model on Car Options​

Jan 5, 2024

14:43

This one's a bit different.

The Car Dealership Billionaire No One Knows​

On a sultry November afternoon in West Palm Beach, Florida, Terry Taylor picks up the phone in his waterfront office.

“I know you’ve contacted basically everybody I know,” he says, in a grizzled southern drawl, “so, I figure it’s time you hear from me.”

After weeks of trying to reach Taylor—the elusive billionaire behind one of the largest car dealership groups in the U.S.—or anyone that knows anything about him, word has finally made it back to the man himself.

“I’ll agree to answer a few questions,” says Taylor, who admits his attempts at secrecy are by design. The 72-year-old has never sat for an interview. In fact, he rarely sits for anything, skipping out on most meetings even with his own associates and only agreeing to show up at conventions or conferences on the condition that he’s not introduced to anyone.

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Online used vehicle dealer Vroom announced it is laying off 515 workers in the Houston area and closing two facilities permanently, according to recent filings with the Texas Workforce Commission.

The layoffs in Texas are part of the Houston-based company’s restructuring efforts announced last week. Vroom said it is discontinuing its e-commerce operations and winding down its online used vehicle dealership business, resulting in the layoffs of 800 employees across the country.

FBI Investigating Florida Classic Car Dealer Accused of Huge Title Fraud Scheme​

Stephen Phelps, owner of the now-bankrupt FSD Hot Rod Ranch, recently went face to face with the creditors to whom he owed money. After filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in December 2023, Phelps listed almost 100 creditors and owes more than $ 4 million in liabilities. Despite the Eustis police department and FBI investigating Phelps for fraud, he told his creditors during a recent Zoom session that his business simply failed.

“I deeply regret that you lost money,” said Phelps, according to Mike DeForest at WKMG ClickOrlando. “It was simply a business plan I could not make work.” However, many of Phelp's customers would argue otherwise.

FSD (Father, Son, Daughter) Hot Rod Ranch bought and sold hot rods and classic cars but many of its customers either failed to get their money or didn't receive the car they bought. At least one customer received a fraudulent title, leaving them in debt to the bank for the car but unable to legally register and drive it.

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The Bad Credit Car Business Is WILD!​

Feb 23, 2024
9:37

Lemon Law Buyers Get Huge Win in State Supreme Court​

It happened in California.

12:16

Not so much dealerships - more to do with manufacturers in this one. The software mentioned has been in use by class 8 truck fleets for some time now.

Focus: Ford has big goals for software sales to small business truck fleets​

DETROIT, March 14 (Reuters) - HomeTown Services, a heating and cooling repair company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is getting ready to install driver monitoring cameras in some of its trucks, and already uses streamed data to remind drivers not to sit too long in idle vehicles, wasting gasoline.

"People will sit in a vehicle for an hour or two," said Del Underwood, vice president for purchasing and fleets for the company. Now, technicians get a text message instructing them to either turn off their trucks or move to the next assignment.

That may annoy some employees, but it is good news for Ford Motor Co's (F.N), opens new tab commercial vehicle unit, Ford Pro, which has placed a big bet on software-related services. Ford Pro hopes selling connected-vehicle services such as driver monitoring systems to small and medium sized fleet operators will help generate as much as $1.8 billion in annual profit within two years.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has urged investors to think of Ford Pro's bundle of software and vehicle sales, not Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab, as the "future of the automotive industry."

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They don't have enough troubles already, recruiting drivers...hey, let's treat them like prison inmates with total surveillance.

THAT will make them want to rush out and spend weeks, months on the road, fighting idiot traffic, dealing with idiot warehouse foremen, broken equipment, corrupt cops...

People (MEN!) used to take such work for the INDEPENDENCE. Take it away, and there's no motivation there. No one has gotten rich driving a truck, not for forty years.

Wichita dealer indicted for rolling back odometers; consumer tips to avoid scams​

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - A federal grand jury in Wichita has returned an indictment charging a 31-year-old man from Derby with 27 counts of criminal misconduct for tampering with cars odometers.

