Of the top 10 industries that received the most consumer complaints last year, three were auto related. New-car dealers, used-car dealers and auto service and repair shops registered almost 54,000 complaints in North America, according to the Better Business Bureau. They were the No. 4, 7 and 10th-most complaint-ridden industries of 2009. It’s enough to [...]
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You’d better hope your car doesn’t break down in Chicago. According to a unique report by AutoMD, an online auto repair resource, the Windy City ranks as the worst city for fairness and consistency when it comes to auto repair quotes. The “Advocacy for Repair Shop Fairness Report” is the first to analyze how the [...]
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Do you recognize the symbol here? It lights up in your instrument panel and looks like a U-shaped pictograph with treads and an exclamation point in the middle. Do you understand what it means now? If you guessed a low tire-pressure warning, you are right. If you didn’t recognize the symbol, that’s also understandable because [...]
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Porsche is having a bang-up year. Last week it earned the highest rating of any carmaker in J.D. Power and Associates’ Initial Quality Survey–and that’s the fourth time they’ve done so in five years. Earlier this spring Porsche also won top honors in JD Power’s prestigious vehicle dependability study. But that doesn’t mean the Stuttgart, [...]
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It can be nerve-wracking handing your car keys to a total stranger at a valet station. You don’t know if they’re responsible drivers, what their definition of “gentle” is, or often where your car is headed. If all parking valets were trustworthy, there wouldn’t be a need for the “valet key” that prevents one from [...]
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The recent news that Consumer Reports put the 2010 Lexus GX 460 on its “Don’t Buy” list has already impacted the vehicle’s future–Toyota has issued a stop-sale order on the $52,000 SUV and commissioned extensive testing to determine the cause of its failure. The safety warning could also pose a public relations problem for the [...]
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In the market for a new car, but not sure which model to buy? Here’s something that might help: Insure.com has named the most and least expensive 2010 vehicles to insure. While the most expensive is the Porsche 911 Carrera GT2 with an average national premium of $2,944. The least is the Mazda Tribute i [...]
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The technological innovations just keep on coming: Electronic stability control, a life-saving innovation, is now making its way into cheaper and cheaper cars. You can now save your relationship thanks to dual climate controls. Of course, not every innovation is a winner. Anybody for a fake convertible top? What would we like to see in [...]
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NEW YORK (AP) — Retail gas prices likely bottomed out last week, and they’re again headed to above $3 a gallon this summer, experts said Monday. Although pump prices typically rise this time of year as refineries switch to a more expensive grade of gas, the increase likely will frustrate many motorists. Prices are climbing [...]
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“Follow the money,” is good advice for someone trying to understand the hidden side of any business. Nowhere is this more important than on a car lot. Rows of shiny new cars on a dealer’s lot make consumers believe that’s where the big money is. But if you follow the trail of dollars, it leads [...]
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