Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Automobile’ Category

Quicken is a useful tool for me, to track my family’s spending habits, but last week was an interesting week for me.

I started working full time in 1986, so some might say more than a generation ago (depending on how you count), and when I was first hired, I was paid a reasonable wage (not an exorbitant one, but reasonable). My wife and I lived on this income in a reasonable apartment, and we lived a frugal but reasonable life.

Flashback to last week, where in two purchases I eclipsed my yearly gross income for 1988 (2 years after I had started working full time). What did I buy? A house? A yacht? Nope, our orgy of spending was on:

• A used Toyota Sienna (stop snickering, it doesn’t have the accelerator pedal issue (at least not yet)).
• A knee brace for my daughter who has damaged both her MCL and ACL

That’s it, yes a fairly big expenditure, but remember this is more than I made gross (before the CRA got a hold of a lot of my income). The knee brace is actually about the price of 3 months rent from back then, but it is a necessary purchase (and I will be reimbursed (I hope) in some way from my health plan).

Other interesting factoids from these purchases:

• The van cost about 43% less than our last van which we purchased new (and paid off, with 0% financing over 5 l-o-n-g years).
• We were offered “financing” from Toyota of 6.5% annually, I pointed out that my bank would give me a rate of nearly half that, they didn’t seem to care.
• The purchase was not financed, and if I assume a 4.0% financing rate I have saved in the neighbourhood of about $4000 in interest charges (assuming a pay back over 4 years or so).
• The knee brace comes in many interesting colours and styles (colour styles), including: Snakeskin, Butterflies and Star Spangled Banner. My daughter chose metallic black (I think Black is the new Black this year).
• Didn’t get any car matts from Toyota, but given the recall issues about the placement of their car matts, maybe it’s a good thing I bought some replacement matts at Canadian Tire
• Believe we got a full tank of gas with the Van (given gas prices that’s about $100 added in)
• Got a reasonable trade in for the my GM Montana (that had a distinct odour of Anti-Freeze), so no complaints there
• Toyota spelled backwards is Atoyot, surprised there isn’t a car called that now.
• Knee Braces should never be worn backwards, or your knee will end up bending like an Ostrich’s knee, which is bad.
• Certified cheques cost more to get from my bank, than a bank draft, so I saved $2.50 by getting a bank draft.
• What is undercoating for, and why does it cost so darn much?

Lots of interesting factoids (where factoid means things interesting to me, and most likely me alone).

As part of the gyrations I must go through to purchase a new vehicle, I must get my new vehicle insured (that is the law, no getting away from that).

The easiest thing for me to do, is to simply remove my old vehicle and add my new vehicle, and pay the difference in premium (if there is any).

This very task I attempted to do, however, I noted that since I am now a member of the Public Service, I receive a discount from my Insurance company, and I thought this would make things so much easier, however, I was mistaken.

Currently I am part of a discount plan given that I was a Nortel employee with this insurance company, and I have my cars insured using this discount. I assumed if I called the “broker” for the Public Service side of the discount, they would simply transfer me over as a customer and that would be it. Yes, dear reader, you guessed it, nothing is as simple as I think it is going to be, and thus the story takes a left hand turn.

Insurance Sequence of Events

I called up the brokers, and said, I am an existing client of the insurance company and I’d like to add a vehicle to my coverage, the young lady on the phone was more than happy to help me out, and she asked for my policy ID to “bring up my file”. I exercised my abilities in the phonetic alphabet rattling of various Alfa, Bravo, Tango and other letters and the young lady typed it all in. There was a long pause and she repeated back to me what I had just told her, and I agreed she had the correct policy number.

Her response surprised me when she said, “I am sorry sir, your policy is not coming up, do you have your policy with this broker?”, I said, “Pardon?”. Evidently since who I have my insurance with is not nearly as important as from whom I have purchased my insurance. I was told that I would need to call the “broker” I had dealt with previously to add my new vehicle.

The interesting twist on this is that the “broker” I deal with is actually part of my insurance company (from what I can tell), and thus I must call my insurance company, have them transfer me to my “broker” and then I can add my new vehicle.

I did finally succeed in getting a new quote for my new vehicle so that task is now complete.

Obtuse Insurance Games

My insurance policies actually renew in a few months, so now I will do something so obtuse that I must write it down to believe this, but here goes:

I will phone an insurance broker to get a quote for my car insurance with the same insurance company that I currently have to see if I can get a cheaper rate for my car insurance, even though the policy will be with the exact same insurance company.

