There are many factors involved when choosing between independent repair centers and auto dealerships for your car repairs and maintenance.  Thanks to improvements developed by the manufacturers, today’s vehicles require far less maintenance, particularly on vehicles built in the last 10 years. As a vehicle owner you have the legal right to choose any auto repair shop to perform services, without risking losing your warranty. Remember that auto dealerships offer recall-related services at a lower cost or for free. Also regular maintenance can vary widely depending on the shop you choose. Auto dealerships are more likely to follow the recommended service by manufacturer than auto repair shops.

Independent repair shop may be the smarter financial choice, but sometimes, paying a little extra is a wise choice. Here are things to consider when choosing between auto dealership service and independent repair service:

Compare services you receive – Comparing prices between multiple dealers and repair shops, for example a 50,000-mile service, does not guarantee you’ll be receiving the same exact service. You need to ask what is exactly included in the service as well as a breakdown of parts, labor and any other fees to determine where your best deal is.

OEM parts – Dealerships use parts that are supplied by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), whereas car repair shops use aftermarket parts unless the customer requests otherwise. OEM parts are often more expensive than aftermarket parts and may not always be the best solution for auto repair. Aftermarket fluids, filters, other car parts during the service intervals, many engine components, brakes, tires and windshield wipers are perfectly fine. For other part failures, such as sensors related to your car’s computer system and car body parts, it’s best to stick with original equipment not to result in added cost and problems later on.

Labor rates – Ask for the labor cost; labor rate and estimated time to complete the job. Auto dealerships use flat-rate system while car repair shops track their technician’s actual work hours. In the flat rate system, every repair has a published time in the labor guide. Independent repair shops may not have the lowest labor rates. Decline in car sales has forced some dealerships to lower their labor rates or offer coupons and specials.

Technician experience – Auto dealership technicians are constantly trained on the auto brands the dealership sells. Independent auto technicians are cross-trained to work on a wide variety of vehicles. Highly qualified independent repair technicians have diverse knowledge and experience, allowing them to fix vehicles faster and more thoroughly.

Think about convenience when deciding where to go for car repairs. A free loaner car or a courtesy shuttle is offered by some dealers, while a repair shop will expect you to find your own ride. Regardless of the best financial choice, choose a shop that you feel comfortable working with.  A good service adviser or a mechanic who listens to your concerns and answers your questions thoroughly is priceless.

This Sunday, May 1st 2011, the New York International Auto Show will end. This is your time to take pictures of the hottest cars and trucks (yes, cameras and video cameras allowed).

Alternative fuel cars which will be at the show include the Ford Escape Hybrid, Chevy Volt, 2011 Lexus CT200H, Lexus L S600HL Hybrid and more.

History of the New York Auto Show: It was America’s first automotive exhibition  in 1900. For 111 years, New York has been home to the most innovative and impressive cars on the market.

These are the types of cars you can look forward to viewing. Introducing the GranTurismo MC Stradale: 450-horsepower, 4.7-liter V8 engine. The US based model will be similar to the European-market MC Stradale, except for an automatic transmission.

Car of the Year – 2011 Car of the Year

The new Nissan Leaf is the overall Car of the Year Winner. The electric car car by Nissan, dubbed “Leading, Environmentally friendly, Affordable, Family car,” is a mid-size hatchback with 99mpg of gasoline equivalent.

This fully-electric car produces no tailpipe pollution, or greenhouse gas emissions. Other awards for the Nissan Leaf include: 2011 European Car of the Year, 2011 World Car of the Year and 2010 Green Car Vision Award.

Car of the Year – Design Car

ASTON MARTIN RAPIDE (DESIGN CAR)

Car of the Year – Green Car

CHEVROLET VOLT (GREEN CAR)

Car of the Year  - Performance Car

FERRARI NA 458 ITALIA (PERFORMANCE CAR)

Concept Cars that will be at the show include:

• SAAB Phoenix
• Toyota Prius C Concept
• Volkswagen Bulli
• Nissan Ellure
• Mini PACEMAN
• Hyundai CURB
• GMC SIERRA
• Ford Vertrek Concept
• Cadillac Urban Luxury Concept

Cost and Tickets:

$14 – Adult – Ages 13 and up
$4 – Child – Ages 2 – 12
Free – Infant – 1 and under
$12 – Group Rate (10 tickets or more)

New York Auto Show Dates and Hours:

Friday April 22nd through Sunday May 1st
Monday – Saturday: 10am – 10pm - Sundays: 10am – 7pm

Now dealers can easily list ads on Craigslist with Dealer Webmaster’s ad posting tool. This automated tool allows dealers to take advantage of additional leads and traffic from local classified ads on Craigslist.

