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If the point of advertising is to make you remember a company or a product, then the local dealerships using Gary Busey as a spokesman are doing a great job. I know that Busey's pitches will stick with me for quite some time, even if it's because it's in my nightmares. More »
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Mercedes-Benz Manhattan's 330,000 square-foot dealership is a model of quiet efficiency. Towering windows cast golden afternoon sun serenely across acres of luxury cars. Attentive greeters, trained by Ritz Carlton, greet customers from behind a hotel-like concierge desk. Every touch-point inside the $30 million facility is welcoming and helpful. Outside? Local residents say it's a train wreck. More »
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Thanks to a perception of versatility, reliability and affordability, the Toyota Hilux is the pickup truck of choice for terrorists and mercenaries all over the world. Now, a Florida car dealer is paying $7.5 million for making that association at the expense of a rival Iranian-born car dealer. More »
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Car dealers, like other businesses, are now a target of overseas hackers looking to make quick money. Why? They're easy prey. More »
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In the small town of Oakville, Ontario there sits a BMW dealership, abandoned for almost a decade. Inside the doors sit, frozen in time, two 20-year-old BMWs in seemingly mint condition. What happened? More »
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Writers often have to take outside jobs while they hone their skills, but a New York used car salesman has managed to combine his work and hobby into the most literary sales pitches since Kurt Vonnegut owned a Saab dealership. More »
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The BMW 1M has softened the hardened arteries of auto reviewers around the world, from Jeremy Clarkson to our own Mike Spinelli. One California BMW dealer hopes to capitalize on high praise and low supply with an insane $40,000 markup. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5816234&view=rss&microfeed=true An Ohio judge says Ford owes about $2 billion for hiding discounts on medium and heavy-duty trucks sold to 3,000 dealers between 1987 and 1997. We'll see everyone in appeals court. More »
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Being the top-selling U.S. luxury brand for 11 years was nice, but according to a list of gripes in a leaked internal document obtained exclusively by Jalopnik, they're also on the verge of becoming the new Buick. UPDATED More »
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During my Malaise Era childhood, my sisters and I would often set up the card table for an acrimonious, hatred-filled session of the classic 1971 Parker Brothers used-car-selling board game Dealer's Choice. More »
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Was your Chrysler dealer one of the 789 the restructuring-under-bankruptcy automaker killed off today? Find out below! More »
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The Lawrence Marshall Dealerships sold not-so-Big Three and Hyundai products in a 40-acre complex in southeast Texas. Known for selling a lot of Ford and Chevy trucks, it was sadly clobbered by the Carpocalypse. More »
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Two Texas dealers are trying to flip General Motors' low stock price into profits by offering customers 50 shares of GM common stock to buy a new GM vehicle by the end of the month. Will and Corrie Churchill, owners of Frank Kent Motor Co. in Fort Worth, Texas, began their promotion this week and will offer it to the first 100 customers "because this is GM's 100-year anniversary," Will Churchill said. We can't make this up. Seriously, if they'd come to me with this as a joke in a post I would have cut it for being too easy, formulaic and punny. Guess it serves me right. Shown up by reality. I hate it when that happens. Wait, it's happening again — guess what the name of the promotion is. Hit the jump to find out. More »
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Can't afford a brand-new BMW M6 Convertible? Neither can most people, as the car costs over $100,000. But a California woman thought that she could afford to lease one. She had a good credit history. She even plunked down her $30,000 life savings for a down payment. Trouble is that she's on a fixed income: a $2500 monthly disability check. And thats a problem when the monthly lease payment is $1300. Don't forget you still have to pay for insurance and other running costs. (And most people don't like living in their cars.) More »
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While most of use are probably used to voting in schools, churches and municipal buildings, voters in Kearny, New Jersey may find themselves voting in the middle of a car dealership showroom. Both a Dodge and a Chevrolet dealership will open their doors to those doing their civic duty (Ford dealerships hate democracy). There's no prohibition in New Jersey against having polling places on private property and car dealerships make good voting locales as they feature significant parking, access and are handicap accessible. Owners claim they can't remember selling a car to a voter, but it surely brings in more business than an inflatable ape. God Bless America. [Newsday] More »
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With the EPA's new test methods for calculating fuel-economy estimates in effect for model-year 2008, some new models will get updated numbers on their stickers. For instance, the EPA's figures for the Toyota Prius have dropped from 60 city/51 highway miles per gallon to 48/45. With less marketing value to be gained from the arguably more realistic numbers, some dealerships have decided they'd do the righteous thing, and just stick with the original numbers. A survey of 200 Toyota dealers by CNW Marketing Research shows 33% of dealers still tout the 2008 model year Prius as a 60-mpg machine. And who's blowing the whistle on such dealers of compromised scruples? Other Toyota dealers who are playing by the rules. It's been reported that some of the noncomplying dealers have placed ads featuring with the old numbers on radio and TV rather than in newspapers, where there would be a paper trail of their violations. Hello? YouTube? [GM Inside News] More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=305323&view=rss&microfeed=true Volvo hiring Indian dealers — just in time to get sold to Tata? Probably not — but Tata is the only Indian car manufacturer we find to have a truly humorous name. [NDTVProfit.com] More »
