Twenty years from now I’ll still be looking at cars. They may become faster than today’s sports cars and more luxurious than a Mercedes S-Class. But many of us enthusiasts will find something missing within all their awesomeness

That’s because great cars are not about perfection. They are about character. With that in mind, I found a pristine 1995 Lincoln Town Car the other day. With good miles, pristine leather, and a driving experience as Americana as a 1965 Mustang, it may someday become a collectible worth keeping. But then again…

When it comes to buying a used car there are two basic negotiating mindsets. You can either be fair and decent or unfair and obnoxious. If you seek to chisel and deceive then chances are you will get a bad car. Only the desperate and deceitful are willing to put up with that type of BS.

Want a ‘great’ car? Then realize that many sellers respond extremely well to honesty and decency. Win – win is no sin. So, karma lovers, here’s some tips for negotiating the purchase of a used car by observing the Golden Rule.

About a month ago, TTAC’s Steve Lang hipped readers to the fact that used car prices had grown like crazy, and that the time to sell that old car had come. Now the mainstream media is starting to wake up and smell the 30-weight, and the wires are flooding in with stories of used car prices gone wild. The LAT reports that Kelley Blue Book values have risen an average of 16% per year in the 2008-2011 period. Autotrader saw 13 of their top-20 CPO models add at least a grand to their prices in the last month alone. And Bloomberg reports that 2011 BMW Dreiers and M3s now cost only $34 per month more than year-old models, and that new Corvettes can actually be had for $12 per month less than year-old models according to Edmunds.com data. Considering an Acura TL? New models are typically $18 less per month than year-old versions. So what’s going on?

New lease sales fell to 1.96 million in 2008 and 1.13 million in 2009, according to Manheim. Lease originations that averaged 2.78 million during the previous 10 years dried up as lenders such as GMAC Inc. and Chrysler Financial Corp. withdrew financing offers.

Leased vehicles’ input to used-vehicle supply will be 2.08 million units this year, a 40 percent drop from 2002 levels, according to Manheim. Off-lease volumes will keep declining through at least next year, to 1.53 million, Manheim says.

Sales to rental fleets, which fell to 1.13 million vehicles in 2009 from more than 2 million in 2006, may not exceed 1.5 million until after this year, according to Manheim. The 2011 contribution to used-vehicle supply from rental fleets will be about 1.4 million vehicles, a 30 percent drop from 2005 levels.

But here’s the real question: how long can this last?

Kia no longer exists. Yes there is that Hyundai subsidiary now known as Kia. But before Kia Motors went Chapter 11, there was this strange Korean company that sold spasm inducing horrific vehicles.

I’m not sure any female car enthusiast would ever be happy with the name Sephia. Just saying that name alone can induce ugly flashbacks for prior owners and dealers. Sportage rhymed with ‘shortage’ and had parts that may have indeed come directly from plastic soda bottles and aluminum foil. Then there was this plain wretched thing…

[Ed: Part one of Steve Lang’s updated used car buying guide is here, part two is here.]

You can rigorously apply the tests described by previous installments of this series without encountering a single setback. However when it comes to buying a used car it pays to assume one simple salient fact: you don’t know the complete truth. At least not yet.

When it comes to pursuing the deeper truths about a used car an experienced mechanic will inevitably become your greatest ally and advocate. For most consumers finding a knowledgeable mechanic will be the most important step in the used car buying process.

Before we talk about that, I want to be perfectly clear on this point. A used car is guilty until proven innocent. Do not buy one without taking the car for a professional inspection. If the seller doesn’t agree to let you do so you’re done. Period. No exceptions. Ever.

“Ask Amy” advice columnist and self-help memoir author Amy Dickinson has the late Ann Landers’ old slot on the Chicago Tribune. She also has a 1967 Morris Minor. She fell in love with the car the first time she saw one, soon after she moved to London with her then-husband, in 1986. “They are so cute, they look like ice cream cones,” she says. She loves the clatter of its engine, and the way people smile when she drives by, and she says it is her favorite material object in the world.

So after her husband embarked on an open-endedly extended business trip, in 1988, Dickinson, then a housewife, took her five week old baby, Emily, in a taxi to a dealer who restored Morrises, and made her purchase, for 1,500 pounds (roughly $5,000 in current dollars). “One advantage of driving a beautiful, quirky vintage car is that it really helped me meet people,” she says. “So many men said to me, ‘I had one of these,’ and ‘my dad had one of these,’ not to mention ‘getting rid of my Morris Minor was my biggest mistake.’”

