Omni Automotive Advertising Blog

Thinking of buying a new car this weekend. The current Honda Finance specials are due to expire on July 7th. Honda vehicles like the 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid (45/40 mpg) is #1 when it comes to going green! Honda vehicles are The GREENEST and one of the most FUEL EFFICIENT CAR COMPANIES IN AMERICA. Take this holiday weekend and get down to your local Honda Dealer for great specials on Honda vehicles like:

• 2008 Element Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 0.9% APR for 36 months or 2.9% APR for 60 months
• 2008 Odyssey Featured Special Lease - $259.00 per month for 36 months. $2,499.00 total due at signing.
• 2008 S2000 Featured Special Lease - $349.00 per month for 36 months. $2,499.00 total due at signing.
• 2008 Accord Sedan 4-Cylinder LX Featured Special Lease - $219.00 per month for 36 months. $2,599.00 total due at signing.
• 2008 Civic Coupe Featured Special Lease - $199.00 per month for 36 months. $1,999.00 total due at signing.
• 2008 Civic Sedan Featured Special Lease - $199.00 per month for 36 months. $1,999.00 total due at signing.
• 2008 Accord Sedan Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 0.9% APR for 36 months or 2.9% APR for 60 months
• 2008 Civic Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 1.9% APR for 36 months or 2.9% APR for 60 months
• 2008 Element Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 0.9% APR for 36 months or 2.9% APR for 60 months
• 2008 Odyssey Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 0.9% APR for 24 - 36 months or 2.9% APR for 37 - 60 months
• 2008 Pilot Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 0.9% APR for 36 months or 2.9% APR for 60 months
• 2008 Ridgeline Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 0.9% APR for 36 months or 2.9% APR for 60 months
• 2008 S2000 Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 0.9% APR for 36 months or 2.9% APR for 60 months
• 2008/2009 All Honda Model Graduate Special AHFC A.P.R. Financing - 4.99% APR for 24-60 months or 5.49% APR for 61-72 months.

For more information, visit your local Honda Dealer:

Central Florida Honda Dealers - Orlando to Daytona FL
Gateway Honda Dealers - St Louis MO
Gulf Coast Honda Dealers - Tampa FL
Hampton Roads Honda Dealers - Richmond VA
North Georgia Honda Dealers - Atlanta G
Northern Ohio Honda Dealers - Cleveland OH
South Florida Honda Dealers - Miami to West Palm FL

Back when I was a kid the family car was a station wagon. Even then, with four kids and a dog, the wagon really wasn’t big enough or versatile enough. And who wanted to ask Dad for the keys to the station wagon for a Friday night date?

Well todays families have many more options when it comes to choosing their family cars. According to this article on Forbes.com, the family car is no longer a cookie-cutter copy.

“The family car is the multi-use vehicle for many families. Consumers are very demanding in what they want, and they aren’t willing to compromise.”

With that in mind the cars selected had to be versatile enough to accommodate adult and teenage drivers, come equipped with safety features, have plenty of storage space and easy accessibility.

The cars on the list include Volkswagen Rabbit, for smaller families, Saturn Outlook, Saab Sport Combi Wagon, Ford Edge, Ford Taurus, Nissan Altima, Toyota Rav4, Mitusbishi Endeavor, Toyota Sienna, and the BMW Mini Cooper.

In this Yahoo report, U.S. drivers should think in gallons per mile, the author turns around the convention that U.S. drivers think in miles per gallon. Doing so causes confusion when making a decision about trading in a gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient car. Instead, the author says we should think in gallons per mile using 100 miles as the standard. In this way it is easier to visualize the difference in a vehicles gas consumption.

For example, if you drive a large truck or suv that gets 15 mpg and drive 100 miles, you would use 5.5 gallons of gas (100 / 15 = 5.5). Whereas a car  that gets 23 mpg would use 4.3 gallons of gas.

Use this method when you decide to trade in your car and see if you’re making the right choice.

Have you seen this one yet. A Barak Obama almost look-alike hawking Kias! Even Jon Stewart caught this one on his daily show.

Automotive news reports that GM will begin a new ‘green’ campaign later this month. The new commercial, titled “Dear Oil” begins, “We’ve had this great relationship for many years. We think we will both be a lot happier and healthier if we see less of each other.”

This seems to be a bold move by the automaker. Consumers will be watching closely to see if the company stands by it’s word. Will the other manufacturers follow suit? What do you think?

News Flash - More women are in charge of car purchasing decisions! Yep. That’s right. Read it online somewhere. Maybe even heard it on the news. Also read that more women buy cars then men. Hmm? Isn’t the ratio of women to men higher?