Dealer Webmaster helps dealers increase their online presence and search engine traffic. Search engine and online marketing strategies and trends grow and change at a quick pace. Your online presence is powerful and needs be well managed, well designed and monitored. Before we start developing your website we take the time to meet with you so we can thoroughly understand your business goals, practices, and needs.

Dealer Webmaster clients enjoy customized, easy to maintain websites loaded with features and information. Our clients each have their own unique visions and our role at Dealer Webmaster is to help them see that vision achieved. A custom top of the line website that is unique to the individual client, allows our clients tap into the ever growing market for online buyers.

To see some of our customized client sites, visit NapaCarLot.com.

Visit the DealerWebmaster.com site for more information on what we have to offer, or contact us at info@dealerwebmaster.com.

Napa Car Dealers just released Napa Car Lot. The new website is easy to use and it features hundreds of pre-owned vehicles from four dealers in the Napa County California. To help users find the car they are looking for quickly and easily, there are number of ways to narrow their search for the perfect vehicle. There are tabs to show cars within a certain price range. For a more refined results, users can select the year, make, and model in their search.

Napa Car Lot represents Acura, Audi, Buick, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, GMC, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jeep, Kia, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercury, Nissan, Pontiac, Saturn, Scion, Suzuki, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo.

Napa Car Dealers has the best pre-owned vehicles in Napa County California. Napa Car Lot features low price, best selection, and the highest quality vehicles.

SOURCiS – Sacramento Search Engine Optimization / Dealer Webmaster – Dealer Directory has developed Napa Car Ads, Napa Cars Direct, and Napa Car Lot.

Dealer Webmaster just introduced an online specials Ad website for Elk Grove Ford & Great Valley Chrysler Jeep Mazda Isuzu Auto Dealers SacramentoCarAds.com.

SacramentoCarAds.com has daily pre-owned vehcile specials from large inventory of 2 dealers in Sacramento Area.

Visit SacramentoCarAds.com for your perfect vehicle from huge selection of cars, trucks, minivans, crossovers and SUVs – best deals in Sacramento, Elk Grove, Folsom, Rocklin, Davis and Stockton. Find used cars in Napa California with NapaCarLot.com.

Sacramento Car Ads was started by SOURCiS, a Sacramento Search Engine Optimization Company.

October 16, 2006 – By Mitch Lowe
iMedia Connection

Forget Yahoo!’s predictions of doom and gloom. Jumpstart Automotive’s CEO explains why the present — and the future — of online automotive looks brighter than ever.

These days, the online community is getting some mixed signals about internet advertising spending in general, and the automotive industry in particular. For example, on the one hand, research firm eMarketer says internet ad-spending will grow to a record $15.9 billion in 2006. On the other hand, the researcher also says growth will decline to +26.8 percent (vs. the 30 percent increases experienced in each of the last two years).

Is the falloff at Yahoo an indicator of a broader slowdown of web spending, especially from the auto makers? Not from where I sit. The market for auto ad inventory is robust, with some seasonality. Auto ad spending is always lumpy, as it heavies up during new model launch periods. The first two months of Q3 were lighter on launches, but Q4 and 2007 are heavy for launches. In 2007 there will be 50 percent more launches than 2006. Online 2007 ad inventory is already being committed to (at least to the Jumpstart Network) at both volume and rates that are higher than anticipated. More good news: Chrysler says it will more than double what it spent on (all) advertising in the first half for the remainder of 2006. As AdAge reported, Chrysler spent $527 million in U.S. measured media in the first half of this year, which would place its second-half budget well over $1 billion.