The BMW Z3. In my mind this model is the only convertible of the late-90’s that made the 2nd gen MX-5 seem… a bit plain. Even with a near 10k premium when it was released, this car was quite a hot commodity for those willing to pay for the privelege.

But what if we could turn back time just a bit? What if right now I could get you a forest green 1997 BMW Z3 with the 1.9L four cylinder, all the options and only 21,000 miles on it? Would you be willing to pay.. say… $10,000+? Well guess what…

I was happy as can be this past Monday. A 1999 Firebird with T-Tops was bought for the princely sum of $2750 at a recent sale. Then there was something I hadn’t experienced in a long while. A $300 car. A ‘good’ $300 car. The type that may have nothing more than a banged in door or a mechanical issue easily corrected by visiting an enthusiast site. The car in question was a 1986 Toyota Cressida. Older than dirt as far as cars go.

But then again could I…

Used cars give automobile buyers the best possible bang for the buck– except when they don’t. As a professional dealer, I could tell you stories of used car calamities that would make public transportation seem like the only sensible option. Tales of stitched together death traps that looked as new as the day both cars were born. Cars with supposedly clean registration papers that turned out to be hotter than Peachtree Street in mid-August. Instead, I’m going to tell you how to buy a used car without getting your proverbial clock cleaned.

Have you ever been to an auto auction? Some may consider an auctioneer to be a ‘carny’. He talks at over 200 mph. Mumbling what appears to be nothing more than gibberish and random numbers.

But if you added all the sales up by those supposed hucksters, you would soon realize that only Wall Street and Walmart sell more goods over the course of a year. Over ten million cars are bought and sold at auctions by these professionals. Hundreds of thousands of dealers have access to the vehicles. With all that free market competition taking place, Carmax is just one of many dealers that must compete for all those cars.

Can Carmax offer a ‘good value’ compared to all that competition?

Did you know that Colorado has more hearse enthusiasts than any other region in America? Neither did I, until I checked out HearseCon 2011, which took place a few miles from Chez Murilee last weekend. Hearses, ambulances, and flower cars! Coffins, goths, rodders, and— of course— Hearse Girls!

Would you pay over $3000 for a 20 year old car? How about if it was a base 1991 Chevrolet Caprice in faded battleship grey with only 37,000 miles? As much as I love driving a big boat, owning an ancient mariner like this Caprice would have been no picnic. By the time you end up replacing all the worn items and catch up on the maintenance issues, you would be looking at nearly $4,000. It wasn’t a great deal. But with 95 dealers all looking at the same vehicle crossing the block, I got to see a lot worse.

The Griswolds had ultimate nerd-chic space and style with their 1970’s Wagonqueen Family Truckster. But the fuel economy? About 10 mpg. The ride? Pogo stick bad. Never mind the fact that the dog needed to huff it all by itself (with tragic consequences). We’ve definitely come a long way from the poorly designed body on frame vehicle of the 1970’s.

Today’s compacts can even swallow a week’s worth of groceries given the right planning. Gas may be $4 a gallon and the roads cram packed with slow rides and rubbernecks. . But your ride can still offer serious comfort, fun and savings if you plan for it. Here are some of my favorites.

Logic makes you think that used cars sales would skyrocket at the moment in Japan. The auto industry barely has started producing and will not be back to normal before the end of the year. Hundreds of thousands of cars have been destroyed. In Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture alone, 146,000 cars are estimated to have been severely damaged or destroyed, 10 percent of the 1,540,000 cars registered in the Prefecture. Used cars should be flying off the lots. But the opposite is true.

There is one positive aspect to the Japanese tsunami: It seems to lift resale values. Manheim’s Used Vehicle Value Index just rose to another record in April, says Automotive News [sub]. Manheim has been keeping track of used car prices since 1995. Pushed by tighter supplies and higher demand, the index climbed to 126.6 last month, up from 124.2 in March and 120.7 in April 2010.

As a Detroiter I hate ruin porn. I particularly hate it when lazy journalists, bloggers, editors and video crews shoot photos or video, or worse, use stock footage and pics, of the Michigan Central Station and the old Packard plant. So I’m a little reluctant to share these photos that I shot just south of State Fair, east of Woodward. Ultimately, the photos were just too good, so emblematic of Detroit’s decay, that I had to share them. Also, it’s an opportunity to share some hope about the city.



