April 25, 2008

Stolen Car Found -Phoenix Police do wonders

Yesterday morning a gentlemen came into our dealership looking for a car. He wanted to look at one of the cars. He said he had good credit so he didn't want to fill out any paperwork. After the 2nd request he let us look at his drivers license. The salesman got up to get the keys to the car, and went with the customer to look at the car. The customer got into the car, the salesman handed him the keys. When he started the car, he put it into gear and drove off.

We called the Phoenix Police who had a car here within 3 minutes. Officer Monson did an excellent job finding out what happened and asking the right questions of us. After the person was gone with the car, we realized he had picked up the copy of his license and took it with him as he walked out of our office. I had given my cell phone number in case the car was recovered after hours. We gave our descriptions of the suspect, gave the officer the description of the car and the report was filed. This was about 10:30 in the morning. Around 4:00pm a call came to my phone from the Police department. They had located the car behind a small apartment complex less than a mile from our business and had three suspects in custody. We went to the scene, the officers there were very professional and pleasant. They had noticed a car in the parking lot with no license plate and had stopped to investigate. According to the suspects in custody, a person matching the description of the suspect had been there earlier, but had left. We didn't get our guy, but we got the car back undamaged and no worse for the wear.

This was the first auto theft like this we have had in over 20 years, so we talked about what happened, and how things could have been differently. Some changes have been made that will help in the future.

Thanks again Phoenix Police. I know that most stolen cars are recovered, but I don't remember one being recovered this quick.

April 9, 2008

Fuel Economy

I have driven several models of the hybrid car. The Honda Insight, and several different years of Prius. They are quite expensive to buy and maintain, but you do save considerably at the pump. A friend of mine purchased a Prius a year or so ago. He did the studies of cost versus gas savings. He said he would have to keep it a long time for the savings to equal the additional cost of the hybrid over a standard vehicle. I purchased a 70,000 mile Prius. I noticed some warning lights that were on and that it didn't operate quite right. Even though I employ 5 mechanics and have access to lots of repair information about many vehicles, we had to sent this to Toyota for repair. The problem was a bad computer. The computer in this car was listed at close to $4,000. The computer in the average car is several hundred. I wonder what other expensive things lie waiting to break in this car.

Gasoline prices are at an all time high. Gasoline is taking a bigger bite out of your wallet. The most logical solution for this problem is to drive less. Combining errands and going out once rather than 3 or 4 times. There is also the old rule I learned in drivers ed many years ago. If you accelerate as if you had an egg between the pedal and your foot, you accelerate more slowly and smoothly thus getting better mileage. When I am driving a car that is equipped with the instant MPG feature, I try to get it to read as high as possible. This corresponds with teh slower and smoother acceleration.

April 3, 2008

Buying a Lemon Revisited!

I spoke with my friend who purchased the damaged car yesterday. Things came out reasonably well. A lawyer had been retained and the seller will be giving the sale price plus attorney fees back. The title and registration fees, the extra key, the new floor mats, the little goodies you get for a new car to personalize it, these expenses aren't included in the settlement. You could ask for those extras, but if the seller gets upset he may change his mind and not go through with the deal.

Consider the expense tuition in the school of life. This unlucky buyer has now repurchased her former car and is driving it again. At this point there are no plans to purchase another car in the near future.