Doesn't really paint it in a good light though. Having to fight to buy one, struggling to get home even though it said it had enough range, not being able to use the heater.
Regarding the heater, I'm not too familiar with the pre 2013 models, but all 2013s come with standard heated steering wheel and heated seats. This is because running the standard forced air heater uses a significant amount of power by comparison.
Most 2013s (all except for the base model) also come with a heat pump instead of a resistive heater, so efficiency of the forced air heater has also improved relative to earlier models (and relative to other similar cars).
For people who live in a mild climate, (sf bay area for me), temporary battery capacity loss due to cold weather, or permanent battery damage due to excessively high ambient temperatures, are not an issue, and given the plethora of chargers in this area, I'd say that almost 100% of the driving my family does outside the daily commute (my wife and I drive separately, and we only have one Leaf), is done with the Leaf. I was skeptical about the car initially, but the leases are inexpensive enough not to worry about and it's been a pleasant surprise.
I'm not quite sure how I should take that. If you mean I would highly recommend buying one if it fits your driving habits, then you're definitely right. If you mean I'm just a shill for Nissan, then I can assure you that the only connection I have to Nissan is being a Leaf owner and finding it awesome.
No offence intended but I don't see the value of your experience buying a Leaf. To me it lacks a critical opinion, thus looking more like free advertising.
None taken, but can my experience only add value if I critique the shortcomings? I did relate the troubles I had and how they were overcome. To someone else thinking about buying a Leaf, it could be valuable to know more about how environmental aspects and road conditions affect the range of the car, and how you have to plan for more than just distance.
I was intent on buying a Leaf, and I wasn't going to let this initial ordeal sour my opinion of the car because it had more to do with the dealership. I knew going into it that getting the car back to Madison was going to be a stretch, and then events conspired to make it a bit more difficult. I think the fact that I made it back in spite of that was actually a point in the Leaf's favor.
but can my experience only add value if I critique the shortcomings
Not necessarily only the shortcomings, I was thinking critical as in "analytical", I would have love to read about how the EV experience translated driving out of the dealership for example. It may not be new to you but I've never driven one and would have "extracted value" out of your post if you did describe it ;-)
Admit it, you didn't read the post, did you? Because if you did, I'm mystified as to how you came to the conclusion it was an ad. It's hardly a glowing post about Nissan's pleasant buying experience.
What I took away from the blogpost was that when you have a well-defined deployment plan, part of that should include a way to handle exceptions.
In this case, he clearly was very enthusiastic about buying a Leaf. That's the kind of customer you want for a new product. How many others like him weren't even within 100 mile radius of any eligible dealers?
If Nissan had a process to bump such customers up to a person who handled such purchases as a kind of promotion, who could get a Leaf prepped at a vetted dealer and then flat-bedded to the customer, maybe the goodwill and PR opportunities would have helped them reach their sales targets.
Well said! On top of that, Madison already had over a dozen charging stations that popped up on the Leaf's navigation system when I first got back home. Nissan should have especially planned for particularly green cities close to their original roll-out states.
Now it's not really an issue. We've got two dealerships in the city, and they're both selling 2-4 Leafs per month. I just couldn't wait for mine.
So it's a pretty good product hamstrung by a shoddy dealer network/deployment plan(incompetence, arbitrary rules for purchase). This seems to be a trend...
A couple weeks ago, after months of research, I decided to buy a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. I went to my local Jeep dealer and took a test drive. The sales guy was fine. It's always kind of annoying when you know more about the vehicle than the person assisting you, but this is mostly par for the course, and he was polite enough. So then we get back to the dealership and it's instantly good cop/bad cop time.
I was accosted by a close talker with a fake tan and gold jewelry giving me a hard sell and telling me that he could definitely work something out for me today, while the other guy apologized for him interrupting us. This is a $40,000 vehicle. It's not an impulsive purchase and I was there for a test drive, which they knew. There was zero chance of me buying a car that day for circumstances that had nothing to do with me or them.
Anyway, it was a stereotypical scene from there. After 10 minutes of being polite, but firm. I had to physically walk out of the place while they were still talking to me, trying to make a sale. I felt rude, but what else could I have done. I'd still be there if I hadn't.
How is this good business? It must be, because I've purchased 5 vehicles (different brands, different geographic areas) in my life and this experience has been about the same for 4 of them. The 5th was a great experience I had with a VW salesman. Even so, his finance guy was rude and tried to screw me over with nonsensical add-ons and a hidden fee that he himself was "surprised" to see in the paperwork when I pointed them out. WTF? The conversation was also full of obsequious fawning BS like, "Wow, I've never seen one go for this low before!" It was very strange.
