Thoughts from my dad

Now that I am older, have been running the business for a while, and have a family of my own, I reflect on things my dad used to say...and many things seem to make sense to me now.

My father had a fantastic charisma about him, and had a cache of sayings he would pull out at various appropriate times.

One I have been thinking about for the past couple of days was a saying he used to use when I did something bad as a child.  From the greek translation, it went something like;

"When your devil was born, mine was already graduating from university"

Today, that seems so appropriate for some reason...

Happy New Year . . . 2012!!

A Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to all our great customers, friends and families.

2011 was a tough year. 

A new year signifies a new start, a clean slate, a renewal of sorts.

Let's collectively make 2012 the best one yet.

Hard to Believe

Fact:  It was not too long ago that the average car loan was approximately 5 years in length.

Fact:  The prices of cars and trucks have not really increased all that much in the last 10 years

Fact:  Of course interest rates are at an all-time low.

Fact:  The average trading cycle is 3-5 years

Fact:  An automobile is a depreciating commodity.

So what do I think when clients tell me they want an 84 or 96 month term, and that they will likely only keep their car for 5 years?  It will be a heck of a task to get our clients out of these cars...and gone are the days of any equity.

Negative Equity!!  We will then be forced to roll unpaid amounts forward to future vehicles.  The cycle never ends, and it appears that we are only at the beginning.

Society currently seems to only be concerned with the here and now, and there is a complete disregard for the future when it comes  to buying cars.  "We will deal with this later". This is a very slippery slope, and one that banks and manufacturers should all be reluctant to play on.

$0 Down, 0% for 84 months sells cars today.  We will have a generation of vehicles out there is 4-5 years that clients will be stuck with.  Perhaps the manufactureres will find a creative way to deal with it at that point, but no there are no guarantees.

I have always been a big fan of leasing.  Let the leasing company assume the depreciation risk on a vehicle, and only use the vehicle for the best part...the part covered under warranty.  Return the car in four years, and start again.  Don't buy a depreciating commodity, lease it.

Makes the best sense to me.

Check this out...

Just trolling around Google, I came across this forum thread in regards to our dealership.

http://www.torontomazda3.ca/forum/showthread.php?56982-Achilles-Mazda

The thread was started by a customer of ours from 8 years ago, who had such a fantastic experience with us at that time, who felt the need to tell the Mazda Forum world about how we do business....yes, all these years later.

It is interesting how some others in the thread try to cut down, or discredit the information due to its age.  But the business moral here?  Conduct yourself properly and ethically, and you will achieve all the word-of-mouth advertising you will ever need.

But what is truly the best part?

We always have and always will conduct ourselves this way.

Allergies are awful

Seasonal allergies.  Ragweed. Goldenrod.  Whatever.

All I know that it makes me feel awful from late August until frost is on the ground.

Over the counter medication helps, but I get tolerant to it too quickly.

I am too much of a wuss for shots.

Therefore I suffer.

You can help your allergies with a cabin pollen filter attached to a new 2011 Mazda.

Shameless plug?  Yes.

But it is my blog.

Interesting Week

This surely has been an interesting week.

First of all, I want to formally welcome two new members to our staff.

Mary-Jane Yates, who is our new controlller.  She brings a wealth of experience and saavy to our administration office.

Laura Sargent, who is our new business manager.  A sharp young lady who is going to grow well with our organization.

And this part makes it interesting....we wish all the best of luck to Mary Dmytryshyn, our outgoing controller, who formally retired on 07/31/11.  She has sold everything and is moving to Slovakia.  I must say that she is one brave lady, and I can't believe she pulled it all off in the time frame she gave herself, all the while showing up to work eack and every day.   She certainly put her mind to doing it and did it with ease...

Good Luck Mary.  We will miss you.

Random Thought

Everyone has a blog these days.

Even Us.