Automobiles

Well! Here’s something I wrote a couple months ago and blithely forgot to post. This was before the Fed decided to start raising interest rates. It’s an interesting idea, if you have a vehicle that’s getting old but still running…don’t be in any hurry to replace it just because rates may rise.

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At our networking group, the thought is that we’re seeing a “bubble” in cars comparable to the housing bubble, BECAUSE interest rates are so low. With a 1.9% or 2.9% loan, you incline to buy a WHOLE lot more car than you can actually afford. Growing numbers of people are already defaulting on these loans. And if the economy stumbles — as it inevitably will, for whatever goes up must come down — a huge number of people will default.

Some of the guys suggested waiting a year, on the theory that the market will be flooded with repossessed vehicles offered at a cut rate.

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LOL! “Whatever goes up…” It pays to be a cynic: we’re never disappointed and sometimes pleasantly surprised. 😀

Okay, so our conversation turned, briefly, toward extended car service warranties offered by various third-party dealers. For a time, Costco offered such a warranty, but canceled the program because (says Costco) they couldn’t sell enough of them to make it worthwhile. This may be attributable to the fact that at least some of them were serviced by Century Warranty, which has a fine mob of angry consumers bellyaching about it.

Chuck and Pete, down at the shop, felt an extended warranty can be a good buy — especially if something goes wrong with your junker.

However, the operative word there is IF. Not just “if,” but also “how much.” Some of their customers’ warranties, which they trotted out for me to inspect, were very pricey — in the range of $1,500. The men felt these customers had gotten their money’s worth, though, because repairs on their cars also ranged around $1,500 to $2,000.

But…but…waitaminit. What kind of car do you drive? When did you last have a one-time hit of $2,000 on your Toyota or your Honda? The Dog Chariot — A Toyota Sienna — ran for 16 years and never once had a $1500 bill, to say nothing of two grand. I thought $500 was staggering…and that was for major upkeep.

Let’s go on over to Consumer Reports. Even though we’ve grown skeptical of their specific product recommendations (this is the outfit that thought Samsung top-loading washers were just grand…), when they dispense general information they’re still pretty credible.

CR calls the extended car warranty “an expensive gamble.” That very term drifted into my clouded brain as Chuck and Pete were talking about the things. The median price of these policies is about $1,200, but, says a  CR membership survey, “55 percent of owners who purchased an extended warranty hadn’t used it for repairs during the lifetime of the policy.” Sooo….that was twelve hundred buckolas down the drain, for each one of those owners!

Doesn’t get much better for the people who did get some payback: “Among survey participants who used their policy, the median out-of-pocket savings on repairs covered by extended warranties for all brands was $837. Based on a $1,214 average initial cost, that works out to a net loss of more than $375.”

Whether you’ll get any use out of this pricey instrument depends on the brand of car you buy. If the maker has a reputation for high reliability, then (duh!) you’re a lot less likely to use the coverage; if the clunk starts life as a clunk, then a warranty might pay for itself. Less-reliable brands include BMW, Chrysler, Dodge, and Mercedes-Benz; not surprisingly, the cost of warranties for these vehicles is high. Meanwhile, Honda, Subaru, and Toyota owners are far less likely ever to use their warranty coverage, and so tend to be the least satisfied with their gamble.

What the heck. If you’ve got $1,500 to bet on the come, you could have a heck of a lot more fun with it in Vegas than down at the car repair shop!

Edmunds is more measured in its remarks about extended warranties. It doesn’t exactly inveigh against them. As a matter of fact, Edmunds apparently hasn’t published an article on the subject since 2012. But when it did, the article was a good one. Go through the piece and answer, for yourself, the hypothetical questions they suggest you consider. Dave Ramsey, having read the CR piece, suggests you “just say no” to the things and instead set aside 50% of the warranty’s cost as a car-repair fund.

Since your car dealership’s “financial manager” salesman will try to get you to roll the warranty’s cost into the loan, any such purchase will mean you’ll be paying interest on this insurance policy.

Thus you’d be far better off to take the amount of the policy’s cost and stash it in a savings account. If you don’t have it on hand, figure out what the monthly payment plus interest would be and simply arrange an automatic monthly transfer from checking to savings. Before long you’ll have enough to cover repairs — especially if you’ve bought a reasonably reliable vehicle.

Here’s a guy who, way back in 2011, paid $2,380 (!!!) for a five-year Costco policy through Century. So…how much would you have to set aside to pay $2,380+2.2% interest, the rate tacked onto the Toyota loan Bell Road’s guy tried (for over an hour) to corral me into buying?