I've been following the Tesla fight against the regulatory capture that car dealerships have implemented. I hope the dealers get buried. Why can't I go online and order the Jeep (or whatever else) I want and have it delivered or pick it up from a non-jackass?
Anyway. I'll be buying a used, low mileage Jeep from Carmax. They have fixed pricing and I can view their entire nationwide inventory in detail on their websites. I wish the car manufacturers would get with it. (This is not an ad for Carmax. They are the least of many evils in this situation.)
We had the same experience at a VW dealer. The salesperson was nice, let us take a nice long test drive, and worked out a reasonable deal for us with little pressure. As soon as we went to the finance side, though (we used VW credit), it turned into Glengarry Glen Ross. Additional warranty, extra fees, extra maintenance plans, and on and on. We sat in what felt like an interrogation room saying "no, thank you" for 30 minutes before we could walk out of there.
The finance guys are always the worst. (See my above post; as a hobby, I help friends negotiate on cars.) Here is what I do: I always scout for the finance guy beforehand, and let him know I'm going to say no to everything. They always laugh and say, "Okay, but you know I have to ask you this stuff anyway."
So I sit down in the finance room and as he's printing out the "long sheet" I just look him in the eye and say "No" before he even says anything. He'll laugh again but then he'll go through it really fast for you. I have done this countless times and it always works well.
P.S. Never buy an extended warranty. Invest that money instead and use it if you need to buy parts later. They are a ripoff and the finance guys know it. If you do feel a great need to give the dealership extra money, know this: The fees, like everything else, are negotiable.
I actually did buy an extended warranty for our Prius. It was a lease, and the warranty then covered the car to the end of the lease. On top of that, it covered all oil changes and maintenance checkups listed in the maintenance schedule. I ran the numbers and found that it was basically the same cost as paying for that maintenance directly, but this way the cost was rolled into the lease payments. I figured it was a clear win for the piece of mind and easier budgeting. Of course, the costs could vary, so always run the numbers.
When you ran the numbers, were you pricing things out based on how much the dealership charges? I change my own oil for about US$18, but the dealership charges US$342 (an extreme example I admit).
Wow, I'll say that's extreme, bordering on criminal. Do they wipe down the oil lines with a Q-tip, or something?
I went with the dealership charges. Oil changes were US$20-25 and they top off all fluids and tires and give you a free car wash. I can't remember the other maintenance costs off hand, but they came really close to the US$650 for the extended warranty.
It's a trend with certain dealerships. In my experience, the low-end car companies tend to do this more often. As a hobby, I help friends buy/negotiate cars, so I've had experience with several dealerships. Here's my list from memory:
Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge: Horrendous. I have never found a dealership I like in this chain.
Nissan: Hit or miss. One dealership was fantastic (San Diego) and one I went to was the awful "hard sell" place.
Mazda: Every one I've been to has been good save for one (unfortunately, that one is the closest to where I now live in Austin, TX.) If you live in Austin and want a Mazda, go to the dealership on the south side. They will literally throw you the keys and let you test-drive any of their cars.
Acura: Good overall, though have not been impressed with the salespeople themselves.
BMW/Mini, Lexus, Mercedes/Smart, Porsche: Have always had good experiences with these dealerships. One caveat: My fiance has a BMW and we bought it certified used, and it didn't come with a manual. A year later, despite multiple requests, we still don't have a manual. The sales experience was good, however.
Of all of the above, Lexus has been the most consistently awesome. I've been to 4 different dealerships and all were extremely pleasant.
Of note: Two dealerships have offered me jobs as a car saleswoman after I negotiated with them for friends.
Seconding BMW/Mini - I've now leased two cars from them and had a pleasant experience both times.
VW - I won't touch, last time I was in one I was told "we don't have time to deal with you today" when there was nobody else in the dealership.
GM - Wouldn't talk to me until they ran a credit check. Afterwards were very pushy about me buying the car that day.
Subaru - Was hesitant to talk to me until they'd determined I COULD afford the car.
Honda - poor kid knew nothing about cars. No, when someone says "I drive a Mini, I'm looking for something small but not quite as small" you don't suggest an Accord.
> Why can't I go online and order the Jeep (or whatever else) I want and have it delivered or pick it up from a non-jackass?
True, you can't go to Amazon Cars or equivalent, but there are options. Have you tried the internet sales department? Edmund's called it "a valuable time- and money-saver."[1]
> I wish the car manufacturers would get with it.
