Why No Posting

Sorry for the long delay in posting to my blog.

Several things have happened.

First Honda's legal department has notified me that I was in trademark violation by using www.accordmania.com as my web site name. They also did not like the picture of a Honda Accord on the home page.

While I don't agree with them about a possible trademark violation, I'm a little guy and I can't afford to go to court to resolve the issue.

So I basically parked the web site and began work on a couple of others.

I now have wwww.autogrillcraft.com which sells Grillcraft grills, and bull bars among other things.

I am working on www.v2powerintakes.com which will sell only AEM performance parts. This includes their complete line of air intakes and related products along with all of their electronic performance gear.

Speaking of performance parts, I've just started, but not yet loaded any products, for a company named Nology. They make parts that also are performance oriented, such as special spark plugs, spark plug wires and different devices to tune you car to the max.

Lastly, I started a new blog. It's at www.v2powerintakes.blogspot.com.

Please drop by and make a comment or two.

Thanks for visiting.

Dennis

No Sales Tax

Sorry for the lack of blogs in the past few months. My wife and I have been very busy in getting our house in San Diego ready for sale/showing it/ and at last selling same.

Then we moved up to Coos Bay, Oregon and lived in a motel for a few days and then moved into a rental house. Living out of boxes.

Spent just a little time looking around and found a home to purchase. Today escrow closed and we will be moving in next week.

One important fact is that I will no longer be charging sales tax to California residents on purchases. Why? Simple, Oregon does not have a sales tax. I have lost some business to my competition because they could sell the same product at 9% cheaper than I could to California residents. Now we are even.

More details later.

J. D. Power and Associates Automotive Ratings

In today's business section of the San Diego Union-Tribune was the J.D. Power and Associates rating of long-term dependability. Their results are based on a survey of 52,000 owners of 2007 model year vehicles.

So of course my first impression is ok, but what about newer cars? I guess I will have to wait until 2013 to find out the ratings for the 2010 models. Not picking on the survey, just a thought that came to mind.

Anyway, what were the results?

Overall the problems per 100 dropped from 167 last year to 155 for these. That's a great step in the right direction. For individual brands and models here are some of findings:

From 9th last year Porsche came in as number one.

Toyota fell two spots from its former third place finish. This of course is before all of the current problems. Looks like something is happening at this company for the past few years. American cars have been moving up while Buick and Jaguar fell along with the Toyota.

So how did our favorite brand Honda do? Well not as good as would have liked to see, but they were first in three different categories.

Honda's Fit was number one in Subcompacts, the Honda CR-V in Compact SUV's and the Ridgeline in Mid-Size pickups. The Accord did not win this time around.

The good news for me of course was the showing of the Honda Fit. I'm still in the process of trying to purchase one when I move to Oregon. More info on the next blog.

Thanks for visiting.

www.autogrillcraft.com


SW, BG and MX Grillcraft Grills for your Car, Truck or SUV

Best Commercial of the Decade

Ran across this a short time ago. It is a commercial from Honda that according to Adweek is the best (non Superbowl commercial of the decade.

Take a look and let me know what you think. I thought it was interesting, but not great.

http://www.win7news.net/100107-Commercial

Thanks for visiting,

www.autogrillcraft.com


SW, BG and MX Grillcraft Grills for your Car, Truck or SUV

Honda - Made in America

I'm always not sure where cars are made or from which countries most of the parts come from even if a particular brand or model is "made" in a particular country.

I just got a Google Alert that says that 84% of Honda and Acura cars sold in the United States were produced in North America. That's an impressive statistic. But what does it really mean?

There was an asterisk by the word "produced". I'm still looking for the explanation of this little symbol.

Can you find it:

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/press-release/hmc_honda-builds-record-84-of-2009-u-s-auto-sales-in-north-america-690401.html


Anyway the article goes on to say that Honda has 7 plants in North America. Four in the USA, 2 in Canada, and one in Mexico. These plants produce 15 different models of Honda, including the Civic sedan, coupe and GX, Accord sedan, coupe and Crosstour, Odyssy, Piolt, Ridgeline, CR-V and Element, as well as the Acura, TL ZDX, RDX ad MDX models.

I knew about some of these, but the entire list surprised me. Most of these cars get outstanding quality ratings, so it appears the USA, Canada and Mexico can build quality automobiles. Now why do American brands struggle so hard to be quality?

Can't be the location, or the base workers. Must be something else. Management perhaps? Labor Unions? Stockholders? Take your pick.

Thanks for visiting.

www.autogrillcraft.com


SW, BG and MX Grillcraft Grills for your Car, Truck or SUV

Honda Accord Drops a Spot

The Accord has been one of the best selling cars in America. It usually wins in its class of typically a family sedan.

However, when you compare total sales rather than in a particular category in 2008 the Accord placed fourth. Not too bad.

What happened this past year? Well it looks like the Accord dropped a spot. Kind of surprising to me, as I thought it was doing well (that is in a recession as compared to other cars).

You can read the article here:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/01/what-were-the-top-10-best-selling-vehicles-of-2009/1



Here is the entire list:

-----------------2009------------ ---------2008
1.----------Ford F-Series-------- ---Ford F-Series
2.----------Toyota Camry------- ---Chevrolet Silverado
3.----------Chevrolet Silverado- ---Toyota Camry
4.----------Toyota Corolla----- -----Honda Accord
5.----------Honda Accord---- ------Toyota Corolla
6.----------Honda Civic------ -------Honda Civic
7.----------Nissan Altima---- -------Nissan Altima
8.----------Honda CR-V------- ------Chevrolet Impala
9.----------Ford Fusion------ -------Dodge Ram
10.---------Dodge Ram------ --------Ford Focus

Thanks for visiting.


www.autogrillcraft.com

SW, BG and MX Grillcraft Grills for your Car, Truck or SUV