This Saturday, December 13th the Wags for Warriors of Virginia truck will be at Beach Auto Brokers all day!! Our goal is to fill the truck with dog food and toys for their rescue dogs. Wags For Warriors is a 501-C3 No-Kill Animal Shelter; and they also train Rescue Dogs for Wounded Warriors and PTSD Victims!! Come out and help us support this great cause!!! For more information, go to http://wagsforwarriors.org/
Well, the answer could depend on how long you’ve owned it.
The longer you keep your car, the less likely you are to replace it with another model from the same brand.
There may be plenty of brand-and-model exceptions, but that’s what a new analysis from Experian Automotive finds across the vehicle market—and it definitely upends some inferences about the two, as they’re often used in advertising and marketing.
Experian found that, on average, only 33.8% of those who owned a vehicle for 12 years would choose another vehicle from the same brand family; whereas for those who only owned a vehicle for one year, the loyalty rate was nearly 25% higher—57.3%. Loyalty keeps up near 60% through three years of ownership, then it skews quite sharply downward.
Both Dodge and Buick owners held on to their vehicles the longest (113 months, or about nine and a half years). But Dodge had a very low loyalty rate of 22.6%, while Buick did better, at 38.4%.
And apparently, with more time you’re not exposed to the latest and greatest from the brand you currently have, comes a greater the chance you’ll set eyes on something with a different badge.
“Over the course of seven years of ownership, a lot of things change, including vehicle product offerings, vehicle budget and credit score,” said Experian’s director of automotive market statistics, Brad Smith. “Additionally, the increase in time between dealer interactions, whether they are for sales or service, increases the probability of a customer defecting to the competition.”
Ford and Subaru were among the top brands for loyalty, at 61% and 59.4%, respectively. Among those, Subaru stood out as having a markedly lower, 85-month length of ownership.
Among luxury brands, Acura and
Volvo were the brands with the longest length of ownership.
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you. And while you’re here, we’ll take a look at your current vehicle and tell you what its worth – on the retail market and the trade-in value.
When we were all kids, The Jetson’s promised that one day “in the future” we’d all be driving around in the sky in flying cars that looked like spaceships. It seems as though that one day is still a very long time away.
Today, we look out our windows and see congestion, and have to wonder if it will ever get better? New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management researchers put on their thinking caps, talked to some of the best minds in the transportation field, and envisioned what our highways and byways might look like in 2030, a mere decade and a half from now. The result is called Re-Programming Mobility: The Digital Transformation of Transportation in the United States. You can download the full study here: http://reprogrammingmobility.org/
Researchers looked at four areas of the U.S. where traffic is particularly heavy: Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and the state of New Jersey. They then crafted possible scenarios for each area, based on terrain, population density, infrastructure, and even climate. Ultimately, any of the four scenarios could play out in any of the four study areas. They represent extreme cases and show what hell — or heaven — we could be heading for. Who knows if any or all those scenarios will play out exactly as envisioned. Still, the study makes for good reading. As the authors say in the introduction:
“We present these scenarios as a provocation to transportation policymakers, managers, and planners with the goal of stimulating a national debate about the potential impacts of these new technologies and services, and how government can accommodate their vast potential to improve transportation and anticipate and mitigate their unintended consequences.”
THE SCENARIOS
Atlanta: Georgia’s capital city could be a bright spot in America’s transportation landscape by 2030. That’s due a number of factors including topography, its location, and its close ties to Google. That creates a perfect storm for Google’s autonomous cars, which can use city infrastructure and apps like Waze to help travelers navigate around traffic snarls. Researchers envision the creation of special transit lanes for autonomous vehicles, which, in turn, boosts adoption of the vehicles, easing traffic along the way.
Boston: Unlike Atlanta, Boston is on the coast. It’s also an old city, with a well-defined downtown. In the Rudin Center’s scenario, downtown Boston becomes a magnet for young people who want to live in a compact, walkable city. Like Times Square in New York, much of the city is converted to pedestrian thoroughfares and bike lanes. And in an interesting twist, deliveries are made at night, while residents sleep, keeping carriers off city streets at the busiest hours of the day.
Los Angeles: Los Angeles has a reputation for hellish commutes, and in the Rudin Center’s scenario, things only get worse. Like Atlanta, Los Angeles becomes a hotspot for autonomous cars. Unlike Atlanta, however, those cars come from a range of automakers, all of which use competing communications standards, which prevents them from “talking” to one another. That – combined with the fact that many older drivers want to continue driving themselves around instead of relying on a computer – leads to complete chaos. And probably a lot of road rage.
New Jersey: The Rudin Center study gives the Garden State the “mixed bag” treatment. On the one hand, New Jersey is imagined as a place wracked by intense storms over the next few years, which destroy much of the state’s roadway infrastructure. On the other hand, that adversity forces New Jersey to reevaluate its transportation policy, and in doing so, the state chooses to invest heavily in mass transit – namely, trains and autonomous buses. This catches on quickly with New Jersey’s younger residents, who prefer not to own vehicles.
So although we won’t be flying around in the sky, we will all still need vehicles in 2030, and Beach Auto Brokers is here it help you!!!
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
The Apple vs Android battle has been going on for a few years now… and the battle may be turning into a war – as Google unleashes its plans for dashboard domination. Before the end of the year, we will see the Android infotainment system in Audi, General Motors, Honda, and Hyundai vehicles. The official name for this new system – Android Auto.