It's not like they haven't tried to make the buying experience more pleasant. Saturn was doing no-haggle pricing as early as 1990[2]. Scion is doing it today[3]. Gut feel is that the buying experience just isn't that important to most people with durable goods. The car is what brings us into dealerships, not the sales staff.
> Screw going to amazon et al to buy anything that changes as constantly as a car. or a cellphone.
You've made it clear you're a person who requires extensive test-driving. Amazon's cell phone business doesn't seem to be hurting. I've ordered my last two cell phones online sight-unseen. Same for recent laptops and a Nook. I'll take the uncertainty of holding a modern device over the sales staff.
> I bet my right arm that you wouldn't ever buy a car from amazon if you couldn't test drive it at the local shoddy dealer.
The average car age in the US is now 11.4 years old[1]. My car will likely be 15 before I get another one. In VW's terms, that's at least three generations of progress. I'm buying a car for a decade, and none of the problems that come up in a decade will be revealed by a test drive.
Regardless, I merely agreed it wasn't currently an option and the parent may have a better experience with the internet sales department of his or her local dealerships.
What country are you in? In the US, you can see Kindle at any Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax and several other national retailers that cover most of the country.
I've got a DX for reading technical books. It's great for that. If you intend on reading tech books on a Kindle, definitely get the DX or the big Fire HD! The little paper whites aren't going to cut it.
I hate to say it, but this kind of service is what drove me from mainstream brands altogether.
* Wanted to buy a Ford Boss 302 Mustang. $43,000 MSRP car advertised as track-ready. Dealer said he wanted to mark up the car $25,000, and required that $25,000 as a deposit. I said for that kind of money I'd buy a Porsche Boxster S, and walked out. I found the experience similar at other dealerships.
* Got some calls the next year about the Boss 302. They were willing to sell them at MSRP. I can test drive it right? Nope. How about with a $20,000 refundable security deposit to show I have the cash -- can I drive it then? Nope. I told them I'm not buying a car that will see track duty unless I can drive it. Again, said I'd buy a Porsche.
* Went to Porsche dealerships. Interested in a Boxster S? Well, let's take out a Boxster first to see if that might be enough power, since it'd save you money. Not enough torque? Awesome, let's go wring the neck of a Boxster S _for an hour_. You like it? Fantastic. Hey, here's some free lunch. Not looking to purchase today? No problem, you come back in February when you have the down payment you want saved up and we'll get an order going for you. We'll mail you some goodies too.
Needless to say, dealer gets my deposit ($5K, same as it'd be for a 911 Turbo S) in February to start the order.
Did it look like you have money and were you in a place where people that look like you have money?
As an aside, the dealers with the higher echelon cars that I've been to, even just wandering around, seem to be more awesome people. I'm especially talking about audi (used), bmw (new and used), Lamborghini (new)). Even the Subaru dealer I went to with clear motive to just test drive was very polite. Direct, but polite, and that's all I could ask for.
I wear boat shots, a nice pair of Levis and a nice polo. Same as I always wear.
Audi and BMW have specifically treated me like a piece of crap every time I've stepped into their showroom (maybe three times each) for the past 15 years. Nowadays I don't set foot in either because they no longer sell cars I'm interested in (R8 a bit too dear for my budget).
I've worked at BMW, Mercedes, and Hyundai dealerships. BMWs are just straight up nicer to drive than Hyundais. People who work at dealerships bounce around from lot to lot pretty casually, and the people who love cars do their best to bounce onto lots that have good cars. Salesmen are out to make money either way, but if you go to a BMW lot, you're much more likely to find a guy who has earned a place at a high end dealership because he likes the cars. So he's not JUST going to be after your wallet.
Happens at the lower end too. I was ready to buy a new car after 10 years with my previous car. I researched 2013 hybrids and decided on the Honda CR-Z. A 2 seater that has an available 6 speed manual transmission which was the big selling point for me.
Call my local Honda dealer to find out if they have the 2013 6MT in stock. "No but we have a 2012." I'm not interested in the 2012 model because the 13s have a better battery and electric motor--more HP and torque on a fairly underpowered car. They have no interest in finding one or ordering it.
I understand that it is a new model and they don't have anything in stock yet but a complete disinterest in working with a new customer can't be good for a business. I went online and a week or so later found the car that I was looking for though I had to drive 30 miles to get it. A month later the original dealer calls back to find out if I want to buy a car. Stupid approach to business.