When I was in college I took a statistics class. I believe I was taught that some surveys question as little as 100 people to draw statistical data. Doesn’t seem like enough if the end result will be applied to millions of people. And what about the questions and the people answering them. Ever heard of a survey being done for one group of people and then being applied to another group?

It comes as no surprise to me that more women are either buying cars or being the one in a marriage who makes the decsision. This is 2008 afterall, not 1958. Women have come a long way in the last 50 years. There are more women in the workforce and less stay at home mothers. And what about those women who have a job (or two or three), take care of the children and the house, run errands, take the kids to soccer practice or ballet or whatever. Seems obvious that these women are in the car a lot so why wouldn’t they be the one buying the car they need.

Yet there is still a problem with women buying cars. Or more specifically, a problem between women and car salesmen. Seems that women are intimidated by those slick, aggressive sales guys. In fact, one article stated that 77% of women plan to bring a man with them the next time they buy a vehicle. While another states that men prefer a women salesperson and women prefer male a salesperson.

As more women buy cars is it no surprise that dealerships should start to change their habits and try to attract more women buyers? In yesterdays tellinitlikeitis.com blog, the author gives some advice on how to sell a car to a women. Advice like, “Ask for and use my name”, “Use direct eye contact”, “Listen to me carefully”, and my favorite, don’t disrupt the conversation to answer your cell phone. That’s one a lot of people should follow if you ask me. But truthfully, aren’t these rules that any good salesperson, male or female, should know?

Maybe, and I’m just speculating here, but maybe it’s actually the salesmen who are intimidated by the women. We all know that todays buyers are more informed when they walk onto the sales floor. In fact, according to this Ask Angela article, women spend an average of forty-two hours researching a car, whereas men spend only eight hours. Seems to me that anyone who would spend that much time researching a car certainly knows what they’re looking for.

With the downturn of sales recently, doesn’t it make sense for salesmen to finally wake up and realize that women expect a different sales experience than the average male buyer? If not, well it’s time to wake up! If not, all of your female buyers will be rushing to smartwomenbuycars.com, where they won’t have to deal with any aggressive salesmen.

With the continuing downturn of car sales many dealerships are trying everything they can to bring in new customers and keep their sales up. Now ten local dealerships in New Jersey have united to try a new tactic to bring in customers.

According to the article, “Slowdown shifts car dealers’ tactics” on mycentraljersey.com, ten dealers located in the same area have decided to run a advertising campaign to promote a “Auto Dealer Row”. The campaign will include television, radio and print runs. A block party will run through the weekend with each dealership providing food and drinks for visiting customers.

“The ultimate goal is to let (customers) start thinking of this area when it’s time to buy a car…”

As dealerships across the nation struggle to keep their sales up this tactic goes beyond traditional marketing strategy. Dealers have reduced print advertising budgets while increasing on-line advertising. But the increasing costs of gas has added yet another obstacle in maintaining sales. With the closing of vehicle plants, combining dealerships and the closing of many more, dealers are willing to try something new. Even if it means collaborating with rival dealerships.

Do you think this plan will work? Is it something you would try?

With gas prices all over the country near or exceeding $4 per gallon, the big question on the minds of many is how can I save money on gas? I read that many companies are moving to 4-day work weeks, working 10 hour days instead of the previous standard of 8. Though this may be idyllic for some, others do not have this as an option. Working at home has its appeal, yet this too is not an option for everyone. The average person can only rely on driving less to save a buck. There is always the option of trading in for something more fuel efficient. Europe’s SmartCar is now for sale in the US, but it has me questioning, “How smart is this car?”

I started by comparing the SmartCar to something similar in size, the Mini Cooper. Though the automatic SmartCar does get 33 MPG city and 41 mpg highway versus a similarly equipped Mini which gets 22 mpg city and 30 mpg highway, the one thing that the Mini has over the SmartCar is a back seat. My mother-in-law has owned a Mini for two years, and I have ridden in the back seat. It’s surely not the largest back seat, but it isn’t as small and uncomfortable as one might think. And at least it exists. My husband and I drove 200+ miles to Orlando this weekend in his two-seater Honda 2000. The biggest problem was the finding room in his trunk to fit the gadgets and gizmos we purchased while on our trip. Had we been in my car, a Toyota Rav4, we not only would have had room in the backseat, but also in the “trunk”, and in the hidden trunk below. We thought that taking his car would save us on gas; however, I believe that those times when he revved his engine above 100 mph may have had some effect on this. So be it. My point is, you don’t miss the backseat until you don’t have it. And once you don’t have it, you miss it. A lot. How smart is it to trade in a car for one without a backseat?

