Monday's Procrastination: Cars, Cars, Cars

Once again, Monday appropriately turned to Tuesday, but here goes.

I bought a brand-new car over the weekend, a first for me. Until now, I had always bought pretty old and cheap Fords and was always happy with them. Naturally, I thought the trend might continue. Well, it did not, and I will soon be the proud owner of a Toyota. But first things first.

Focus on Ford
As I mentioned, I've always driven Fords. This was coincidental rather than a deliberate policy, and it started with a 1987 Ford Mustang LX I bought for one summer in college and ended with the 1994 Ford Escort Wagon I still drive today. These cars always managed to make up for their significant deficiencies in the style department by being reliable and cheap to service and insure. The Escort is especially impressive when it comes to hauling stuff. Here it is:

Beauty.

Having had these positive experiences, I figured a Ford Focus would be the natural choice, so I went to test drive one. Amazing. This car looks pretty good on paper: it's got loads of extras and a low price tag. In fact, they were practically trying to give it away, selling at invoice minus $250 minus $2,500 incentive minus $500 student bonus minus $500 first-time buyer bonus. The size of discounts on a product of course says something about the product itself. And the test drive confirmed my suspicion. This car had absolutely nothing on my 13 year old Escort with 170,000 miles on it. Nothing. Actually, I would say that the only real difference was that the engine was louder on the Focus. Imagine that.

So what does that say about the company? Well, you can draw your own conclusions, of course, but the boat is clearly sinking. On the one hand it's really sad to see because so many people's livelihoods depend on this company's survival. On the other hand, the company has had it coming for a long time (I cannot deny a certain amount of Schadenfreude when I see a company fail that has pushed SUV's and pickup trucks for personal transportation), and if 13 years are not enough to improve a lineup, perhaps they are in the wrong business. In the early 90's, Ford's Taurus was the best-selling car in America, until the Toyota Camry took over for good.

Last year Ford took a loss of $12.7 billion. That's $12,700,000,000. So what are they going to do about it? Well, their new CEO just came up with an ingenious plan: they will rename the Ford 500 the... wait for it... the Taurus. Brilliant.

Good luck, Ford.

Welcome to the Matrix
The only other car in the same group as the Ford Focus is the Toyota Matrix. By group I mean station wagons with combined gas mileages above 30 mpg for under $20,000 available in the USA. But it is definitely in a different class. It is much more refined than the Focus and after test driving the Ford, the Matrix feels almost like a luxury automobile, which it is not. Just plain old quality at a reasonable price with some nice style points. So I ordered one, just like this.



It will be a couple of months before I get it because I wanted ABS and side airbags, but I can wait, confident that it will beat the pants off the discontinued Focus Wagon.

Hybrid Hype
If fuel efficiency was one of my main concerns, why not buy a hybrid? Well, they're expensive, difficult to repair without a degree in computer science, and most importantly: I've recently driven one on and off. It is my firm opinion that the Toyota Prius, the poster child of the hybrid industry, is just not ready for prime time, which is mostly based on poor interior design choices. Most things have to be controlled via one gimmicky touch screen, which is cumbersome and distracting. And it is really hard to look out of that car. Bottom line, think twice before you buy one, and be sure to test drive it thoroughly.

Gas mileage on the Prius is another point of contention, but even the on-board computer does not claim more than 33 mpg in cold Minnesota weather, something I can pretty much match with my Escort right now. State of the art? Maybe, but it's a bit of a sorry state.

Toyota certainly gets a lot of loyal followers for its pioneering efforts in hybrid technology, but those people are quick to forget Toyota's most recent addition to the American market. Very efficient. And whoops, what is that? Toyota, boldly going where no Japanese car company has gone before.



A Camry in Daytona. This could be the final nail in Detroit's coffin. Sorry.

GM at the Super Bowl
Sunday was the Super Bowl, and with it came the much-awaited commercials. It was pretty lukewarm fare for the most part, but there was one commercial that really stood out, I think. And that was GM's robot commercial. Here's what the New York Times had this to say about it:

"The best of the batch was a commercial for General Motors by Deutsch, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, in which a factory robot 'obsessed about quality' imagined the dire outcome of making a mistake."

I have read similar comments on the internet, but that is not at all what I felt. This commercial did not make me think of awesome cars, it made me think of a dying American automobile industry. But see for yourself. And while you watch this, imagine you are a recently laid-off ex-employee of GM.



It's so sad. What a cruel joke. But not to worry, it was all just a bad dream. And you can always become a real estate agent or work at McDonald's.

So sad.

Some car links:
Edmunds—research cars before you buy
Newgate—what to do with your old car
Green Car Congress—what should be state of the art