Canadian Personal Finance Blog

This one has me a little baffled, Stats Canada has posted the car sales numbers for May and sales overall are down by 0.8% (given gas was at $1.00/liter by then, it is not surprising), but what is surprising is that Truck sales is actually UP during this time? Pardon?

Now this could be a bounce effect where folks had ordered vehicles and only had them delivered then, but I would have guessed that truck sales would be UP in this time, but maybe they are needed to do “work”? Very puzzling statistic, that is for sure.

I try to drive my van a lot less these days, because it gets much worse mileage than my 12 year old Honda Accord, so who knows about this data.

Carnivals From Last Week

• The Carnival of Wealth Building #7 is being hosted by Home Equity Loan Lowdown and they chose my article: Free Banking ?
• The 82nd Festival of Frugality is being hosted by Ask Mr. Credit Card where a clever story is spun with all the postings.

If there was any delusion that somehow more expensive gasoline and petroleum related products prices would somehow cause a nation-wide drop in their usage, think again. It seems as though the demand for Gas is inelastic currently, as the increase in price has not decreased the demand at all.

Our friends at Stats Canada say that Gasoline consumption year over year from April 2006 to April 2007 for Unleaded Gasoline is up 2.9% and diesel fuel usage is up a whopping 8.2%. Now on the positive side, higher “grade” unleaded gas consumption has dropped a great deal, so folks may be forced to buy it, but they don’t seem to want to pay extra for “higher grade” gasoline, right now at least.

Interestingly aviation fuel usage has dropped, maybe the folks in the Airlines are figuring out ways to squeeze more folks onto fewer planes?

So let me begin that the following comments are an UNsolicited and UNpaid for endorsement by me of a garage here in Ottawa.

I have been taking my cars to Parker Auto Care for over 15 years now, and have never had any problems with the work done, or by the folks that work there. Dave Parker the owner proprietor does good work, only charges you for the work that needs done, and will not try to kill you “nickel and diming” you on things that can wait. Word of warning, Dave is also very busy, and you might not get in to see him right away (another good sign for most services like this, the busier they are, the better they are (most of the time)).

Why am I doing this? I have said more than once that the major allies you need in life are:

1. A good spouse
2. A good doctor
3. A good mechanic
4. A good dentist
5. A lawyer that takes care of you (not sure how you define good for that profession)

Dave fits (3) to a “T”, and I have no problems endorsing his business (and I must repeat, I am not getting paid to say this).

So last month’s new car sales numbers reflect a trend, you would expect with gas at $1 a liter and higher in most of Canada, they dropped another 3.7% in February, and the trend looks like it is DOWN for now.

Want to guess what types of cars didn’t sell well? Gas guzzling trucks maybe? Good guess, take a nickel out of petty cash! Truck sales were down 6.9%, and I am not surprised after what I learned this weekend.

As I mentioned I rented a Yaris from Avis this past weekend, just to get a feel for the car, since if I was to buy a new car, that might be the type I would buy (I am looking for an economical, and frugal car for driving around town and some highway, but not a lot of driving).

Overall it was a positive experience. I actually did fit in the car (I am a little over 6 foot 3 inches tall) which impressed me. The steering wheel was in danger of banging my knees when getting out, but it was ok. The drive I did was mostly highway (the 401, from Cornwall to Toronto and the QEW to Niagara), and the car’s feel on the road was quite smooth. The noise in the car was high from engine noise and wind (but I think that is a function of the subcompact). The sound system was good (MP3 CD player), the seats aren’t conducive to long highway drives, but I think they’d be fine for a 2 hour drive (my back was sore after 6 hours). I don’t like the center mount speed-o-meter set up, but that is the norm these days for small cars.

If you are looking at this car, I think it’s good, and it’s use of fuel was very frugal (even with me driving between 120 and 130 most of the way, which might explain the engine noise as well :-). I spent less than half of what I would have with my van (haven’t totaled it all up yet).

The fact that I didn’t have to pay for the car (I used points) was good too.

Who is the guy on the bag? Gary Numan of course, and what song did he sing? Cars!