LemonFree.com Blog

In another life, (otherwise known as high school), I was not a marketing coordinator but rather a wash girl at a local Honda dealership. In addition to a fantastic tan, I also picked up some very handy tips and tricks for washing your car.

• To get gum and other sticky substances out of upholstery use hot vinegar and a toothbrush. Test the vinegar on a non-visible portion of the upholstery first to make sure it will not harm the fabric. Then dip the toothbrush into the hot vinegar and gently scrub away the gum.(This also works wonders on blue jeans and other fabrics)

• To easily clean sticky, stuck on pop or juice out of cup holders, spray a healthy amount of Windex on them, let sit for 5 minutes and wipe out.

• Q-tips and toothbrushes are amazing for detailing cars. Extremely useful – they get in all sorts of tiny crevasses that can other wise stay dusty and dirty. They work especially well on air vents.

• Wash your car inside or in the shade. While the sunshine may brown skin, it evaporates water and cooks soap to your vehicle, making it look more dirty than it was before you started washing it

• For those pesky bugs that have chosen your vehicle as their final resting place, try a dryer sheet and a bit of water to watch the little buggers come off clean and easy.

• When washing your car always rinse off your mitt, sponge or brush, to make sure that any leftover grime doesn’t scratch the rest of your car.

• Don’t use household cleaners on your car’s paint. Household products can be great to resolve other cleaning issues that plague vehicles however, they can strip off the protective wax on your paint job.

• An unwanted decal or sticker can be easily removed from windows and bumpers by using a razor blade; like the ones purchased for classic versions of men’s razors.

Happy Cleaning!

-Breanne

The other day I received an email from my aunt which contained a video clip of a car commercial. I watched the video and it was a pretty good car commercial; definitely creative. It got me thinking about all the great car commercials I’ve seen over the last couple of years.

This is the car commercial I received the other day from my aunt:

Again, I thought it was creative, but in the end it didn’t sell me on the car; and ultimately that is what a car commercial should do. So, below I’ve listed the 5 car commercials that I think are the best, and why they’ve made my list.

# 5
This one is for all the Star Wars fans out there; it’s just a cute commercial and it brings back that feeling of being a kid. VW always does such a good job of emotionally attaching you to their commercials.

# 4
Number four is a Dodge Durango commercial that I think was banned from TV after it aired a few times. This one will definitely get a laugh out of you.

# 3
Number three is the Toyota Swagger Wagon commercial/music video. I don’t like vans what so ever, but this commercial even makes driving a van/wagon look kinda cool… I said kinda

Toyota actually did a whole series of commercials for this specific campaign; the whole series is actually pretty good. You can view them all on YouTube.

# 2
This car commercial got a lot of attention a few years back, I can remember sitting in the office and talking about it with my co-workers. This is my number two pick, based solely on its shock value.

# 1
And my number 1 best commercial of all time is…….

I was in my early 20′s when I first saw this commercial and it definitely sold me on the VW brand, not necessarily the cabriolet. It was not long after watching this commercial that I purchased a VW GTI and drove it up until a few weeks ago.

Honourable mention goes to…..

If you type “best car commercial” into Google, this is the video that you get. Now I don’t agree with the title “best car commercial”, however I do think it’s one of the most unexpected. Take a look for yourself and let us know what you think.

What commercials would you put on this list?

- Dan Legal
Buying or Selling a car: Give LemonFree.com a try! 

We are very excited to have been honoured in the August 2011 issue of Auto Remarketing Magazine as one of Auto Remarketing’s Power 200. This is a list that is comprised of the top 200 companies in the remarketing and used-vehicle industry.

The second major category of consumer happiness is: ‘The right price!’
Congrats to all the cupcake winners!

I purposely left price to the end for a reason.  That is because price is not as important as you think!  And here is why…

Autos are basically an efficient market. Most dealers do price their cars to sell!  In fact for dealers, much of their margin is made on everything except price.  Financing, Insurance, Extended Warranty… you name it!

Private sales are a little different, as the seller is less sophisticated and may be above or below market pricing.

Just to be sure, you should always verify that the pricing of a vehicle is within normal a normal range for the market.  NADA guides, KBB, and Black Book all are very good tools to use to determine what an appropriate price range looks like.  If the price looks good, then focus on the previous two steps.

Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for a better price.  Most dealers are willing to move on price, it just means, don’t focus exclusively on it.  Many of the disaster stories that I have had were from consumers who had a great price!

So there you go.  The keys to car buying happiness from someone who has heard it all!  Good luck!