Tromper News Updates

Hi Gary / Andy I forgot about your new blog name and didn't know an Andy Hardy, so I did a quick delete. After this one I tried your blog invite and got an error, so I deleted it. The comments are very interesting particularly about car leasing, which I have questioned since 2002 when I returned my Acura RL off lease...it had a by out of $22,500.00 and it was worth $17,000.00. I offered the dealership that I had at least 3 cars from...the value of $17,000.00...no go. I asked what they would do with it and listen to this brilliant answer...Honda Finance will take it back and auction it back to their dealers cheap enough for the dealer who buys it to sell it for $17,000.00 and make a profit. Wow! That is brilliant. Please notice that this is Honda in action, not the big 3. I know for a fact that Honda and Toyota only to name 2, had a good run for several years by actually controlling the orice of new and "USED" vehicles, which worked for a while until this type of situation started happening. They were able to stabilize the value of the cars going out the door and coming back, thus making the lease business very viable. I have no idea how the big 3 handled this, since I switched to Acura and then Toyota as far back as 1985, which coincidently is probably around the time the big 3 lost major market share. I could never figure how they had there heads in the sand for so long. This is probably why the domestic car industry needs a major re-vamp, since they will never get that lost market share back anytime soon no matter what they do. Good luck to GM to turn things around by March. Gee George W, you are full of great ideas and you appear so sincere. Further on leasing in general, I have been surprised to learn the number of 65+ people who have gone to 3yr leases, which is supposed to be the correct # currently as opposed to 4 yr...they know their fixed costs, are covered under warranty for the full term and dump the car at the end, not having to worry about how much it may be worth for re-sale. Another thing I have noticed up here, is if the price is too hign for renewal of their Toyota lease, they very comfortably move to a similar model made by Kia or Hyundia...still not switching back to domestic. I think we would all be shocked to learn of Hyundai, Kia, Subaru's market share, not to mention the other imports. When I started this e-mail, I didn't know I was going down this road so I didn't hit reply to all...sorry! Happy New Year Bud, Health and Happiness to the family and all your buds. Jim