Court documents say Alex Newbrey allegedly bought used cars from Oklahoma and Kansas at an auction, rolled back the odometers, and then used fake documents to get titles from the Kansas Department of Revenue with the false mileage.

Newby was the owner and operator of three used car dealerships in Wichita, Ideal Motors, Midwest Wholesale, and Prestige Motors, all of which are now closed.

According to the Indictment Newbrey bought nine different cars at auctions, some with more than 300,000 miles on them, and then rolled back the odometers to show they had just over 100,000 miles on them.

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Grand Jury Indicts Used Car Dealer for Odometer Tampering​

Dealer Busted Selling Cars w/No Airbags​

May 4, 2024

Despite a court order telling them not to.

8:04

Cherry Hill dealer loses Chevrolet franchise in fight over warranty claims​

CAMDEN – A longtime South Jersey auto dealer has lost a bid to keep its franchise agreement with General Motors.

Mall Chevrolet Inc. sued the Big 3 carmaker after GM said it planned to terminate its relationship with the Cherry Hill dealer in October 2018.

GM said the dealer had violated its franchise agreement by submitting dubious claims for warranty repairs worth more than $650,000. It also demanded the return of its payments for those claims.

Mall Chevrolet’s lawsuit sought to block GM’s actions, claiming they would violate New Jersey’s Franchise Practices Act.

But a federal judge in Camden dismissed Mall Chevrolet’s wrongful-termination claims in 2021.

And on April 26, a three-judge appeals court in Philadelphia upheld that view.

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PROOF! The Car REPO CRISIS IS GETTING WORSE!​

Jun 9, 2024 #realestate #housingmarket #homeprices

Car repossessions and delinquencies have been exploding over the past several months and it will likely only get worse as we head into this economic downturn. Today I'm bringing out an expert on this topic Brandon from Car Questions Answered.

35:50

Topline
Software provider CDK Global, which works with thousands of car dealerships across the U.S., was hit with a second day of system outages Thursday following another “cyber incident,” the company confirmed to Forbes.

Key Facts

• CDK Global spokesperson Lisa Finney said the company “proactively shut down most of our systems” and is assessing the impact with experts, adding it is trying to “reinstate our services and get our dealers back to business as usual as quickly as possible.”
• Systems may be down all of Thursday, according to CNN, which received a screenshot from an anonymous dealer of a CDK message sent to dealerships.
• National Automobile Dealers Association President and CEO Mike Stanton told Forbes in an email dealers are “actively seeking information from CDK to determine the nature and scope of the cyber incident so they can respond appropriately.”

...

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pmbug said:

Car Dealerships Nationwide Hit With Outages For Second Day—After Cyberattack On CDK

The first cyberattack occurred Tuesday evening and systems were restored—until a second struck Wednesday, reports say.

www.forbes.com

Click to expand...

Monopolies are inherently brittle.

Competition is not only pricing-pressure in favor of the consumer; it's also redundency. If Acme Vegetables has its main plant burn down, then there's still International Soy to get your canned veggies from.

This is the natural outcome of a "market" for services that are only needed for government compliance - safety, emissions, payment-methods, or technical data, now deemed to be proprietary.

THE most important lesson to learn from the collectivization of industry in the Soviet Bloc, we've forgotten. Russians in this country, 50 years ago, were amazed at the consumer gadgets - pocket calculators, color televisions of various types. They were more amazed at the variety - HP, Rockwell, IBM, Texas Instruments. Or televisions from a dozen suppliers, some old-line, some, newcomers from Japan.

The two are not even opposite sides of the same coin - they ARE the same issue. No competition, no quality. Of product, or, as seen above, of service.

pmbug said:

Car Dealerships Nationwide Hit With Outages For Second Day—After Cyberattack On CDK

The first cyberattack occurred Tuesday evening and systems were restored—until a second struck Wednesday, reports say.

www.forbes.com

Click to expand...

Update.

Auto dealer system updates to take 'several days' following CDK hack, ransom demand​

Work has begun to restore systems used by 15,000 auto dealers nationwide, which has been the subject of a cyber hack and ransom demand, Reuters reported Sunday.

