What Color Car is The Best and How To Take Car of It?

Ah, the age old problem: You are looking for a car, but you want it to look good with the minimal amount of effort. I have seen and experienced black car ownership and it can reduce a normal person to a neurotic mess. There are actually 2 ways to go about maintaining the look of your car, and when you use them together you can be assured that your vehicle with always look it's best.

1. Color. White is hands down the cleanest color choice. There is a reason why a vast majority of the fleet vehicles in service today are white: It is low maintenance. A white car hides dirt, grime, water spots and the like better than any other color with the exception of camouflage. And MY2008 marks the first time in over a decade that white is the most popular color for new cars.
Typically the darker the hue of paint, the harder it is to keep clean. The scale rises exponentially between gray and black simply because black acts very much like a mirror. It reflects and magnifies everything including smudges, over spray, fingerprints etc.
If you are set on a gray color, try to find a lighter gray as it will be less maintenance than a dark gray. Nonmetallic cars are easier to keep clean, especially in dusty conditions as they do not sparkle. A metallic car must be kept very clean to get full benefit from the metal flakes in the paint.

2. Upkeep. Every six months have the exterior of your car detailed. You will be surprised at how much less effort you will have to put into your car's appearance when you have a pro apply a high quality wax and buff it to a shine. Even if it rains it is not uncommon to not have any water spots on a black car provided it was properly cleaned, waxed and polished prior to the rains. Detailing is expensive but worth the expense if you can afford it.

There are a few products available that will help you keep your car looking factory fresh. 3M makes a clear adhesive coating that is applied over clean paint to guard against rock chips and the like. It must be applied by a professional but it is a lot cheaper to replace than getting the car repainted. American Racing offers wheels that have Teflon baked onto the surface of them which almost eliminates brake dust (which is why the front wheels on some cars are much darker than the rear). Meguiars makes a clear plastic polish that helps take small scratches and light oxidation out of clear plastic (i.e. headlamp lenses)

Naturally, all of these products and services cost money and/or time so it is up to you to decide how clean you want your car to be, once you decide on a color, that is.

The Motachanic

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Spoiled? Car Debt and What it is Costing Our Parents

There has been some devastating news coming from the mortgage industry of people over borrowing for their homes or getting into loans that they did not fully understand. But this crisis is not limited to the housing market: it is quickly becoming a problem with the way that we buy our cars.

In a recent article in the LA Times(subscription required) and summarized in Kicking Tires, it was pointed out in an ominous way that the amount of people who couldn’t pay their car payments for 60 days was up by 20%. Additionally the average car loans are now much longer than in the 1980s and 90s- 45% of all car loans are for 6 years or longer. It is becoming common that these longer loans are in reality for more than one car because buyers are driving cars for 4 years or less and then trading in that car, debt and all, for newer and more expensive cars. The debt owed on the old loan is rolled into the new loan and the cycle begins to spiral from there with some consumers these days paying for 3 loans or more in a single car loans and owing, in some cases $30,000, in debt on a single car worth far less.

These statistics may begin to uncover an inevitable time bomb for the spoiled babies of the Baby Boomers but a similarly frightening reality is beginning to reveal how this affects the parents that raised these consumers who expect so much for themselves!

Another study done in the UK by MoneyExpert.com shows that almost 25% of parents have had to help their adult children with their car debt when they have become delinquent in their payments. The expensive reality of raising a child has now extended beyond childhood, into adulthood and threatens parents who are now in their 50’s to compromise their hard earned savings and their ability to maintain their retirement and health care needs. The real irony is that adult children today are beginning to literally spend their own inheritance at the cost of compromising their very alive parents.

So what is the solution to protecting our Gen X dollars, and more importantly, our parent’s money? We should take a ticket from their book: our parents drove their cars for much longer after they were paid off and took on much shorter loans. Today it is common to get financed on a car for 6-8 years but our parents usually had 3-4 year loans, reducing the amount that they were paying in heavy interest. Also, cars are expensive these days so foregoing a need to have a brand-spanking new car and instead choosing a car that costs less, is 2 years old at least so has lost the majority of it’s depreciation and has a loan that is realistic for long term goals.

Buying smart not only protects your hard earned money but the savings of your parents.

A great series this week at CreditWithdrawal.com about saving money as we age for retirement.

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Online Car Sales Are Booming But Are They Safe?

Online car sales are increasingly popular and are more safe than ever. As I mentioned last week, almost ¼ of all cars sold now were found on the internet! That is crazy numbers!

The nice thing about buying online it that it gives you an opportunity to research exactly what you want and know what is a reasonable price to pay. Making decisions on the lot can be intimidating and not very often a pleasant experience.

