With gas prices nearing $5/gallon, there has been lots of buzz on devices to improve your car’s gasoline consumption. There are some devices that claim to have the ability to make your car run on water.

Now before you rush to the car dealer to have your car upgraded to run on water, I highly recommend researching the details of this claim.

Unfortunately, my 20 minute research online only resulted in lots of “unreliable websites” claiming how well these devices work. Amazingly enough there is no mainstream news agency or research agency that tested these devices for us. If you are using such a device please contact me, as i would love to share the truth with everyone. My car dealer mechanic says that something like that will only ruin a car, and may not substantially improve its gas mileage. Am really scared to try it on my Lexus.

Here is what i found from legitimate source.
Wikipedia

Other search words used for this article:
water for gas
run car on water

Here is why we suck at getting the best deal at car dealers.

1) In our lives, we don’t have a chance to practice car buying, while the car dealers practice selling cars everyday.

2) We don’t know the cost price of new cars, car insurance, car extended warranties, car loans and car extras. With this apathy we don’t know a car bargain even if it stares us in the face.

3) We buy on “relationships with the car dealers”. And car dealers who can say and act the way that makes us “trust them” wins the sale. We must buy on facts. Every car dealer has his business in mind instead of making “saving you on your new car” as a priority.

4) We don’t shop around between multiple car dealers.

5) We are impatient when it comes to buying cars. We sometimes need to buy right now, instead of the best time to buy: Month ends, when there is a sale.

6) We are not flexible in considering other car makes and models in the same automobile type group.

7) We are scared to “ask” the dealer for a bigger discount if that “angers” the dealer. Many people think they are inconveniencing the dealer if they are persistent and the car dealer starts acting dis-interested in doing the deal. Remember it usually is a show.

8 ) We don’t do our homework, ie do online car shopping, car research, talking to friends who know about cars etc. Most people don’t know that a car dealer makes $1000-$3000 even if they sell the car at invoice.

9) We have too much confidence in ourselves, because we think buying cars is just like buying a shirt.

10) Many people are afraid to walk away from a bad deal ignoring their gut instinct.

What do you think? is there #11 on why we suck at getting a great car deal?

Today’s Reality

Buyers will be haunted by the ghosts of high oil prices, the dread of home mortgage payments gone wild, a poor job market and anything else “bad” you can think of when it comes to buying cars. It’s the worst market to sell cars in years!

Advise 1

Advise to car dealers is to be sensitive to car buyer’s battered buying power, and not get carried away in trying to make the maximum profits per customer. Not being sensitive to car buyer’s needs can mean car buyers going to another car dealer who is more sensitive to their needs. There are many good car dealers ready to do a honest deal.

Advise 2

Lower price cars, non gas guzzlers and base models of cars will be easier to sell and you should always have them in stock. Be ready to sell the other types of vehicles like most trucks and suvs for below invoice to reduce your inventory.

New Cars highly prized by buyers today include: 2009 Toyota Prius, 2009 Ford Edge, 2009 Mazda5, 2009 Toyota Yaris, 2009 Mini and 2009 Honda Civic.

Horoscope for anyone with a profession sign “car dealer” is times will be tough the next few months, be nice, be creative in finding new buyers, and don’t get too greedy, and you will we weather this bad weather seen across most car dealerships. Good luck!

Wow, this review of the 2009 Toyota Matrix S AWD really fries any good the car may have. The person test driving the car really makes some good observations and while I can only attest to the good quality of car you will be getting from Toyota, the fact that there are better designed cars out there, with better mileage, better design and better many other things should have you thinking what your other options could be. MissCarDealer gives this car a big thumbs down. I suggest considering a Prius or a Mini instead. Would love to hear your thoughts on this puppy. For those of you with sometime on your hands, check one out at your Toyota car dealer and let me know.

Just search for “car dealers” on YouTube and once you get past the car dealer promo videos, and news coverage of car dealers who did bad, you will see lots of other videos where customers tell you how they were duped by a car dealers. ( I don’t mean to single out car dealers, but any business that tries to take advantage of their customer needs to be aware that customers are now empowered to use the internet for word of mouth to share their experience. )

There is for instance is a Mercedes car dealer in Vancouver that quoted a customer $6500 for a repair when in fact a car repair shop did the fix for $141. (Name of this video is “Mercedes Dealer Ripoff “. There is another car video from a guy who bought a Suzuki immobilizer, but landed up getting something else. Video is called “how the car dealer cheats” etc etc.

While this does not apply to most car dealers out there who run a honest business, customers who are unfortunate enough to befall prey to unscrupulous dealers can fight back. You can usually complain to the manufacturer, tell the local news, complain to BBB or of course make your own video.

Best defense is a good offence, and in this case it means going into the car dealership knowing everything there is to know about car buying and service, and of course getting multiple quotes before paying for a service.

