Locate an Auto Repair Shop in Harvey, North Dakota

Harvey, ND Car Consumer Discussions

Do not pay anything above MSRP

by sfbay998 on Thu Oct 09 13:34:55 PDT 2008

Report in San Francisco Bay Area: Dealer we try : -San Francisco Honda -Honda of Serramonte -Grace Honda -Mike Harvey Honda (people , welcome to report your result) I just got my Fit SPORT , AT @ MSRP=$17580 I told my friend to stick to the point at MSRP , he also got MSRP $17580 for Fit SPORT , AT , after 2 week , 2 visit. He also lay out these facts to the sales manager : Auto sales plunge as credit crunch hits Wed Oct 1, 2008 7:53pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Major automakers reported plunging U.S. sales for September The 26-percent drop in industry-wide auto sales was sharper than expected and coincided with a crisis on Wall Street that automakers said rocked consumer confidence and made it harder for remaining shoppers to finance vehicles. Sales were down 24 percent at Honda Motor Co, 32 percent at Toyota Motor Corp and 37 percent at Nissan Motor Co. Chrysler LLC sales were down 33 percent. Silicon Valley car dealers shut doors OWNERS TRY TO SELL DEALERSHIPS,THEN GIVE UP AND WALK AWAY Article Launched: 10/02/2008 10:04:49 AM PDT At his dealership in Los Gatos, John Moore sits, both literally and figuratively, in the middle of a depressing time for Silicon Valley car dealers. Moore Buick-Pontiac-GMC is a three-generation, family-owned dealership on Los Gatos Boulevard. To the store's right are the remains of Swanson Ford, which closed in 2006 and was destroyed in a fire on Sunday. To the showroom's left is Los Gatos Chevrolet, which locked its doors for good on Tuesday. "Two years ago, I was saying I never saw business conditions like this," Moore said. "Unfortunately, car dealers are the most optimistic entrepreneurs in the world. We keep hoping it's going to get better, but it keeps getting worse." Perhaps a dozen San Jose-area dealerships have closed in the past few years, including Silicon Valley Hummer, Stevens Creek Buick-Pontiac-GMC, Sunnyvale Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep and Sunnyvale Lincoln-Mercury this year. Smythe Volvo closed one location on Capitol Expressway Auto Mall, but another Volvo store remains open on Stevens Creek Boulevard. "These stores are closing, not selling. That's what's amazing," said Shaun Del Grande, a longtime Valley dealer with Mazda, Suzuki, Hyundai and Volkswagen franchises. "There's not even a market out there." Bay Area Loses Three Car Dealerships in One Week KCBS, CA - Oct 2, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- Three Bay Area car dealerships went out of business this week, and the pile-up is probably not over. Good Chevrolet in Alameda, another Chevrolet dealership in Los Gatos, and a GMC dealership in Colma all either closed, or announced they would be closed before Friday.

