Joe Hood and partner Cheryl Luttman, who co-own Joseph Auto Sales in Genoa Township, look over a 2005 Mazda Tribute . The dealership focuses on providing safe, reliable and affordable vehicles to parents of new drivers seeking a good-looking and fun-to-drive car.(Photo: GILLIS BENEDICT/DAILY PRESS & ARGUS)

The Howell area is ground zero for a concept that Joe Hood simply calls “cars for kids.”

Hood and his longtime partner, Cheryl Luttman, recently opened Joseph Auto Sales at 2860 E. Grand River Ave. in Genoa Township with an eye toward selling quality, affordable vehicles to families with teenagers or college students.

They have trademarked “cars4kids” and have a website at http://www.cars4kids.biz.

“A kid turns 16, 17 years old and needs his first car. Mom and dad don’t want him driving a $45,000 sedan or truck, so they are going to go out and find a car for $2,000 or $5,000,” Hood said.

“We are trying not to go over $10,000” for any vehicle on the lot, Luttman added.

Joseph Auto Sales will sell vehicles to drivers of all ages, but Hood and Luttman were looking for something that would set the dealership apart.

“We started playing with ideas for niches — sports cars, trucks only, this, that. We finally hit it: cars for kids,” Hood said.

He said the concept is the result of several years of research and talking to many parents and teens.

“We did our homework,” Hood said. “Moms and dads wanted three things: a car that was safe, dependable and affordable. The kids wanted cool-looking cars — they don’t want to pull up at a friend’s house and have someone poke fun at them — and they wanted a good stereo.

"The $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 and $5,000 cars are the numbers that always came out of the mouths of the parents,” he added. “They have a budget, and they are trying to get the biggest bang for their buck.”

The Genoa Township location is the first of what Hood and Luttman hope will develop into a group of dealerships that will become known as Uncle Joe’s Used Cars.

“This is the beginning of something that’s probably going to be pretty huge,” Hood said.

The couple and their financial backers hope to soon have a second location in Fenton, and they are interested in expanding into the college towns of Ann Arbor and East Lansing.

The idea, Hood said, is to someday have as many as 25 Uncle Joe’s locations in Michigan and even more across the country.

Those are big plans, but Hood and Luttman have done big things in the industry before.

The couple have more than three decades of experience in automobile sales. Their former Joseph Auto Group once included Joseph Pontiac in Fenton and other dealerships in Grand Blanc, Owosso and Millington before the General Motors Co. bankruptcy filing in 2009 led to the dissolving of the Pontiac division and the closures of their dealerships.

“Life was wonderful, then we lost everything,” Hood said.

Not wanting to deal with what Hood called the “politics” of new-car dealerships, the couple decided get back in the automobile sales game by concentrating on selling only used cars.

After numerous visits to the Howell area, they decided it was the ideal spot to launch their new venture.

“It has access to freeways, access to colleges, it’s close to metro Detroit,” Hood said.

Hood said he buys most of the vehicles on his lot from private owners, placing value on the car’s engine condition, appearance, color and popularity. Fords, Chevys and other domestic models can be found alongside imports such as Hondas, Hyundais and Kias.

Each car is certified by a master mechanic and comes with a 12-month, 12,000-mile warranty.

“To do that, you have to have a high-quality car. You have to know how to safety inspect. You have to look for all the hidden stuff inside that engine,” Hood said. “We know what’s out there. We know that there are issues with certain cars.”

A used car’s mileage has little to do with its quality, he said.

“Mileage doesn’t mean the car is going to be dependable. I can destroy a car in 30,000 miles by not taking care of it. And I can get you a car with 165,000 miles on it that has been garage-kept and it’s just in wonderful shape because it’s been well-maintained,” he said.

Helping to put young drivers behind the wheel of their first vehicle and watching as teens learn about the car-buying process is very rewarding, Luttman said.

“The parents are there signing the paperwork, and the kids are all saying, ‘Give me the keys,’ ” she said. “They see that they have to go through a process. It kind of enlightens them a little bit.”

Hood said the research that went into the “cars4kids” concept shows that his customer base will remain strong.

“I found out there were 3.5 million kids in this country who were going to turn 16 in 2014 … and 3.8 million started kindergarten this year,” he said. “Think about that; I get a new crop of people, customers, every year.”

Contact Daily Press & Argus business editor Mike Lammi at 517-552-2854 or at [email protected].

