Car Dealerships: The Good & The Bad

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Wife looking for a new Honda HR-V. MSRP is @ $24K but the dealers want to add on 'extras' such as:

Tinted windows
Clear bra
Mud flaps
Roof Rack
Floor mats
Cargo mats

all adding up to @ $32k!

Lowest I can dicker is @ $28K
 

Car dealership appeals $5.5M award to woman critically injured when she was struck by vehicle​

A car dealership is appealing a decision by the B.C. Supreme Court that awarded $5.5 million to a woman critically injured when a new Jeep struck her on Central Saanich Road in 2018.

Tracey Ann Ward suffered a catastrophic brain injury in the Aug. 27, 2018 crash that killed her sister, massage therapist Kim Ward.

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US House panel opens probe into proposed FTC car buyer rule​

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. House committee said on Thursday it is investigating the Federal Trade Commission's planned rules to require new consumer protections for car buyers that are sharply opposed by auto dealers.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer, a Republican, asked FTC Chair Lina Khan to turn over documents and answer questions by Nov. 30 on the proposed rule he said "threatens harm to consumers and small businesses by making car purchases more difficult and inhibiting innovation in the industry."

A group of 17 Democratic lawmakers in June urged the FTC to "adopt strong regulatory protections for car buyers," arguing "unfair and deceptive practices involving motor vehicle dealers have widespread consequences."

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Feds Fine Toyota $60M For Sketchy Lending Practices, False Credit Report Claims​

Nov 20, 2023 at 1:31pm ET

Toyota Motor Credit Corporation (TMCC) has agreed to a $60 million settlement ordered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The lending arm of Toyota was accused of illegally preventing consumers from canceling various bundled products often included in vehicle purchases. The federal agency also states false reports were made to credit companies that negatively affected buyers' credit reports.

According to a press release from the CFPB, consumers complaining about unwanted products were often funneled to internal customer service teams where the process of getting them removed or refunded was unnecessarily difficult. The types of products aren't mentioned, but CFPB states that added costs were between $750 and $2,500 per auto loan. In some cases, Toyota dealerships allegedly lied to customers about these products being mandatory, and refunds that were issued were sometimes not for the full amount. A total of 118,000 customers called a "dead-end cancellation hotline" between 2016 and 2021, according to CFPB.

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They're after Toyota because Toyota is doing its best, within regulations, to offer what American buyers REALLY want.

And to give back. While the "American" carmakers (including the one headquartered in Amsterdam) have all moved their truck manufacturing to Canada or Mexico, Toyota moved THEIRS to San Antonio.

But Toyota has resisted The Narrative. The one about how battery cars will SAVE! THE! PLANET!!! They're resisting it for solid engineering, environmental and infrastructure reasons that dopey Woketards cannot understand.

So now it's time to take a break from Lawfare-ing Trump supporters, to Lawfare-ing Toyota.

EDIT: I should add, that Toyota Financial gave me a loan on a used Toyota truck, two years ago...a better rate than my credit union and as easy to deal with. I have NO complaints with the company, the products or their financing arm. If you aren't going to pay cash, Toyota Financial is as good as any lender.
 
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Tesla launched its own car insurance.
These drivers say it's a lemon.​


Elon Musk promised cheaper, better, even “revolutionary” auto insurance after Tesla started losing sales because of high premiums. But understaffing left some customers waiting weeks or months for compensation as they continued making payments on crashed cars.

In February, Mark Bova purchased a used 2018 Tesla Model S. Before leaving the dealer, he bought insurance from Tesla itself, finding the initial $93 monthly premium “really reasonable.”

Sixteen days later, as he drove along the Capital Beltway to his Maryland home, he engaged Autopilot, Tesla’s automated driving system. The car started beeping and lurched left — striking a median and flipping. He escaped through a window as the car filled with smoke. An ambulance rushed him to the hospital with back injuries that later required surgery.

“I’m a former Green Beret,” Bova said, referring to the U.S. Army Special Forces. “That was probably the second-most traumatic thing I've gone through other than being in combat.”

His ordeal isn’t over. Tesla Insurance, launched in 2019 by the electric-car company, has promised policyholders “vastly better” service than rivals, as Tesla chief Elon Musk put it in April 2022. Musk also said he aimed to offer “same-day” collision repairs. But Bova says he has been battling the insurer ever since the crash.

Read the rest here:

 
I despise battery cars and Tesla particularly - for how it's sold, as a political symbol, and how it's being forced on us, an unsafe, slow-fueling, unworkable not-car as the interim step to 15-Minute-Cities. And Musk's leadership, particularly while he was the Hopium crowd's Golden Boy, was reckless to the point of illegality. "Taking the company private" - and watching the stock explode, while knowing he couldn't do that...that's illegal stock manipulation, and he did it for just that reason.

That SAID...now that he's partly liberated Twitter, the tyranny-loving Leftist mediuh are hell-bent on destroying him. I wouldn't trust ANYTHING published by Reuters - not even the page count on an article.

This stinks like an AI hit piece.
 
Jalopnik is owned by Big Tech - they're noteworthy for having "auto writers" who don't have driver's licenses. Autoblog, although I don't know as much, is much the same.

Jack Baruth, a tech entrepreneur who's also a part-time auto racer, and former auto writer (TTAC, when it was run by Robert Farago; and later Hagarty's) has written extensively on his own blog about the deficiencies about online auto-writers at these sites (www.jackbaruth.com). Unfortunately, he got blacklisted - for not going with the Covid chorus and Jab Follies - and now he only writes on Substack, and only allows paid viewership. Misreading his position, once again. He's a good writer and brutally honest, but, he's fully up-front, he's high on the autism spectrum and constantly misreads trends and social cues. His limiting to paid readership is one such.