I guess it makes sense given the discounts available, and the free market at work, but it always seems so obtuse that I can get a cheaper price for the exact same product, by simply calling someone else. Yes, I am naive, I assume the cheapest price should just be the normal price, but that is another story.

Interesting Brand Name Funny

When Buick introduced it’s new Luxury Sports Sedan (I have no idea what this class of car is for, but let’s stay on track here) they did not check with their offices in Montreal about the new Brand Name they were going with. This vehicles name is the LaCrosse, but in French Canadian slang, LaCrosse means … ummm … let me put this in a delicate way … male sexual self-gratification, to put it as delicately as I can. I was unaware of this, but I did check with a co-worker who is French Canadian and sure enough, that is the case.

This is almost as good as the Chevy Nova, which in Spanish translates to “No Go”!

OK, nothing to do with money, but still quite funny

For a while, Mrs. C8j and I have been hunting for a new family vehicle. We have had many arguments discussions about what type of vehicle we wished to purchase. I think we will not need a van for much longer and she sort of agrees but thinks we still need one for the short term so we should get one, and after a great deal of consternation consultation I we agreed that a van would be the best way to go. I must admit that we did try a few SUKs SUVs and while they felt OK, they did feel a bit “truck-ish” for my liking.

We have been dealing with a smaller dealership who had in stock the van we were hoping to get (used) a Sienna from Toyota (please don’t treat this as me endorsing this model, or that I have received any compensation for this story). The salesman at the dealership seemed a nice personable chap, although maybe a bit slick for my liking, but we thought that might be where we wanted to make our deal.

We had decided before we got too far into this process, that we would purchase a used vehicle this time (we purchased new last time, but I decided a used vehicle was the way to go). We borrowed from the Ottawa Library the Lemon-Aid books and saw that in fact the Sienna from ‘07 on seemed to be a good choice. If we were going to buy a used car, I was going to have my mechanic who I trust in these situations, to have a look at whatever we might choose to buy (I simply do not trust dealerships that much).

I mentioned to the salesperson we were dealing with that we wanted to take whatever vehicle we were thinking of buying to my mechanic to have a look at it, and the sales guy kind of got twitchy (i.e. tried to dissuade us), but eventually relented, figuring that he might lose a sale if he didn’t agree (smart guy).

I then called my mechanic and said I would like him to have a look at a vehicle and he said he would, and he asked who I was thinking of buying from, and when I mentioned the name of the dealership my mechanic hesitated. After a short pause he said he had had some dealings with the dealership and gave me some advice about possible issues getting the van off the lot and to his garage. When my mechanic makes that kind of statement the hair on the back of my neck starts to raise up. I thanked my mechanic and said I’d call back when I had decided on a specific van.

Time passed and eventually we decided (after consulting CarFax on line) on a specific Sienna that our original salesman had on his lot. My wife called up to talk to our salesman, but he wasn’t around, so she spoke to the “Owner” of the dealership.

Now this is Chutzpah

My wife asked the question, “What do we need to do to take a van to our mechanic to have him inspect it before we buy the van?”.

After a short pause the Owner’s answer was classic chutzpah, “First you buy the van, and then take it to your mechanic and whatever he may find that needs fixing, we’ll fix.”. This is most definitely not what had been discussed previously (we had been told no worries, it should be fine, you can have the car inspected BEFORE you buy it).

Let’s analyze this amazing piece of chutzpah, you want me to give you a large amount of money, have the car licensed into my name, and then once I am owner of the vehicle and my mechanic finds something, I should trust you that you will fix these problems? I do realize that in Ontario a bunch of new rules are in place dealing with used vehicles, but I am also not naive enough to believe that they will somehow protect me in this situation.

I guess it all comes down to who(m) do I trust, a car dealership that I have never dealt with (that I have heard some odd stories about), or do I trust my mechanic, who has fixed my cars for 20 years? As you can guess, we did not call back this dealership.

We have since found a similar vehicle with a larger dealership, which may cost a bit more, but they are fine with us taking the van to my mechanic (if I leave a deposit, and my current vehicle) and will abide by whatever my mechanic says (and will find another van if my mechanic finds an issue with the van). The CarFax report on the van suggests there should not be a problem.

Financial Moral of the Story?