I then wanted to compare the SmartCar to something else, but still similar in size. I found that the Honda Civic not only gets 40 mpg city and 45 mpg highway, beating the SmartCar on both counts, but the Civic has a beloved back seat! I’ve owned a Civic before. It drove well, and it was comfortable, though my Civic did not get the 40 mpg it now claims. Regardless, a Civic gets reasonably high gas mileage, it has a backseat, and it in general is more spacious. It has more cylinders, more horsepower, and it holds 3 more people than a SmartCar ever can.

I’m not implying that people should never buy a SmartCar. Small cars such as these are essential in Europe where parking spaces are invaluable and hard to come by. But I don’t live in Europe, and I don’t plan on moving there anytime soon. Until I do move to an area where it would be advantageous to drive a car which is only 106 inches long, I’ll stay in my current 181 inches. And my 19 mpg city and 26 mpg highway. And I may even sit in my backseat, just because I can.

Smart Car specs
Mini Cooper specs
Toyota Rav4 specs
Honda Civic specs

This article was contributed by A.J. Silberman

In May of 2004 I traded in a 2000 Toyota Celica for a Dodge Ram 1500. In hindsight I have to admit, it was probably not the best decision. in 2004 gas was selling for around $1.75 a gallon. The first time I filled up the tank on the truck it cost me almost $40. The Celica cost about $25 to fill up. I remember the feeling of dread as I watched the gas pump counting up that first time and thinking “Thank God gas is only $1.75!”

As the price of gas has continued to rise over the past four years I’ve often thought about that first fill up. Don’t get me wrong. I love my truck. I always wanted a big powerful truck and my Dodge Ram fit the bill. I also do a lot of home repair and woodworking projects which require me to haul large sheets of plywood, 2×4s, dirt, flowers and such. Try to fit a sheet of plywood in a Celica.

I could go on and on about why I need the truck. But every time I fill the tank I wonder If I really need the truck. Better yet, can I continue to afford the truck. Last week gas was $3.91. A full tank, 26 gallons, will now cost me over $101.66! OUCH! I don’t know about you but that puts a big dent in my wallet. Luckily for me I no longer make the daily commute to work. In 2004 I drove 34 mile to work, which took me over an hour in rush hour traffic. I was filling the truck every four days. If I had to do that today I would be spending at least $500 a month on gas.

When I read this Sun-Sentinel article about trading in for a fuel-efficient car, I once again found myself wondering about how much I really need that big truck. I use to lease my vehicles, but decided to buy this truck with the thought that I really didn’t need a new car every four years. I was going to keep this truck forever! So it made sense to buy, not lease. With only a year left to pay off the car, would it really be cost effective to trade it in for a more fuel-efficient vehicle? Lets do the math. One year of payments is roughly $5500. Right now, since I don’t commute and only use the truck when I have to, I only spend about $75 a month to put gas into the truck. That’s about $900 a year. Total so far, $6400. Add $700 for insurance and we’re up to $7100. The Sun-Sentinel article estimated a cost of about $9,000 for a new Toyota. Based on that I’m saving almost $2000 a year keeping the truck.

However, if I was commuting to work I would be spending an additional $4820 a year on gas. If that were the case, I would definitely need to think about trading in or, at least, getting another vehicle to get to work every day.

So for me, trading in the truck is probably not the best choice. Even if I wanted to trade in the truck, I doubt if I would get a decent trade-in amount. With the rising cost of oil, people just are beginning to move towards smaller cars resulting in less truck sales. GM just announced four truck and suv plant closures. And the Hummer brand may be discontinued. Imagine that!

I suspect that the cost of gas will continue to rise. And, while we might change our driving habits or trade-in for smaller fuel-efficient cars, Americans will continue to drive. We are a nation that depends on our vehicles to get us to work every day. For many people cars give us independence. The automakers are finally taking the steps to develop more hybrids. Alternative fuels are being developed. The future of the automobile is safe.

In the meantime my big honking yellow truck will sit in the driveway.

So you need some high end luggage to go with that luxury model car? Samsonite now has a line of luggage designed to look and function as well as the cars their styled after. I found some pictures of the suitcases on AutoBlog.com. The line is called Spinners, and they are made of a strong, lighweight composite material known as CURV, In addition to the nifty parking brake, you can get your Spinner in a diamond plate finish.