A group that says they hacked software company CDK Global is demanding tens of millions of dollars in ransom, Bloomberg reported on Saturday.

CDK, which provides software to car dealerships in North America, intends to pay the ransom but discussions are subject to change, according to Bloomberg's report, which cited a person familiar with the situation.

The source said the group behind the hack is believed to be based in eastern Europe, Bloomberg reported.

USA TODAY has reached out to CDK Global for comment.

CDK cyberattack: Hackers force shutdown of car dealership software systems after cyberattack

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^^^^^
Still going on.

What to know about the massive car dealership outage​

CDK Global is still down heading into the brisk car-selling Fourth of July holiday next week. Auto dealerships use its software to manage everything from scheduling to records, and the mass outage since last week has paralyzed nearly 15,000 dealerships across North America.

CDK said last Saturday that it has begun restoring its software, but both car buyers and dealers are currently at a standstill. It has suggested several times that a fix is in order, only to say then that its systems would remain out of commission for a while longer.

Here’s what you need to know about the massive software outage.

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People Have STOPPED BUYING CARS!​

Jun 29, 2024 #realestate #housingmarket #homeprices

People have stopped buying cars because the cost of ownership is too expensive. Car prices are still pretty high, even though they have been coming down, interest rates are too high for people to afford the monthly payments and even if you can afford both of those once you actually own the car, the cost of insurance maintenance and fuel is also too high. So many people are just holding onto their cars until the wheels fall off.

18:16

Yup.

Having had to buy a car on short notice a year ago, I went through this. AND...gave it a LOT of thought, because that's what I do.

Cars are ungodly expensive, as a percentage of disposable income. They were always costly, but they've gone over a line.

CHEAP cars are nearly gone. There is no modern VW Beetle, now. The closest thing is the Mitsubishi Mirage - but the Beetle, in its time, wasn't the cheapest car, either. The Mirage is closer to the Renault Dauphine, if anyone remembers that cheap, sorry disposable cage.

The REASON for this lack of cheap cars is - wait for it - REGULATIONS.

Air bags cost. So does engineering in "crumple zones" and meeting crash standards with regards gas tanks. That ALONE has outlawed handfuls of modern cars - everything from the Jeep XJ models, to the Suzuki Cultus derivatives (Geo Metro and Suzuki Swift, here) BOTH of those cars were light, and the XJs exceedingly strong and long-lived. But, (non-engineer) government ministers have STANDARDS, and all must meet them.

Emissions as well. To meet Obombahgov fantasy standards on emissions and fuel use, automakers need ten-speed automatic transmissions, start-stop programs to kill engines as soon as a car stops. Emissions were conquered 30 years ago - to get a fraction percent cleaner, we went from reliable fuel-injection systems requiring a single chip and sometimes just one injector, to DOZENS of monitors, chips, programs, thousands of miles of paper-thin wires. Durability of all these, is impossible to guarantee and not the makers' concern, anymore. Meeting the fantasy standards, requires it.

The costs add up. This stuff didn't come from God - or from Government. Someone had to CREATE it.

And FIXING all this is EXPENSIVE. More than a car is worth, after a collision. Today, most times, when a car is in a collision, and the air bags pop off...RIGHT THERE the cost of repair is more than the market cost of the car.

So cars are written off. My wrecked truck was quite desirable - and sturdy. After the head-on collision, all the glass was intact, the doors opened and closed. But the airbags fired, and the frame was bent in the rear - I was towing a trailer. So, the truck was written off, and I got a $20k check from the insurance company.

THAT doesn't come from God, either. Insurance isn't a money-printer - it's a risk pool. Greater expense and greater risk; premiums have to reflect it.

So INSURANCE is becoming unaffordable.

The answer here is, twofold.


ROLL BACK REGULATIONS - and allow cars that do not comply to be sold, in the lower-cost markets. Yeah, smear them with Government Warnings - but allow them to be built and owned.

And roll back emissions standards to 2008. The TINY bit of "added" "pollution" will be FAR less than the cost of moar smoking diesel buses for the un-car'd poor people who will have no automobiles; or the toxic fires from battery-buses doing what they do best - burning, often with passengers inside.

