Growing up my family owned a Jeep Wagoneer that consistently broke down towing our boat. My frugal parents couldn’t afford to have it repaired by a mechanic so my Pop dutifully bought the repair manual and spent his days off cursing under the hood in our driveway. He eventually grew so frustrated that he dropped a 500cu Cadillac engine in that old Jeep. Technology has made do-it-yourself repairs little more than nostalgic memories. Now it takes expensive diagnostic computers to identify why the light on the dash came on. And not only are the diagnostic computers expensive but in many cases the codes are proprietary. With recent dealership closures, congress has proposed legislation to protect consumers access to this critical repair information. HR 2057, the Rural Communities Stranded Without The Right To Repair Act would require auto manufacturers to make repair information and computer diagnostic codes available to the general public.
We had a brief word with the IIHS’s Russ Raider, who was quite cagey on the origins and condition of the 1959 Bel Air that was destroyed for the Institute’s 50th birthday. What we were able to get out of him was that the ‘59 Bel Air was in “good” condition, with only a little engine rust, leaky hood/trunk seals and non-original upholstery in the negative column. We also learned that the car was procured in Indiana, and with this information we went looking for Bel Airs on the internet. And you’ll never guess what we found . . .
Experian’s AutoCheck has thrown down the gauntlet to its competitor, CarFax. AutoCheck says it’s better at providing the accident information car buyers want. This morning’s press release is all about diss and dat. “A new quantitative analysis conducted by Pipal Research, an independent, custom research firm, comparing AutoCheck and Carfax vehicle history reports, demonstrates that AutoCheck holds significant competitive advantages by reporting twice the number of accidents . . . By having access to more reported accident information when stocking their inventories and at the time of sale, dealers are better equipped to bring higher quality used cars onto their lots and be able to demonstrate that quality to consumers who place high value on this information.” CarFax is having none of it. “We’ve had claims like this made us against us in the past,” Communications Director Larry Gamache says. ”Show me the study.” Gamache has no doubts about the supremacy of his company’s accident data. “We have 22,000 sources of information and 6.5 billion pieces of information in our database. CarFax is bar none the absolute best provider of vehicle history information. Period.” Ball’s in your court AutoCheck.
BMW enthusiasts would have you believe that there’s only one “real” M3: the original 1986 model (codenamed E30). That bad boy began life as a homologation special for Group A Touring Car racing. As BMW updated the racer, the road car received power and handling upgrades. When the six-cylinder E36 M3 appeared in 1995 (US), enthusiasts derided it as too heavy and, well, comfortable. By the time the E46 M3 appeared in 2000, the ultimate driving sports sedan was considered a bit of a pig—by True Believer standards. In fact, the third generation M3 is an animal; it wants to be driven hard and put away wet. As you would when purchasing any German hot rod, tuck away a bit of money for repairs and consult a specialist before you plunge into an E46 M3. Consumer Reports put the E46 M3 on its reliability list, but a bunch of smaller stuff can and will go wrong, and your M car will need regular infusions of pricey fluids, pads and other consumables. Autotrader lists a Your Shitty Economy Car of the Week: a “pristine” (albeit white) dealer-sourced 53k-mile 2003 E46 M3 at a shade under $25K. So, about twenty large, then. Plus the turbo?
Does this headline seem familiar? We noted a while back that British reliability records showed Chrysler and Fiat sharing space at the bottom of the rankings. Now, Glass’s Guide (via Autocar) has ranked British resale values by model, and Fiat’s Alfa 166 sedan takes dead last place. Not that this is entirely surprising; after all, reliability and resale tend to go hand-in-hand. The troubling part is that abominable resale values are already a major drag on Chrysler’s viability. How on earth is Fiat going to improve this desperate shortcoming for Chrysler, when it can’t beat the resale bug with its own products?
Whatever happened to Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? Robin Leach’s TV series motivated class warriors and aspiring entrepreneurs alike, fortifying the former group’s conviction that they had a sacred duty to redistribute wealth (if only on aesthetic grounds) while inspiring rappers, coke dealers and other venture capitalists to redouble their efforts to reach ever-greater heights of conspicuous consumption. These days we have federal stimulus packages and MTV’s Cribs, which doesn’t include a single golden bath fixture (or a single book, but that’s another story). Ah, but we pistonheads will always have Pebble Beach, where we can watch old money compete with modern-day robber barons to pocket the world’s automotive crown jewels. One can almost hear Robin’s Harrow twang calling the tune: “One lucky collector bought home this 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Special, Ettore Bugatti’s personal car, for $1.38 mmmmmillion dollars.” Leach-like, the majority of the MSM would have you believe the collector car market defies economic gravity. The New York Times sets us straight.
