Locate an Auto Repair Shop in Dupont, Washington

Dupont, WA Car Consumer Discussions

Re: GM likely to survive, bonds a "buy" says J.P. Morgan [steve_]

by kernick on Wed Nov 12 10:05:39 PST 2008

Heh, we've had 8 or 10 restaurants close around here and in fact, we aren't eating out as often. Yes but the fact is that the supply of restaurants, or the number of seats does not create the demand. If the demand, even the reduced-demand of now is there, then the remaining restaurants are going to do better. Similarly if GM goes out of business, and I had intended to buy a new GM vehicle next month, this does not affect my decision to buy a vehicle, just which one I can choose. Some other vehicle manufacturer is then going to get my business, and their workers and suppliers will be busy, and they probably will need to expand - using any idled plants and workers. I think you mean 1 in 10 jobs? I've heard 1 in 7. They must be counting the "teenage lifeguards at the city pool" in that number, it's so high. ;) They're using the Butterfly effect, and not telling you the details. Bulloney! And while I hear your concern about your friends and relatives jobs, you need to understand that a healthy economy is constantly creating and destroying industries, corporations, and occupations. I would also like each of you who think the Big3 should get loans or grants, to tell me the criteria of how the government will determine who gets $ and who doesn't. Who are the companies, executives, and stockholders who will never lose? When they succeed they will make lots of money, when they don't succeed they won't lose. Is IBM or Microsoft too big to fail, and should get a bailout? How about GE? or Dupont and Dow? Are we treating the workers and investors fairly between these companies? I'd say no. I don't like playing favorites, we should have 1 set of rules and laws applied equally and fairly. Now you may say Congress has always played favorites. Well don't you think we should try and put a stop to it? If you don't, then I guess you don't have much of a moral-stand to complain about any other seemingly unfair/unjust decision.

Re: Government Help [steve_]

by kernick on Mon Nov 10 09:31:59 PST 2008

I don't think you'd be able to tie a buyer's hands like that. Sure the Congress could. They can make anything legal/illegal by writing a new law. And as the Patriot Act showed, if needed, the Bill of Rights can be mothballed. Or if you could, you'd just knock the price down to where I could afford to buy a factory. Or you and I and a thousand other Edmund's forum members might want to chip in a few thousand $ and give it a crack. Couldn't afford to pay the property taxes on it, but what the hey. With the $700B the banks are getting, and supposed to be loaning, we should be able get a loan. If not us, then why wouldn't Dupont come in and pickup Pontiac for $5M, GE come in and buy Chevy, Boeing buy Ford or Caterpillar buy Jeep ... If the price is right there are many people corporations who would buy up these assets and run them. The price is not right right now because of the obligations the Big 3 have made. No one wants them with their current obligations; but if they were removed through an outright B or other liquidation then the plants have value. An auto plant where I don't have to buy from certain union suppliers, where I can hire and fire as I want, at market rates, and where I can distribute and sell my cars as I want - HAS VALUE.

Dupont protection worth while?

by sage3 on Mon Oct 13 17:43:37 PDT 2008

Toyota was pushing the dupont paint protection during my Rav4 purchase. Has anyone had any experience with this product, after reading about the poor paint I am thinking about getting it done. My 06 Matrix has 70K miles on it and the hood and front bumper are freckled with touch up paint! I am guessing that chips on the dark gray Rav will stand out more then the silver Matrix.

Re: In a fight for their lives [lemko]

by kernick on Thu Oct 09 09:04:23 PDT 2008

Isn't this what the Japanese government did for Toyota and Honda so they could develop hybrids? I don't care what happened in the 90's or now, in Europe or China or Japan. I do not want the government propping up GM, IBM, Microsoft, Dupont, Citibank, McDonald's or whomever. The debt the U.S. government is digging itself into will affect your likelihood to collect Social Security. The more they spend, the less likely you are to get much or anything. I want the government to set decent rules for businesses, provide for defense, and provide infrastructure. It should not be subjectively deciding which companies or industries survive or fail, and change the rules of whether this Congress will give loans but in the past they won't. If Congress was proactive and setup decent business and financial rules; also not allowing new financial investment types to be created - which is what makes this current mess, so messy, then they would be doing their job. Instead Congress has a faulty set of rules for the economy to run by, and then makes a bunch of expensive and biased decisions to try and fix the mess they created. Is this allowing the 3 Stooges to make dinner, and then clean the kitchen?!

Re: [fandiguy]

by graphicguy on Thu Sep 25 09:11:28 PDT 2008

fandiguy....I 2nd the welcome extended to you in these forums. As you can probably tell, there are some "grizzled" veterans that come in here as both buyers and sellers. Ziebart franchises have come and gone around here (SW OH)...at least in the traditional sense. You can say that once the car manufacturers stated that no rustproofing was needed on their cars, they either had to change their business model. Or, they had to specialize in something other than rustproofing. Matter of fact, some manufacturers have come out to say that the typical aftermarket rustproofing would do more harm than good. I don't even know if you can still find one of their franchises around here, anymore. I've yet to find any "magic" elixir that has lasted the lifetime of my car when it comes to waxes (or sealants). Truth told, I've yet to find anything better than a boutique wax called Zaino as far as durability. I've also seen the "sealant" type applications come and go. I remember a sealant called "Duramax". Haven't seen it around in awhile. I've also seen some purported sealants that allegedly say they are made of Teflon. Problem there is, even DuPont, the maker of Teflon has stated.... "The addition of a Teflon fluoro-polymer resin does nothing to enhance the properties of a car wax. We have no data that indicates the use of Teflon is beneficial in car waxes." So much for the sealants sold at dealerships that purport 5 year, even lifetime benefits of these types of aftermarket applications. So the claims at dealerships seem to be of a dubious nature when selling their waxes or sealants. Same goes for "stainguard" types of interior protectants that are sold at dealerships. A car that is 99.9% perfect will be broke down 2 days out of 6 years. What we don't know is if those 2 days of breakdown will be some sort of catastrophic failure of a key component. Or, something as simple as a $2 blown fuse. Needless to say, you can make an awful lot of mechanical repairs for the $2,000 cost of your extended warranty. Plus, with the extended warranty, the consumer is betting that something catastrophic will occur, which is statistically unlikely. I do agree that there are many more ethical dealerships....those that truly do take customer satisfaction very seriously, than there are uncaring, even unethical ones. We understand that it's your job to show the value of these "dealer add-ons" and extended warranties. From what you've stated, it sounds like you're good at it, too. For that, I commend you. But, for those of us who've bought a lot of cars (like me and many others here), we've found extended warranties, dealer add-ons, protection packages, are at best, a crap shoot as to their worth and effectiveness. That doesn't mean that they have no worth to someone, somewhere. Plus, we've all been part of the "hard sell" to get us to buy some of them. Not saying you're part of that group, either. I think you add all those factors in, and you can see how some of us are jaded when it comes to buying aftermarket anything, or extended warranties.

Re: Some Unusual Cars [bhill2]

by fintail on Sat Jul 19 09:04:51 PDT 2008

Asking and getting are different worlds. $7500 is more realistic, and the car would have to be pretty mint. I remember a guy asking $35K for a Mercedes Universal wagon in the Dupont Registry at least 10 years ago. I somehow doubt he got that for it.