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North Carolina Builds Auto Testing Grounds

Burgeoning Auto Testing Industry Comes to Rural NC

The people of Northhampton County, North Carolina have put their minds and money together to build a state-of-the-art automobile testing facility to lure auto makers into testing their newest cars, trucks, and vans in their rural setting.  The center, with a projected cost of $130 million, is really a cinderella story, with a book/movie deal in the works.

Local and state officials are building the $130 million center mostly on spec, with only two companies publicly committed to the project. But they’re confident the center, where automobile and parts manufacturers and motorsports teams will be able to test experimental and alternative-fuel vehicles, could generate 300 jobs directly and thousands of others within the automobile and other industries.

And in the process, they hope the center will keep a generation of Northampton kids living at home instead of leaving for the big city.

"I’d love to come back," said 17-year-old Tim Gubitz, a Northampton East senior who wants to get an electrical engineering degree at North Carolina State University and enter the electric vehicle industry. "It’s an area that’s growing and I’d love to be a part of that growth."

Gubitz is now a student at Northampton East High School, where since 1993 members of the Automotive Team have hollowed out old cars with gasoline engines and replaced them with several 12-volt batteries and an electric motor.

"I think the forces are coming together, that our country is finally starting to see that we’ve got to change our transportation methods," said Harold Miller, a retired Northampton East teacher who jump-started that first car project. "A gas engine is just a dirty thing."

In a part of the state where students often rank near the bottom in test scores, the kids from Northampton East stunned everyone when they won a multistate electric vehicle competition on their first try. It’s a story that recently became the subject of a book and a potential movie deal.

Automakers are having a difficult year this year. Gas prices and environmental concerns are causing a consumer outcry for hybrid vehicles. And, falling sales are forcing the industry to cut thousands of jobs to keep the books balanced. 

The NC training center may be much less expensive for automakers to utilize than having their own similar center, and the rural location will keep prying eyes out. 

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Scholastic and Volkswagon Team Up

They use voting sites to increase seatbelt use

Volkswagen will kick off the voting for "Fasten Your Seat Belt … Go Far!," a nation-wide program that challenges teens to create TV ads that try to persuade their peers to buckle up.   Choosing from hundreds of student-submitted PSAs, the three selected finalists will see their commercials broadcast tonight at 6pm.  Teh voting sites, www.fuse.tv or www.vw.com are open until November 25.  The winner will be announced on Fuse-TV on Monday, November 28.

As part of a joint educational effort between Volkswagen and Scholastic, students across the nation were challenged to create and produce 30-second television ads, to raise awareness and increase seat belt use among teens. Tragically, teens are the least likely to use safety belts, even when faced with possible traffic fines. Nearly 5,500 young people die in car crashes every year(1), many needlessly, since they could have been saved by simply buckling up.

Lowering SUV Repair Costs

Shopping around can lower the cost

Everyone knows SUVs can be expensive.  Add to that the cost of gas lately, and driving an SUV can take a large chunk of your income.  Even repairs for SUVs can be astronomical.

If you SUV needs repairs, be sure to read "Lowering 4-Wheel Drive/SUV Repair Costs" from About.com.  The article has some useful tips on saving money when getting the repairs done. 

In most instances, garages "mark-up" the price of parts used for vehicle repairs. Garages purchase parts at a wholesale prices and then mark-up the parts used for repairs. Although it is becoming rarer and rarer today, some garages will allow a customer to purchase the parts that will be used to repair their vehicle. Such garages will quote the customer on just the cost of labor to install the parts.

It can be to a customer’s advantage to get a quote on both the parts and labor prior to having their vehicles repaired. If the customer is so inclined, he or she can check on the cost of parts at retail parts stores such as Auto Zone, or Advanced Auto. In many instances, even better prices on parts can be obtained by getting on the Internet and searching under 4-wheel drive/SUV parts.

Of course, some repairs will be covered by your extended warranty.  Check your benefits to see if your repair is covered.

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Better Quality Domestic Cars Mean Lower Warranty Costs

American Cars are only second to Japan in reliability now, bringing warranty costs down.

Because American car companies are building better cars, the general public are submitting fewer warranty claims than in past years.  With fewer claims comes lower rates.

Other domestic automakers are scoring the same effects from the quality-obsessed teamwork approach. For General Motors Corp.’s domestic fleet, the number of warranty claims is down 36 percent over the last five years, according to spokeswoman Janine Fruehan. Warranty costs are down 21 percent.

This is great news for anyone with a domestic car.  Quality translates to lower warranty costs.  It’s a win-win situation.

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IBM Helps Automakers Drive Out Warranty Costs

New IBM search technologies help automakers cut warranty expenses

Newly developed IBM search technologies help automakers cut warranty expenses, which cost the industry over $14 billion annually. IBM’s solution goes beyond "keyword" searches to collect and analyze data from a variety of information sources such as repair records and blogs.

Automotive companies across the world today face a very competitive and difficult marketplace. In an effort to stimulate growth, many automakers, particularly in the United States, have resorted to steep discounts to compete. These price cuts, in addition to rising operating costs, have taken their toll on the profit margins in the industry. To counterbalance the downward trend of profit margins, all automakers are looking at creative ways to control costs.

Warranty coverage is one of the fastest growing areas of operating costs in the automobile industry. In 2004, experts estimate warranty costs exceeded $45 billion worldwide. In the United States, auto warranties account for nearly 41 percent of all auto warranties industrywide. And, for the first time, in 2004 the number of recalled vehicles exceeded the total number of manufactured vehicles.

One of the causes behind the rising warranty costs and claims is the increasing complexity of vehicles. Today, nearly 40 percent of the value in an average vehicle is tied up in its software and recalled vehicles  A single car may have as many as 70 different processors, controlling everything from anti-lock brakes and automatic transmissions to cruise control and fuel injection. Failures to those embedded systems account for a third of all warranty claims.

Controlling the costs of warranties has big benefits. Currently, warranty costs drag down profits of automobile industry by 3 percent. If automakers could reduce their warranty costs in half, they would see their profits soar as much as 300 percent.

 

An extended auto warranty is still a necessity

Buick extends their manufacturer’s warranty

Buick has announced that for the 2006 model year all models will come with a 4 year or 50,000 mile manufacturer’s warranty.  This makes Buick and Cadillac the only models to have better than General Motors standard 3 year or 36,000 mile coverage.

The question that frequently comes up is do I still need to purchase a extended warranty or vehicle service contract.  The answer in our opinion is a resounding yes.  These vehicles are jam packed with high tech electronics in addition to the normal powertrain items.  These items usually fail sometime after 50,000 mile threshold.  Statistics have shown that more than 89% of the auto warranties purchased pay out more than the amount they were purchased for.

The bottom line is an auto warranty is always a good investment.

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