Once you have decided what you want then getting dealers to compete for your money will get you the best price. You can do it all by email and if you don't like what one says, you can easily hit the delete button.

If you find the car you like on eBay, just try to check that their feedback is reasonably high (98% and above) and read their feedback that they have left for others- that will tell you a lot about what kind of person they are. Also consider getting an inspection done by a professional mechanic before you buy. A lot of dealers have high prices on their inventory on eBay so also try to search for cars for sale by private party. There is a special search option in eBay to do that.

Consider using an escrow service like escrow.com if you are buying from a private party. The cost can be split between the buyer and seller because it will protect them both and make the title transfer a lot easier.

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Selling a Car Online for Free? Is Anything Really Ever Free?

One of the biggest topics online I keep tripping on these days is free, freemiums, free offers, free sites, freebies, free lunch pros and cons….(did you know if you Google ‘free’ that the #3 Ad is a test for Dumb Blondes? Huh? Would anyone normally pay for that?)…I have even seen people recently on one social networking site asking other members of the community for a free car!

But back to the point- I do have a lot of people ask me where they can list their car online for free. They want to join the rocketing trend of online car sales but don’t want to have to pay for it. My usual response is that you get what you pay for. Don’t get me wrong! Craigslist is fun and can get you some pretty great responses from your local area but it isn’t really maximizing the potential profit that you could earn from selling your car yourself by exposing your car to millions of buyers.

• Almost one quarter of all used cars sold were found online.
• Autotrader attracts more than 13 million qualified buyers to the site monthly.
• Cars.com is visited by more than 8 million auto shoppers each month.
• eBay Motors has over 12 million unique visitors a month
• Internet car shoppers visit an average of 10.5 sites throughout the online shopping process.
• 70% of all cars sold on eBay Motors are sold across state lines.

The nice thing about the free sites is that they have developed pretty good software to deal with a few pictures and translate some description to a local group of buyers. They are not easy to search and compare and the quality often leaves a lot to be desired. The great thing about the sites that you pay for is that they are all competing to create and maintain the most state of the art, user friendly, content driven sales spread to millions of ready and willing buyers. In other words, you get what you pay for!

Isn’t it logical that investing in a better advertising method nets you more money in the end? Who do you think makes more money in this day and age? Some one advertising a Dumb Blonde Test in the thick, paper Yellow Pages or on Google?



For a great debate on the economy of free.

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Price My Car: The Best Way To Set Price When Selling a Car

Mota has the greatest little widget on its site called Price My Car.

This thing is something to behold! Although a car veteran, I was like everyone else and numbed to the guides that are based on some weird algorithm of trade in versus private party against retail with a few bits thrown in of condition, mileage, location and a pinch of imagination and speculation. In the back of my mind (and probably every one else’s who has looked at those guides), I wondered why no one would buy my old car when I just knew that my car had to be the exception to the those guides!

But Price My Car isn’t like that theoretical experiment in consumer psychiatry. It is based on actual completed online sales and is the only one like it! Not even the giant online car markets can do this with their own data! I sound excited, don’t I…..well, I am because it is a revolutionary tool. By putting in your make, mileage, year and trim you can see real data of completed sales of cars just like yours (yep- your car was not special to the assembly line) and get a realistic idea of how you can set you sale price plus it will show you how much more $$ you will get than by trading your old car in to a dealer.

Whether you have decided to sell your car by parking it on the street with a sign you picked up at the hardware store or are going to go all out and put it front of millions and selling it online, knowing how to price your car is key to moving the it before you lose too much money in depreciation.

As an added benefit- use the tool to price your friend’s car and then watch them struggle to sell their own car when they insist that the guide price is higher than what you are telling them! They will come around eventually and get how the machine works and sell their car within probably 2% of that widget’s prediction.

Check it out, play with it, don’t be perturbed if your car is worth less than you think. You enjoyed it, right? That is the pleasure that we pay for loving our cars.

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Motachanic: Does a Kickin' Amp Cause an Decrease in MPG?

We have now a Motachanic! He will be here to help me out and answer the gear head type questions that make my eyes cross and help out anyone who is having issues with their ride. You can always ask questions of either one of us through my email in my profile. XOO,M!

Dear Motachanic,
Is it true that my system that I put into my Integra is draining my MPG? I put in a 600 watt amp. My friend said that the drain on my alternator will drain the amount that my car gets per gallon. Thanks,
Paolo

Dear Paolo,

Thank you for writing. Your amplifier can cause poor gas mileage in your Integra. I will explain why this occurs and also some ways to alleviate some of the lost gas mileage.

First off, all of the electrical and electronic devices in your Integra are powered by the alternator when the engine is running. The alternator is what converts mechanical energy from the auxiliary drive belt into electrical energy that is used by the engine and accessories.

