Tell It To Al

A lot of Americans are driving around in cars they can’t really afford.

In fact, median-income households in 25 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas can only afford the price of one new car, not two, – and that would be at the average price of $30,550-  according to research released today by Interest.com, a Bankrate company.

“Americans are spending too much money on their cars,” said Mike Sante, managing editor of Interest.com.

The website deems a vehicle affordable if it fits within the “20/4/10” rule. That means a 20% a down payment; financing for no more than four years; and principal, interest and insurance not exceeding 10% of a household’s gross income.

If you live in Washington D.C. or San Francisco you will likely have no trouble affording a Beemer. In Tampa, Fla., however, you are probably looking at a low-end Chevy.

There’s never been any question about it: People strain their finances to buy cars, and automakers depend on low-interest rate financing to sell them.

Here’s a the maximum monthly payment that median-income households can afford to pay for a car in select  cities, according to the website:

Washington, D.C., $628; San Francisco, $537; Boston, $507; Baltimore, $468; Minneapolis, $470; Seattle, $466; Denver, $432; San Diego, $433; New York City, $431; Philadelphia, $419; Chicago, $417; Los Angeles, $410; Sacramento, $397; Portland, Ore., $397; Dallas, $389; Houston, $386; Milwaukee, $373; Atlanta, $376; St. Louis, $371; Pittsburgh, $340; Phoenix, $348; San Antonio, $334; Detroit, $332; Miami, $295; Tampa, $282.

Click here to read more from Interest.com

A lot of things seem to have gone unnoticed in the story of Heather Peters, who made national headlines for beating Honda in small-claims court.

She’s not only a lawyer, but a former member of the Arnold Schwarzenegger administration, who knows how to deal with big companies and big issues. Honda stepped into a public relations nightmare when it decided not to settle with her over the issues with her car.

Honda is now trying to appeal an embarrassing judgment that Peters won in small claims court, claiming her 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid did not get the 50 mpg Honda advertised. She says it gets more like 30 mpg.

The car maker is taking the case to an appellate court where it can deploy its corporate lawyers. One reason Peters thrashed Honda so soundly was because lawyers aren’t allowed to represent others in small claims court. Honda was totally outgunned.

After chatting with Peters for quite some time, I found her to be a woman who can back up every claim she makes. She’s got documents for just about everything she says and pulls them out quickly.

She’s not going to  be beaten easily in court, even by a whole team of far more powerful lawyers. And even if she does lose, what has she lost? A $9,867 judgment that Honda hasn’t paid her yet, anyway?

This is going to  be like watching a bunch of big corporate thugs beat up on a woman who they should be treating as a customer. If they win, they will only look like bullies. But if they lose, they will really look like wimps.

Who’d want that job? Sure makes me glad I never went to law school.

Click here to read my column on Marketwatch.com.

General Motors’ post-apocalypse Super Bowl commercial, with the survivors of the Mayan Calendar prophecy all driving Chevy Silverado trucks, was a big hit with just about everyone but Ford Motor Co.

Ford didn’t think it was funny. It takes issue with the claim that Chevy makes “the longest lasting, most dependable truck on the road.”

If you think about it, the last time the apocalypse came, GM went bankrupt and needed a government bailout, while Ford survived, mostly on its own. (I say, mostly, because it did benefit indirectly from the auto bailouts, as well as from Cash for Clunkers, but Ford did not need a bankruptcy restructuring or a direct bailout.) GM has already proven it can’t survive an apocalypse.

Click here to read more about Ford’s beef with the GM commercial.

But I am glad one of America’s biggest corporations think its funny that the world as we know it is predicted to end on Dec. 21, 2012. Why didn’t advertisers think of doing this during the height of the Cold War? You’ve been blown to pieces, the roads are all buried, but at least you’ve got a Chevy. Or hey, why not show fake videos of Chevys scrambling out of the debris clouds of 9/11?

