Blog Category: Hyundai

The school year is rapidly drawing to a close, and graduation day is just around the corner. Just as mortarboards will be soon be cluttering the afternoon sky, the internet is cluttered with articles about the best cars for teens and grads. A quick search turns up more than you can shake a tassel at.

All of these articles identify safety and reliability as key factors in selecting a car for your kid, but some include other considerations such as insurance costs. Considerate of your bank account, half of these lists look at used cars, but for you big spenders, there are a few lists that feature reasonably priced new cars. Let’s take a quick look at some of these articles, understand their criteria, and see if we can identify some consensus.

With Earth Day right around the corner, it only makes sense to take a look at the leading  environmentally-friendly green vehicle market. What was once a market dominated by the Toyota Prius has ballooned in the last year or so to include a wide range of manufacturers, models, and features. The green car is here to stay and with recent legislation proposals in California and other States, we’re likely to see even more of these environmentally-friendly vehicles on our highways and city streets.

In a recent blog post we gave you a couple of tips to help you out when visiting a dealership. In this blog post we also stressed the importance of doing your research. The more research, knowledge, price quotes and information you have - the better your vehicle buying experience will be. But the question is, which research can you or do you trust?

It’s not much of a surprise that poll numbers supported the recent federal government decision to raise CAFE (that stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025. Given the fact that fuel prices are only going to creep ever upward -- not to mention the environmental costs of getting the gas from the ground to the pump -- drivers are realizing the benefits of high-mileage vehicles. It helps, too, that technology is improving, with hybrid systems, valve shutoff systems, direct injection, and clean diesels that all deliver a fun driving experience with better fuel economy.

According to JD Power and Associates, despite modest improvement in initial quality on both newly developed models and new version of existing models over the last 5 years, the trend has not continued and initial quality for newly developed models for 2011 is down, as is reported in the organization’s newest study.

The Initial Quality Study, conducted by JD Power for the last 25 years, is a survey of recent buyers and lessees of 2011 models.  Owners are contacted after 90 days with the cars and are given a 228-question survey designed to provide the manufacturers with information to “facilitate identifying problems and drive product improvement.”

We’ve been talking a lot about used cars, lately.

The reason is simple:  there are some really great deals to be gotten if you know what to look for and how to spot them.  Our friends at Edmunds have put together their annual Edmunds Used Car Best Bets, which is a great list that will help you in that search. 

Their name is a little hard to remember, but if you are in the market for a new or used auto, you definitely do not want to forget who the IIHS is.  Formed over 50 years ago, the mission of the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) is to help reduce deaths, injuries, and property damage. 

As is the case in any industry, the law of supply and demand is a huge driver in the automotive market.  The ability to keep popular models flowing into dealership inventory is the key to success at both the dealership and manufacturer level.

NADAguides, one of the most trusted names in automotive analysis, recently released its Most in Demand Vehicles Report.  The report is a comprehensive list of the hardest to find models as well as alternative choices for shoppers willing to go beyond their original ideas.

Our friends at TrueCar.com recently released the May TrueTrends report, their monthly car buying industry trend report and, as it is jam packed with some fantastic information for new auto buyers, we thought we’d break down some of the more interesting tidbits for you.

According to TrueCar:

Kiplinger Personal Finance recently launched their 2011 Car Buying Guide on their website, and published their "Top Picks" recommendations in the March 2011 magazine issue available now.  Kiplinger's categorized autos in 11 categories and ranked them by price, performance, safety, roominess, and driving impressions.   You can see their full research functionality on the Kiplinger website.