The alternator in your car is rated at a certain amperage to be able to run the engine (spark plugs, ECU, various sensors, etc) and all of the accessories in your car. (radio, windshield wipers, lights, windows, radio, etc)
However an aftermarket amplifier draws more power that the stock sound system. I believe the stock sound system in your car is a 120 watt system. However if you have a 500 watt amplifier installed then it is drawing over four times the power of the stock system. (Wattage divided by voltage equals amperage. So the stock sound system is using 10 peak amps and the amplifier is using 41.6 peak amps).

Having this much power being used does several things, it lessens the available power for other electrical components, it shortens the life of the alternator, produces heat, and causes resistance. These are all bad things. If there is less energy to go around and the alternator is already running at peak capacity then the difference will be split between the loads and the sources (battery and alternator). This means that not only will your amplifier be unable to produce its rated output, but the ignition system will be starved for energy and will produce a weaker spark. A weaker spark means that less power is produced by the cylinders which means less gas mileage.

Additionally, the more electrical load there is, the more mechanical resistance there is. This means that the engine has to work harder to turn the alternator thus using more fuel (kind of like when you turn on the air conditioning in your car and gas mileage goes down)

You can install an after market alternator that is capable of sustaining higher amperages than the stock one which will alleviate the short life span and weak spark problems., but the only thing that will return your gas mileage to what it originally was is to leave the amplifier off or remove it from your Integra.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

Sincerely,
The Motachanic

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Selling Your Car Online or Selling the Most Famous Car on the Planet

Here is a cautionary tale that I hope has a happy ending for everyone:

John Schneider, you know- Bo Duke of the Duke’s of Hazard? Well, he is selling his General Lee again. Well, he is trying to sell his General Lee again and this time he will be successful. What he probably learned in the previous attempts are useful to anyone who would like to try to sell their car online.

Schneider first tried to sell his General Lee last year on eBay Motors and he tried more than once. Schneider was heard to joke that his auctions got more hits than his last 2 movies and while eBay Marketing employees were going crazy trying to push the auction, Schneider was busy trying to promote a movie that he was trying to make. Here are some lessons that you can learn from those auctions:

General Lee: By relying on promotions that this was the General Lee, the auction managers were so excited by the bids that soared to $8 million that they neglected to make sure that they bidders were real and the auction ended with a fake high bid.
Your Car: Everyone loves promoting how well they took care of their car and want the most money that they can possibly get but not all buyers are for real. Be realistic, communicate with potential buyers and verify that they are who they claim to be.

General Lee: The second auction only got the opening bid and did not meet reserve so remained unsold.
Your Car: Buyers like to know that there is a ceiling to the sellers expected price so, although frantic bidding can generate a fun auction, not using some kind of Buy It Now to indicate that there is a price that they can reach and actually buy the car will put buyers off bidding. It will especially bore them if the opening bid is so low that they just give up because they don’t want to play games- they want to buy a car. Reserves may protect your perceived value but can be detrimental.

General Lee: Not that Schneider shouldn’t be proud of this car but “Bo’s General Lee” is not a General Lee from the 1979 TV show but is one from the Duke’s reunion movie. The TV Lees were Corvette Flame Red and the movie Lees, like Schneider’s that he is selling, are Big Bad Orange.
Your Car: Be proud of your car but don’t try to misrepresent it. You would want full disclosure about a vehicle’s history if your were a buyer and unlike selling your by putting a sign in a window, an online ad is your words and they are in print for all the world to see.

So, as for Bo’s General Lee that will be auctioned this week at Barrett Jackson in Arizona, it is a beautiful orange 1969 Dodge Charger and this time, there is no reserve and a portion of the proceeds of the sale will benefit Cure Autism Now. I think that Schneider learned his lesson of how not to sell a car and now every one will win.

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Auto Insurance Requirements and the California DMV

Dear Miss Mota Mouth,

I went to the movies last night and when I came out, my car was gone. I called the police and they said that it had been impounded because the registration was suspended because my insurance has lapsed. All of my insurance is up to date! When I moved a few months ago I paid my insurance in advance while I was in the agency office! What do I need when I go to the California DMV to prove that I have insurance?

Mary in El Segundo

Dear Mary,

Sounds like you got caught in a misunderstanding between the California DMV and the insurance company. According to the state financial responsibility laws in California that require insurance for every motor vehicle, the DMV now is updated on a monthly basis by all of the insurance companies to confirm that you are current with your policy. Unfortunately if you moved then your records at the DMV probably do not match the records at the insurance company and since there was no match, the DMV regards your vehicle as being uninsured. Believe it or not, they are not matching just your name and VIN to the policy and if any notifications were sent to your old address, you wouldn’t know that you were getting ready to be suspended. No fun.