Of course there is a catch, you have to have an Android smartphone for the system to work. Well, this is great news for Android users, but not so great for iPhone users – who will have to wait for CarPlay.
So, how does this system work?
Android Auto users will plug a phone into the dashboard, then pair the device with Android Auto via Bluetooth. Once that’s done, the car’s center tack essentially becomes a second screen for the phone. If you have an Android device, or even if you use Google Chrome as your web browser, you’ll find some familiar offerings among Android Auto’s feature set.
Google Maps will be used for navigation.
You will have a Concierge that you can ask about operating hours for restaurants and other key information.
You’ll be able to browse through and play all of your music.
Android Auto will tell you when you receive a text message, and even read it aloud to you.
And if you use other Google services – calendar, email, hangouts – Android Auto will integrate those into your vehicle for you as well.
Regardless of what technology you get in your next vehicle, Beach Auto Brokers is here it help you! Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
Distracted driving is a hot topic these days. The focus is predominantly on texting while driving, but there are a number of things that can be distracting while you’re behind the wheel – including backseat drivers! There is a distracted driving prevention program called Decide to Drive that now helps you try to prevent distracted driving. They’ve come up with a wreck less checklist that can be anonymously emailed to those distracted drivers. It covers almost every distraction we could think of, and what better place to share it than here!
Decide to Drive is sponsored by American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and provides plenty of resources that attempt to encourage safe driving. For more information, visit www.decidetodrive.org.
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
For starters, there’s the fear that comes with being pulled over, even if you’re the goodiest goody-two-shoes out there. Then, there’s the 15 or 20 minutes that’s taken from your busy life while the officer checks your paperwork and writes the ticket. And if you’re lucky enough to get nabbed near home, there’s also the embarrassment of your bust being seen by friends and neighbors. And let’s not forget the fine, which can be well into the three-figures, depending on why you were stopped.
Most people they pay the fine and think that’s it… not exactly. There may be another price to pay. The bigger question is “how will a moving violation affect your insurance rates?” And the answer, unfortunately, is “that depends”.
Not surprisingly, the most damaging offense would be a DUI, causing insurance rates to increase an average of 93%. That is not too unexpected though because those violations suggest a pattern of behavior that reflects poorly on the driver. Insurance companies base their rates on experience, so violations that cause premiums to jump the most are those that are strong indicators that the driver is likely to have an accident in the future. Most other violations have a lower, but still substantial and impactful, rate increase. Here’s a list of possible traffic violations, and the average premium increases they bring:
*Data from a recent study by InsuranceQuotes.com to determine how citations can affect premiums.
Next time you get behind the wheel, think about your actions and how they will impact you. And remember to drive safe!
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. Stop by today – our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
There are 2 big milestone birthdays being celebrated this year. The Ford Mustang and the Plymouth Barracuda are both entering The Golden Era!!! While the Ford Mustang galloped into American culture almost 50 years ago and today seems as though it is just getting warmed up, let us not forget that it wasn’t the first sporty American car based on a compact car platform aimed at younger buyers. Instead, Chrysler beat Ford to the punch by a couple of weeks, so let’s take a moment to celebrate the Plymouth Barracuda’s 50th birthday.
Unleashed on April 1, 1964; Plymouth’s new Valiant Barracuda package was unlike anything else on the market at the time. Buyers would be able to choose between manual and automatic transmissions, and a generous selection of options allowed buyers to configure their new sporty Plymouth to suit individual tastes. The car’s most distinctive feature, however, was likely its large glass rear window, which flowed into a rear deck lid raised to meet the bottom of the glass. The Barracuda evolved and changed over the years until its final year on the market – 1974, when just 11,734 units were sold. Sadly, this was hardly a fitting send-off for the car that helped establish the pony car segment.
There has been talk in recent years of a Barracuda revival (illustration shown above), with rumors of a performance model slotted in below the Challenger in Chrysler’s lineup. With no Plymouth division remaining, this would seem oddly out of place, and with the government’s renewed focus on fuel economy over performance, such a revival seems unlikely. However, on the occasion of the car’s 50th birthday we can imagine what the Plymouth Barracuda would be today; or perhaps its best to remember it as it was, then, and not as it could have been.
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. Stop by today – our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
“Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” – and yes, there is a gender preference for vehicles.
The catch is that we’re not looking at what women and men prefer in their own vehicle, but actually what they look for in the opposite sex!!
That’s right! I survey completed by Insure.com has determined that women prefer a man to drive a black pick-up truck. And not just any truck… an F-150. They also concluded that men prefer a woman to drive a red BMW. How specific and particular we all seem to be when it comes to the car we want to see someone of the opposite sex driving.
There are a lot of questions that we get when people are looking for a vehicle – What is the fuel economy like? What are the safety features? Does it have the latest technology? But we never expected to hear “will it be attractive to potential mates?”
Regardless of what your questions are about your next vehicle, Beach Auto Brokers is here it help you!!!
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
Can I really buy a car today without the full down payment using my W2?
At Beach Auto Brokers, the answer is YES!
Bring your W2’s to us and we will assist with preparing your taxes and getting you a refund TODAY. Use all or part of your refund for a down payment and DRIVE HOME TODAY.
For more details call us at 1-757-480-6500.
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
