Articles Posted in General Automobile

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Recently, the new CEO of Chrysler, LLC, Bob Nardelli, has hinted that he intends to reduce five of Chrysler’s vehicle lineup. There are numerous speculation as to which models will meet its doom. However, suspicion is placed on the Pacifica, Dakota, Commander, and Compass.

As a lemon law attorney who handles defective car cases on a daily basis throughout the state of Texas, I personally would like to see the Chrysler 300 meet its fate on the guillotine. Don’t get me wrong, the car looks great, but there has been so many known issues with it.

Asked why Chrysler is eliminating some of its models, the company answers that several models overlap each other and has arguably self-competed/cannabilized against each other.

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How long does it take to drive across North America? If you are Alex Roy and Dave Maher, the answer is 31:04 . Last year, that was all it took for them to drive their 2000 BMW M5 from New York City’s Classic Car Club to Santa Monica pier in California.

Their M5 had relatively few mechanical alterations. The speed limiter, was removed and the exhaust, shocks and clutch and brakes were replaced. An addition 16 gallon fuel tank added. There were, however, numerous electronic additions including a Valentine 1 radar and laser detector, Blinder laser jammer system, a Garmin 2730, a Garmin 2650 (used as a speedometer and backup system), Uniden 7960 scanner, Uniden BCT8 analog scanner, Uniden BC396 digital handheld scanner (their primary scanner), Uniden Pro520XL CB radio, L3 night vision system (thermal camera mounted in the car’s grill with an Alpine display in the cabin), Whalen siren and sound package with red, white, green, and blue strobes (front and back). In addition to all this in car equipment, they also had a spotter plane overhead watching for police activity and speed traps.

This was not some impulse trip. Alex Roy spent two years mapping out his route on Google Earth and marking detours, construction areas and speed traps. They took Vitamin Water, energy drinks and bars and nutritional supplements with them. Since stopping for bathroom breaks would have wasted precious time, they included a box of TravelJohns. Trip cost was about $150,000 (not including man hours).

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Last week, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released the results of tests to evaluate how well midsize SUVs (sports utility vehicles) protect their contents from front and side impacts. Here in Dallas, it seems that almost everyone drives an SUV of some size — so, this testing was quite welcome.

Frontal safety was determined from examining injury (as modeled by a Hybrid III test dummy) and the amount of intrusion into the vehicle’s occupant compartment during a 40 mph offset front crash. In the case of side safety, a side impact was simulated by a mobile barrier impacting the vehicles with an object at 31 mph.

The models evaluated were the: Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chevrolet TrailBlazer, Nissan Pathfinder, Nissan Xterra, Toyota 4Runner, and Ford Explorer. All these models received a rating of “good” for frontal crash protection with the exception of the TrailBlazer which was rated “acceptable”.
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Robert Russo, the former lemon law unit director of New Jersey now leads New Jersey’s Consumer League. Russo is also a (former) mayor of Montclair, NJ and a former political science professor at Rutger and Montclair State University.

The Consumers League of New Jersey is a statewide consumer advocacy and educational group that is associated with its parent group, the National Consumers League.

In his new capacity as president of New Jersey’s Consumers League, Russo plans to advocate for stronger lemon laws for the state of New Jersey. Further, he intends to educate the public on their rights on what to do in the event that the new car they purchased is a lemon.

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Continuing on with the theme of cars that perform beyond the call of duty, today we look at a particular Toyota Hilux. Top Gear, a BBC automotive show, recently set out to test the commonly held belief that Toyota trucks are extremely durable. Top Gear is known for its creative and entertaining tests and this case was no exception.

The staff purchased a Toyota Hilux Diesel with 190,000 miles on it for approximately $2000. The vehicle had some body rust and was battered, but functioned well. They subjected this truck to numerous abuses.

First they drove it around Brsitol, sideswiped a stone wall and drove it into a tree. After prying the fender back, they kept on driving and tethered the truck onto the beach at low tide. The tide came in, the truck broke loose and was completely submerged. It was completely water logged and covered in silt. A mechanic working with only basic tools was able to get the truck drivable again in an hour (they did replace the windshield for safety).

Following the attempt to drown it, Top Gear ran the truck through a shed and dropped a caravan trailer on top of it and hit it with a wrecking ball. The truck sustained further body damage but was still functioning. Finally, they set the truck on fire. Even after this, once the fire burnt itself out, they were able to drive the truck into their set.

This has not been the show’s only encounter with the Hilux. In 2007, two presenters from the show became the first people to drive an automobile to the Magnetic north Pole (as determined by the 1996 measurement).
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Many of us have bought used or pre-own cars (I have bought three in Dallas Texas) and had the experience of wondering if the price you were paying was fair, or if the car was a lemon under the Texas lemon law.

Back in 1970, economist George Akerlof examined this issue. He wrote a paper entitled “The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism.” While he took the used car market as an example, his writing was applicable to many more buyer/seller situations.

