|
 HOME
Main Page
Auto
Alternatives
Drive Shafts Industry Tricks
Dealing With The Dealer Consumer Tricks
SUV-ille
Hidden Profit$
Consumer Driven Deals
Self-help
Resources
More
Auto Consumer Resources
Grand Theft Auto: Industry Cases
My
Last VW Mistake
"Ten
Reasons"
Lemon
Proofing Deals
CARveat's
Caveat
You
Can Help
CARveat
Emptor Flyer
VW
Junkyard
Links
My
Other Car Not A VW
Legislative
Alerts
Dodging
Chryslers
Mini
Van Junkyard
Activist
Flyers
True Costs of Driving
Car
Deal Illiteracy
15 Sec. Car Deal Lecture
Parallel
Parking
Test-I-Moanials
Eco Orgs & Auto Industry
Contact Info
|
Uparmoring Car
Deals - Do-It-Yourself Troop Support
Tell
Car Makers To Make Cleaner-Air Vehicles
Tell Ford Motors Company to Get it's
Gas in Gear
A Car Deal
Repair Kit
Repairing
the Dings in the
Great American Car Deal ...
for Village and Family Values
AutoBuyology
Just FIX
IT!
Just DO IT!
If not you, if not us, who then?
Are we still waiting for the Auto Industry to fix it?
Fixing the
Great American Car Deal is a two or three step process:
1. Consumer
awareness and education
a.
Learning the dealer and guerrilla car consumer tricks of the
car deal trade
b. Becoming guerrilla automobile consumers
2. Governmental
intervention and democratic control
a.
Training, testing, and monitoring of auto sales and service personnel
(Professionalizing the industry. If we are going to pay medical
industry prices for auto service, we should be able to expect
uniform standards of care be enforced in the automobile sales
and service marketplace.)
b. Comprehensive FAIR CAR SALES AND SERVICE PRACTICES
legislation to protect consumers, and dealers and mechanics that
compete fairly.
3. Demanding,
supporting and using public transportation projects that provide viable
alternatives to the private automobile for the majority of medium
and long distance personal trips. Public transit benefits everyone,
even the auto addicted.
Here are more
AutoBuyology
Car Deal Repair Tools to
download, copy, post, circulate and share... they make great
lecture or presentation value additives too... helping others
benefits us all directly and indirectly.
Americans
show an unseemly and uncharacteristic lack of self esteem in permitting the automobile
industry to run roughshod over consumers on car deals and service,
so much so that its laughed off as an expected ritual of buying
a car.
In contrast Australia has comprehensive consumer, dealer, industry,
and economy protection laws that take the ding factor out of
car dealing -- so why don't we? Perhaps everyone has bought the
specious argument that buying a common automobile is somehow
a test of Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, where the
deck is always stacked and the field is always tilted in favor
of the dealer and the manufacturer and against the consumer --
our friends and families. Predatory capitalism is anti-family
and anti-social.
Winning
or losing the car deal game is not a test of Darwinian principles...and theories!!! Its
a matter of who controls the economic and governmental marketplaces.
Just Demand
It !!!
"FAIR CAR SALES and SERVICES PRACTICES"
Consumer, Economy, and Industry Protection Legislation
Even Baseball
Has Rules and Requires Umpires
..."Whatever Traffic
Allows"
Until the American consumer shows some spine and self esteem,
the auto industry will continue to treat us shamefully... and
until we demand reasonable controls over the auto industry by
our tax funded government, we can expect the sham treatment we
have bought and paid for for decades to continue unabated.
- Auto dealers
and service shops will continue to take advantage of consumers and
abuse an essentially unregulated marketplace in automobile sales
and service until consumers show some spine and self-esteem and
take back their marketplace and demand that this industry be
cleaned up, that its practitioners be trained, tested, licensed
and monitored similar to the way real estate agents and brokers
are regulated for public health, safety and welfare.
A lifetime
of automobile purchase and maintenance costs exceed twice the cost
a of median priced American homes. We regulate real estate agents
and the house selling industry. Why don't we regulate automobile
dealers and the industry for higher standards and to help protect
good dealers from the cost of sham in the system? So what are
you waiting for? Its your government too, isn't it? Why let a
minority of auto manufactures and dealers dictate consumer protection
laws in the democratic marketplace? There is no Constitutional
right for manufacturers and dealers to milk excessive profits
from our families by unfair, manipulative and fraudulent sales
and service practices
- Demand
that
"FAIR CAR SALES
AND SERVICE PRACTICES," consumer protection legislation
be enacted at local, state, and national levels to protect America's
friends and family values from the documented traditions of unfair,
manipulative and fraudulent sales and services practices in the
new and used car sales and service markets.
Make it
an issue!