The last time I was in the market for a car, from my own personal experience, given that I have no legitimate data, the prices at Carmax seemed to be roughly equivalent to the asking price for comparable vehicles at most used car dealers. I suspect you could get a similar purchasing experience from most dealers by simply not negotiating.
You're absolutely right. This car is not for everyone. Nissan actually had a questionnaire on their Leaf order site to determine if the car was the right fit for your driving conditions. If you didn't fit the profile, they highly recommended against buying one. I think that will change quickly as EVs get longer range and shorter charge times.
As for the winters, the first one was pretty mild, but the second one had some dips below zero. During the cold snaps the battery definitely lost significant range, but now that it's summer, the range is practically back to its original amount. There's been very slight degradation of battery capacity so far. I've got plenty of data that I plan to analyze in a future post, but that's for a future post.
> I can't see anyone buying a Nissan Leaf as their only car. The range is a big inconvenience.
Remember that for some, it's no problem. I live in the UK, I have no intention of ever driving more than 100 miles in one go, and if I really need to travel long distances, trains, buses, trams, planes are relatively cheap and available.
I doubt a Leaf is what I would buy, but given that Tesla want to allow free charging, so ostensibly free fuel, I can see that as very attractive in the near future.
If you’re with Ecotricity in the UK (who peg their electricity prices to match the big 6) then you get free access to their network of chargers: http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-the-road
A lot of people live life without a car at all. I'm sure there are quite a few people out there who could really benefit from a short-range commuter, but never have a need to drive a car beyond the range of an electric car. For people like that, a Leaf would make perfect sense as their only car.
I wouldn't do it, you wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't say that nobody would do it.
For people who do want to drive long distances, but not frequently, it could still be a good way to go. Cars are pretty easy to rent, whether from a place like Zipcar or a more traditional rental company like Enterprise. If you drive long distances rarely, it could easily be a win to buy something like a Leaf, then rent on the rare occasions you need more.
I find that people often try to imagine every possible eventuality when buying a car, and want to buy something that's capable of it all, no matter how rare these things are required. Well, they say, this car is perfect for our daily needs, but when the sister and parents come to visit once every two years, they won't fit, so we need something bigger. Or, it's perfect, except it won't handle that road trip we've always been dreaming of but never got around to doing. Buying for typical needs and renting for atypical needs is usually cheaper.
I'm in a very similar situation to the OP, minus the new job with a longer commute. My wife and I have shared a car for quite a few years, and even with a 3-year old who goes to school everybody, we make it work. My job is a short 2.5 mile bike ride, and our day-to-day life fits into a relativelly small radius.
I had thought that the leaf combined with a all wheel drive vehicle would be perfect for our situation. We live in an area that gets snow in winter and close to the mountains, so AWD would be ideal. The leaf would be great for the day-to-day, which usually involves < 20 miles or driving.
We too have an aging corolla, which is a fantastic car for the $$$ and the gas mileage.
It doesn't make economical sense to pay 7K more for a car who's primary feature is low cost per mile, then hardly put miles on the car. Maybe that's just me.
This argument is made constantly with hybrids and electric vehicles. Yet it is not made for any other vehicle that isn't the most economical option, so it sounds like a double standard to me.
I mean, if you look at what's on the road, you'll see a lot of cars that are more expensive than what could do the same job. Some people even pay extra for fancy wheels, sunroofs, bigger engines (which cost more in fuel), cosmetic modifications, etc.
So either we need to judge all vehicles purely on economics, or we should admit that car buyers are looking for other things than purely functional transportation at the lowest cost.
Having worked in deep in the marketing machinery on behalf of big car companies, my take-away is automobile buying decisions are one of the most irrational decisions a person can make. So often, people will purchase a car to address "edge use cases" (e.g. pulling a boat) and most of the time a more economical car combined with renting a vehicle for those edge cases is cheaper.
Oh and each model of vehicle has a target demographic, and you may notice the marketing of any given model targets the lifestyle of the buyer. Young, hip and urban? Hard-working man's man? Eco-concious? A car for every lifestyle.
I hear you. I pointed out a nissan leaf to my wife and she was like 'what if we want to go on a vacation?' 'what if we have two more kids?' we wouldn't be able to fit our luggage or go farther than 100 miles away from home! I did mention that in those times which would be rare, we could rent a vehicle with enough space, but she was not having it.
The argument is based on an assumption that if you are buying electric/hybrid, your primary goal is to save money through lower fuel costs. That assumption is what you should focus on.
What if your primary goal is to reduce or eliminate gas consumption at any cost? I would think that would be much more likely because most electrics/hybrids are priced to break even at around 120,000 miles with comparable gas-fueled cars. Quite a long time to wait for a payout.