What you will have to do is go to the DMV, show you proof of insurance, driver’s license and a proof of residency (a bill will do). They will have you do a change of address on both the registration and your driver’s license to your current address. And here is the really unfortunate part: you will still have to pay the towing fees to the towing company and any daily storage fees that they charge. You will probably be able to appeal the fees after you pay them or may even be able to get your trusty insurance agent to help you with an appeal so that you can get the fees back but they will make you pay first. It isn’t innocent until proven guilty in that world.

From now on, always try to keep any new addresses up to date when you move. Make a list as you notify them and keep that list around for the next time you change your address so that you don’t forget any one.

Good luck!

M

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Paying More Than the Loan: Getting Ahead on Payments

Dear Miss Mota Mouth,
I am about to buy a car?
I intend to pay the car off early because the dealer told me that there was no penalty for early pay-off of the loan. I'm just curious about what kind of penalties could be imposed on someone who chose to early pay off? Also- would it boost my credit score if I paid the exact car note some months and other months I sent in a larger sum? The contract is for 60 months but I'm hoping to have it paid off in 48 months.
Thanks,
Nora

Dear Nora,

It may not help your credit score but you will be ahead if you can afford to send in extra payments every few months! Make sure that you indicate on the payment that you would like for the amount over the usual payment to be applied to in the principal of the loan and not the interest. If you do not specify this, they will apply it automatically towards the total 60 months of interest.

As for penalties, most car loans do not have them now but a lot of bulk loans like house loans and commercial loans do and you can be charged anywhere from 1-10 % of the total loan amount for pre-paying off a loan. The lenders do this to try and keep income from interest.

Good luck and great intentions!

M

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Cosigning a Car Loan: Should you Cosign?

We have all seen it happen- sometimes to friends, sometimes to family and sometimes to our stunned selves. The story is like this: a buyer falls in love with a car and the dealer starts to seal the deal, leaves the buyer while he goes to start the paperwork for he financing, comes back and announces that the buyer’s credit isn’t good enough to qualify for that car and is there a friend or family member who would be willing to cosign on the loan with them? Not that there aren’t any other big myths flying around that car lot but this entire scenario sums up some of the biggest ones!

Myth: Your credit score isn’t high enough to qualify you for a loan.
Truth: Your credit score isn’t high enough for the dealership to give themselves as hefty a margin of mark up on the APR that they would like to make.

Myth: Having a cosigner will help you build your own credit.
Truth: The person with the high credit score will be the primary on the loan and it does not help the person with the lower score.

Myth: Cosigning for someone does not hurt your credit at all.
Truth: If you are the primary on a loan as a cosigner it will change your debt to income ratio so other lenders will take the debt into consideration if you try to get another car loan or a house loan. It could make you ineligible for either one if it doesn’t appear that you make enough to cover everything.

What should you do?

If you are being told to find a cosigner, find your own financing at a bank, credit union or even an insurance company like State Farm. Don’t put a friend or family member at risk of lowering their chances of buying things for themselves. Do not go to the car lot without comparing rates and getting prefinanced.

If you are being asked to cosign, politely decline and guide the buyer towards finding alternative financing sources. Beyond the logistics explained here, there is also the risk that the buyer will default on the loan or your relationship will not always be as close as it is today and it is like being tied to someone forever that you may not want to have financial ties with.

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Buying a New Car or Slightly Used?

There is something in the air- I mean, I am not an economist but there is trend that I am seeing repeatedly in the search terms people are using to hit my blog and the many questions that I see coming across the Buying & Selling forum within Yahoo Answers: people want out of expensive new car loans and into less expensive cars.

Now I have addressed that issue several times now but what if I could get people before they get into that dangerous loan zone where they end up upside down and in over their head?

If I could stand in the street with a big sign (on a soap box, of course), I would tell everyone to buy slightly used and here is why:

1. A car depreciates most the first year of its life- as much as 30% and after the 2nd year, a typical car is worth 60 % of its original cost.

2. Cars are now more reliable than ever with most models having a life expectancy that when properly maintained, will last a whopping 15 years or 225,000 miles!

3. Extended warranties on new cars from dealers will not usually cover the things that really need to be fixed so buying without a warranty will save you a load of cash.

4. More lenders- banks, savings and loans and insurance companies are offering financing for buyers who want to buy used from private parties because they know that they will be saving money.

Of course there are arguments why buying brand new with cash and hanging onto a new car forever is a good move but for those of us who need financing, saving interest payments on 2 years of massive depreciation is the best idea ever.

Just remember- when buying online and from private parties, invest in an Experian AutoCheck and get a qualified mechanic to give it the once over.

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