WomanOnWheels.ca

New-car buyers: Keep it simple, keep it cheap

Earlier this week, research firm AutoPacific released the results of an interesting new survey. When asked if they would consider buying a Chinese car, even without knowing the specific brand or vehicle, 15% of U.S. respondents said they would. Another 11% said they'd consider one from India. What makes that extremely surprising is that only 16% said they'd consider a vehicle from Korea, and that country's been selling cars in North America for 25 years.

This is what many of us in the auto review field, and even those in the business of building and selling cars, don't always comprehend: the way most buyers think. To us, because we're enthusiasts, the important stuff includes horsepower, handling, ride quality, panel gaps, and features and options. To the average consumer, it's price, reliability, fuel economy, and maybe airbags and stability control. Period.

My sister-in-law just traded in her beat-up, 17-year-old minivan, and only because repairing the air conditioning was a major expense. She went into the dealer with three demands: a/c, good price, hatchback. That's it. She didn't even realize the gearshift surround hadn't been completely snapped into place until I pointed it out and fixed it. And any reviewer or auto exec who smirks at that is completely out of touch with most of the buying public.

Just as I have no more interest in my computer than I want it to boot up every time, connect seamlessly to the Internet, and not eat my work, the vast majority of car owners just want something that starts every time, stops when they hit the brakes, plays music, blows hot and cold air, and goes into the shop as little as possible, at a price they can afford.

The AutoPacific survey found that most respondents ranked reliability and durability highest, and had little interest in vehicle dynamics such as braking, acceleration, and handling. We in the business pick apart the Chinese cars at the auto show, and wonder if they'll ever make inroads over here. Well, we said that about the Korean cars, too, and look what happened. The global market is coming. Underestimate the new imports and overestimate the average customer at your own risk.

Dodge Challenger by Lesley Wimbush

Isn't this gorgeous? It's a birthday gift for my husband -- a drawing of his 2008 Challenger done by my friend Lesley Wimbush.

Her work has appeared in a number of places, including the Toronto Sun, and she's available for commissions. You can reach her at [email protected].

You can also see more of her work by clicking here.

How do you destroy an engine? The government knows!

How do you destroy an engine? Well, if you're the U.S. government, you use sodium silicate.

As you're no doubt aware, the U.S. has passed a "cash for clunkers" law that will give rebates to people who trade in old, thirsty vehicles and buy new, fuel-efficient ones. Since the whole idea is to get these old cars out of circulation, the program includes recycling them. But if someone takes that old engine out of the car and continues to use it, the whole point of the program is lost.

According to the website Cash For Clunkers, car dealers taking in these old vehicles will have to give each car a "lethal injection" in order to render it permanently inoperable. It seems that NHTSA wrestled with several options -- after a bit of whining in its final ruling that Congress never gave a definition of an "engine block" (follow that link to page 38) -- including parting out the engine components, destroying the oil filter threads, drilling a hole in the block, and running the engine without oil.

Finally, it determined that car dealers must do the equivalent of an oil change, but after draining the block, they add two quarts of sodium silicate, at a cost of about $7.00, and run the engine until the stuff dries up inside.

The stuff you learn on the Internet. Perhaps, as the website suggests, we should be buying shares in sodium silicate companies: it sounds like it's about to take off.

You Can, But You Shouldn't

Because they're just for show and aren't actually hooked up, these 1940s/1950s accessories are often called "dummy spotlights." I'll leave the obvious remark alone.

In the news: Viper lives

Chrysler has announced a change of plans for the Viper. The brand was for sale, its sole Conner Avenue assembly location destined to be shuttered this coming December. Today, the company has announced that production will continue and that it's no longer wooing suitors to buy the marque.

I'll stand off to the side, so I don't get hit by the debris. Come Monday morning, every environmentalist in North America will be flinging mud.

My take on it? Chrysler's done the right thing.

Here's a fact: North Americans think the Detroit Three (and more specifically, the two that got government funding) should solely build small, fuel-efficient cars and hybrids. The problem is that they want someone else to buy them. Go look at the top ten best-selling cars in the U.S. Only one is a compact (the Prius, which really doesn't count), and none are subcompacts. President Obama and the EPA can force GM and Chrysler to build the cars that look good on recycled paper, but they can't force people to buy them.

No matter how much an automaker tries to break the mold, people have perceptions of companies that are very hard to break. In the public's eye, Volvo is the (only) safety car; Toyota is the hybrid maker; Saturn's the feel-good-hug (and still has plastic panels, according to many); Chev and Ford are truck builders; and only yuppies buy BMWs. And that really means that, no matter how many hybrids or small reliable cars the American manufacturers produce, they're never going to catch the Japanese in sales with those vehicles. So they've got to make their money where they can.

Fact: when people complain about inefficient gas guzzlers, they point to vehicles like the Suburban and Expedition. They never mention Ferrari or Lamborghini, and there's a reason for that. Those models aren't even on the environmental map. They're rare and they don't get driven much. I'm guessing the average Prius drinks more fuel in a year than the average Gallardo. And that's the type of company the Viper keeps. Sure, it gets 17 miles to the gallon. And how many times have you seen one idling in commuter traffic, six days a week, taking one person to the office?

On the other hand, how many do you see unsold on dealer lots? Dodge has built about 25,000 of them in 17 years, and has sold every one of them. And each one of the approximately 1,500 units it turns out each year probably earns the automaker as much profit as a week's production of minivans. It's profit that helps keep an auto company afloat, and will help guarantee that it will be able to meet its government obligations.

Chrysler made a decision that's going to be unpopular with the letter-writers and the opinion columnists. But it's made the decision that's going to ultimately be the correct one. You can build all the cars you want. The smart money's on building the cars people want to buy.

More Little Red Flyer Wagon!

My husband is at it again -- he had a chance to drive his Honda-powered Radio Flyer wagon on the track at Shannonville.

Nothing gets by you, does it?

I was at a car show today, driving an old car that doesn't have a working gas gauge. Car refused to start. So I got out, opened the trunk, and took out a can of gasoline.

I was standing beside the car, with a container of gas, feeding it into the fuel filler. And sure enough, someone came up to me, right on schedule, and said:

"Ran out of gas, huh?"