But if you fish on his old, free blog, you might come up with some attacks on the current media circus. Since Baruth is an accommplished writer and racer, and out of that world, I'd take his word before the other.

But, my point remains: I trust NOTHING the Narrative Legacy Mediuh assert, with regards to Musk, Tesla or any of its peripheral businesses. I don't find Musk engaging; but every damn thing the institutional media asserts, is defensive of their false-reality.
 

Automakers’ Added Subscription Fees Raise Legal Questions​

“In 2022, executives at BMW came upon a brilliant, if perverted, idea to extract more money from their customers,” Michigan attorney Steve Lehto told me in an interview. He has practiced in the fields of lemon law and consumer protection for over 30 years and hosts Lehto’s Law, a highly educational YouTube program. “They wanted to start charging customers $18 a month for subscription-based access to heated seats and, later, for using the remote-start feature — many of the things their cars already came with.”

Due to enormous pushback, BMW dropped the heated-seats fee in September. (Lehto notes that these fees are not the same as the ones people pay for SiriusXM satellite radio service, which is similar to your cable TV bill.)

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^^^^^

More Pushback Against the 'Subscription' Model on Car Options​

Jan 5, 2024


14:43
 
This one's a bit different.

The Car Dealership Billionaire No One Knows​


On a sultry November afternoon in West Palm Beach, Florida, Terry Taylor picks up the phone in his waterfront office.

“I know you’ve contacted basically everybody I know,” he says, in a grizzled southern drawl, “so, I figure it’s time you hear from me.”

After weeks of trying to reach Taylor—the elusive billionaire behind one of the largest car dealership groups in the U.S.—or anyone that knows anything about him, word has finally made it back to the man himself.

“I’ll agree to answer a few questions,” says Taylor, who admits his attempts at secrecy are by design. The 72-year-old has never sat for an interview. In fact, he rarely sits for anything, skipping out on most meetings even with his own associates and only agreeing to show up at conventions or conferences on the condition that he’s not introduced to anyone.

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Online used vehicle dealer Vroom announced it is laying off 515 workers in the Houston area and closing two facilities permanently, according to recent filings with the Texas Workforce Commission.

The layoffs in Texas are part of the Houston-based company’s restructuring efforts announced last week. Vroom said it is discontinuing its e-commerce operations and winding down its online used vehicle dealership business, resulting in the layoffs of 800 employees across the country.

 

FBI Investigating Florida Classic Car Dealer Accused of Huge Title Fraud Scheme​

Stephen Phelps, owner of the now-bankrupt FSD Hot Rod Ranch, recently went face to face with the creditors to whom he owed money. After filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in December 2023, Phelps listed almost 100 creditors and owes more than $ 4 million in liabilities. Despite the Eustis police department and FBI investigating Phelps for fraud, he told his creditors during a recent Zoom session that his business simply failed.

“I deeply regret that you lost money,” said Phelps, according to Mike DeForest at WKMG ClickOrlando. “It was simply a business plan I could not make work.” However, many of Phelp's customers would argue otherwise.

FSD (Father, Son, Daughter) Hot Rod Ranch bought and sold hot rods and classic cars but many of its customers either failed to get their money or didn't receive the car they bought. At least one customer received a fraudulent title, leaving them in debt to the bank for the car but unable to legally register and drive it.

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The Bad Credit Car Business Is WILD!​

Feb 23, 2024

9:37
 

Lemon Law Buyers Get Huge Win in State Supreme Court​

It happened in California.


12:16
 
Not so much dealerships - more to do with manufacturers in this one. The software mentioned has been in use by class 8 truck fleets for some time now.

Focus: Ford has big goals for software sales to small business truck fleets​

DETROIT, March 14 (Reuters) - HomeTown Services, a heating and cooling repair company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is getting ready to install driver monitoring cameras in some of its trucks, and already uses streamed data to remind drivers not to sit too long in idle vehicles, wasting gasoline.

"People will sit in a vehicle for an hour or two," said Del Underwood, vice president for purchasing and fleets for the company. Now, technicians get a text message instructing them to either turn off their trucks or move to the next assignment.

That may annoy some employees, but it is good news for Ford Motor Co's (F.N), opens new tab commercial vehicle unit, Ford Pro, which has placed a big bet on software-related services. Ford Pro hopes selling connected-vehicle services such as driver monitoring systems to small and medium sized fleet operators will help generate as much as $1.8 billion in annual profit within two years.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has urged investors to think of Ford Pro's bundle of software and vehicle sales, not Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab, as the "future of the automotive industry."

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They don't have enough troubles already, recruiting drivers...hey, let's treat them like prison inmates with total surveillance.

THAT will make them want to rush out and spend weeks, months on the road, fighting idiot traffic, dealing with idiot warehouse foremen, broken equipment, corrupt cops...

People (MEN!) used to take such work for the INDEPENDENCE. Take it away, and there's no motivation there. No one has gotten rich driving a truck, not for forty years.
 

Wichita dealer indicted for rolling back odometers; consumer tips to avoid scams​

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - A federal grand jury in Wichita has returned an indictment charging a 31-year-old man from Derby with 27 counts of criminal misconduct for tampering with cars odometers.

Court documents say Alex Newbrey allegedly bought used cars from Oklahoma and Kansas at an auction, rolled back the odometers, and then used fake documents to get titles from the Kansas Department of Revenue with the false mileage.

Newby was the owner and operator of three used car dealerships in Wichita, Ideal Motors, Midwest Wholesale, and Prestige Motors, all of which are now closed.

According to the Indictment Newbrey bought nine different cars at auctions, some with more than 300,000 miles on them, and then rolled back the odometers to show they had just over 100,000 miles on them.

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Grand Jury Indicts Used Car Dealer for Odometer Tampering​

 
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