Request that dealers and manufacturer's be monitored more closely
by consumer protection agencies. Professional auto dealers should
be trained, tested, licensed and monitored similar to the way
real estate agents are regulated. Automobile purchases typically
represent the second most expensive consumer activity. Random
sales practice audits should be conducted until the industry
demonstrates that it is capable of policing itself in its own
interest and in the public interest. --- Remind your representatives
routinely and especially near election time about your requirement
that Fairness be made an integral part of the automobile sales
and service marketplace.
Remember,
the
auto industry has a mechanic's lien law that guarantees payment
regardless of competency or result. The consumer majority is
entitled to legal protection from this industry -- demand it
today and get it or vote in new representatives until you do...,
Download
a copy of this home page or
compose your own consumer protection letter and e-mail, fax or
mail it to your local, state and national representatives and
governmental leaders. Demand laws and law enforcement that helps
this industry police itself in its own best interest, and to
protect your friends and families from costly unfair, manipulative
and fraudulent sales and service practices -- from the billions
of dollars of inflated costs associated with questionable practices
in this industry every year. Consumer protection non-profits
report that $22 billion of ill-gotten profits and costs were
milked fraudulently from our friends and families last year alone
by unscrupulous practitioners of the auto industry.
Just
do it!
-- Search for CAPITAL
WEB
(CapWeb)
for Federal Congressional Internet directories for the names
of your national legislators, or your individual state government
for state representatives, and
(1) Demand
fairness legislation in new and used car sales and services practices
at state and national levels.
(2) Demand
that the automobile sales and service industry be tested, licensed
and regulated
similar
to the way we regulate real estate agents and brokers.
(3) Ask
that this industry be policed and monitored with frequent random
sales and service practice audits by deputized consumer protection
agency staff. This industry has not earned consumers' trust or
the privilege of policing itself. Fleecing consumers is bad for
business!
Actually, a
letter by regular mail is more effective than e-mail. A fax is second best
after regular mail. Magnify and sustain your effect. Consider
encouraging at least five friends, family members, neighbors
and strangers to write letters demanding fair car deal legislation.
Dealers and repair shops should consider demanding fairness legislation,
too.
Guerrilla
Car Consumer Tip:
- Chain letters
may be illegal,
but
they may be a good way to pass along good consumer awareness
information or specific manufacturer or dealer concerns which
would benefit other consumers and to share the Fair Car Sales
and Service Practices consumer protection effort with a wider
audience.
-
- It's understandable
why the industry
often takes unfair advantage of our friends and families (grandmothers
and daughters are especially at risk as are women and minorities)
over the sale and service of a product which nearly everyone
feels a need to have at least one of every several years. If
you could get away with it, wouldn't you?
-
The question
is, why
has the American consumer put up with it, almost passively, for so long? Do we not have
individual and the cultural self esteem to make this industry
merely treat us fairly, indeed, merely treat consumers as anyone
reasonably would choose to be treated, and the way most of us
treat others most of the time--fairly and honestly?
Consider
that seven or eight or more cars over a lifetime will cost, with interest,
operating costs, loan interest and insurance costs, far more
than the expense of a median priced American home mortgage. The
real estate industry is regulated to ensure minimum competency
and the auto sales and service industries are not. Subsequently
the consistency of auto service and sales competency is spotty
and unreliable.
Real
estate agents are trained, tested and monitored for "professional" competency and sanctioned
for professional improprieties. Automobile sales personnel and
mechanics enjoy the mechanics lien law in most states which guarantees
payment regardless of competency or result, because the industry
has the ear of government and consumers do not. Auto sales and
service personnel are not required to be trained and tested for
competency to obtain a business license, even though a lifetime
of auto purchase and ownership costs considerably more than a
median priced American home. And the consumer pays for the industry
serving anti-consumer legislation when it purchases industry
products and services.
Automobile
dealers should be required in
their own interests and to boost rather than taint consumer confidence,
and to protect consumers on a major personal purchase, to be
trained, tested and policed in the way we regulate and control
other professional associations, especially the real estate industry?
If you
like the current ding-dong factor of the Great American Mickey Mouse
Car Deal, you'll like buying cars today where you are never sure
until its too late that you've been tricked or cheated in substantive
ways on price and on product quality.
A Fairness
Act requiring
documentation and disclosure of all pre-sale use, test driving,
damages, defects, and repairs is a minimal first step in cleaning
up the Great American Car Deal. Demand that your government provide
this minimally necessary consumer protection in car sales and
service practices. Demand fail-safe odometers and complete documentation
of every mile on the odometer of all pre-sale new cars, including
users by name (with user's signatures) and address and phone
number for verification. And be cautious of the ease by which
odometer mileage can be rolled back on new car odometers currently
without detection, especially prior to the first purchase of
the vehicle by a consumer.