That would be $41.92 a month. Not an outrageous figure — most of us could afford that much. A $2,380 repair bill for your car would be a surprising chunk, especially if you’ve bought one of the “reliable” brands, and especially if the car comes with a new-car or “certified used” warranty that covers the drive train. The drive train is where you’re likely to have the big expenses — though of course who knows how much the computerized stuff will cost to fix. In the course of a year, you would have put aside over $500, which would cover at least one substantial repair.

That Sienna would run for an entire year, often, without any repair bills other than the ordinary maintenance: oil changes, windshield wiper replacement, and the like. These most surely did not add up to $500 a year. Assuming you lucked into a decent car (and chances are higher with newer vehicles) and assuming you used your car-repair stash only for really large bills, in five years you could have $2,500 set aside.

And…really…if you’re ever faced with a $2,500 car repair bill, isn’t it time to trade the thing in?

Is that a coupe de car?

This noon I picked up Phryne the Venza from Camelback Toyota. They did indeed change out the struts. Claimed the cost was $386+++, said they were charging it against the “Platinum” extended warranty coverage, and soaked me a $50 “deductible.”

Ohhhkayyyy….

Meanwhile, Pete — soon to become the new owner of Chuck’s (Astonishingly Wonderful) Automotive Repair, was dubious. He said that many Toyota warranties are actually farmed out to second parties, and that they were licensed to do warranty repairs for some of them. When I couldn’t find anything saying who might actually be backing these things and couldn’t get Brian down at Toyota to tell me the secret, I called back and got Chuck Himself on the phone. He said to bring the paperwork down and he would tell me a) what is covered and b) whether they can do the work under the warranty.

So after I retrieved the car from the Toyota joint (having photographed the rental — which is what loaners are, now: rental cars — from all angles before turning it in) (No…no, i surely do NOT trust them), I trotted down to Chuck’s, where both proprietors were holding forth.

Both men went through all the paper I’d been given. They couldn’t find any sign of a so-called “Platinum” extended warranty, nor could any of us find any evidence that the warranty I was sold is backed by anyone other than Toyota. It appears that if I bought one, I wasn’t given a contract. But they think I probably did not buy one. The only items that are covered on the Certified Used extended warranty — good for 7 years or 100,000 miles — are parts of the drive train.

Needless to say, hatchback gate struts are not part of the drive train. 😀

We contemplated this. I remarked that what must have happened was I uttered the magic words: “And it fell on my head.”

By then the Camelback Toyota crew must have figured out that I’d called the AG’s office on Bell Road Toyota. Brian probably figured the next words to come out of my mouth would be “…and I’m gonna sue your asses.”

HeeeeHEEEEEE!

Well, that’s our speculation.

Whatever happened, apparently Camelback Toyota gave me a break on the repair job.

Not as incandescent a break as they’d like to make it appear: you can buy those struts at an auto parts store for about $37, and the repair takes about 10 minutes per strut. If that long.

But I suppose $50 is about what their cost was, and it was one helluva lot better than $386.

We now know that Chuck’s can work on anything that’s not part of the drive train. Drive train repairs: to Camelback Toyota.

Postscript: Check out this exceptionally clever solution for failed hatchback and hood struts!

And my last word (i hope) (for awhile) on cars:

The rental/loaner/WTF they gifted me with was a late-model RAV-4 — only 9,000 miles on it, so presumably a 2015 or 2016. Dunno if you’ve been watching the reviews of Toyota vehicles (how many people, really, spend their spare time reading Edmunds?), but when the present version came out, car reviewers expressed their disappointment. I’m not going to try to track down those reviews…but can say that for some years La Maya drove an earlier version of the RAV-4. It was a very nice vehicle, classy on the inside and roomy enough for us to carry furniture from estate sales to her house and to M’hijito’s place.

That’s not altogether so today. The car is nice enough, but its interior trim has been plasticized and cheapied down. It really does NOT hold a candle to the Venza, which unfortunately Toyota took out of production last year.

The Venza’s interior, with its fake walnut trim (possibly real, under layers of shiny plastic??) and its mega-electronic approach to driving, is much classier and much easier and more intuitive to operate. Well. To the extent that the electronic stuff can be said to be “intuitive.”

The RAV-4 has mechanical dials for the heating/air-conditioning (for example), but the thing takes three controls to operate, at least one of which requires you to pull over, park, and search for it if you’re to figure out how to use the system.

The RAV-4 is cramped in front: with my friend Lee in the passenger seat last night, we had a time finding room on the floor on his side for my choir binder and hymnal. Believe me…these are not massive items!