I am counting down the days in my Toyota Prius. When the apocalypse comes, we might not be driving anything. Meantime, advertisers can use end-of-the-world scenarios to sell products.

Click here to see me talk about Super Bowl advertising with Matt Flener of Denver’s NBC affiliate, 9News.

That’s the top price for a spot at the Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

Meet Aashish Dalal, the man who will sell it to you.

Over the past few years, Dalal has quietly cornered the market on parking spaces at major events.

Click here to read my column on Dalal on MarketWatch.

Who needs lawyers when you’ve got small claims court?

Love this story from the Associated Press about a woman taking Honda to court because her Hybrid Civic isn’t delivering the 50-miles per gallon it promised. Click here to read it.

Heather Peters, and ex-lawyer, has the class-action lawyers pegged. Whatever disputes people have with large corporations, the lawyers get all the money once they’re resolved.

Peters also shores up what everyone should know before buying a hybrid: they don’t really get 50 MPG. They can, under certain conditions, like when you’re rolling down a mountain with your foot on the brake instead of the gas.

I’m getting somewhere between 40 and 44 MPG in my Prius, but it was billed as 50 MPG and the guy who sold it to me said some people get 75 MPG. The other thing they don’t tell you is that as the battery ages, MPG declines. Oh, well. I’m still happy with over 40 MPG, but when it dips down to 30, I might as well buy a V6 Camaro.

Should automakers be forced to build cars that deliver 60 miles per gallon?

Automakers have always fought fuel efficiency and emissions standards. But with gasoline around $4, nobody seems to objecting.

Click here to read column.

Jay Santangelo did what a lot of consumers do these days: He went online to write about a bad customer experience he had with an RV rental company.

The rental company, 3C’s RV Rental, also doing business as RV Rental of Denver, fired back with a cease and desist letter. The letter demands Santangelo remove the posts and replace them with apologies, or the company will sue him for defamation.

There is this thing in our Constitution called the First Amendment. But lawyers tell me most people in Santangelo’s position often find it easier to just remove the posts than fight. Even a meritless lawsuit is expensive to fend off. But Santangelo isn’t backing down.

Click here to read why in my column on the Runaway Vacation.

Threatened with a pay cut of more than 30%, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra took a cue from auto workers and headed for the picket lines – but in their tuxedos.

Hard to imagine a tuxedoed French horn player making six figures garnering much sympathy in the cluster of abandoned and decaying buildings once proudly known as the Motor City.

“If we were to continue to work under their contract, we would see a very bad talent drain,” said McKay, a 27-year orchestra veteran told the Associated Press. “Some of our top players are already getting phone calls from all around the country.”

What? And leave Detroit?

There comes a time in the economic cycle when certain endeavors just don’t pay like they used to. Symphony benefactors are no so easy to find these days.

Click here to read more from the Associated Press.

You don’t have a job, you don’t have a house, you don’t have a 401k, you don’t have health insurance, you don’t even have a car. But look at the bright side, you still have your life.

Fewer than 15,000 people died in traffic fatalities in the first half of 2010, down 9.2% from the first half of last year, according to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration. Click here to read the report from NHTSA.

Chalk it up to safer cars, increased safety belt use and all that pressure they’ve put on those drunks to stop driving. But our declining economy is a factor in declining fatalities as well.

Traffic fatalities reached a near-term peak in 2005, when the economy was smoking hot, and everybody was driving to work or motoring around, looking for houses to flip. Fatalities have been on the decline ever since.

If fewer than 30,000 people die in car crashed this year, it will be a record low.

Imagine the headlines on any other consumer product or activity that led to 30,000 deaths on a good year. Maybe Wall Street bankers have our best interests at heart, after all.

Save a life, kill the economy.

Why buy GM stock?

I don’t know. Maybe patriotism.  Or maybe you didn’t lose enough money the last time it was a public company.

Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal. I also talk about it with Eric Kahnert, anchor on Denver’s NBC affliliate 9News: