Category Archives: Acura

Acura

How Car Insurance Companies Don’t Want You to Spend Your Holiday

There’s nothing like a good vacation to bring out the beast in you, and there’s nothing like a holiday party to bring on the urge to do something wild and crazy! Before you gear up for your next holiday celebration, however, take a second to consider the shape of your car insurance.

Do you know why car insurance companies hate holidays? Because inevitably, they spend the next two weeks filing car insurance claims! Nobody likes to spend two weeks drowning in paperwork, which is exactly why insurance companies have their own list of recommendations for policyholders when it comes to kicking up their heels over the holidays.

Number One: Put down the brewsky and hand over the keys. Don’t drink and drive. It’s trite, it’s clichéd, but it works. Thousands of drivers crack open a beer (or six) at a holiday party before sliding behind the wheel. Hundreds of thousands of people have been injured, many fatally, as the result of a run in with an overly ambitious party-goer. Hand over the keys or crash on the couch. It’s good for your checkbook, your conscience and your future.

Number Two: Resist the urge to pile 20 people in a pickup truck. Most states have pretty strict laws regarding piling people in the back of a pickup truck. It makes sense when you think about the fact that one good bump could send you flying over the edge! If it’s illegal your car insurance isn’t going to cover it, so don’t do it. Hijack a school bus if you have to move thirty people from here to there. Sure, you’ll be looking at some time behind bars, but at least it won’t hurt your car insurance rates!

Number Three: Forget About It. You know that demolition derby you were planning on hosting? Unless you’re absolutely positive you’re going to get slaughtered in the first round, thereby making subsequent damages somebody else’s problem, don’t do it. Have you seen how high the shop bill for all fifty contenders can go? Your insurance company’s going to have something to say about it, and that something is going to sound a whole lot like, “Hit the road, Jack.”

Number Four: Leave the shotgun at home. Going out and shooting at the streetlights might sound like a good idea at the time, but car insurance companies have a notoriously long sighted view when it comes to short term entertainment. The damage to public property is going to set them back a pretty penny. Since taking a pound of flesh is going out of style they’re going to be happy to take a pound out of your wallet.

Number Five: You’re not a chicken. There’s something about an open road that all but begs you to go out and play chicken, isn’t there? Forget it. Ignore it. You don’t have nearly enough feathers to be a chicken, but you’re definitely going to feel like you’ve been plucked by the time your car insurance company gets through with you!

Holidays are supposed to be fun. What they’re not supposed to do is break the bank! Your savings and your sanity will be in a lot better shape if you follow the rules when you’re kicking back at this season’s celebrations.

Acura

Driveaway Holidays Named Australia’s Best Car Rental Wholesaler 2008

It has been a huge month for us all here at DriveAway Holidays. We kicked July off in style at the annual AFTA National Travel Industry Awards. Always a good night, this year was even more exciting than last as we were hoping to walk off (or drive away with) an award for the third year in a row which is exactly what we did! It was a tense wait, with DriveAway being nominated in one of the last categories to be announced – which may explain the amount of wine being drunk by staff members at the table… But our wait finally came to an end when hosts Larry and Kylie from the Morning Show announced us as winners of the Best Car Rental Wholesaler category. Dan, our MD, gave an Oscar worthy speech and the award was promptly passed around the table for photo ops. A great night all round and another award to add to the DriveAway collection General consensus among the ladies….it wasn’t as good as last year…but only because last year’s host was the gorgeous Tom Williams! Maybe next year! After celebrating being NTIA’s Best Car Rental Wholesaler 2008, DriveAway Holidays had more cause for celebration this month with our 20th Birthday on 25 July 2008. There was much excitement amongst staff with lots of birthday cake (from www.sweetdreamscakes.com.au), iPod giveaways to our Reservations team and of course, for older staff members, the joy in saying “It’s our 20th birthday” (it’s been a long time since some of us could claim that!). Since the doors opened for DriveAway Holidays 20 years ago in Manly, NSW (now North Sydney, NSW)-We have become the leader in car rental, car leasing and self-drive holidays.-We have grown from 2 to over 90 staff.-We now work with over 20 rental suppliers with access to rates at over 4000 locations worldwide. Of course, we couldn’t have done any of it without the support of our customers, staff past and present, suppliers, partners…so a big thank you to everyone that has helped over the years to make DriveAway the success it is!