The ride is OK but…tinny. The RAV-4’s four-banger, which performs well on city streets (didn’t take it on the freeway) sounds a little whiny in action. The Venza’s six-banger performs…well…as Pegasus to Old Stewball…

So I feel a little better about the choice of new cars…though I do still miss the Dog Chariot. Phryne reminds me of my beloved, classy Camry, the one I traded in the Mercedes for and that made me feel it actually was better than the Mercedes. That Camry. {sigh}

They don’t make Camry’s like that anymore, either.

Not your father’s Camry. That’s for damn sure. 😉

Driving in Phoenix: what a joy! Come quarter to seven this morning, I started out for my meeting in Scottsdale. Because the two main north-south thoroughfares through the central part of the city have reverse lanes and a nasty rule saying you can’t turn left (i.e., toward Scottsdale…) during the rush hours, I usually make my way through not one, not two, not three, but FOUR neighborhoods to get to Central Avenue, then turn east on Glendale for the long slow trudge to the West’s Most Western Tourist Trap Town.

Lately, though, Glendale has been backed up about two miles west of the SR 51 onramps. Traffic comes to a stop and about three cars get through each green light (if that many).

So I had the idea that I would cross Northern to 16th Street, which is relatively less traveled, and connect with Glendale east of the first mile of backup. Actually, if I wanted to veer out of my way, I could take Northern to the 51 and then drop off at Glendale, which would put me on the far side of the whole mess.

I get on to Northern, and the first thing I see is the usual goddamn construction. Northern has been torn up not for weeks but for months in the aftermath of the light-rail boondoggle. This morning they’ve got a lane closed and signs up reading “no lane markings.” Right.

Traffic is just flat stopped. I manage to cut across to the outside lane and then swerve into the neighborhood south of Northern. From there I know how to make my way to Central Avenue, whence (once again, goddamn it!) I’ll follow the time-dishonored route to Glendale and then east to the Home of the Rich and the Arrogant.

But no.

Now Central comes to a halt. They’ve got the whole road shut down for a wreck. I try to dodge into a west-bound side street, since I do know how to navigate those and figure I can at least get back to 7th Ave and thence north to the stymied Northern Avenue.

Wrong! It’s a dead end.

I muscle my way back into the stalled traffic on Central. The cops are…get this!!…routing traffic into a residential cul-de-sac!

Hundreds of cars — surely by the end of the morning upwards of a thousand — are filing past a dozen fancy, secluded private homes, circling around the end of their street, and filing back out toward Central, where they have no choice but to turn north.

What. A. Mess.

The barricade is close enough to the wreck to afford a great view of the carnage. The car they’re trying to hoist onto a tow truck’s flatbed looks like a piece of sheet metal. Literally: bone flat.

The Camry that plowed into the 18-wheeler looked exactly like someone had taken a gigantic rolling pin and rolled it out flat like a piece of dough.

It’s hard to believe anybody could have gotten out of that alive.

M’hijito, who’s an insurance adjuster, says cars are so much safer than they were in days of yore that many more people survive wrecks. Those who do survive are a lot more messed up, but they do live. After a fashion.

And I do have to say: if that had been the last American car I owned — a 1967 Ford Fairlane, one of the most notable lemons ever to grace America’s highways — nobody would have been pulled out of it alive. That thing had no airbags, of course. No shoulder belts. Ford had installed some cheesy lap-belts, but only because the government forced them to it. No collapsible steering wheel, no impact-engineered frame, no head rests, no padded dashboards, no antilock brakes, no ABS, no nothin’.

One of the main reasons the ex and I started buying European and then Japanese cars was that Mercedes and Volvo had real seat belts. You know: the kind with a shoulder belt, too? Ford resisted installing safety equipment with all its vast corporate might. They claimed shoulder belts were impossible to install and that consumers wouldn’t wear them. When they were finally pressed to it, they put in shoulder belts that had to be clipped separately from the lap belts.

Americans weren’t that dumb. When affordable Japanese cars hit these shores, the sheep flocked to them. Must have been quite a surprise to Detroit’s moguls.

To my mind, it’s questionable whether you’d want to survive a wreck in which an 18-wheeler smushed your car into a pancake and dragged it 50 feet. However, back in the good old days, it didn’t take a catastrophic crash to kill you. A fender-bender could do the job, especially if you were in one of the models with exploding gas tanks.

So. Yeah. I could sure do without all the electronic frou-frou this new car has. But I can’t imagine going back to what we had before about 1980.