106 mpg Compressed Air Car

by hpmctorque on Tue Aug 26 05:20:37 PDT 2008

How would you respond to the following CNN article? If you hold off buying that new car for a couple more years, will you be able to fill it up with air? (a) Probably (b) Maybe (c) Probably not (d) Nonsense, this is just a bunch of hot air (e) Don't know By A. Pawlowski CNN (CNN) -- "You've heard of hybrids, electric cars and vehicles that can run on vegetable oil. But of all the contenders in the quest to produce the ultimate fuel-efficient car, this could be the first one to let you say, 'fill it up with air.' The compressed air car planned for the U.S. market would be a six-seater, a New York company says. That's the idea behind the compressed air car, which backers say could achieve a fuel economy of 106 miles per gallon. Plenty of skepticism exists, but with many Americans trying to escape sticker shock at the gas pump, the concept is generating buzz. The technology has been the focus of MDI, a European company founded in 1991 by a French inventor and former race car engineer. New York-based Zero Pollution Motors is the first firm to obtain a license from MDI to produce the cars in the United States, pledging to deliver the first models in 2010 at a price tag of less than $18,000. The concept is similar to how a locomotive works, except compressed air -- not steam -- moves the engine's pistons, said Shiva Vencat, vice president of MDI and CEO of Zero Pollution Motors. Gas still plays a role... The six-seater planned for the U.S. market would be able to reach speeds of more than 90 mph and have a range of more than 800 miles thanks to a dual energy engine, Vencat said. Watch what a prototype looks like and why the cars may take off in cities . The design calls for one or more tanks of compressed air under the car's floor, as well as a tank holding at least 8 gallons of fuel. Whether the engine uses just air or both air and fuel would depend on how fast the car is going. It would run purely on compressed air at speeds less than 35 mph, Vencat said. Since the car could only go a short distance when using just air, fuel is needed to get the full range, he explained. 'Above 35 mph, there is an external combustion system, which is basically a heater that uses a little bit of gasoline or biofuel or ethanol or vegetable oil that will heat the air,' Vencat said. 'Heating the air increases its volume, and by increasing its volume, it increases [the car's] range. That's why with one gallon of gasoline or its equivalent we are able to make over 100 mpg.' Vencat said an on-board compressor would refill the air tank while the car is running, or owners could refill it by plugging it into a power outlet for four hours. Is it for real? Experts aren't sure Americans will be zipping around in air cars and getting 106 mpg, or more than twice the fuel economy of hybrid-electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius. It is possible to power a car with compressed air, but the mileage claim is "at the edge of possibility," said John Callister, director of the Harvey Kinzelberg Entrepreneurship in Engineering program at Cornell University's College of Engineering. He noted that such dramatic fuel efficiency is associated with tiny experimental cars, not bigger mainstream ones. Who would build it? • Production would be similar to a franchise business • The cars would be manufactured by privately owned plants that could produce at least 4,000 vehicles a year. • The cost of a license to build the car in an "exclusive geographical area" in the United States is about $460,000. • Geographical areas are defined by 110,000 new vehicle registrations. For example, Georgia could have four plants at most, but there could be 15 in California. • The cost of a plant is $20 million. • The first plant is scheduled to be built in New York in 2010. Source: Shiva Vencat, vice president of MDI and CEO of Zero Pollution Motors 'No one's really proven a six-seater passenger car [can get] any better than 75 miles to the gallon. So this would represent a big step forward,' Callister said. 'They would have to prove that before they can throw rocks at the Prius.' Another expert expressed concern about the amount of energy it would take to generate the required air pressure: 4,500 pounds per square inch, or more than 120 times the pressure inside the tires of a typical four-door sedan. "That is above what you normally find even in an industrial setting," said William Bulpitt, senior research engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Strategic Energy Institute. 'That takes quite a compressor to do. ... It takes horsepower to compress the air up to that pressure.' If you count that energy, it's hard to believe the car would be that much more efficient than an electric vehicle, Callister said. India shows interest The compressed air car will get a chance to prove itself next year when it competes for the Automotive X Prize. The multimillion-dollar award will go to the team that 'can win a stage race for clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 mpg equivalent fuel economy,' according to the X Prize Foundation. The air-car concept has also drawn the interest of Tata Motors, India's largest automaker. The company announced an agreement with MDI last year to further develop and refine the technology. However, the cars have yet to hit the streets in India or anywhere else. 'The project is under progress. We do not yet have any timeframe for launch," said Debasis Ray, the head of corporate communications for Tata Motors. Only prototypes exist at this point,' Vencat said. Light design The body of the car planned for the United States would be built with fiberglass and injected foam. The chassis, composed of aluminum rods, would be glued together, not welded. The design allows the car to be as light as possible, Vencat said. For anyone who has doubts about its safety, he insisted computer simulations show that the vehicle would pass crash tests and meet all U.S. safety standards. 'Do you think somebody would actually put millions of dollars into making a car that will not pass safety regulations? There's no point in doing that,' Vencat said. Callister pointed out that there haven't been any lightweight, 100-plus mpg cars to pass crash tests but said it could be done through a "very clever design" of a lightweight frame. A good prototype could dispel many of the doubts about the compressed air car, he added.