Then the assumption is wrong. I'm not arguing anything; I'm trying to point out that the assumption is the source of disagreement, rather than the argument being wrong-headed.
It's one of many possible reasons, but certainly not the only one. And any buying decision is probably made because of a bunch of different factors (the ratios being different for each person).
Tesla's selling all the electric cars they're making, certainly not only because the people who buy them are saving money on gas.
I'm talking about equivalents. Same size, same age, similar options, etc...
For instance, I had a Prius and put 120K miles on it in 5 years. If I recall correctly, compared to a similarly outfitted Camry, I saved thousands in TCO in 5 years.
This is in the economy car class, which means people are usually looking for economy. If it were a sports car, we'd maximize for performance.
I calculated that a Leaf should break even with a Prius at about 120k miles as well. Of course, that was the 2012 Leaf, which was $4,000 more than it is now, and less efficient. Now you can get a 2013 Leaf S for $21k after government rebate, which is less than you can get a Prius II for, so you break even immediately.
Anyway, it's true that it would take me ~20 years to break even with the 2012 Leaf, but I wasn't optimizing for economy. I was optimizing for the environment.
Summary: the author's experience doesn't surprise me, as it mirrors mine in many respects.
It's unfortunate that Nissan did so poorly with the deployment of the initial Leafs. I love ours, and would buy another one, except that every aspect of the buying experience has put me off ever buying another Nissan ever again. I'll repeat: I'll never buy another Nissan.
Pre-ordering one was easy enough. After that, the experience went downhill. There were some production delays due to the tsunami, but they were going to have delays anyway, tsunami or not. I'll let that slide, it's a radically different car, things didn't go as planned; whatever. Finally the cars are being delivered. Months go by, and despite having pre-ordered on the first day, no Leaf in my driveway. Then I find out via online forums that people who ordered months after I did are picking up their car. That's completely unacceptable, but whatever, it's just a car.
Eighteen months after I entered the initial pre-order, the car arrives and we're off to the dealership. That was probably the final straw for any future Nissan purchases. Despite having arranged a time to pick it up, and having waited eighteen months for the car, we shake hands with the salesman and...wait. After nearly an hour of standing around the dealership drooling over the GT, we are finally deemed worthy of the privilege of receiving the car. After the usual BS with the finance guy, we drive off.
I'll reiterate that the car itself is great. It exceeded expectations, and after two years and 16K miles we've had zero trouble with it. But I'm not going to purchase another car from a company that fails at every step to delivery.
EVs are way too expensive currently with such awful range that for all but a few early-adopter wealthy people with short commutes they are impractical. It's great that people are buying them so we can climb the adopter curve, but until they are competitively priced it's just not worth it. Ironically, for those wealthy short commute early adopters the savings over the next couple years are very small. Cars save money on short commutes, but savings also proportional to commute length, therefore savings are low, but price is much higher. Unless you're convinced these things are actually less destructive to the environment and you have a pile of cash to burn on something other than gas, wait a couple years until battery technology is improved.
For me, the only useful advantage is slightly reducing the dependence on the middle east, but the number of EVs on the road vs everything else makes even that so infinitesimally small it's not worth bothering.
I get your larger point about reducing dependence on foreign oil, but ...
We actually get more oil from Canada than from the Middle East[1]. We do import the most from all of OPEC combined, but OPEC includes places like Venezuela, from where we get an awful lot of oil, Ecuador, Nigeria, and other countries that aren't in the Middle East.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 99.3 ms ] threadMost 2013s (all except for the base model) also come with a heat pump instead of a resistive heater, so efficiency of the forced air heater has also improved relative to earlier models (and relative to other similar cars).
For people who live in a mild climate, (sf bay area for me), temporary battery capacity loss due to cold weather, or permanent battery damage due to excessively high ambient temperatures, are not an issue, and given the plethora of chargers in this area, I'd say that almost 100% of the driving my family does outside the daily commute (my wife and I drive separately, and we only have one Leaf), is done with the Leaf. I was skeptical about the car initially, but the leases are inexpensive enough not to worry about and it's been a pleasant surprise.
I was intent on buying a Leaf, and I wasn't going to let this initial ordeal sour my opinion of the car because it had more to do with the dealership. I knew going into it that getting the car back to Madison was going to be a stretch, and then events conspired to make it a bit more difficult. I think the fact that I made it back in spite of that was actually a point in the Leaf's favor.