Wanna buy a Hummer? You can buy them as cheap as dirt these days. There was a beautiful one that went through the block at a weekly public auction in Oakwood, GA. Nice leather interior. Well kept. The H2 models in particular were an easy piece to market and sell not too long ago… but not last Thusday. It no-saled. Not even the hope of a bid at $13k. Then came the H3. No sale at 10k. No takers. Only two no-sales from new car stores that generally sell everything. Why?

Auto auctions are unique creatures. There are endless lines of cars going in and out of the lane. Auctioneers using their powers of persuasion to create the urgency to buy. Alliances. Egos. Organized chaos at every moment… and most of all a reserve price that has to be met come hell or high water. There is one unique twist to today’s auto auction world. Many buyers and sellers will never come to the auction. They are online. Viewing all the sales and inventory for the week on a computer. Which brings to me the first company featured in this three part installment:: Insurance Auto Auctions.

Under current Cuban law, only cars built before the 1959 revolution can be legally bought and sold. This has kept Cuba’s pre-revolution American cars running, creating the island nation’s unique automotive landscape. But now, reports NPR, proposed liberalizations of Cuba’s property laws might threaten Cuba’s fleet of classic American cars. Though reforms could bring much-needed investment to Cuba, they would also mean an end to the laws that have kept Cuba’s streets looking like a time capsule from the late 1950s. But luckily Cubans have come to feel deeply attached to their classic American cars, vowing to keep them running as symbols of Cuba’s history.

As for Cuba’s classic cars, mechanic Jorge Prats says he thinks they’ll be around for at least another 50 years.

“These cars are a part of our national identity now, like rice and beans, or roast pork,” Prats says as he shows off his two-toned, bright red-and-white 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air coupe. “We take care of these old American cars as if they were another member of the family.”

Philip writes:

As spring descends on Texas & a young man’s (OK, middle aged man’s) fancy turns to cars deficient in practicality but full in spirit, I bring to you the following dilemma for your consideration.

The parameters are simple, manual is a must, RWD is preferable, A/C is mandatory (this is Texas), price point should be less than $30K, pre-owned and pre-loved is fine.

The choices are narrowing down to classic marques and Japanese hot imports. In no particular order; Porsche 911, Lotus Elise, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Subaru WRX-STI. Each has unique advantages and drawbacks. Cachet versus all-out performance, specialized services versus the local franchise dealer, low-tech tradition versus hi-tech cutting edge.

This is my case for you to ponder. Or perhaps there’s even a car or two I have overlooked (I already have a BMW 325)? Your input, knowledge and experience would be greatly appreciated.

It’s one thing to find a car featured on Curbside Classics for sale on Craigslist or Ebay… in fact, according to our trackbacks, a number of used car sellers have even taken to linking to the relevant CC in their online ads. But finding a beast of a Packard Clipper that Paul Niedermeyer himself once called “the biggest find of the year so far” for sale for the low, low price of $4,700 (as of current bidding) just doesn’t happen every day. If you’re on the West Coast and you’re looking to scratch that hard-to-reach Packard itch, your barge may just have come in (so to speak).

I know what you’re thinking: “What is a magazine publisher doing certifying pre-owned vehicles?” The answer: selling a lot of cars. Motor Trend’s Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) program, which certifies vehicles and dealers and offers some service features, sold more vehicles last year than Kia or Porsche’s in-house CPO programs, at 10,010 units sold. Which raises questions about both the nature of consumer demands and the efficacy of some of these OEM CPO programs. For one thing, it’s not at all clear why consumers seek out a new car magazine’s stamp of approval on a used car. After all, would you rather have your car certified by its manufacturer or by the magazine that picked the ’97 Malibu and 2002 Thunderbird as its Car Of The Year? Not that Motor Trend has anything to do with its eponymous CPO program, mind you, as that is operated by EasyCare. And that firm has some 2.6m current service contracts, a number that puts MT’s 10k units into perspective. But the real question here is how do CPO sales by brands like Porsche, Kia and Jaguar get beat by a magazine? Given that EasyCare also administers the official Volvo, Mazda, and Jaguar CPO programs, isn’t it a bit odd that the Motor Trend-branded program sells nearly as many cars (or, in the case of Jaguar, more)?