None really, just that I am a very untrusting person and that if you try to sell me things, it doesn’t take much to get me to go elsewhere, or completely walk away from the purchase.

Now that the Rideau Canal Skateway has opened for it’s 40th year of operation, I think we can say that Winter has come to Ottawa. The canal is one of those things that you just assume is there and when it is not, you wonder why not. Will I skate on it this year? I don’t think so, but it is still a possibility (how ever slim that might be) that I may.

Given the horrible sites we are seeing on TV from the Haitian earthquake I urge my readers to find Aid Groups (the Red Cross, or your Church) and give what you can to help out. For those who are going there to help, you have my respect and my hope that your good works help those in need.

Birthday Blogs

Given it was someone’s birthday this week, what was new in the Personal Finance blogosphere? Let’s just poke around and see:

• Michael James points out that not all Hospital User Fees have anything to do with the care you receive at your hospital. Luckily he didn’t try to buy something in the cafeteria!
• Larry MacDonald continues this discussion with his post about the Inner workings of walk-in clinics and the other fees you can incur if you simply want a wart removed!
• Million Dollar Journey is most definitely putting their money where their keyboard is, with My Financial Goals for 2010, I am astounded by his (her?) intestinal fortitude to write that kind of challenge for themselves.
• Preet at WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com points out that January’s Returns Predict Rest of Year’s Performance 74% of the time, which is an interesting idea. I have found that the team that scores the most points in most NFL games, win, but I can’t be sure.
• Gene (a frequent commenter on this blog) asked the Canadian Capitalist about Opening a US Dollar Self-Directed RRSP account with Qtrade and the Capitalist (as usual) brings up some important points to consider. Glad to see Gene knows who(m) to ask these kind of questions to (i.e. not ME).
• Gail Vaz-Oxlade comments on the problems with a prominent golfer with her article Out of the Woods?, OK, it has nothing to do with that, but still an interesting article about the CDIC.
• Ellen Roseman asks Who has seen the wind? asking if anyone has started dealing with Wind Mobility, I await to see someone say “Yes it works for me”, before I change my carrier.
• Can Skinner Conditioning be used for aversion therapy to stop folks from buying into Ponzi schemes? Canadian Financial DIY wants to know.
• The Four Pillars tries the daunting task of explaining how a Metropolitan Mass Transit system thinks with The TTC’s Idiotic Approach to Fare Increases hopefully they won’t look at Ottawa’s OC Chancepo, or they may go off the deep end

Enjoy the winter!

I will neither confirm nor deny that my birthday may or may not have or will occur in the past or next few days, however, I will confirm that my age is in between 30 and 75. Having been crystal clear on this point (no, you should not be publishing on the web your birthday and year, since that is the start of someone stealing your identity or something of the like), let’s talk about the things you might do if your birthday anniversary is some time this year (which I hope it is).

Things to Do Financially on Your Birthday

Just some ideas for some of the financial things you can do on the anniversary of your birth:

• Are you old enough to retire? Seems like a straight forward question, but when can you retire is another question to ask if the answer to the previous question is No? If you can’t even guess when you can retire, then today would be a good day to figure it out, or at least make a guess and work towards it. Aim to retire at 61, that’s an interesting prime age.
• Can you take today off today? Some companies actually give you your birthday off as a vacation day, I think it would be good to know that one (nope, not in my case).
• You can get free meals at some restaurants, I think Denny’s is one of those places, but call around and see where you can eat for free. Free meals is a very good way to celebrate a birthday.
• Does my car registration need to be renewed? Ottawa has an interesting problem because if you don’t renew your registration by your birthday, and take your car to Quebec, you can get fined a LOT of money, because in Quebec they’ll fine you for that one (I think they do in Ontario too, but they don’t worry about it too much until the next month).
• Did your car driving license expire? I was surprised that one year I realized a month after my birthday that I had been driving with an expired license, I received no reminder in the mail. Luckily I was not pulled over or that might have been expensive.
• Has your life insurance premium just jumped? If you have crossed an age group, your term life insurance rate may be increasing, so go check that out.
• Can you get a senior citizen’s discount now? You’d be surprised, a lot of these discounts do not start at age 65, it actually starts at 55.

Any other ideas I may have missed that you should do on your birthday?

In Carnivals my posting Personal Finance Resolutions For the New Year? was mentioned in the Carnival of Personal Finance #239 and the Carnival of Money Stories.