Acura

Great Deals and Tips on Parts for Your Car

Car parts, just like cars keep going up and up in price. Just look at any recent bill for service for your car. $69 is not uncommon for an oil change if you have a Mercedes or BMW at your local dealer. $600 for headlights (not including installation), $700 water pump, $200 per tire – or more for certain cars.

It just gets ridiculous. It has been estimated that if one were to try and buy all the parts for a car through their local dealer it would cost 300-500,000 for all the parts on the average car. someone is getting rich here and it isn’t us. There is a better way.

Start by looking online. There are junk yards that have the parts you need. And just because they are referred to as junkyards, doesn’t mean they only sell junk. Lots of their inventory is from cars that are less than 1 year old. What do you think happens to the perfectly good tires on a new BMW that was junked do to rear accident. Some wiley person buys them at a great discount for their own car. Junk or salvage yards turnover millions of dollars in car parts every year.

The best site to use is car-parts. They will research thousands of salvage dealers and display the prices in order from cheapest and newest and colors, etc… You enter your part needs and then they will find your parts for you. It is not uncommon to get basically brand new or similar items for less than 20% of the price a dealer charges or less.

Another great place is Ebay and Ebay Motors. There are lots of car parts on there for just about every make year and model of car. Everything from a hood to a door, interior carpet, radios, speakers, wheels – even spinners so you can pimp your ride like on tv and in the movies. I’ve even seen celebrity cars for sale on their and parts autographed by Nascar drivers like Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt, Dale Jr., etc.

Even if you don’t end up buying on Ebay, it is generally a wholesale marketplace and will give you a feel for the value and true pricing of certain parts. It will also show you the huge difference between the actual value and what a dealer charges. Just remember this – “Dealer bad, Ebay good.” You can even buy your car on Ebay and save a mint – no bogus processing fees, lies by salesmen and their managers whose only job is to squeeze every penny they can out of you – especially the finance manager (they get you just hen you think you are done – and many times they get you for thousands of dollars in profit).

Bogus dealer processing fees totalled more than $50 billion in 2005 – no wonder dealers are getting richer, playing more golf, etc… But due to lawyers and tax strategies the average dealer pays less in taxes than most americans (average dealer tax rate is less than 1%) – go figure.

So there you have it get online and use salvage yards and Ebay to get a great deal on all your car part needs. For instructions on installing any part just look it up on Google. There are thousands of great forums and blogs that for free will give great pictures and step by step explanations on everything from changing a tire to a camshaft, bleeding brakes, fan belt replacement, etc… Do not use your dealer unless you like getting fleeced on a daily basis – as that is what they will do.

Acura

Why Are Car Audio System Reviews Important?

In today’s world there are numerous kinds of car audio brands that have come about in business in the car accessory market. Although there are several brands that are great and completely worth the price, there are also those which have acquired quite a brand name and sell at quite a cost yet the performance and the quality that these brands give you might not be quite as good as some others. Step inside to read car audio reviews, view celebrity cars and setups, event coverage, and much more. However, how are you to know the difference between the many kinds of car audio systems that are available?
The best and the surest way to gain some kind of insight into the market are by reading up reviews on car audio systems that are available online. Actually, there are endless numbers of reviews on electronic goods that are available online. The websites that give such reviews are actually companies that practically test each and every electronic product that they have written about. Hence, you can expect to find practical and unbiased reviews on the reliable review sites online so that you will get a clear picture of what the car audio industry is really like.
These car audio system reviews do not come along, by going through these varied reviews you will also gain detailed information on exactly what features are characteristic of the particular car audio system and what kinds of requirements are entailed along with such a purchase. So once you have read up reviews on these brands you will be able to decide which brand has the features that will best suit your interests and which are the brands that you personally should avoid. There are also some review sites that are run with the help of reviews that are provided by actual customers, in these kinds of places you will get a good blend of the good points and the bad points and thus a clear picture.
You can also look for those sites that provide ratings and a top ten list or the likes for car audio systems. These reviews and ranking lists are either made by the companies that test several many car audio systems and then build the list or they may also be reviewed by the customers themselves who then rank these and thus a top ten list can be formed. These reviews are actually concise and precise and you will find a exact list of the top ten best car audio systems that are available in the market with all the reasons also given alongside for the reason that it acquired a certain ranking.
There are thus several kinds of review sites available for your view on the internet. However, you must at least go through a few before you go shopping for your car audio system. This will help you stay informed about the flaws and the good points and from an unbiased perspective before you go shopping so that you can make an informed purchase.