Even
honest dealers and salespersons make "mistakes" or
"forget"
about
things which cost consumers considerable in time and expense
to resolve. Beware of the "oops" excuse for non-disclosures
of defects and hidden damage repairs or misrepresentation or
non-representation of the prior use of vehicle. Even manufacturers
ship vehicles with known or unknown manufacturing defects, expecting
the consumer will have to spin his or her wheels having the defects
or repairs handled under warranty.
Manufacturers
and dealers often sell new vehicles known to be the subject of an industry recall
without disclosure this fact to consumers prior to the purchase.
Make sure you request in writing from the dealer and the manufacturer
that the vehicle you may be about to buy is free or recalls or
to comprehensively list and detail the recalls on the vehicle.
Is there are recalls on the vehicle, use this information to
negotiate a lower sales price or to avoid paying the "new
car" depreciation costs. Some "consumer protection"
laws permit dealers to not disclose defects under specific dollar
amounts in value with no provisions about the adequacy of such
repairs. So often repairs are handled off the books or the repairs
are cheapened to avoid the disclosure dollar amount threshold.
The consumer is left to expend time and money to have these manufacturer
responsible or undisclosed dealer responsible defects handled
under warranty, if repair is honored under warranty, or personal
expense, if not so covered by warranty. Protect yourself -- CARveat
Emptor! Pay less up front on every deal for peace of mind down
the road regardless of how bumpy the going becomes.
Even Baseball
Has Rules and Requires Umpires.
Is fairness too much to ask?
Mr.
Car Dealer, how much for that "Fairness" model
in
you showroom window...?
Is anyone
opposed to fairness?
"Dealers...?"
"Customers...?" "Government officials...?"
How
much did you pay the auto industry on your last car deal or lease to help the auto
industry fight consumer protection, public safety, and environmental
protection laws? Paying too much for new cars rewards the auto
industry for anti-consumer activities.
Less
than one hundred (100) car manufacturers and as many as 128,000
(+/-) car dealers
lobby congress
and state legislatures to weaken, kill or postpone consumer protection,
safety, environmental and lemon laws (where they exist) to favor
the industry at the expense of hundreds of millions of American
consumers--our friends and families.
Make
your government behave democratically to protect consumers and good dealers
from anti-competitive unfair, inflationary, manipulative and
fraudulent practices in the automobile industry. Consumers can
help control the Great American Car Deal. Make your government
work for consumers. Make sure your representatives at local,
state and national levels know your feelings about this industry
and its effects on the health of the nation's economy and the
economic health and welfare of our friends and families. Don't
wait until your next car deal. Do it now, while you're thinking
about it. Sustain the effort with follow-up letters and phone
calls. And follow-up your demands by voting unresponsive elected
officials out of office.
Consumer protection
is good for business. .. especially in a "consumer driven"
economy...
It protects
the consumer and the economy by bolstering consumer confidence.
Our laws should favor consumer protection to protect the economy
and the health, safety and welfare of our friends and families,
and the integrity of the honest members of the automobile industry
(where ever they are...) who compete fairly without resorting
to sham, unfair, manipulative or fraudulent sales or service
practices.
Do dealers
and manufacturers really need to trick customers in order to profit from the sale of
a product that nearly everyone needs at least one of every few
years,-- a product which when used as directed requires constant
expensive maintenance? Some car sales staff have suggested that
dealers have to cheat or sham customers because the marketplace
is too competitive, that it has been over-saturated by the manufacturers
with too many "authorized" dealers.
Consider
requesting that your local, state and federal government purchasing agencies
reward car makers and dealers in fleet purchases who have demonstrated
a solid commitment to customer service and satisfaction. Companies
with histories of lemon laundering should not be rewarded with
government contracts for large vehicle fleet purchases. Government
should reward manufacturers and dealers with high rankings in
consumer satisfaction and quality measurements.
Even
baseball requires umpires! We just received an e-mail for a well intentioned
but misguided fellow. He said that he once worked for a dealer
after college before taking employment in writing. He said the
first thing the dealer did was to call him into the dealer's
office and warn him about lying to consumers. I wonder why such
a concern exists. Actually, I have a pretty good clue. Bamboozling
customers is a historic tradition in car dealing. The sales salary
based on minimum wage plus commissions contributes to a tendency
to cheat. Yes, folks, Time Magazine (July 24, 1994) reported
that dealers blame "competition" for cheating. They
blame the manufacturers for over dealerizing the marketplace
-- so dealers have to cheat to make a killing? "Good Guys
Finish First?" Gee, I wish we were making this stuff up.
Wake up and smell the exhaust from this industry. There is no
good reason why this industry should not be better regulated
and managed for the health, safety and welfare of consumers,
our economy and for the industry itself. The industry should
be first in line to support a Fair Car Sales and Service Practices
consumer protection Act. But, they will need consumers help in
getting jump-started, boosted or pushed in the right direction.
So push! Get this jalopy of a car deal towed out of the sewer
the industry has driven it into!