Joseph Auto Sales

Address: 2860 E. Grand River Ave. in Genoa Township

Phone: 517-376-6305

Source http://www.livingstondaily.com/story/news/local/community/genoa-township/2014/11/11/dealer-steers-parents-kids-used-cars/18826511/

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that’s actually important — all in one place every weekday morning. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn’t your time more important? 1st Gear: That Must Have Been One Helluva A Prenup While Ferrari “separating” from Fiat is a slightly silly notion given that it’s basically being sold to the same people who already own it, the cash implications for Fiat — who needs the cash — are not silly. As Bloomberg ’s Tommaso Ebhardt reports, FCA’s own filing estimates that they’d transfer about $2.8 billion in cash to themselves before selling the company. The 10% being sold on the market will hopefully go to make up some of that and give Ferrari money to invest in itself, since their R&D budget is now FCA’s R&D budget. 2nd Gear: Honda Reports 5th Takata-Related Death The death toll from the Takata airbag crisis has no reached five, with the first fatality outside of the U.S. reported. Per Reuters : In the Malaysia accident on July 27, involving a 2003 Honda City model, the air bag inflator ruptured and sent shrapnel into the vehicle, some of which struck the female driver, Honda said. Honda did not give the driver’s name or age. Honda learned of the incident on Aug. 27 and notified Japan’s transport ministry on Sept. 10. Another hot humid climate. 3rd Gear: Takata Refutes NYT Story Very Unconvincingly From everything I’ve seen, the NYT ’s Hiroko Tabuchi is a straight-up reporter and, while her damning report on Takata does fall on anonymous sources, Takata has done nothing to convince me that the report they secretly tasted their airbags and destroyed the evidence isn’t true. From her follow up:: The statement says that Takata’s engineers in the United States did not learn of the first episode involving an airbag with the defect — which can cause an airbag inflater to rupture when it deploys in an accident, sending metal fragments into the car’s cabin — until “the middle of 2005.” The event involved the crash of a Honda Accord in Alabama in May 2004, injuring the car’s driver. That’s all well and good, but… When asked in August about the Alabama accident, Honda said in a statement that it had “immediately shared all available information with the airbag supplier and reported the incident” to safety regulators “in the second quarter of 2004.” You’re going to have to do better than that Takata. 4th Gear: AutoNation Will Let You Buy Cars Online… Sort Of While many car dealers are on the wrong side of awful, I’ll credit AutoNation and their CEO with trying to be forward thinking on a range of issues — including Tesla. Per Automotive News : “We see a frustrated consumer that currently has an online experience and an in-store experience that are very much disconnected,” said AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson. “We see that as an opportunity.” Exactly. So what AutoNation is offering is the ability to find a car online, reserve the price, put a hold on it with a credit card, and go in and pick up the car. 5th Gear: Automakers Care About Your Privacy, Maybe The big automaker groups got together this week to say that they’re “pledging” to protect the massive amounts of data that they’re suddenly intaking with their new cars. From David Shepardson: Automakers said in the 19-page submission that they are committing to protect driver location and driver behavior data. It comes as concern grows that vehicle services collect significant data at times that could be tapped by marketers, government officials or others. The car companies are committing to be transparent with drivers about what data is collected and requiring that drivers opt in to programs that include data collection. They also pledged to minimize data, to hide the identity of drivers and to only collect data for “legitimate business purposes” and only with driver consent. They pledge to follow the principles for all vehicles and programs no later than the 2017 model year. They also pledge to work with vendors to ensure they respect privacy. Here’s hoping. Reverse: Strange On this day in 1974, 28-year-old Karen Silkwood is killed in a car accident near Crescent, Oklahoma, north of Oklahoma City. Silkwood worked as a technician at a plutonium plant operated by the Kerr-McGee Corporation, and she had been critical of the plant’s health and safety procedures. In September, she had complained to the Atomic Energy Commission about unsafe conditions at the plant (a week before her death, plant monitors had found that she was contaminated with radioactivity herself), and the night she died, she was on her way to a meeting with a union representative and a reporter for The New York Times, reportedly with a folder full of documents that proved that Kerr-McGee was acting negligently when it came to worker safety at the plant. However, no such folder was found in the wreckage of her car, lending credence to the theory that someone had forced her off the road to prevent her from telling what she knew.

The Fiat 500X is not even on sale yet, but Mopar already has a number of accessories lined up for the four-door softroader when it arrives in dealerships -- more than 100 different parts. That's a lot even for a truck, but the company is taking the expansion of the Fiat range seriously, and will offer a wide range of optional equipment for the bulked up Fiat crossover, which debuted just a few weeks ago. The menu for buyers of the 500X will be orgnized into groups with names like "Chrome Pack," which includes door molding inserts, chrome-plated mirror covers, fog light surrounds, special floor mats and hood molding pieces. The Chrome Pack also includes 18-inch alloy wheels with a unique pattern and a special light-coloured diamond-finish treatment. 
 