Two aspects of the used car transaction were important to Akerlof. Not all used cars (or new cars) are of the same quality – some are in good condition and are solid vehicles, while others have many defects and are undesirable for potential buyers. This wide range of conditions reflects the quality heterogeneity of the pool of vehicles.

The second aspect was the asymmetry of information between the seller and the buyer. The seller may know a great deal about the vehicle being sold while the buyer knows very little. Additionally, some buyers will be able to more accurately assess the true condition of the vehicle that they are purchasing.
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When you buy a new car, how long should you expect it to last? If you purchased a new car and it is a defective lemon and you are negotiating with the manufacturer for a settlement, the issue of how much value you have received from the car will arise. Simply put, for this purpose under the Texas lemon law, a car’s lifetime is presumed to be 120,000 miles.

In other words, if you used a car for 12,000 miles, then you have “used up” 1/10 the value of the car. In reality, there are more details that factor in, such as the first time you had a problem with the car. Ignoring this, we can broadly figure that the manufacturer expects the car to last 120,000 miles.

In the past, it might have been expected for a car to only last that long, but many modern cars can easily make it further. Currently, the US Department of Transportation reports that the lifespan of a car is 12 years and/or 128,000 miles. John Ibbotson, a supervisor with Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center, says that this figure is so low because of failure of some owners to properly maintain their vehicles. With proper maintenance, you new car might easily make it to 200,000 miles.
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At my Dallas based law office, I often refer to the Texas lemon law as the manufacturer’s lemon law, because it is arguably apparent that the law favors car manufacturer more than consumers. For example, the mileage deduction that the manufacturers are entitled to in the event of a repurchase or replacement may often be so high that it causes consumers to be upside down; making the consumer worse off then a regular car trade in.

Last week, I posted an article comparing the “Texas Lemon Law” against the upcoming new Australian Lemon Law. This morning, I stumbled upon an update with Australia’s drafting and legislation of the upcoming lemon law.

It looks like Tony Robinson, Australia’s Consumer Affairs Minister will invite both consumers and industry representatives to provide feedback and input on the new law. Those who are interested in participating in drafting the new Australian lemon law has until November 23, 2007 to write to the ministry.

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In a civilian context, when you buy your new car, chances are that you will drive it on paved highways and roads — perhaps rarely on a dirt road or park it on the grass. (For example, I commute from Fort Worth to my office in downtown Dallas on a regular basis and normally drive on concrete roadways such as interstate 75 and 360). Most production cars are designed with this assumption in mind, although some are designed specifically or off-roading.

If you were to take your average economy sedan and start driving over hills and into ditches,…you would soon be in trouble. A car manufacturer would probably not be overly sympathetic if you claimed that your Kia Rio was a lemon because it experienced multiple system failures while you were creating your own path through the Amazon rain forest.

Vehicles used by the military have quite different requirements. Military vehicles need to be able to traverse unpaved paths and go cross-country. There are some vehicles that have made the transition from military to consumer use. A recent example of this is GM’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle HMMWV (aka Hummer). The model line was expanded for the civilian market with scaled down versions, the H2 and H3. In 2006, GM announced that it would no longer market the original full sized H1 Hummer.

Long before the Hummer, there was the Jeep. The Jeep was the prototypical army-to-civilian vehicle. The U.S. Army received its first shipment of Jeeps in 1941 and the vehicle proved instrumental in the successful outcome of the war for the Allies. In the years since, it has proved popular with civilians, spawning a long line of derivative vehicles. Now, once again, the Jeep is returning to military use.
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Regardless of what sort of vehicle we have, whether it is new or old, a great car or a lemon, most of us speed. Some of the time we go with the traffic flow, a few miles an hour over the speed limit and occasionally zip around considerably faster. It is almost inevitable that eventually we get pulled over for speeding and may get a ticket. Here in Dallas and the surrounding Fort Worth and Arlington areas, these tend to be for a few hundred dollars.

There are a few places where this behavior is much costlier. Back in July, the state of Virginia implemented a new law which dramatically increases what offenders will be assessed for many traffic infractions. This new “civil remedial fee” dwarfs the normal penalty. For example, going 20 mph over the speed limit is considered “reckless driving” and carries a $1000 civil penalty in addition to the regular fine. Other examples are a $300 fee for failing to stop at a stop sign, and a $300 fee if an in car DVD player is playing a movie and an “obscene video image” is seen from outside the vehicle. The state expects to raise between $65-$120 million.

In the case of Virginia, the state legislature is trying to fill the state’s coffers from the pockets of drivers. In contrast, the Finnish system for penalizing misbehaving drivers can result in even bigger fines, – recently a wealthy internet entrepreneur was fined $71,400 for driving 43 mph in a 25 mph zone – but the rationale is very different. In Finland, the idea is that a penalty should impact everyone equally.
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