Re: moo....just for you. [qbrozen]

by graphicguy on Fri Jul 18 05:09:58 PDT 2008

q....as hard as it is for me to admit, YES, I did buy a car from a girl who had previously threatened to kill me. The "ex" girlfriend, Elaine, was one of those people who could be as charming as the day was long. In truth, I'm not surprised she ended up in sales....she was beautiful, sexy, engaging, with just a hint of "I can rock your world" attitude. All the things that a young guy falls for, she had, and I fell for. In small doses, she was fine. If you dug just a little deeper, you got what Paul Harvey would call "the rest of the story", which wasn't so engaging, and down right psychotic. 25 years ago, when this little episode took place, I was fresh out of college, got my first post college job where I was making some real money, and it was burning a hole in my pocket. Those of you who were around at that time remember the 280Z. It was a period when the fabled "Z" car was more flash than sport. And, they sold like hot cakes at a Kiwanas breakfast. Forget that they had a very bad habit of rusting terribly (3 years into my ownership, the wheel wells had rust holes in them the size of a midwestern pothole in January). Forget that it had become a cruiser instead of a card carrying sports car. It still had that turbine like motor. And, it was as luxurious as any lux car on the market at the time. Elaine's dealership had the only one around my 'burg in the color I wanted (the ever popular bronze and gold two-tone with brown leather on the inside). Stick shifts were also tough to come by (most were sold with automatics). That's what she had. That's what I wanted. "Surely, she wouldn't hold a grudge for years" was my thought at the time. In truth, she was just doing her job. Make as much as she could, and use all of her "special gifts" to do it. The point of the post, at the time, there wasn't the information available about hold back, invoice prices, fees and add-ons, etc as their is today. Maybe it was available, but back then, I certainly didn't know where to find it. At best, you could guess how much wiggle room there was on the car. But, it was just that....a guess. Add to that, I was a young early 20-something at the time and thought I knew everything, anyway. Glad I made my car buying mistakes early in life. I certainly learned from all of them. Funny, when I relayed helping a friend buy an Accord a few weeks ago, I couldn't help overhear a young guy on the lot trying to buy a Civic Si. Salesman asked him what he wanted his payments to be. The young customer went right along with it. He committed all the "sins". Fell in love with the car. Negotiated payments. Accepted the "chrome wheels" (on a Civic?) add on. If I had to guess, he accepted the "mop & glo" and extended warranty when he got to F&I, too. Since he was at the next table and the salesperson got up to "talk to his manager", I thought about intervening and setting him straight. Then I thought "Naw....he won't learn until he makes the mistakes." I kept my seat and just listened.

Re: Kitt competitor in a Z28 [62vetteefp]

by michaell on Thu Jul 17 15:02:02 PDT 2008

Only one small issue .. it's not a minivan that Harvey drives, it's the new Chevrolet Traverse CUV. Big product placement for Chevy, it seems like. And more next summer with the sequel to "Transformers".

Kitt competitor in a Z28

by 62vetteefp on Thu Jul 17 14:22:28 PDT 2008

Alright, so there's this guy, Harvey Spivey, who's an efficiency expert. He lives the typical suburban life: wife, two kids, dog, minivan, self hatred. Basically, he's the total opposite of Edward Albright, a 2010 Chevy Camaro SS driving, multilingual, lethal operative. But get this: they share the same body. Whoa. If you're thinking this sounds like a great idea for a TV show, you're not alone. It's coming to NBC this fall starring Christian Slater. Knight Rider might have some competition. Revealed also are some more closer-up details of the new Camaro SS than those we were able to discern from the shots we saw of this very same Camaro SS on set of the new show. Check out the super thick A Pillar, blacked out grille and the centrally mounted hood scoop. [My Own Worst Enemy via Camaro Z28.com]

Re: Acura TL price in Northern CA [acurabuyer1]

by newtlguy on Thu May 29 18:56:45 PDT 2008

When I was shopping, the best base price not including taxes and fees I got for a non-navi TL was $27,400 from Mike Harvey Acura in Burlingame. (Includes destination charge) $30,400** is the best price I got from Marin Acura when they beat/matched Acura of Serramonte. Acura of Serramonte will give you any 08 Navi TL for $30,600 base including destination plus taxes and fees with no negotiation whatsoever...just go through their internet department. **Please note that my navi price above does include the protection package...which includes the color matched splash guards, trunk tray, and all weather mats.