Not necessarily only the shortcomings, I was thinking critical as in "analytical", I would have love to read about how the EV experience translated driving out of the dealership for example. It may not be new to you but I've never driven one and would have "extracted value" out of your post if you did describe it ;-)
In this case, he clearly was very enthusiastic about buying a Leaf. That's the kind of customer you want for a new product. How many others like him weren't even within 100 mile radius of any eligible dealers?
If Nissan had a process to bump such customers up to a person who handled such purchases as a kind of promotion, who could get a Leaf prepped at a vetted dealer and then flat-bedded to the customer, maybe the goodwill and PR opportunities would have helped them reach their sales targets.
http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2012/11/nissan-will-miss-lea...
Now it's not really an issue. We've got two dealerships in the city, and they're both selling 2-4 Leafs per month. I just couldn't wait for mine.
A couple weeks ago, after months of research, I decided to buy a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. I went to my local Jeep dealer and took a test drive. The sales guy was fine. It's always kind of annoying when you know more about the vehicle than the person assisting you, but this is mostly par for the course, and he was polite enough. So then we get back to the dealership and it's instantly good cop/bad cop time.
I was accosted by a close talker with a fake tan and gold jewelry giving me a hard sell and telling me that he could definitely work something out for me today, while the other guy apologized for him interrupting us. This is a $40,000 vehicle. It's not an impulsive purchase and I was there for a test drive, which they knew. There was zero chance of me buying a car that day for circumstances that had nothing to do with me or them.
Anyway, it was a stereotypical scene from there. After 10 minutes of being polite, but firm. I had to physically walk out of the place while they were still talking to me, trying to make a sale. I felt rude, but what else could I have done. I'd still be there if I hadn't.
How is this good business? It must be, because I've purchased 5 vehicles (different brands, different geographic areas) in my life and this experience has been about the same for 4 of them. The 5th was a great experience I had with a VW salesman. Even so, his finance guy was rude and tried to screw me over with nonsensical add-ons and a hidden fee that he himself was "surprised" to see in the paperwork when I pointed them out. WTF? The conversation was also full of obsequious fawning BS like, "Wow, I've never seen one go for this low before!" It was very strange.
I've been following the Tesla fight against the regulatory capture that car dealerships have implemented. I hope the dealers get buried. Why can't I go online and order the Jeep (or whatever else) I want and have it delivered or pick it up from a non-jackass?
Anyway. I'll be buying a used, low mileage Jeep from Carmax. They have fixed pricing and I can view their entire nationwide inventory in detail on their websites. I wish the car manufacturers would get with it. (This is not an ad for Carmax. They are the least of many evils in this situation.)
So I sit down in the finance room and as he's printing out the "long sheet" I just look him in the eye and say "No" before he even says anything. He'll laugh again but then he'll go through it really fast for you. I have done this countless times and it always works well.
P.S. Never buy an extended warranty. Invest that money instead and use it if you need to buy parts later. They are a ripoff and the finance guys know it. If you do feel a great need to give the dealership extra money, know this: The fees, like everything else, are negotiable.
I went with the dealership charges. Oil changes were US$20-25 and they top off all fluids and tires and give you a free car wash. I can't remember the other maintenance costs off hand, but they came really close to the US$650 for the extended warranty.
Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge: Horrendous. I have never found a dealership I like in this chain.
Nissan: Hit or miss. One dealership was fantastic (San Diego) and one I went to was the awful "hard sell" place.
Mazda: Every one I've been to has been good save for one (unfortunately, that one is the closest to where I now live in Austin, TX.) If you live in Austin and want a Mazda, go to the dealership on the south side. They will literally throw you the keys and let you test-drive any of their cars.
Acura: Good overall, though have not been impressed with the salespeople themselves.
BMW/Mini, Lexus, Mercedes/Smart, Porsche: Have always had good experiences with these dealerships. One caveat: My fiance has a BMW and we bought it certified used, and it didn't come with a manual. A year later, despite multiple requests, we still don't have a manual. The sales experience was good, however.
Of all of the above, Lexus has been the most consistently awesome. I've been to 4 different dealerships and all were extremely pleasant.
Of note: Two dealerships have offered me jobs as a car saleswoman after I negotiated with them for friends.
VW - I won't touch, last time I was in one I was told "we don't have time to deal with you today" when there was nobody else in the dealership.
GM - Wouldn't talk to me until they ran a credit check. Afterwards were very pushy about me buying the car that day.
Subaru - Was hesitant to talk to me until they'd determined I COULD afford the car.
Honda - poor kid knew nothing about cars. No, when someone says "I drive a Mini, I'm looking for something small but not quite as small" you don't suggest an Accord.
