Tag: cars

Car dealers SUCK!

scoopstanton

By: Scoop Stanton

I am in the market for a new car. I have financing through my financial institution. I already know what kind of car I want and know the market price! I literally have a blank check to complete the purchase. Fortunately, for myself and everyone else out there, there is so much information on what to know when you walk in the dealership. And like everything else we can literally have a car delivered to our home and have our old car removed!

Then why in the name of God are dealers doing the exact same thing for the longest time! The bait and switch routine, or listing a car for one price, then selling the car for another price! Then there’s the “certified preowned” trick where you see a used car at a reasonable price, then there’s another $2,000 charge on top of the price because its “certified preowned.” And its non-negotiable! I was in this scenario and I said fine, I’ll pay the extra $2,000 but either add $2K to my trade in or take $2K off the car price. No dice. I gave a piece of my mind which embarrassed the former Mrs. Stanton and walked out!

Then there’s Carmax. At the end of fiscal year 2024, Carmax sold 770,000 cars! And Carmax only sells used cars and Carmax is far from the cheapest place to buy used cars. But; you can go from test drive to out the door with a car in as little as an hour! Here’s the pitch. You like the car, here’s the price. Do you want to buy and if so, do you need financing? One would think that the industry would copy Carmax! Nope! They still think its 1962!

Industries come and go due to market forces and technology. We no longer have encyclopedia salesmen, the yellow pages, telephone operators, television repairmen, and video store clerks. Hopefully sooner than later we can add car salesmen. Here’s some videos on what to look out at the car dealership!

Safety my ass!

scoopstanton

By: Scoop Stanton

Well, I got another Notice of Infraction (NoI) from the fine people from the District of Columbia! This time it was for a red-light infraction. And it included pictures. And there was my early model luxury economy sedan proceeding through the steady red signal. The fine: $150! Safety my ass! The government of DC doesn’t care about safety. If they did the speed cameras would be hooked up to a License Plate Reader and would alert the Metropolitain Police Department (MPD) that my stolen car is qualifying for the next Formula 1 race on the streets of DC! Meanwhile the DC Council decriminalized fare evasion. Fare evasion or “theft of service” is a misdemeanor in New York. It’s a civil offense in DC. Any transit cop from any agency will tell you that people who fare evade have; weapons, narcotics or a warrant or a combination of all three! The DC government (and all other municipalities) are only interested in the money generated in camera tickets! And with the hundreds of millions of dollars generated by these cameras, the streets of DC should be as smooth as a baby’s bottom and all infrastructure programs should be paid for! But its not. 

With a police officer doing a traffic stop for the same offense, there’s something called discretion. He or she would hopefully know that if a car did stop for that light at that time at the speed I was travelling, I would be in “the box” or intersection causing problems. That officer’s salary and benefits costs the taxpayer $100,000+ a year plus $30,000 for the RMP or cruiser then overtime for traffic court.

The traffic cameras cost the city nothing and the contractor gets a cut of the fines. Its in the contractors best interest to keep catching people speeding and running red lights. Its easier to say someone is speeding than running a red light.