My memories of ‘charity cars’ are not fond ones. Back in the late 1990’s the dirtiest public auction in metro-Atlanta would line up about 50 of these vehicles for the beginning of their sale. The acrid smell of blown head gaskets and leaking oils of every type would soon emanate the auction as most of these vehicles were pushed past the block. Back then you could buy a non-running car for about $20, and a running one for no more than $250. The high bidders were usually dealers, who would then bring back the same vehicles the following week and try to sell them for huge markup’s.

Why did someone from Atlanta keep this? An all-wheel-drive SUV is not exactly the best choice for Atlanta’s hot climates and long commutes. You get abysmal fuel economy. A mediocre safety record. Higher repair costs due to the all-wheel-drive system. Did I mention the solarium effect out here that takes dashboards and discolors and deforms them? When I bought this for $1000, I was seemingly going against the conventional wisdom. But I wasn’t… here’s why…

20 years. Most marriages and capital offenses don’t have that level of commitment. To think of how long that is for any daily driver, consider what was not in most cars back then. Airbags, anti-lock brakes, cd players… heck ‘premium sound’ usually landed you nothing more than a cassette deck and four speakers. Now consider that this one owner 1990 Buick Century has a design dating all the way back to 1982. We’re talking about a period of design where the world’s most popular entertainment consisted of Pac-man & Atari 2600’s. Ancient times. Good times. But bad times for Detroit. Very, very bad times.

It’s a rough world out there: First new cars and especially SUVs were pretty much unsalable. A few months ago, the recession drove used car prices sky-high. Then truck sales were back with a vengeance. Now that you finally have a new shiny SUV in the driveway (yeah!) you wake up and it has lost a huge chunk of its value, overnight. Says USA Today today: “The run-up in gas prices past $3 a gallon has been running down the value of used SUVs, causing prices to plummet below levels listed in well-known buying guides.”

It’s one of my favorite cars. Don’t ask me why. Engine straight from a Vette. Rear wheel drive as God rightfully intended. Big leather seats that are as thick as a saddle, and a ride that Norman Rockwell would approve of. This late great Roadmaster has 158,000 miles and nary a check engine light or mechanical issue in sight. It rides great. The cosmetics? Not bad. A little glue on the door strips here and there thanks to Georgia summers and GM bean counters. I’ll tell ya, if gas were $1 a gallon this would have already been in my garage. It rides like heaven but with gas treading $3 in the low demand winter season, it’s hitting the road; especially since I paid $1385 for the beast.

Certain things keep me up at night.

Stock market? Nope.

Business issues? Every once in a blue moon.

Family? Not unless the little ones begin drinking my coffee.

Weird questions that no one in their right mind should ever ponder? Bingo!

Car maintenance seems to be an inescapable recurring thought these days. So I may as well take the dive here.

What is white, powerful, a ton of fun, and comes with a ‘retractable’ top? If you said the author well, you’re mostly wrong. My top happens to be aerodynamic and I only have powerful eyeglasses. But when it comes to cars we’re talking about convertibles in the wintertime. This week there are a massive amount of convertible trade-in’s at the auctions. A lot of folks here in Atlanta want to forgo the delayed gratification of a spring day for a winter shopping spree. Black Friday shopping sometimes requires divestments and some folks have decided that the least favorite toy must be exchanged for the most recent shopping season. Is this the right decision? Well, it depends on how you measure value.

It’s 1992 and Pontiac is the division of driving excitement. A power hungry driver with leather gloves and an intense maniacal stare takes on the ‘call of the road’ in between TV football games. His beautiful black Bonneville, 200+ horsepower, screeches from a stand still and thrusts right to the edge of the posted speed limit… and not a single mph more. No Cadillac zags through double yellow lines. No country clubber saying, “You bet your Ascot!” This is GM in the heart of the Stempel era. Another frigging rental car marketed as sporty.

Fast forward 18 years later and I have the 1996 version of the exact same car. 3800 V6. 102,000 original miles. I bought it for $1500 and threw in a new water pump and tune-up. Overall I have about $1800 in this plasticized, full-sized Pontiac. Not a bad amount given the mileage and the good paint. The question now is what to do?

What makes a vehicle valuable? Most folks chose to invest in the myth. A given brand a ‘Supername’ alone can save them from a Kryptonite’s worth of expenses and maintenance issues. I work backwards. The name alone doesn’t tell me very much. The owners do. When I find an owner who has been a good steward of their vehicle, I take the plunge regardless of the name involved. Does this always work?