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Chrysler Group just dropped a release letting us know they're planning on expanding "dealer operations in key markets outside North America." They've brought in 70 potential investors from places like Russia and Japan for a forum to get a sneak peek at "sales outlet ownership opportunities." Well — looks like someone hasn't yet learned about the problems of dealerships not owned by the automaker. Maybe someone should have read the Detroit Free Press this week. Or heck, maybe even learned from past experiences. Full release after the jump. – Ray Wert More »
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It used to be so easy being a Hyundai dealer — they've never had to sell a vehicle with anything but front-wheel or all-wheel drive. So we're glad to see the Korean company's helping their sales staff understand the differences between the various drivetrains as they ready the Genesis — their first V8-powered rear-wheel sports sedan for the 'merican market. We're all about providing a service to the industry and as a way of helping out here's a great article at CanadianDriver which we think could help greatly in explaining the differences. Why CanadianDriver? Mainly because we're seriously getting a kick out of just thinking about Canadians helping the sales staff of a Korean company explain the benefits of rear-wheel drive to American buyers. I mean come on, how United Nations is that shit? Eat your heart out, Bolton! – Ray Wert More »
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Don Steger of Garden Grove, California has an irrational obsession with De Loreans. We hesitate to call anyone's obsession irrational, given our penchant for Citro ns, pickups made out of passenger vehicles and oddball Eastern Bloc cars. The pot is definitely calling the kettle black here. And truth be told, we've got a thing for De Loreans, too. But as much as we may fantasize about hiring a Czech mechanic named Sabina with a phenomenal rack and a slightly dour demeanor to run our vintage-Skoda repair business, its likelihood is fairly close to nil. On the other hand, Steiger's opened a new De Lorean Motor Company franchise in his Orange County town. Steger = 1, Jalopnik, = 0. – Davey G. Johnson More »
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Toyota today unveiled the all-new 2007 Tundra full-size (as opposed to kiddie size?) pickup truck at a press conference at the new Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor, MI. With an overall length of 209.8 inches for the standard bed and 228.7 inches for the long bed, this is one big-ass truck — bigger than last year's model by an inch and a half on the standard bed, but a whopping seven inches longer on the long bed. That's nice, yes — but we've heard now from three different folks the new truck-o-saurus is so big that a reason for the delay between introduction and production of the '07 trucks has been size-related. Specifically, the service bays at dealerships aren't big enough to accomodate the new pickups and so ToMoCo's spent the past six months making upgrades to the bays and training their service center workers in how to effectively fix a truck as big as the new Tundra. Below the jump we've included a scan of the quarterly dealer magazine from Toyota to dealerships reminding them they'll need to retrofit those service bays...as well as how big of a problem it was. More »
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Last week we reported on a double-super-secret missive from William Powell, GM's Veep for Industry Dealer Affairs to all dealers on fuel allowances outlining the General's new policy on reimbursement to dealers of the cost of gas on that first filled-to-the-brim tank on a new car. The new policy was that instead of a reimbursement to dealers for a full tank upon delivery, the General'd be reimbursing $20 for a car and $30 for a truck — which by our calculations left a sizable gap between what it takes to fill a tank and what the General's willing to pay. After seeing the code-word clearance only document, we hypothesized that the added cost of the first tank was going to slip on down to the consumer. Apparently the General was reading and got concerned about the same thing, because in a startling twist, they've decided to let the dealers have their soup and the full fuel allowance. Kudos to the General for making the right decision, now lets see if they'll give us bread too. The full amended policy memo sent to dealers on Friday is just a click of the jump away. More »
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Like the Soup Nazi, the General's laying down the law on dealerships in the latest missive from the bean-counting bureaucrats at the RenCen (Note — in today's episode, the part of "bean-counting bureaucrat" will be played by GM Veep of Industry Dealer Affairs, William Powell), by making it clear they'll no longer reimburse dealers for a full of tank of gas upon delivery. Instead, the Detroit-based automaker will be handing the dealership $20 for cars and $30 for trucks — which if we've calculated correctly, will mean the dealer will be able to pump just over six gallons into a car and ten gallons into a truck without dipping into their own pockets. Hmm...since the tank of a Chevy Aveo (pronounced with the em-pha-sis on whatever syll-a-ble feels right on to ya) holds 11 gallons and a Chevy Silverado holds 34 gallons — that'll be a differential of five gallons and 24 gallons in a truck. So who's gonna pick up that cost? Well, the dealer will initially...but fear not consumers, we expect you'll start seeing a "fuel delivery charge" soon added as a box on your next car purchase or lease agreement. We've got the full dealer communique just a click of the jump away — as well as the Ministry of Truth-like graphic from the General explaining which products are cars, and which are trucks. In case you're confused, the car-based HHR is a truck, but the truck-based Chevy SSR is a car. More »
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Our ex-pat buddies in Japan, Nihon Car and Bike file one of their oft-taped HD-video reports on the Toyota Mega Web, reportedly the largest car showroom in the world. The giant dealership houses 150 Toyota, Daihatsu and Lexus models, a private test track, restaurants and a movie theater — in a low-sales-pressure environment. Plus, for about six bucks, you can take any of the cars available for a drive on the track. Why not just change the name of Tokyo to "Heaven." More »
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Volkswagen's Phaeton may have been the penultimate expression of Ferdinand Pi ch's weapons-grade arrogance (don't forget that little runabout called the Bugatti Veyron), but it sure was (and is somewhere) a sweet luxury car. But as Farago points out in a new column on The Truth About Cars, Volkswagen's ill-phaeted sedan is more than the sum of its clean-room-assembled parts. It's about creating the ultimate customer experience for luxury buyers — and the company's more suitable luxury divisions stand to reap the benefits. Or not. There's a lesson in there for other luxury carmakers' sales networks too. More »
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