I frequently speak with the heads of agencies for the carmakers, as well as senior marketing execs at the carmakers. Now more than ever, they need the precision targeting, accountability and interactivity of digital media. While digital media is still coming to grips with its impending maturity, and is sure to face its own short-term challenges, it is tailor-made to what today’s auto industry requires, and we expect to see more than 30 percent growth in 2007. Read More

September 22, 2006 – By Joseph Carrabis
iMedia Connection

If you’re building a website for female consumers, then you need to do it differently than if your site is for males or for everybody. The NextStage CRO explains how.

Growing up, I navigated the worlds of men and women with equal ease. Several indigenous peoples I’ve studied with have told me I carry my grandmother and grandfather energies reversed. Perhaps that accounts for my facility, I don’t know. I do know that the differences and similarities between the genders have always fascinated me and became part of NextStage’s marketing research a few years back.

THE THREE MAIN ONLINE GENDER DIFFERENCES – The differences between men and women show up in so many ways that to ignore them in marketing is to defeat marketing’s purposes. Three differences that directly apply to designing marketing material are:

. Women purchase strategically; men purchase immediately.
. Women are cogno-emotionally placial; men are spatial.
. Women consider other’s opinions as a guide to making their own decision; men consider others’ decisions as a guide to forming their own opinions.

What I found fascinating about item #1 was that, once I looked at the data as an anthropologist, it was — duh! — obvious. Item #2 is something I was taught and teach in evolutionary biology. Item #3 is the new one, and it intrigues me as it applies to marketing methodologies.

PUTTING GENDER DIFFERENCES INTO PRACTICE – If you know your target market is women, don’t sell them on now, sell them on now (the near bars) and again (the middle bars) and yet again (the far bars), or make sure they buy enough so that what they buy is useful again and again and again.

If your target is men, make them happy now because they’ll probably forget you before the next page loads or they leave the store. This plays into branding in that men are more difficult to brand than women in an open, competitive market. Read More

The Dealix Dealer Newsletter – September 2006

Today 45% of the US population visits automotive sites, amounting to 239 million unique site visits per month. And, automotive sites have experienced 400% the growth rate of the Internet overall, according to Yahoo and comScore. If you’re still directing the lion’s share of your ad budget to traditional advertising, it’s time to re-strategize! The most sales leads are generated at third party auto sites, according to Ward’s Dealer Business and J.D. Power and Associates. Dealix aggregates high quality leads from the top third party sites on the Web, including: Woman Motorist, Automobilemag.com, Edmunds, AOL Autos, Motor Trend, Kelley Blue Book, Yahoo Autos, IntelliChoice, AutoTrader.com, MSN, and hundreds more – to bring you the best leads. Want to know how many are available in your area right now? Get immediate results with the Dealix On-Demand Lead EstimatorSM today. Read More

September 05, 2006 – By Roger Park

Nielsen Media Research announced that ad spending in the U.S. is up 5.1 percent in the half of the year with internet leading the way with 49 percent.

Spanish language TV was up 21.8 percent due largely to the World Cup. Other media that showed gain were local magazines (10.4 percent) and nation newspapers (6.5 percent).

Spending among the top 10 advertisers grew 3 percent to nearly $9.8 billion; AT&T, due to a re-branding of the company, increased its spending by 51 percent, according to Mediaweek.

“Ad spending continues to build in strength when compared to last year, although not at the levels projected by many at the beginning of the year,” says Jeff King, managing director of Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Read More…

August 29, 2006 – By David A. Yovanno

Introduction – For advertisers trying to build awareness and drive other brand-related initiatives, ad networks offer a valuable complement to portal and single site strategies. Today’s leading ad networks offer comparable and complementary audience composition, reach and frequency, with stringent quality controls and the ability to demonstrate measurable lift in key brand metrics.

The key to successfully working with ad networks is to select a partner you can trust to protect your brand online and to form a close working relationship that takes advantage of their account management expertise and their technology, media planning, targeting and creative capabilities. The end result will be a measurable impact in the efficiency of your overall online brand marketing objectives.

Here’s how to do it.
. Understand the type of networks
. Three brand strategies
. Mix rich media and video
. Pre-test creative
. Measure brand impact
. Conclusion

Read More