• » Toyota pushes 0% financing
• » Car dealers face the grim reaper
• » The squeeze on getting a car loan

Before dealers can move on to 2009 models, however, they need to clear their showrooms of 2008 vehicles--and there are plenty of them. This means it's a buyer's market. On several slow-selling 2008 models, it's easy to bargain down the price.

Granted, end-of-summer deals aren't new, and the mad rush to negotiate a bargain--before a new model year officially begins--heats up just about every September. But never before have the September bargains been so deep and so widespread, says Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst with Kelley Blue Book. "You have to look at 2001 or so, right after 9/11, to find that kind of trauma that is taking place in the market today."

With the summer spike in gas prices a not-too-distant memory and oil prices experiencing a single-day $25 jump earlier this week, it shouldn't come as any surprise that prices of big gas guzzlers are among the most negotiable. Prices of Ford's F-150 pickup have been tumbling all year.

Before the new 2009 F-150--which gets 20 mpg in highway driving compared to 17 mpg for the 2008 model--arrives in dealer showrooms, Ford wants to offload its 2008 F-150s as quickly as possible. During the first two weeks of September, dealers have sold F-150 pickups as much as $3,535 below the posted sticker price of $37,100, according to Kelley Blue Book, a provider of car-buying and trading information.

And that's not even the best deal around. While five of the 10 cars on our list of easiest cars to bargain for are big gas-guzzlers, the best bargain is on the Acura RL luxury sedan, which carries a sticker price of $54,450. The redesigned 2009 model was introduced in the spring and has been sharing showroom space with 2008 models that just won't go away. That's why a hard-bargaining buyer was able to drive off after paying $48,469, about $6,000 below the sticker price.

Behind the Numbers

To find the easiest cars to bargain for, we used data from Kelley Blue Book, which tracks actual sales transactions throughout the industry. Kelley supplied data on all vehicles that sold below their posted sticker price during the first two weeks of this month. Although some vehicles had several different models with higher and lower sticker prices (due to equipment and features particular to those models), we used only the model with the biggest price cut.

Joining the F-150 in the range of gas-guzzlers that are easy to bargain for are the luxurious, V-8 powered Audi Q7, which gets an EPA combined 16 mpg, and the Cadillac Escalade, which only gets 14 mpg. The Audi recently sold for $4,750 below sticker, for $54,625, which is even less than the invoice price ($55,272) that the dealer paid the automaker. And the Escalade is now selling as much as $4,284 below the sticker price of $47,590.

"This is a reflection of the market changing quicker than the factory," says Jeff Bartlett, deputy editor online at Consumer Reports. In other words, consumers began demanding smaller, more fuel-efficient cars before the automakers could supply them.

Luxury For Less

Luxury cars are a common sight on the list, alongside the Acura RL. A 2008 Mercedes-Benz E Class, in the fifth spot on the list, sold for $59,491, or $4,284 below the sticker price. And a 2008 Acura TL sedan sold for $35,658, or $3,527 below the sticker price. The venerable Lincoln Town Car also made the list, but auto experts believe discounts on this car are a result of fleet sales to chauffeur companies that transport executives to meetings. The Town Car sold for $47,590, about $4,230 below the sticker price.

A factor that could be keeping these types of cars on dealer lots is likely connected to the credit crunch in the housing industry, says Nerad. These cars are now much more difficult to purchase. "People were drawing on equity in their homes to buy a car they probably couldn't afford," he says. "Now a lot of that equity is gone and it is harder to qualify for credit."

2009 Acura RL

When bargaining for these or any other cars, it's important to keep in mind that the dealer can sell below the invoice price and still make money, says Bartlett, as there are other incentives that automakers give dealers to push them to move slow-selling cars. But it's not like they need a whole lot of motivation. Dealers finance the cars they get from the manufacturer and cars that sit on the lot for more than 30 days start to cost the dealers money as finance fees and interest kicks in, says Bartlett. "It gets progressively expensive for dealers to keep cars that have been sitting there for a while," he adds.

To pay the lowest price for a new car, consumers should arm themselves with a little information. The best bargain price is one that is at or below invoice, which is what the dealer paid the manufacturer. Most of the vehicles on our list sold at invoice price but a couple, like the Chrysler Crossfire, sold for $3,278 below invoice price ($40,055 sticker price).