As a newcomer to Denver, I had my worries that the junkyards here would be wall-to-wall Sables and Sephias. Would my junkyard trips be a slog through a miasma of late-model boredom? As J. Frank Parnell said about the hazards of lobotomies: Not at all!

Boring. Small. The automotive equivalent of an advanced econ class. That’s pretty much what a 2000 Elantra Wagon was in the auction world back in 07’. You know that the automotive fashionistas won’t be knocking on your door… and three years ago you wouldn’t get much more than the extraordinarily cheap and chancy taking another glance at it. Hyundai still suffered from the stigma that came with making second-rate cars in a world where sub-prime buyers could buy far better vehicles with a pulse and a paycheck. To put it kindly, this one was a tough sell.

Like the Chrysler LHS, this one was bought for $1000. A red, automatic 4 door model with power nothing and an aftermarket radio system. Florida, land of a million rentals was flooded with these vehicles ten years ago, and why not? It is an honest and decent piece of transportation that can go well north of 200k with proper maintenance. This particular one was bought at 150k with no paint fade on it. A very surprising plus for a car from Hotlanta. But the rear seat cushion has the usual ‘smile curl’ where the ends peak upwards due to excess sun exposure and let’s face it… this one is a parts bin special.

Who wants a 1996 Chrysler LHS? The last car to ever impersonate an Iacocca inspired Chrysler New Yorker glided down the auction lane in pure anonymous bliss. The Mazda 3 behind it had already hooked all the dealers looking for some sub-prime finance fodder and hey, I knew that the 3’s transmission was toast. I was not in the mood to have a dogfight with half the dealers at this sale. My job was to pick my battles and find the dealer queens, but which ones?

TTAC commenter esager writes in:

I have a dilemma that may interest our readership (yes, I feel a sense of ownership after being a daily reader for 3-4 years now).

A few years back, my wife and I bought a nice 2007 CPO 328i that was formerly used as a customer service loaner car for the one of our Seattle area BMW dealerships. We really enjoy its performance and sophistication and are happy with the car for the most part, save for the various and sundry trips to the dealership to fix a few warranty items – more trips than I think should be necessary, though not truly excessive. She drove it to work every day and was glad to have it. It’s under CPO warranty coverage for 2 more years.

Earlier this year, a note I left on the windshield of a 1991 318is (the one year E30 model with the M42 engine) allowed me to purchase said car from a co-worker as a daily driver and fixer. I got it for very cheap and have been dutifully cleaning, updating (oil pan gaskets, rear shock mounts, hydraulic timing chain tensioner, differential output shaft seal replacement, etc, etc), and generally enjoying the heck out of it. Lower control arms, ball joints etc. are in the future for this car.

Certain cars make you feel better after you have driven them. A late-90’s Jaguar XJ8 swathed in Connolly Leather. A late model Mercedes S-Class that’s running properly. And of course a Lexus LS430 which has been known to put some drivers in a near euthanasia state. Then of course there’s the classic American Buick of the 21st Century… the Toyota Camry.

From conflict-torn Afghanistan [via Newsweek] comes this strange tale of Taliban tribute to the “the vehicular equivalent of the AK-47”: the Toyota Hilux (more famous among Western car nuts for its infamous Top Gear adventures).

As the war in Afghanistan escalated several years ago, counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, a member of the team that designed the Iraq surge for Gen. David Petraeus, began to notice a new tattoo on some insurgent Afghan fighters. It wasn’t a Taliban tattoo. It wasn’t even Afghan. It was a Canadian maple leaf.

When a perplexed Kilcullen began to investigate, he says, he discovered that the incongruous flags were linked to what he says is one of the most important, and unnoticed, weapons of guerrilla war in Afghanistan and across the world: the lightweight, virtually indestructible Toyota Hilux truck.

It’s that time again. The time that I report on the market that no-one cares about. The UK. The SMMT has released the car registration figures today and as predicted, they fell, but not as much as other markets. The UK saw new car sales fall by only 8.9 percent, compared to, say, Italy. Overall, the UK market still remains 7.8 percent higher than last year (to date). The Ford Fiesta remains the best selling model in the UK, which will do our balance of trade with Spain and Germany no favors. Diesel cars and alternatively fuelled cars all posted growth in September. What was also telling about this “growth” was this little nugget of information: Private demand fell, while fleet demand increased. That’s right, while private customers are fleeing, car makers are trying to sustain volume by following the fleets. Shall we take a look the breakdown?

