A Card From Your Dealer Arrived…A Bit Late

Paul Niedermeyer
by Paul Niedermeyer

No, its not a recall. But not surprisingly, he’s trying to sell you service for your Ford. Service has always been the big profit center for dealers, and nothing has changed in almost one hundred years.

To put those prices in perspective, multiply them by twelve. Try getting a new fender installed on your Fusion for sixty bucks. Or a tune up for twelve bucks and “a small charge for materials”. Fifty bucks to rebuild your front end suspension. While you’re at it, have your engine and transmission rebuilt for under $300, parts included.

(hat tip to Ray Charlton)

Paul Niedermeyer
Paul Niedermeyer

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  • Fred schumacher Fred schumacher on Mar 10, 2010

    As a retired North Dakota farmer, this postcard is interesting from several facets. The price of wheat back then was three times today's price, when measured in constant dollars. Even when adjusted for increased yields, it would have taken the production from fewer acres to buy and repair a vehicle. Although the inflation index for 1928 (the year of the postcard) was 12.5 to one, by 1933, deflation caused by the Great Depression had raised that to 16 to one. In North Dakota, we say there are three great crop years, 1918, 1942, and next year. In 1918, wheat prices were high and the crop was so good, that my father-in-law's parents could pay for their new farm house from the profits of one year's production from a quarter-section of land (160 acres). That's not possible today. That $3,500 real price for a Model T shows why automobiles took over personal transportation. Maxbass and Bottineau are 40 miles apart, a pittance of distance by North Dakota standards, but they were not on the same rail line. The Model T provided isotropic, schedule free transportation. Roads were terrible back then, but the Model T's high ground clearance and narrow tires on spoked rims allowed it to dig through the mud to reach firm ground farther down and be able to keep going on roads a modern 4-wheel drive couldn't handle. It's interesting too that the postal address required no more than a name and town. My father-in-law once received a letter meant for him but with his name totally mangled and addressed to a town 40 miles away. Luckily, a North Dakotan's sense of community is geographically expansive, and the creative postmaster forwarded the letter to the correct post office.

  • Windswords Windswords on Mar 10, 2010

    "To put those prices in perspective, multiply them by twelve." I would pick a higher number, because for years the true pace of inflation has been under estimated and recently our penchant for huge budget overruns has pushed real inflation even higher but it hasn't been reported officially. Problem is, I don't know what higher number to pick. Maybe someone here has a better guess.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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