The ill-fated Crossfire roadster/coupe, introduced in 2004, never really captured the attention of sports-car buyers, so Chrysler stopped building Crossfires at the end of last year. Sales peaked in 2004 at 28,000 and fell to just 8,216 units in 2007. Now dealers are selling off what's taking up space on their lots.

"The market is driving the price of [these] less-desirable cars," says Bartlett.

The one downside is that the bargain-basement prices only last as long as the cars do. The longer consumers wait, the less likely they are to get the best possible deal on a 2008 model.

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/706/Ten-Easiest-Cars-To-Bargain-For

Top 10 Scariest New Car Features

By Kelsey Mays, Cars.com

We like heated seats and high-end stereos as much as the next car shopper, but some of today's automotive features provoke more fright than delight. Take GM's left-hand steering-column stalk: Until recently, this stalk housed the cruise controls in the form of a tiny, three-position switch plus a secondary button. The same stalk also managed high-beam headlights, windshield wipers and turn signals. Twist something the wrong way and the car could turn into a five-passenger R2-D2.

With things like that in mind, we chose 10 not-so-delightful features in today's cars, from chairs that perform pneumatic jujitsu on your back to owner's manuals that could qualify for a summer reading list.

10. Rain-Sensing Wipers

Rain-sensing windshield wipers have crept from high-end luxury cars to everyday models like the Toyota Avalon. They generally use infrared sensors to monitor a certain section of the windshield for moisture or dirt, then trigger the wipers to respond according to a threshold the driver sets. They usually work OK — until, invariably, they don't. When one editor's Volkswagen Jetta tester had its rain-sensing wipers suddenly spring to action one cloudless night, it was mildly frightening, to say the least.

9. Soda Can Cool Zone

Various automakers offer air-conditioned compartments to keep sodas and other sundries cool. Problem is, those cool zones get hot in the summer when the car is off; we had a couple sodas explode in a certain Dodge after a 90-degree weekend. A spokeswoman told us the car's so-called Chill Zone is not intended to be used as a refrigerator. All the same, we came away a bit steamed. And sticky.

8. Smart Transmission

The Smart ForTwo deserves its own category. The minicar's automated-manual transmission shifts gears with its own electronic clutch while the driver sees a traditional automatic setup. Drive the thing and you feel like you're on a bucking bronco. Once you're through first gear, the transmission stutters, shudders and very nearly takes a personal day before engaging second. The same thing happens on the way to third, and fourth, and fifth. Sorry, Smart, but this gearbox is anything but.

7. Power-Sliding Doors

Parents, rest assured the power-sliding doors on upscale minivans employ all sorts of electronic cutoffs to ensure they won't eat your Brownie troop. But we'll admit the prospect of power doors that can do their thing by remote 20 or 30 feet away can be a bit, um, dicey. They can also add hundreds of dollars to a car's out-the-door sticker. If you're feeling the pinch, go with manual sliders and open 'em yourself.

6. Multi-Manual Owner's Booklets

The thought of wading through an owner's manual to figure out how something works is daunting enough. Try wading through 10 of them or more; that's the number of pamphlets, manuals and quick-start guides included in some cars' libraries. With online directories only a click away, do you really need a state-by-state list of dealerships? Memo to carmakers: Just because it goes in the glove box doesn't mean it needs to be a box set.

5. Self-Parking Cars

Ian Merritt, Cars.com

Lexus' self-parking feature is optional on the LS sedan. Line up the superimposed square in the backup camera with your intended parking spot, gently let off the brakes and the LS will slowly steer around adjacent cars as it backs into the spot. You have to press the brakes to bring the car to a stop at the end. We didn't know Big Brother had a valet job, either.

4. iDrive

Even among the trio of similar dashboard interfaces from Audi and Mercedes, BMW's iDrive is utter knobsense. Directional inputs send you to various submenus, but in most models there are no shortcut or previous-screen buttons around the knob. In many models, street labels sit on a horizontal plane no matter the direction of the street, and if you need to scroll along the map you have to spin the knob to move east/west, then click it down and spin it again to move north/south. If you get the hang of it, you'll be ready for "Survivor" tryouts.