There was a time when nearly every customer asked, “Does it come with a clean Carfax history?” It came to a point where I would just routinely leave them on the driver’s seat so that the questioner could peruse what they thought was a complete ownership history. Then certain things happened in the marketplace.

Dealers began targeting vehicles that ‘did’ have frame damage, but were not mentioned on Carfax. Not every insurance company or state police agency agency had (or has) a relationship with Carfax… and some of the nastiest of damage came with the most expensive of vehicles. Carfax got blamed, threatened, sued, and dragged through the sensationalistic dreck we now find on network news. The price of Carfax subscriptions went up while this was happening, and as a result dealers and individuals began to seek alternatives. Autocheck became a de facto standard at the auto auctions, and now it is the leading competitor to Carfax. But is it better?

Whenever somebody asked me what I did for a living during the summer of 1994, I would tell them “I sell Infinitis”. That was a lie. My actual job was to lease the Infiniti J30 at $399/month to second-tier suburban wanna-bes and a wide variety of credit criminals. That was what paid for our owner’s impressive coke habit, and that was what earned me as much as three thousand dollars per month.

In the interest of strict factual accuracy, I should point out that we did, nominally, sell two other models. The 1994 Q45 was an overpriced brick with a Park Avenue-style facelift. Over the course of six months, we sold two of them, one to a former salesman who was simply in the habit of driving that particular car as a demo, and one to somebody who owned a 1990 example and was only vaguely horrified at the “updates” performed that year. Looking back, I think he used to snort coke with the dealership’s owner. It would explain a lot.

Back in 2008 I saw some of the weirdest optioned vehicles to have ever gone through any auto auction. Vehicles that were given power everything including cruise, ABS and traction control… but manual windows. Long wheel base minivans that offered captain’s chairs and premium sound… but no rear air. Even midsized sedans that had all the features a family would want. Except side airbags which the rental car company decided would cost too much to repair in the event of an accident. Fast forward two years later. Used car inventories are at their lowest point in 35 years and used car prices are up over a thousand bucks from last year. Have the manufacturers finally found some pearls of wisdom? Or are there still too many penny wise, pound foolish practices running amuck in the industry. Well???

I went to a public sale this past Thursday. Dozens of vehicles were sold for four figure premiums, but unfortunately virtually all of them were complete and utter trash. A repo’d 2008 Dodge Avenger SXT was riddled with 89,000 torturous miles of abuse and neglect. It shaked, rattled, and barely rolled through the block. Thanks to an owner who considered the numerous warning lights to be mere suggestions.. But it still went for $8800. How? Why? We’re talking clean book value for a rough car in every sense of the word.

Schadenfreude recently brought the elder Niedermeyer out of his summer semi-retirement, and for the most part, it’s a consistent inspiration for much of our content here at TTAC. But as natural and healthy as it is to laugh and learn from the mistakes of others, for some reason I’m just not feeling it today. Blame it, if you must, on a certain mellowness that settles in over the glorious course of an Oregon Summer. One Robert Farago always said that hate must come from a place of love, so in the interests of getting TTAC back in lean, mean fighting form, I’m going to indulge in the worst kind of of auto-writing love-fest: I’m going to tell you about how much I love my car. Except that it’s not a car, and it’s not actually mine…

The dogs days of July have been anything but. 83 dealers visited a well-established independent sale this Monday that offered only 93 vehicles. They came to buy and let me tell ya… the dealers paid all the money in the world for some very slim pickings. They had no choice because inventory now is getting near famine levels in the wholesale markets.

Wholesale heaven used to be a crowded place at the dealer auctions. There were Taurae aplenty. Neons, Stratuses, Sables, Sebrings, Optimas, Milans, the names were as endless as the need to keep all the factories humming. Even in the ‘somewhat’ good old days of 2004, the average vehicle that sold for $5,000 at a sale usually had only about 70 to 75k on it. But now it’s a different auction world.

