Find A Used Car

Q.Mini Cooper fails to find niche; Beetle/Cruiser win sale race BMW's Mini Cooper has thus far failed to find its niche. With Mini's piling up on dealer's lots, BMW has started an unfocused ad campaign, with slogans such as "You've never had so much fun for $16,975" and "Sip, don't guzzle". So, why could the retro New Beetle and PT Cruiser be such successes while the Mini has fallen on its face? After all, the Mini too is a good functional car.

A.It's a classic case of a total mistarget of the market. What they are wanting to target are the large number of people in the US that cannot afford a $25,000 new car that gets only about 15-18Mpg in the city. The thought processes are obviously that this market cannot tolerate more than $100 a month in car payment and $100 a month in gasoline costs. So, let's build a cheap econobox that we can price so we can swing a $100 a month finance deal on it, and make the MPG high enough so that the fuel costs are only about $100 a month. What they are ignoring though is that the US market is now flooded with really good quality used cars. This market has figured out that if they drop $3-$4 grand on a 6 year old used car they either don't have a car payment at all, or their car payment is really small. Also, this market isn't carrying comprehensive insurance on these cars, so there's even more savings there. As a result, these folks can afford $200 a month in gasoline in order to keep a larger and more well made used vehicle fed, with the savings in a monthly finance and the savings in insurance. The mini sales would be phenominal if it was priced at $9995.00 USD Unfortunately I don't think that an automaker today can tool up to build a new car, even an econobox, at this price, in the US market. But unless the price is under 5 figures, the cost/benefit of just going with a used vehicle outweigh the MPG savings. Anf furthermore, the MPG figures are almost always an illusion anyway. The car is going to get them when it's new - but the US public has realized that after the vehicle is a few years old and puts on a few miles, and the engine loosens up, the MPG figures drop

Holland Used Auto Parts

Online sources for used auto parts? Could someone give me some good websites that sell used or salvage auto parts?Here it is: Source(s): http://car-part.com/ car-part.com is where i find my hard to find parts try ebay motors or summitraci...

Buy Used Cars Chicago

I want to buy a '90 Corollas for about $2,000 and mid to late '80s run less than $1,000. However, I do keep an eye on the car section of the classifieds, and haven't seen something like this for a good 6 months. Recent immigrants like to buy ...

Cheap Used Cars Sales

I'm going to be moving to Texas for work and will be buying my first car there. I plan to stay there for about 3 years. The company is supplying a rental car for the first month, during which time i will have to find my own car. I'm looking for...

Cheap Used Cars For Sale By Owner

There seems to be a common problem with Toyota trucks. I own a 99 SR5 4x4 with Extracab that has 130,000+ miles on it. The body is great. The truck runs great. It still has the original exhaust system. The frame is rotting away like you woul...

Is this rec.autos?

I regularly read this newsgroup, and while this may seem like a question in jestion, I would like an answer. Bearing in mind the many comments to rec.auto, I have to assume that there are many rec.auto enthusiasts in rec.nude. Here, my question. ...