Charities have been some of the loudest opponents of the Government CARS stimulus, voicing fears that it would cause car donations to plummet. “It varies by market, but there’s been an 11 to 12 percent drop compared with last year,” Volunteers of America VP (vehicle donations) Jim Hartman tells Reuters. “We started seeing it right away in July.” VOA and The Military Order of the Purple Heart each typically receive 40,000 to 50,000 vehicle donations a year. Purple Heart estimates its C4C losses at $105 million over 24 months. Hartman tells Reuters that a bill is pending in congress to increase vehicle donation tax credit caps to $2,500 from the current $500 limit.
The Chevy Impala already gets dumped on for being a fleet queen holdover, but a Kansas City Star investigation reveals that it might not actually be fleety enough for buyers like Enterprise Rent-A-Car. It turns out that Enterprise ordered 66,000 Impalas from GM without the side airbags that are standard equipment on all retail Impalas. Worse still, hundreds of these Impalas were sold with the side bags listed as standard equipment. Enterprise saved $175 on each Impala by deleting the bags, for a total of about $11.5 million in savings. Thanks to the misleading online sales though, Enterprise is offering to buy back the nearly 750 Impalas sold under false pretenses for $750 over Kelly Blue Book Value. Beyond that effort though, Enterprise is defending its standard safety feature deletion by arguing that it never violated any federal mandate. Congratulations, guys, you aren’t criminals. Meanwhile, when it comes to buying fleet vehicles, buyer beware.
The Cash for Clunkers (C4C) program is on its way to Senate approval, as your elected representatives have attached the bill to the $106 billion military spending bill. As theDetroit News reports, the C4C rider sallies forth into legislative battle in the same form as the House version: “Under the program, owners of cars rated at 18 mpg or less in combined highway and city mileage could turn them in for a cash voucher. Buying a new car rated at least 4 mpg higher would earn a $3,500 voucher; a 10 mpg improvement would earn a $4,500 voucher. Pickups would be eligible as long as the new vehicle has a mileage rating of at least 18 mpg and is at least 2 mpg higher than the old vehicle. A new truck rated at least 5 mpg higher than the turned-in vehicle would earn a $4,500 voucher.” One problem: the feds are not planning (i.e., budgeting) for success . . .
Mr. Niedermeyer has crafted another “Curbside Classic” for your literary delectation and pistonhead perusal. I’ll publish the latest in his series tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ve started our contest to “name that curbside classic.” This week’s booty: Mr. Herbert H. Blaha’s most estimable work Taschenwörterbuch der Kraftfahrzeugtechnik. That’s a German – English, English – German pocket dictionary of automotive engineering to you and me. [Also available from www.brandstetter-verlag.de.] So, first one to identify this week’s curbside classic gets the tome with which no transplanted Volkswagen technician (or owner, come to think of it) should be without.
guyincognito - E36 M3 and no I don’t have spiked, frosted hair and a spray on tan, despite the fact that I did also grow up in NJ. I’m not sure if the...
Oregon Sage - Saab 9000 Turbo, 5 speed, hatch . Practical, unusual, strong ratio of performance to thriftiness. I still miss the 1996 model we had, but havent...
ajla - @guyincognito: Well, my reasons are that the old Lightning and Raptor have similar towing and payload numbers, so as “trucks” it’s pretty equal. ...
Recent Comments
Jack Baruth - Totally agree… nothing like a Pinzgauer. There was one at Petit LeMans last month, I’m always pleased to see ‘em.
trk2 - I looked through some of the links without success to try and figure out what “Adjusted Fuel Economy”...
guyincognito - E36 M3 and no I don’t have spiked, frosted hair and a spray on tan, despite the fact that I did also grow up in NJ. I’m not sure if the...
escapenguin - I had an ‘87 900S sedan. It was a fantastic car– so fun to drive. I forever regret trading it in, but when I did,...
Detroit-Iron - Amazing numbers. 1) Still 49% truck sales in 2009 2) 27% 4wd/awd 3) The precipitous decline in the % of...
JSForbes - Without the dramatic increase in truck sales I bet light-duty fuel economy would be much higher. The actual...
educatordan - @ th009: Thanks, in VWs quest to be #1, nobody can keep up with their proposals.
info@carsinpedia.com - First gen MR2 like this one: http://carsinpedia.com/car_day _archive_details.php?id=257
Oregon Sage - Saab 9000 Turbo, 5 speed, hatch . Practical, unusual, strong ratio of performance to thriftiness. I still miss the 1996 model we had, but havent...
ajla - @guyincognito: Well, my reasons are that the old Lightning and Raptor have similar towing and payload numbers, so as “trucks” it’s pretty equal. ...