3. Voice Turn-by-Turn Navigation

Navigation systems have been barking out orders for years. With the exception of Land Rover's charming Brit, most of them employ a female American voice whose intonations range from casually disinterested to downright annoyed. Some systems try gamely to pronounce street names, but the result is usually anything but clear: You're cruising along, and she suddenly directs you to turn left on ... what was that? Ah, Fockner Ave.

2. Heart-Rate Monitor

You read correctly. Volvo's Personal Car Communicator monitors the cabin and pulses a light on your keyfob if your car has an unexpected visitor inside. TV ads show a woman approaching her S80 in a deserted parking garage, seeing the warning and hightailing it away. The thought of having this feature is scary in and of itself — not for fear of being carjacked, but because we wonder what sort of paranoia would drive you to want it.

1. Overly Aggressive Seats

Driver's seats run the gamut, from flat benches to the sort of hip-huggers you'd get in an F-15, and some of the more extravagant ones don't sit so well with us. The BMW 7 Series offers a massaging driver's seat, but its throbbing motions feel downright Frankensteinian compared to a real massage. In some of Mercedes-Benz's pricier models, active side bolsters automatically inflate to hold you in as you take a corner. They're convenient on highway offramps and winding roads, but 90-degree city turns can result in sudden rib pinching as the seats go hog-wild to keep up. Avoid large spicy meals beforehand — or wade through the Benz's onboard computer menus to turn the feature off.

MORE AT CARS.COM

• » First Drive: 2009 Porsche 911
• » Kicking Tires
• » Cars.com’s Green Buying Guide

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/707/Top-10-Scariest-New-Car-Features

Where Will Energy Come From in Five Years' Time? (PC Magazine)

Posted on Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:54AM EDT

- At the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough 2008 Conference, a collection of engineers, inventors, educators, and enthusiasts discussed some of the innovations of the past year. In "Energy in the Next Five Years," five panelists took a look at solar power, biotech, and other energy technologies, examining our near-term alternative fuel sources.

Who won the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards?

D. Bruce Osborn, chief executive of Stirling Energy Systems, touted the capabilities of his company's large-scale solar plants. Using its SES SunCatcher product, Stirling set a world record in February of solar to grid conversion, achieving an impressive 31? percent efficiency. "This from a real system," claimed Osborn, "one of our prototypes--not a laboratory curiosity."

The company's solar dishes generate electricity by focusing the sun's rays onto a receiver, which transmits the heat energy to a Stirling engine, similar to the technology powering SHEC Labs solar dishes. But unlike SHEC, Stirling Energy Systems panels will be installed several real-world plants, notably SES Solar Two--the world's largest solar energy generation plant.

Inventor Lonnie Johnson was himself impressed with Osborn's invention, in particular the improved efficiency of the solar cells, "A few percentage points of increase in efficiency can make a huge difference," he noted. Apparently, the U.S. government agreed, since Charles Andraka of Sandia National Laboratories came along to discuss their development plans. "The efficiency increase is really a pivotal breakthrough," he noted, underscoring plans to break ground one year from today on the SES Solar Two plant, which utilizing the technology.

Johnson's no slouch himself, having recently invented the Johnson Thermo-Electrochemical Converter to generate power. The JTEC, as Johnson affectionately referred to it, uses heat to expand and contract hydrogen, to generate electricity. But Rather than using the changes in temperature themselves to move an axle, the JTEC uses them to force ions through a membrane. And it can use waste heat from internal combustion engines or even nuclear power plants to create more electricity.

In other tech, Kinkead Reiling of Amyris Biotechnologies discussed his plans to create a renewable biodiesel fuel. Biofuel has gone through ups and downs, with concerns over land use and consuming food products as fuel. He joked that "biofuel went from being the savior to being the devil. You have to very intelligently use the land you have."

Steve Fambro of Aptera Motor discussed his invention: the Aptera Typ-1e electric car. The revolutionary car, which went into production in March, aims to go 300 miles per charge and should sell for around $30,000. But it's not just an electric vehicle: Fambro notes that it was designed as a powertrain agnostic vehicle, meaning the frame could bring its hyperefficient design to gas engines as well. He noted that it wasn't all about innovation, in spite of the striking design: "Window roll-up mechanisms, internal controls, that sort of thing doesn't need to be radically innovated."

Originally posted at GoodCleanTech.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/zd/20081016/tc_zd/233078