 
 
 Fiat 500X revealed at Paris motor show Fiat unveiled the surprisingly stylish 500X at the Paris motor show on Thursday. The biggest little Fiat is a close cousin of the upcoming Jeep Renegade cute 'ute and offers a range of engines and ... 
 
 Fiat will offer a few packages coordinated by color, in addition to chrome accents suitable for all models. Photo by Chrysler 
 Also on the menu will be mirror covers in nine different colors, in addition to door molding inserts and hood and roof stickers, displayed in the White Pack show car that's finished in Amore Red exterior color. Fiat will offer a total of four color groups with individual color-coordinated accessories for each -- White, Red, Bronze, and Grey, in addition to chrome elements that can be purchased to go along with any of the exterior colors of the cars themselves. Cosmetic options aren't the only thing that Mopar will offer for the 500X: Buyers will also have the opportunity to puchase a wide variety of roof boxes and transportation systems for winter and water sports equipment, in addition to interior organizers such as guards and nets. The Fiat 500X is scheduled to go on sale during the first half of 2015, alongside the Jeep Renegade with which it shares a platform and mechanicals.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will take €2.25 billion ($2.8 billion) from Ferrari before it parts ways with its race-car unit next year. The money will flow from Ferrari and into Fiat Chrysler’s coffers by way of “distributions and transfers of cash,” Fiat Chrysler said Thursday in a 532-page filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Fiat Chrysler late last month announced plans to sell 10% of Ferrari in an initial public offering and to distribute to existing shareholders the other 80% of the company it owns. The rest is held by the son of founder Enzo Ferrari. At the time of the sale announcement, Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said Ferrari would pay a dividend before the spinoff, but no mention was made of the amount. Mr. Marchionne, who is also chairman of Ferrari, plans to transfer an unspecified amount of debt to Ferrari. The Ferrari sale and spinoff is part of a plan to raise funds to help finance €48 billion in investments to develop more than two dozen new models over five years. Other extraordinary measures announced by Fiat Chrysler last month include a $2.5 billion convertible bond maturing in 2016 and the sale of some of its own shares, both of which are slated to take place before the end of the year. J.P. Morgan Chase, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and UBS are assisting Fiat Chrysler on the sale of its convertible bond and owns shares. Mr. Marchionne originally said the spinoff of Ferrari would be completed by the end of June, though this week he said it could take place in next year’s third quarter. When it announced the Ferrari IPO, Fiat Chrysler said the race-car manufacturer would be listed in both New York and Europe. In Thursday’s filing Fiat Chrysler repeated that it intended to list in New York, but called the listing on a European stock exchange a possibility.

Cars 

Published on November 7th, 2014 | by Zachary Shahan

November 7th, 2014 by Zachary Shahan 

EV Obsession.

With Nissan being the world leader in electric car sales, and its CEO amd Chairman (Carlos Ghosn) being bullish on electric car sales for years, we often put it and Tesla at the top when it comes to electric car leadership. However, new data show that BMW is perhaps now #2 behind Tesla.

Looking at the past three months (August, September, and October), when BMW was producing more of the BMW i3 thanks to good consumer demand in the US, the BMW i3 accounted for almost 5% (4.93%) of BMW’s US car sales (as well as 3.85% of all BMW US sales).

Electric cars on the whole account for less than 1% of US car sales. Nissan has this year seen 2.1% of its car sales coming from the Nissan LEAF. Ford has seen 0.9% of its car sales coming from plug-in models (the Ford Fusion Energi, Ford C-Max Energi, and Ford Focus Electric). And GM has seen 0.7% of its sales come from plug-in cars. Of course, 100% of Tesla sales come from 100% electric cars.

Clearly, aside from Tesla, BMW is a step above the others. Even if you include the first three months of BMW i3 sales in the US, when things were just getting rolling, and as you can see in the chart above, sales were much lower than in the last three months, the i3 accounted for 2.3% of BMW car sales, as Green Car Reports.

Interestingly, Tesla’s Chief Designer, Jerome Guillen, recently said in an interview that, aside from Tesla, he is probably most impressed in BMW’s electric vehicle program.

Here’s a look at more BMW numbers, from BMW via Green Car Congress: “In October, the i3 outsold the ½ Series (672 units); the Z4 (198 units); and the 6 Series (740 units). The ¾ Series is still dominant in US sales, with 13,621 units in October, followed by the 5 Series, with 4,914 units.”

Worldwide, BMW sold over 10,000 BMW i3 EVs in the first three quarters of 2014, as well as 341 BMW i8 PHEVs from June through September. Worldwide, the BMW i3 and BMW i8 only represent 0.8% of its car sales.

Source: EV Obsession.