Smart Car Shopping
So, you want to buy a new car. You know you are likely to own it for at least 7 years or longer. That’s pretty typical these days. So, you not only want to get the best deal today, you also want to make sure it remains a smart choice for many miles and years ahead. Our FYI reporter Lauren Morrison knows the ins and outs of smart car buying, and she’s up next to give us the lowdown.
LAUREN MORRISION: Today’s savvy car buyers know that spending quality time online, researching models, specs and prices...
... ”will save time and money here, on the dealership lot. Doing your homework ahead of time is key, and there are plenty of shopping tools available to help guide your decision.”
Stephen Dupal and his fiancee Sherryn Daniel are in the market for a small, economical commuter car to replace Stephen’s aging Corolla. Before heading to commercial web pages for option packages and pricing info, several federal government sites helped narrow their search in the areas of fuel economy, safety and alternative fuels, three of their key parameters.
The joint Department of Energy and EPA Fuel Economy website provides convenient, one stop shopping for everything most buyers will ever want to know about maximizing mpg in their next car.
Here, consumers can compare up to four different vehicles at a time, and their fuel economy ratings, energy and environment scores, basic engine and transmission size, driving range, and annual fuel costs, along with real-world fuel consumption data provided by actual owners. The web-site had over 25 million user sessions last year!
STEPHEN DUPAL: I like to have like those charts and plots and graphs to kind of compare things in a numerical basis so I know what I’m looking for and then I can verify..oh yes, this car will have what I need based on these metrics..
LAUREN MORRISION: Other useful content on the website, and free fuel economy mobile app, includes driving and maintenance tips to help you get the most out of your vehicle, easy-to-understand descriptions of new vehicle technology, information about available tax incentives for advanced-technology vehicles, trip calculators, and more!
In the area of safety, you can start with the government’s “safercar” website (safercar.gov) for how a car fares in mandated crash testing and rollover ratings. The site spells out which vehicles go beyond requirements, and have cutting edge safety technology.
SHERRYN DANIEL: What I like about the safercar website is there’s just so many little applications, where all we have to do is enter the make and the model of the car, and we can see if it was recalled, we can look for certain safety features, I even learned about rollover that this is the most lethal type of car accident and that with the best type of car, you can prevent damage.
LAUREN MORRISION: But, you’re a consumer or a fleet manager that is up to date... Maybe even ahead of the crowd. So, perhaps a plug-in hybrid or even full electric car fits your lifestyle or business. Or, a vehicle that runs on another non-traditional fuel like e85, bio-diesel, natural gas, propane, or even hydrogen.
Now, you need to know not only the specs, but the pros and cons, and practicality of each fuel. Well, for that, more than 1.5 million users a year check out the Energy Department’s “Alternative Fuels Data Center” website (afdc.energy.gov).
The afdc website and alt-fuel app are designed to eliminate your confusion over the various types of alternative fuels and their vehicles. And now that plug-in and alt-fuel vehicles are being sold with ever increasing range, the website’s fueling station database is enjoying increasing popularity as well.
SHERRYN DANIEL: …there’s this link where you can just type in your state so, if we bought like a hybrid, or a car that uses natural gas or something like that, we can look up stations nearby ahead of time when we travel.
LAUREN MORRISION: The end game in all this is to be the best informed new car shopper you can possibly be. And ultimately, to buy or lease a new car, SUV, or truck, you can live with today, and way into the future. These commercial-free, dot-gov websites can help you to avoid costly mistakes and surprises, before and after you visit the dealership.
Condominiums at Dominion Raceway
Obviously, we love to test cars, and one of our favorite testing venues is Dominion Raceway in Thornburg, Virginia. So, when we saw garage condos popping up near the track we were intrigued. In fact, it’s part of a nationwide trend that’s quickly becoming a lifestyle choice for car enthusiasts. Our “FYI” reporter Stephanie Hart takes it from here.
STEPHANIE HART: The garage condos are for car fanatics who love to race. This one happens to be one of my favorites. Definitely impressive. And the condos can be used as a place to socialize, a workshop or just a private getaway. And one of the best parts, the Dominion Lux garage condominium is just two minutes from Dominion Raceway by private road.
STEVE BRITT: These are really high-end condominiums. Our collector car market here is high-end and so we finish these for a high-end collector car person, and a lot of them have a finished loft, some of them have showers, some of them are fully built out, some are bought just for storage purposes.
STEPHANIE HART: Will Alexander bought this garage condo recently and was more than happy to show me around. He’s an off-road truck convert who fell in love with road racing and now owns his own business, Contender Motorsports.
WILL ALEXANDER: One of the challenges I had with trying to operate this from home is that at the end of the day I got to try to pack up and tidy this stuff up because that’s also where we have our daily vehicles. So, now I can do more mad science down here in a dedicated space, right. We have great proximity to the track, so I can do some modifications here and then take it out onto the track, and test and tune and really be able to dial things in without having to try to worry about the logistics of transport or worrying about track day fees or any of that sort of thing.
STEPHANIE HART: However, the cost of owning a condo like this one starts at $300,000. It was a dream purchase for Russ Bartlett, who owns this garage condo.
RUSS BARTLETT: It’s a lifesaver because in the winter we put the boat in here, we’ve got a couple of cars in here, we got a little seating area upstairs to just kind of relax, and we got the racetrack right there. So, it’s perfect. It’s a community of like-minded car nuts, so it’s a lot of fun and they kind of get each other.
STEPHANIE HART: Just beyond the car garage condos is the chrome lounge here. I love its style. This is a great place to socialize with other car enthusiasts or even host a meeting. And check this out… this is the Pit Stop, a lift bay where you can make all necessary repairs and maintenance to your car. There’s even a wash bay affectionately named Suds.
STEVE BRITT: Some of these people, the Ferrari owners and stuff, will have a traveling mechanic, and so they can come and service a car here at the garage condo. They also have a wash bay that is heated and cooled.
STEPHANIE HART: Plus, owners have unlimited access to the amenity suite with flat screen TVs, pool, darts, and more.
STEWART BARTLEY: It’s a great group of people over there. We’re building a small community of like-minded car enthusiasts and that’s a lot of fun.
STEPHANIE HART: Which makes track days even more memorable.
JUSTIN GELLERT: Here you can literally drive out of our condo garage area and drive right over to the track. Technically, its private property so you can drive without a muffler if you want to, for example. So, that’s what I love about this property, that it’s close to the 2-mile road course.
WILL ALEXANDER: I could not have ever imagined that I would be part of a community like this. It’s been a lot of fun. A lot of these guys are more experienced motorsports enthusiasts and so it’s been an opportunity to learn a lot from folks who have been doing this a little bit longer. Anytime I’m down here wrenching, folks will be like “hey Will, you need a hand?” So, it’s been great to be part of a group like this.