#HammerTime

Timing isn’t everything, but it is pretty damn important when buying high dollar assets.

Back in April 2009 I told folks that now would be an ideal time to buy a new car. Demand had slacked off over 40% from the record highs. Dead and dying brands were still in the glut of recessionary despair. The credit markets, the only financial source for a lot of car buyers, were a shadow of their former selves. Plus Uncle Sam was all too willing to subsidize the gluttons amongst us with Cash for Clunkers in about a month or two. It was the perfect storm for those of us who needed cheap new wheels for the long run. But today…

A 1991 Chevy Caprice in faded battleship grey went for $3000 at last week’s sale. It had only 37k miles. But none of the bells and whistles that would make such an old timer truly desirable. Now the 1996 Chevy Caprice with 71k and leather was a completely different story. Garage kept. No paint fade. All the bells and whistles in good working order. I was expecting around $5000 for this ancient beast.

It went for $5100. Truth be told this was the first auction with relatively decent prices in a long time. The 4th of July makes at least some of the dealers go away which was more than OK with me. I got four cars today. None of which were anything special.

No one likes to be jerked around. Unfortunately in the car business you can meet an awful lot of jerks. The jerk arbitrating vehicles at the auto auction who says, ‘How do you know it’s True Miles Unknown?” when the Carfax history shows the odometer hasn’t moved since the Clinton administration. The jerk who tries to charge you $800 for ‘computer reprogramming’ when the repair is already subject to the open recall by the NHTSA. Then there are the really bad ones…

Would you pay over $3000 for a 20 year old car? How about if it was a base 1991 Chevrolet Caprice in faded battleship grey with only 37,000 miles? As much as I love driving a big boat, owning an ancient mariner like this Caprice would have been no picnic. By the time you end up replacing all the worn items and catch up on the maintenance issues, you would be looking at nearly $4,000. It wasn’t a great deal. But with 95 dealers all looking at the same vehicle crossing the block, I got to see a lot worse.

Most folks will tell you how great they are. It’s not an evil thing. Just a gut reaction to personal insecurities. The great men… let others do their talking. Evil souls will pay someone for the pontificating privileges (and turn on them after the fact). However the greatest of men… tells no one of their good deeds. You don’t need faith or even a financial perk to ‘pay it forward’ and help out folks in need. With that in mind let me tell you about one of the many great men you’ve never met.

His name is George. Not a famous George like a Steinbrenner or a Stephanopoulos. Not even a Bailey or a Jetson. George is an everyday guy. Like most of us here he is also a bit of a goofball. George spends his work days designing all sorts of logos and emblems for off-beat brands. If there is a cultural creative somewhere in his neck of the woods chances are they would benefit from his talents. Unfortunately one of his in-law’s died from lung cancer a few years back. It was a soul bending, brutal and sickening experience. So he has over the years donated two vehicles towards the American Lung Association. Both Toyotas. Both of which do very well in dealer auctions that focus on overseas markets. Here’s his story. Enjoy!

Nothing drives like a Mercedes. Toyotas are reliable… but expensive. Honda makes great stickshifts. 20 years ago you could say all of these statements with complete confidence. The world had been a simpler place with brands that offered a very stringent range of offerings to a very particular audience. Now it seems that all the lines of differentiation have been smudged and greyed out.

Some families consider arguments to be ‘discussions’. Mine was definitely among them. As the youngest of four brothers it was a hassle for me to even get a word in at the dinner table. Everyone had an opinion… and damn it, they were all wrong! Especially when it came to cars.

My Dad wanted to replace his 1987 Lincoln Continental which back then had reached the ‘100k trade-in’ point. I told him that the car had plenty of life left. But the more I talked, the more I realized that no form of reason would ever penetrate his viewpoint.

Your worst nightmare. A pleasant drive along a yawning rural two-laner is met by a sudden ‘jolt!’ You quickly take your foot off the accelerator. Was it a transmission shudder? A miss in the engine? Some gravitational push from a UFO? After a couple of mini-jolts it looks like problem number one. You do what you can to not stress the tranny. But it gets worse and worse until ‘jolt!’ ‘JOLT!’ ‘Veeeee!!!!’ The engine spins over to the high rpm’s with nothing left to propel it. The tranny is toast… and now the fun begins.

I have always been a ‘keeper’. Even though my inventory varies these days from muscle car’s to minivan’s, my own daily driver has always been a long-term affair. It’s an addiction that goes well beyond cars. Quality, stewardship. An opportunity to make your professional work enduring. Keeping and preserving your ride usually goes well beyond the economics of the car itself. That’s why the most fervent of horse traders in any business will eventually find a personal keeper or two. And chances are it’s not always going to be something that is flashy or popular.

The Griswolds had ultimate nerd-chic space and style with their 1970’s Wagonqueen Family Truckster. But the fuel economy? About 10 mpg. The ride? Pogo stick bad. Never mind the fact that the dog needed to huff it all by itself (with tragic consequences). We’ve definitely come a long way from the poorly designed body on frame vehicle of the 1970’s.

Today’s compacts can even swallow a week’s worth of groceries given the right planning. Gas may be $4 a gallon and the roads cram packed with slow rides and rubbernecks. . But your ride can still offer serious comfort, fun and savings if you plan for it. Here are some of my favorites.

Back in 1999 I was having the time of my life. In three months I had managed to become a part of five different auto auctions in the Southeast. My job in the beginning was to be a ringman. The guy who would hoot, holler and help the auctioneer create the urgency to buy. Two degrees. A BBA and an M.Ed. and what was that day job again? To point at car dealers who wanted to bid and go ‘Yep!’. You know what? I was damned good at it.

Last year it was Quaker State. ‘Extreme Durability’ synthetic oil had flopped in the markeplace. A lowering of it’s price to $1.99 a quart plus a $10 mail-in rebate solved that issue for Quaker State. Not any profit there obviously. But oil is dirt cheap to produce and the new marketing campaign promised better returns for all that paid shelf space. Now Valvoline is performing a similar stunt for their ‘VR1 Racing Oil’. Six quarts of synthetic for free after the $50 mail–in rebate. Just make sure you keep track of the rebate. Then you can…

Some folks in the industry believe that Toyota has decontented themselves out of the top tier of quality. I don’t know if that’s true… yet. But I do know that they are not the only non-domestic manufacturer to have gone down that path. Not long after Mercedes turned the W124 model into a glorified Taurus, the Swedes begin sauntering into the path of cheap redesigns.

The goal as always was profit. To make the cheaper product (the 1998 Volvo S70) resemble the better one (the much loved 1993 – 1997 Volvo 850). The outcome became very profitable… for me.

Some folks say that stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Well, those folks have never been to an auto auction. Today we had over 95 dealers doing the same thing over and over again. Looking at a vehicle. Bidding it up to the nether-regions. Hoping that profit will come back via retail or buy here pay-here. Carmax has cutthroat middle-fingered competition at their dealer auctions and the prices reflect the screwing mentality that will likely be passed onto the bad credit consumer.

Who wants one these days? For the last ten years the entire conversion van industry has been pretty much niched out of existence. First minivans started becoming the mode of choice for those wanting a big screen and a wide array of entertainment options on the road. Then the mastodon SUV’s came to fore. Offering to tow your camper, pop-up, motorbikes, and pretty much anything else that you seemingly needed to take with you. That was only the beginning