We need LESS REGULATIONS and incentives for a new People's Car.

Dealer Sells Car After Woman Brought it To Them for Repair​

Jul 1, 2024
13:35

Not wading through the video...but...you can't sell a car without title.

Sale without a title, by a private person, is difficult, dangerous and in some cases illegal. At the very least, it requires a bill of sale and other documentation. That's by a private party, and usually the only such buyer would be a scrapyard.

A DEALER...is obligated to obtain a license; and that license indicates training in state law and proof of various insurances and surety bonds. Ergo, you can buy a car from a dealer without demanding to see the title before agreeing to purchase.

Forfeit that...by selling a car you don't legally own...and all that kicks in. Insurance is on the hook to the lawful owner. Surety bond is to pay damages, starting with unauthorized mileage, up to replacement or compensation of the vehicle to the owner. And in a state that's not as corrupt as New Jersey, the final act should be revocation of the dealer's license as a motor-vehicle sales agency.

Mistake? There should have been tells, here. First off...in all states except California, auto tags are transferable from car to car, but never to a new owner. When a dealer buys a car - trade-in, whatever - plates COME OFF. Immediately. Even if it's later transported, DEALER tags are used.

If the sales dood approached the car, and saw tags on it, IT IS NOT READY FOR SALE.

If the car was JUST taken in, it's OFF LIMITS to salesmen. It has to be cleaned, verified in terms of paperwork, appraised by the sales manager and a price on it, agreed on.

The whole story sounds like BS. On whose end? Don't know. Maybe the Service guys were testing it, or using it (unauthorized) as a gofer car, and wrecked it; and the Sales Manager isn't so smart. He lied when the truth would have done, and now it's a thousand times worse.

How did the auto dealer outage end? CDK almost certainly paid a $25 million ransom​

CDK Global, a software firm serving car dealerships across the US that was roiled by a cyberattack last month, appears to have paid a $25 million ransom to the hackers, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The company has declined to discuss the matter. Pinpointing exactly who sends a cryptocurrency payment can be complicated by the relative anonymity that some crypto services offer. But data on the blockchain that underpins cryptocurrency payments also tells its own story.

On June 21, about 387 bitcoin — then the equivalent of roughly $25 million — was sent to a cryptocurrency account controlled by hackers affiliated with a type of ransomware called BlackSuit, Chris Janczewski, head of global investigations at crypto-tracking firm TRM Labs, told CNN.

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Why Car Repossessions Are Surging This Year​

Jul 16, 2024
Car repossessions rocketed higher in the first half of the year, a sign of rising consumer distress as the Fed weighs rate cuts. So far in 2024, repos are up 23% compared with the same period last year, according to data from Cox Automotive. Claire Ballentine has more.

3:05

My turn to play, I want to trade in my 12 year old hybrid Toyota on a used jap truck. I now need an automatic transmission and would like a v6 engine at least, 4x4 might be nice but not necessary...Nissan or Toyota.

searcher said:

People Have STOPPED BUYING CARS!​

Click to expand...

Yep. And the dealers are getting desperate. They have to make it up in service work. At least once a week, I get a reminder that there is a recall on my wife's Yukon XL for passenger side airbag. There is just no fucking way I'm taking that thing to a Stealership. While the airbag repair should be completely free, I simply do not trust them to stop there. Nor do I trust them to not intentionally damage something on the vehicle so they can rip me off.

I do most all maintenance and repairs and, for the stuff that I do not want to deal with myself, I take our vehicles to a small, independent shop that I trust.

Now that we are retired, I find that we are putting far less miles on our vehicles each year. I only put 2,500 miles on my diesel-powered crew cab dually last year. My wife averages 3,000 miles on her Yukon. And my Corvette saw 163 miles last year. I'm not planning on purchasing a new car anytime soon.

CiscoKid said:

2,500 miles

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Got me beat by a grand.

This right here is why I hate dealerships...I took the hybrid in to have in inverter coolant, radiator fluid, and oil changed a couple of months ago, now hood won't open. Can I prove they did it, nope.

Fatrat said:

.Nissan or Toyota.

Click to expand...

Which way you leaning?