Chronic
car deal Illiteracy (CCDIS) remains
at epidemic levels as the automobile celebrates its 100rdth birthday
(1997). 90-95% of auto consumer are Car Deal Clueless in America,
often paying thousands of dollars more for auto sales and service
costs than necessary. According to J.D. Powers & Associates,
half of all new car buyers fail to obtain the manufacturer's
invoice from new car pricing service and negotiate the dealer's
mark-up, opting to pay thousands more than necessary for even
basic personal auto transportation.
40% of all
car repairs are unnecessary (how
charitable have you been lately?, and did you take full advantage
of your IRS charitable gift deductions?) costing consumers over
$40 billion annually in America. 70% of auto technicians in California
are unable to diagnose auto repair problems (yeah, but we charge
brain surgeon rates by the hour so what do you care?). $22 billion
(a conservative estimate in our opinion) is stolen every year
in America from [Jack Diddley S.] Fraud alone in auto sales and
service practices. Odometer fraud is a $10 billion annual business
in America. Other "legal" but unfair and manipulative
auto sales and service practices cost our friends and families
tens of billions more in unearned industry profits. The majority
of consumer complaints involve auto sales and service issues.
Women and minorities pay more on average for auto sales and service
due to cultural and industry biases, not because of individual
consumer skills. A lifetime of automobile costs "averages"
over $400,000, more than twice the cost of the median priced
American home (in 1997 dollars). Don't puke yet, there's more!
If you are
a parent, teacher, priest, or other group or seminar leader you can help cure CCDIS
by merely telling or reminding your children, students, membership,
group of seminar attendees that when (actually before, well before...LIKE
NOW!) next contemplating acquiring another automobile, or having
one serviced again, that the free books and references on car
buying and ownership at the local library contains valuable cost
saving consumer information.
The "Car-Deal-Literacy-to-Library
Connection"
is the most important vaccination against CCDIS.
Download, print,
copy, post, circulate and share the CCDIS Flyer... or the AutoDriven Flyer
Additionally,
for more age appropriateness -- senior high school or college age students
and staff, AutoBuyology perhaps offers the next best place to
begin inoculating consumers from CCIDS... and the dingy tricks
of the Great American Car Deal.
Teachers, Professors,
Clergy, Group Leaders, Lecturers, Presenters, etc.
(The
15 Second Car Deal Literacy Lecture... ) adds value (mileage) to any curriculum,
class or course materials... make sure your students know "Jack
about car deals. " Fifteen seconds, or less, that's all
it takes... really & virtually... Simply make the Car Deal
Literacy / Library Link for your students, clients, associations,
friends, families, etc.
Just say:
"If
you're going to buy, lease or service a car (if you cannot avoid doing
so) go to the library and pick up one or two of the dozens of
books available related to car buying how-to."
The automobile
is the most expensive lifetime cost that most of us will make. By merely
helping students, families, friends and associates make the Car-Deal-
Literacy-to-Library-Connection (CDLLC), a seemingly simple but
often missed connection, we can help shorten the expensive trial
and error car deal literacy learning curve...
Simply take
the time to remind your students or membership at some point in your
class schedule about the library / car deal connection to help
them save considerable costs on private transporation...
There are
dozens of car deal how-to books available free at most full service
libraries or for a nominal investment at most good bookstores...
these constitute perhaps the most important resource students,
teachers, and other auto consumers may avail themselves of...
if they merely make the (car-deal-literacy-to-library) connection.
AutoBuyology / CARveat Emptor,
the TPM
(Total
Profit Management) web resource for consumers, is perhaps
the 2nd best car deal tip--the web site with rEvolutionary auto
consumer sanity and survival information for leveling the predatory
car deal battlefield in the all "new" & improved
up-profited, downsized "gobble" economy of the new
millenium...