The car itself on the other hand... a little bit of buyer's remorse.
True, you can't go to Amazon Cars or equivalent, but there are options. Have you tried the internet sales department? Edmund's called it "a valuable time- and money-saver."[1]
> I wish the car manufacturers would get with it.
It's not like they haven't tried to make the buying experience more pleasant. Saturn was doing no-haggle pricing as early as 1990[2]. Scion is doing it today[3]. Gut feel is that the buying experience just isn't that important to most people with durable goods. The car is what brings us into dealerships, not the sales staff.
[1]: http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/how-to-get-an-internet-pri...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Corporation#1990.E2.80....
[3]: http://www.scion.com/buy/pure_price/
I just ordered 3 kindles. I'm pretty sure i will go trhu the hassle of returning 2. but i couldn't see them in person anywhere!
the amazon model is perfect for 'permanent' items. such as book and commodity electronics.
I bet my right arm that you wouldn't ever buy a car from amazon if you couldn't test drive it at the local shoddy dealer.
You've made it clear you're a person who requires extensive test-driving. Amazon's cell phone business doesn't seem to be hurting. I've ordered my last two cell phones online sight-unseen. Same for recent laptops and a Nook. I'll take the uncertainty of holding a modern device over the sales staff.
> I bet my right arm that you wouldn't ever buy a car from amazon if you couldn't test drive it at the local shoddy dealer.
The average car age in the US is now 11.4 years old[1]. My car will likely be 15 before I get another one. In VW's terms, that's at least three generations of progress. I'm buying a car for a decade, and none of the problems that come up in a decade will be revealed by a test drive.
Regardless, I merely agreed it wasn't currently an option and the parent may have a better experience with the internet sales department of his or her local dealerships.
[1]: http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/average-age-of-cars-in-us-ju...
What country are you in? In the US, you can see Kindle at any Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax and several other national retailers that cover most of the country.
Hell will freeze before a DX is on display it seems.
* Wanted to buy a Ford Boss 302 Mustang. $43,000 MSRP car advertised as track-ready. Dealer said he wanted to mark up the car $25,000, and required that $25,000 as a deposit. I said for that kind of money I'd buy a Porsche Boxster S, and walked out. I found the experience similar at other dealerships.
* Got some calls the next year about the Boss 302. They were willing to sell them at MSRP. I can test drive it right? Nope. How about with a $20,000 refundable security deposit to show I have the cash -- can I drive it then? Nope. I told them I'm not buying a car that will see track duty unless I can drive it. Again, said I'd buy a Porsche.
* Went to Porsche dealerships. Interested in a Boxster S? Well, let's take out a Boxster first to see if that might be enough power, since it'd save you money. Not enough torque? Awesome, let's go wring the neck of a Boxster S _for an hour_. You like it? Fantastic. Hey, here's some free lunch. Not looking to purchase today? No problem, you come back in February when you have the down payment you want saved up and we'll get an order going for you. We'll mail you some goodies too.
Needless to say, dealer gets my deposit ($5K, same as it'd be for a 911 Turbo S) in February to start the order.
As an aside, the dealers with the higher echelon cars that I've been to, even just wandering around, seem to be more awesome people. I'm especially talking about audi (used), bmw (new and used), Lamborghini (new)). Even the Subaru dealer I went to with clear motive to just test drive was very polite. Direct, but polite, and that's all I could ask for.
Audi and BMW have specifically treated me like a piece of crap every time I've stepped into their showroom (maybe three times each) for the past 15 years. Nowadays I don't set foot in either because they no longer sell cars I'm interested in (R8 a bit too dear for my budget).
Call my local Honda dealer to find out if they have the 2013 6MT in stock. "No but we have a 2012." I'm not interested in the 2012 model because the 13s have a better battery and electric motor--more HP and torque on a fairly underpowered car. They have no interest in finding one or ordering it.
I understand that it is a new model and they don't have anything in stock yet but a complete disinterest in working with a new customer can't be good for a business. I went online and a week or so later found the car that I was looking for though I had to drive 30 miles to get it. A month later the original dealer calls back to find out if I want to buy a car. Stupid approach to business.
I can't see anyone buying a Nissan Leaf as their only car. The range is a big inconvenience.
I am curious to see how the battery will handle the cold winters in the long term.
As for the winters, the first one was pretty mild, but the second one had some dips below zero. During the cold snaps the battery definitely lost significant range, but now that it's summer, the range is practically back to its original amount. There's been very slight degradation of battery capacity so far. I've got plenty of data that I plan to analyze in a future post, but that's for a future post.