Do you play poker? Are you any good? A good poker player knows how to read his or her opponent. You can’t rely on getting good cards to play your hand each time. A successful poker player also reads the other person’s mind, and goes in strong if he senses a weak hand. It’s a science, just see how many repeat players make it to the final table at poker tournaments.

Where am I getting with this? Well, selling cars is like a game of poker for some car dealers. They try to read your thoughts, cater to your doubts and profit from your ignorance on matters related to car buying. If you are a person just looking to lowest car price, they can easily sell you a new car at the lowest price you think possible, and then make money giving you a low price on your trade-in, a high interest on your car loan, extra costs for your service plan etc. Car dealers practice talking to customers every day and they have gotten pretty good at their game.

So what is your best defense? Preparation of course! You can find out your dealer’s poker hand before even talking to the dealer. While they don’t know what you can afford, or how much you know about car buying, you can know everything about their business, the car, and go in knowing what a bargain looks like. Check out my insider tips here: Car buying tips

With all the knowledge you will find out at the link above it will make you a great mind reader at car dealers.

As far apart as those 2 worlds seem to be, they are becoming closer than anyone can imagine. Before internet or even during the time when most people in communities could not read, mankind “educated” themselves before doing anything new by asking around their friends and peers. Well fast forward a few hundred days or years, today this natural tendency has manifested itself into online social communities, and more and more people are turning to these communities before they finalize on buying a particular type of car. Car dealers and manufacturers have noticed this trend and are creating online communities addressing this medium to win people’s trust in their brand.

Smart move car dealers!! Kudds to the dealers who are taking on awareness of brand approach.

Here is an excellent article by a web author to drive home the point. He pretty much lists examples of car makes using this trend and reaping benefits of this new channel.. GM, Saturn, Chevy

Don’t worry car dealers are not going to loose their shirt on this one.

Yes, there are some ways to get a free car for those of us qualified and driven to get one.

Just type in “Free Car” in Google and you come across many companies offering you a free car for real. The catch is usually that your car will look like a race car, filled with advertisements on the outside.

I am sure many of you will say if its free I don’t care what it looks like, show me how I can get one.

Well here is how they qualify you for a free car:

• You need to live in certain cities. (Typically only the big cities.)
• You will need to drive the car, in a populated area for X hours a week.
• –This maximizes the visibility of their advertisements on the car to people.
• You typically may not be given a car, but rather loaned one.
• – Keeps their investment as little as possible
• You may be responsible for your own car maintenance. ($50/mth)
• You may be responsible for your own car insurance. ($50/mth)
• You may be responsible for your own gas. ($50/mth)

I believe this is an excellent opportunity for people with people who drive around the city a fair bit. Carriers or Pizza delivery personal.. this might be just the thing for you.

If you are still interested in a free car, check out some of the websites out there offering this service. An example is FreeCarMedia .

Good luck, and tell me anything new you find out about free cars.

ps. No, free cars are usually not BMWs like the picture suggests, expect the smaller, cheaper cars, unless you get real lucky.

This innocent question has been misused to charge customers higher for cars.

Here is how the misuse happens.
Lets say you can afford to pay $300 a month on your new car.
Great!
1) With a car loan at 5% a year over 5 years you can afford to pay the car dealer about:$14,600 (Before taxes)
2) With a car loan at 7% a year over 5 years you can afford to pay the car dealer about: $13,900 (Before taxes) for the same car.

A) There have been cases reported where the car dealer sells the buyer a cheaper car at $13,900 and give the the buyer a higher interest loan at $300 a month. Why? Because the dealer also makes more money selling the higher interest loan to the buyer.

B) Another method that has been used is the dealer gives the buyer a big discount on the price of the car, only to set the buyer up with a higher interest loan. Note the dealer makes up for the “discount” by increasing his or her commissions on the car loan.

C) Another variation of this I have seen is when the car dealer tells the buyer, at the time of closing the deal, that they want to give something to the buyer for “free” at the same monthly payment. How do that do that? Well, they give you $1000 worth of say undercoating “free” then they drop the interest rate on your loan before you sign the papers, and use the extra loan money you can get for the same monthly payment to pay for your “free” gift.

Moral of the story. Never ever negotiate a car deal with a car dealer thinking about how much you can afford to pay each month. You need to do that calculation at home first. I even encourage you to get a pre-approved loan for a website or your bank before you talk to a dealer so you go into a dealership only ready to negotiate the other aspects of car buying.

Here is a great auto loan calculator to figure this out for yourself.

There is a proven gadget that will improve your car’s gas mileage. Its called the fuel miser and it works by alerting you to change your driving habits. There are many other additives and contraptions I have heard of that claim to do that, but this fuel miser devise comes with good references. Check out the video below for details.

Of course you don’t need to fork out money if getting better mileage its just a matter of changing your driving habits. You can get better gas mileage by following some basic driving rules. Check out a great article about gas conscious driving here.