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Not surprisingly, the implosion of the new pickup/SUV market now means that your '06 Silverado doubles in value every time you fill the tank. Large retail groups such as CarMax are reporting wholesale prices for big pickups have plunged 25% in the last three months alone. With trade-in values making up a significant factor in many new car transactions, dealers are finding themselves squeezed by more truck owners "upside-down" in their loans. With dealers unable to finance new purchases, they've resorted to desperate tactics — like leaving truck owners sitting their with their manhood replacements hanging out, unable to trade it in. In a remarkably candid statement revealing where dealerships actually make their money, Poncho Redfern, president of San Francisco-based Thomason Auto Group, said "...you can't outrun it in F&I. There's only so much you can honestly earn in that department. This wreaks havoc on the bottom line. We see people with $10,000...
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Today brought us news of a purported new solution to high gas prices : SwiftFuel. Currently intended as a replacement for leaded 100-octane aviation fuel, SwiftFuel claims to be ethanol-based, but somehow free from ethanol's negatives such as its lower energy density, incompatibility with gasoline, and propensity to destroy rubber components. How do we know all this? The company's MySpace page told us so. But since we realize social networking sites sometimes contain minor misrepresentations, we decided to dig deeper. What we've discovered, and more importantly, what we still don't know, after the jump. Ordinarily, we wouldn't have given SwiftFuel a second glance due to the snake-oil style claims it makes. But in this case, the information came with a whiff of credibility thanks to a writeup by columnist Robert X. Cringely at PBS.org, including an interview with Mary Russek, half of the husband and wife team behind the company. Factor in the company's web site and...
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