Remember that for some, it's no problem. I live in the UK, I have no intention of ever driving more than 100 miles in one go, and if I really need to travel long distances, trains, buses, trams, planes are relatively cheap and available.
I doubt a Leaf is what I would buy, but given that Tesla want to allow free charging, so ostensibly free fuel, I can see that as very attractive in the near future.
I wouldn't do it, you wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't say that nobody would do it.
For people who do want to drive long distances, but not frequently, it could still be a good way to go. Cars are pretty easy to rent, whether from a place like Zipcar or a more traditional rental company like Enterprise. If you drive long distances rarely, it could easily be a win to buy something like a Leaf, then rent on the rare occasions you need more.
I find that people often try to imagine every possible eventuality when buying a car, and want to buy something that's capable of it all, no matter how rare these things are required. Well, they say, this car is perfect for our daily needs, but when the sister and parents come to visit once every two years, they won't fit, so we need something bigger. Or, it's perfect, except it won't handle that road trip we've always been dreaming of but never got around to doing. Buying for typical needs and renting for atypical needs is usually cheaper.
The battery has a heating system to combat cold weather.
I had thought that the leaf combined with a all wheel drive vehicle would be perfect for our situation. We live in an area that gets snow in winter and close to the mountains, so AWD would be ideal. The leaf would be great for the day-to-day, which usually involves < 20 miles or driving.
We too have an aging corolla, which is a fantastic car for the $$$ and the gas mileage.
It doesn't make economical sense to pay 7K more for a car who's primary feature is low cost per mile, then hardly put miles on the car. Maybe that's just me.
A $1000 Craigslist beater or a $20/month bus pass can probably do that commute.
I mean, if you look at what's on the road, you'll see a lot of cars that are more expensive than what could do the same job. Some people even pay extra for fancy wheels, sunroofs, bigger engines (which cost more in fuel), cosmetic modifications, etc.
So either we need to judge all vehicles purely on economics, or we should admit that car buyers are looking for other things than purely functional transportation at the lowest cost.
Oh and each model of vehicle has a target demographic, and you may notice the marketing of any given model targets the lifestyle of the buyer. Young, hip and urban? Hard-working man's man? Eco-concious? A car for every lifestyle.
Tesla's selling all the electric cars they're making, certainly not only because the people who buy them are saving money on gas.
Of course! But it's the assumption that is made. It's good to remember to check the assumptions people are making.
For instance, I had a Prius and put 120K miles on it in 5 years. If I recall correctly, compared to a similarly outfitted Camry, I saved thousands in TCO in 5 years.
This is in the economy car class, which means people are usually looking for economy. If it were a sports car, we'd maximize for performance.
Anyway, it's true that it would take me ~20 years to break even with the 2012 Leaf, but I wasn't optimizing for economy. I was optimizing for the environment.
It's unfortunate that Nissan did so poorly with the deployment of the initial Leafs. I love ours, and would buy another one, except that every aspect of the buying experience has put me off ever buying another Nissan ever again. I'll repeat: I'll never buy another Nissan.
Pre-ordering one was easy enough. After that, the experience went downhill. There were some production delays due to the tsunami, but they were going to have delays anyway, tsunami or not. I'll let that slide, it's a radically different car, things didn't go as planned; whatever. Finally the cars are being delivered. Months go by, and despite having pre-ordered on the first day, no Leaf in my driveway. Then I find out via online forums that people who ordered months after I did are picking up their car. That's completely unacceptable, but whatever, it's just a car.
Eighteen months after I entered the initial pre-order, the car arrives and we're off to the dealership. That was probably the final straw for any future Nissan purchases. Despite having arranged a time to pick it up, and having waited eighteen months for the car, we shake hands with the salesman and...wait. After nearly an hour of standing around the dealership drooling over the GT, we are finally deemed worthy of the privilege of receiving the car. After the usual BS with the finance guy, we drive off.
I'll reiterate that the car itself is great. It exceeded expectations, and after two years and 16K miles we've had zero trouble with it. But I'm not going to purchase another car from a company that fails at every step to delivery.
For me, the only useful advantage is slightly reducing the dependence on the middle east, but the number of EVs on the road vs everything else makes even that so infinitesimally small it's not worth bothering.
We actually get more oil from Canada than from the Middle East[1]. We do import the most from all of OPEC combined, but OPEC includes places like Venezuela, from where we get an awful lot of oil, Ecuador, Nigeria, and other countries that aren't in the Middle East.
Sorry for being a pedant.
[1] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6