Sergio Marchionne’s turnaround of Fiat was a weird one. He turned around a company, which most people thought had died already. Sergio’s turnaround was helped by GM’s unwitting “ re-capitalization” of Fiat, too. Recently, worker relations in Italy have been strained, to say the least. If you thought the situation with the UAW in the United States was bad enough, in Italy, things are spicier than Mamma’s Arrabbiata sauce. The Financial Times UK reports that Sergio Marchionne has finally lost patience with unionized Italian workers and has threatened them to change their mindsets or else be out of a job. The end of September is their deadline. Mr Marchionne wants Italy to help drag Fiat (and Chrysler) into one of the top five car companies in the world. But to do that, he needs concessions from his Italian workers. Big ones.

After one year of ownership we would expect EV residual values to be above the segment average expressed in terms of pound values. But, if the battery is owned rather than leased, and lacks the appropriate extended warranty, the value of the typical EV will then fall dramatically until the vehicle is five years old, at which point the car will have a trade value little more than 10 per cent of the list price

So says Andy Carroll, managing director of the British car-buying bible, Glass’s Guide. He tells BusinessCar that Nissan and other firms launching EVs in Britain should take out the battery cost and lease it to customers with minimum monthly performance clauses. This, he says, would dispel concerns, drive sales, and transform the resale picture. It’s also what Project Better Place is doing, albeit in a complete regional package with battery-swap stations and charging infrastructure.

While LeMons’ Judges Jonny and Phil took a breather to get married (not to each other) I was one of four people with the honor of taking their place. It’s true, there was a quartet of judges needed to do what those two professionals do on a regular basis, no matter what previous accounts may suggest. So I inspected close to 100 crap cars to see if they meet LeMons’ $500 purchase price criteria. And while I did, I found the Ten Coolest Engineering Feats of The 24 Hours of LeMons. So let’s get right to it.

1. 2000 Honda Insight 5MT CVT (49/61/53)
2. 2010 Toyota Prius (51/48/50)
3. 1986 Chevrolet Sprint ER 5MT (44/53/48)
4. 1990-1994 Geo Metro XFI 5MT (43/52/47)
5. 1986-87 Honda Civic Coupe HF 5MT (42/51/46)
6. 1994-95 Honda Civic Hatchback VX 5MT (39/50/43)
7. 2006-2010 Honda Civic Hybrid CVT (40/45/42)
8. 2010 Honda Insight CVT (40/43/41)
9. 2001-2003 Toyota Prius CVT (42/41/40)
10. 1989 Chevrolet Sprint/Suzuki Swift 5MT (38/45/41)

Keep in mind that this list [via our pals at Autosavant] is for EPA ratings, adjusted to the new post-2008 methodology (city/hwy/combined). Luckily, the EPA also accepts real-world mileage submissions from citizen-motorists to help illustrate the whole “your mileage may vary” thing. That list is after the jump.

Ken Dowd writes:

I’ve got high compression readings of over 190 lbs on all cyls on my TR4. The head has been reworked twice that I know of, about .050 has been shaved. I got these readings after putting the engine back together with all new sleeves, pistons, rings and a head/valve job. I CCed. the head at 55cc and crunched the numbers on several online compression ratio calculators and figured my compression to be about 9.5:1 Compression ratio on the stock engine is 9:1. Would you expect to see such high compression readings with such a small increase in compression ratio?

I’ve searched the world over and cannot find a spec for compression on a healthy 2138cc TR4 engine. Do you have any experience with after market solid copper oversized (thicker) head gaskets to bring down compression? That is the only thing I can come up with. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Talk about unfortunate timing: Just as the scrapping incentives all around the world are running out, a Japanese company found a way to turn old cars into fuel.

What is a car dealer’s most profitable business? Selling new cars? One would think so, judging by the amount of money invested into metal, marble and glass used to move new cars. But it’s wrong. If a dealer is good, his new car profit contribution is in the single digits. What makes money in a dealership? Servicing the cars. And selling used cars. As Buickman and Steven Lang will confirm: A dealer often can make more money re-selling a trade-in than selling a new car. This must have dawned on someone at Volkswagen …

My Dad worked with the same company for sixty years. His first days were spent making coffee, learning English, and finding any opportunities for him and the company. It wasn’t easy. Back then America was in a recession with unfathomable debt and a dollar that could seemingly buy all the remnants of a battle scarred Europe. Today we have all the elements of the past. Except America is still fighting the wars, the dollar is weak, and the only thing that our country can seemingly buy is more debt… and time. With such lighthearted thoughts in my head this afternoon, I decided to go for a long walk.