The
industry will point to its sales figures as evidence that the automobile industry
does not need to be regulated and that consumers do not need
protection. This might be true if consumers felt that they had
and if they indeed had realistic alternatives to private automobiles
for personal transportation. Remember, General Motors and its
friends in the tire and oil industry buying up local railway
tracks in 28 American cities to kill off public transportation
competition with the automobile? Indeed, given an alternative,
many auto consumers would abandon the lemon of a deal the auto
industry is selling on nearly every dealer lot across America.
Industry advertising digs deep into the psyche of consumers to
plant and create consumer needs and wants where none exist for
the express purpose of motivating sales and to manipulate the
consumer / dealer dynamic and relationship. If it were not for
the chimera of warranties, the palliative of monthly payments,
and the dearth of alternatives to the automobile, fewer vehicles
would be consumed at any price. The industry's sales figure argument
ignores the traditions of historic sham and shortcomings in the
industry, and merely argues for maintenance of the status quo,
where the industry rather than the consumer is in the driver's
seat of car purchase and lease deals. Consumers can continue
to buy this sham deal or they can demonstrate the existence of
a cultural spine and self esteem and take this lemon in for a
complete overhaul.
The
following note is included in the classifieds section of the San Francisco
Examiner and Chronicle under #455 - Massage / Spas: 'The San
Francisco Chronicle & the San Francisco Chronicle make every
effort to ensure that our MASSAGE/SPAS classification contains
only legitimate advertisers who adhere to strictly professional
standards of conduct. If you encounter a violation of this policy,
we encourage you to call our representative......All responses
will be held in strictest of confidence'.
Unfortunately, apparently the Chronicle
and Examiner are more concerned about their MASSAGE/SPAS readers
getting rubbed the wrong way than they are about their AUTO readers,
as no such cautionary note or complaint solicitation is printed
in any of its AUTOMOTIVE classified advertising.
If you
get rubbed the wrong way by your auto dealer or service shop, drop your
newspaper editor and publisher a note accordingly and demand
that they police up their automotive classified advertising clients.
Consumer protection is a safe sex team sport. Even baseball has
rules and umpires. CARveat Emptor.
Auto
Alternatives
| Drive
Shafts
| Dealing
With The Dealer
Hidden Profit$ | Consumer
Driven Deals
| Car Consumer Resources
Auto Industry
Cases
| Car Deal Repair Kit | My Last VW Mistake
"Ten
Reasons" | Lemon
Proofing Deals | CARveat's
Caveat
You Can Help
| CARveat Emptor Flyer | VW Junkyard | Links
My Other
Car Not A VW | Legislative
Alerts | Dodging
Chryslers
Mini Van
Junkyard | Activist Flyers True
Costs of Driving |
Car
Deal Illiteracy
15 Sec. Car
Deal Lecture | Parallel
Parking | Test-I-Moanials
-
- AutoBuyology
 ©
AutoBuyology©
CARveat
Emptor - Tricks of the Great American Car Deal ©
(AutoBuyologist).
© copyright 1995-2006, R. Rand Knox. All Rights Reserved.
Not for use, reuse, sale, resale or fee unless so licensed or
released
by R. Rand Knox in writing.
Cheers and happy motoring, wheeling & dealing
--virtually and really.
|
What's
In You?
What's
In Your
Cells?
 GOT ASTHMA? Yet?
GOT WAR FOR OIL?
GOT TOXIC LOADING?
GOT GLOBAL WARMING?
GOT EXPENSIVE FOSSIL FUELS?
Have you told your auto maker, or the
auto industry to make more efficient and cleaner-air vehicles?
Recently?
(Flyer
to copy and post). Have you asked others if they have? It wouldn;t
kill you to do so! It may even help prevent or reduce asthma
and global warming.
Help Save Your Breath, Life, Money &
Planet (The
breath, life, money and planet you save may be your own.)
For Healthier
Air, Planet, & People: To Save Y'our Breath, Lives, Money
& Planet...
Tell Car Makers To Make
Cleaner-Air Vehicles
1
Jump Start Ford For A Cleaner-air Future
2 Jump Start Ford
Tell
NHTSA to Improve Fuel Efficiency of SUVs
Tell
Car Makers To Get Their Gas In Gear Flyer 2-up
Save Your Breath, Life, Money
& Planet Flyer 1-up
Don't
Be A Fossil Fool - Fossil Fools Day
Help
Save Your Breath, Life, Money & Planet (The breath, life,
money and planet you save may be your own.)
Car Deal
Literacy Self-help - Auto Consumer Resources:
Troop
Support - Up-armored Car Deals
Thank
You For Teaching - Carlessnesshood 101
Real Conservatives Conserve (The money you save may be your own.)
Real
Government
Reform
ReDemocracy FLYER
ReDemocracy
|