Something quite extraordinary happened last week and hardly anyone noticed. Toyota became #1.

There was no fanfare. No press release. No party. It just quietly happened.

For 77 years General Motors had been the world's largest motor vehicle manufacturer. But on Wednesday, January 21, GM received the second installment of its federal survival loan and quietly slipped from the #1 spot to #2. That day, it rewrote the "end tag line" on its letterhead to read "One of the world's largest automakers."

Making the best of it, a GM sales analyst remarked that he didn't think being #1 means anything to consumers and that the focus is on "viability and profitability."

Meanwhile over at Toyota they announced that they will have their first year of annual operating loss in 70 years. That's when you know the economy is lousy: when the company that becomes #1 is still losing money. And on the tube? There's more rebates and incentives and zero interest rate loans from all of them.

Detroit, I know you're losing money, but giving away the inventory isn't the way to make a profit. Only a company accountant can make sense of this but one thing's for sure. What's good for GM is good for the country make not have been a true maxim, but it is true that what's bad for the country is bad for GM.

Maybe it's time to throw away the rebates. Maybe it's time to simply cut the price to the lowest it can get and just sell. All the game playing with rebates and incentives and all the rest just seems to be so much smoke and mirrors. And the rebate game became addictive to American car buyers. And that became addictive to Detroit. Now Detroit thinks that rebates are the primary way to sell cars and consumers have come to expect them.

It won't be easy to wean consumers off the rebate drug, but if Detroit provided the credit on fair terms (stop letting dealers play with the interest rates), increased quality, warranty coverage and length, and cut prices, we think American buyers would appreciate the honesty and come back.

American workers still know how to build better cars. If Detroit wants to survive, it better figure out how to sell them.

After 87 years of building taxi cabs and motor vehicle parts, Checker Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection January 16, 2009.



The company joins at least seven other major auto suppliers that have filed for bankruptcy in the past year.


Once the company made the taxi cabs that crowded many metropolitan US cities and made the term "yellow cab" universal.

It's another sign of the times but hopefully one that will come to an end with the change of administrations in Washington starting tomorrow. Consumers can only hope.

Preventing identity theft also means protecting your credit reputation and credit record. To do that you may want to stop getting pre-approved credit card applications that can be stolen from your mailbox, make sure you credit report is accurate and no strange accounts show up on it, and maybe even freeze your credit file. Here's why and how for each of them.

Protecting Your Mail

Millions of pre-approved credit card applications are mailed out each year to consumers and many of them end up in the trash can. Don't just throw it away, where a "dumpster diving" thief can find it, fill it out and change the address and get credit in your name, run up the bill and stick you with a black mark on your credit record. Tear up that application first. And when mailing important documents or payment checks out in the mail, don't put them in your mailbox out front. That red flag is a signal to everyone that you've got mail they can get just by driving by. Drop those envelopes off at the post office. Better yet, if you want to stop getting those pre-approved credit card applications in the mail, just call 1.888.5.OPT.OUT. You can also stop most junk mail too by sending a letter with your first and last name, home address, and signature to Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Assn, PO Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512.

Check Your Credit Report Regularly

You can get one free credit report on yourself each year from each of the three national credit bureaus and you should. Check to see if any strange credit inquiries show up, if any new accounts have been opened up that you don't know about, or if anything is inaccurate and just a plain mistake that needs fixing. To get your free report, go to www.annualcreditreport.com or call them at 1.877.322.8228. The smart move is to get a free one from a different credit bureau once each 4 months. The info is a little different in each report, but a regular check of your report can keep you on top of things.

Freeze Your Credit Record

There's an even easier way to stop anyone from getting new credit in your name. Just freeze your credit file. It's sometimes called a "security" freeze and doing it makes it illegal for the credit bureau to release any information about you to new creditors without your express approval. That can make it very tough for an identity thief to use your personal identifying information to open up a new account or get a new credit card because stores and other credit card companies can't get a copy of your credit report from the only 3 credit reporting agencies who have it. Freezing your credit costs just $10 per credit bureau but is free for identity theft victims. To find out what the State Credit Freeze Law is in your state, click here.

You can contact the credit bureaus here:

Equifax
[security freeze request]
PO Box 105788
Atlanta, GA 30348

Experian
[security freeze request]
PO Box 9554
Allen, TX 75013

Innovis
[security freeze request]
PO Box 725
Columbus, OH 43216

TransUnion
[security freeze request]
PO Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834

And to find out more about your credit rights, check out Ohio Fair Credit, the web site that explains your rights and how to protect them.

The complaints and reports are starting to come in that Monaco dealers are refusing to do warranty work because of either "slow pay" or "no pay" on warranty claims.

Rumor has it that a Southern California dealer turned away a 2009 Dynasty owner's warranty repair request because the factory was paying for it. Given the cost of a Dynasty, that's got to be one angry owner.

On top of that, we have another report from a Country Coach owner that his warranty repair trip to the factory was closed because they closed the factory doors "until further notice."

It's scary times out there if you own an Rv with defects. Get the work done fast. Get it done often. Try to get back to your selling dealer, where perhaps some sense of a moral obligation may help "guilt" the dealer into doing the repairs at no charge.

If all else fails, don't wait too long before getting an experience Rv Lemon Law lawyer's help. Like my grandmother told me, "First in time, won't wait in line. Last in line, won't get a dime."

2008 was a bad year for the Rv industry. Some companies merged, sold off assets, closed or filed for bankruptcy protection. If you're thinking of buying a motorhome, you need to be careful of the viability of the builder to stand behind their product. When an Rv company goes belly up, so does your factory warranty.

Unfortunately, according to the folks at RvResolve.com, here is an updated list of RV companies that have closed:

Chinook (Trail Wagons)
Sunline Coach
National RV
Travel Supreme
Ameri- Camp
West Coast Leisure Homes (in Canada)
Western RV
Alfa Leisure
Weekend Warrior
Teton Homes
Pilgrim
Bigfoot RV (in Canada)
Sun Valley Inc.
Nu Wa Industries

Forest River now owns Coachman's RV Division (at least in this case part of the sale set aside 11 million dollars in an escrow account for warranty costs).

Next up? You need to keep a watch on Country Coach and Monaco. Country Coach announced that they may not reopen in February (that's their worst case scenario) and Monaco has hired some financial advisors to explore "strategic options". That doesn't sound good.

If you've got a lemon Rv, now is the time to get it in the shop for any repairs you want done under warranty, while there is still a manufacturer to pay the claim. If they won't cover your repair, then it may be time to take quick action. Call or email us today for a free Lemon Rv case analysis.

Chrysler just got its $5 billion payment from the US government on January 2, 2009. GM got its first billion dollar payment too.

In spite of the auto industry woes, the North American International Auto Show opens Jan. 17 and runs to the 25th at the Cobo Center in downtown Detroit, a city whose housing values dipped 15% last year, causing Forbes.com to name it one of the ten fastest dying cities in the US.

While it's all going bad, the Big 3 turn up the glitz. Chrysler does have one of its trucks in the running for truck of the year, its Dodge Ram is up against the Ford F-150 and Mercedes ML320 Bluetec. It could use a win.

Meanwhile, GM is cutting back its presence at the show and so are the Japanese. Still, the auto show will have more exhibitors this year than ever and there are more world debuts there than ever before. What recession?

And to balance this, Chrysler idles all its plants and GM says there are no talks going on to purchase Chrysler. You just gotta wonder. Austerity be damned and full speed ahead.

It all reminds me of a private college that filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization back in the 1980's (another economically hurting time) and then said they needed to use their sparse cash to attend a private college executives conference on a Pacific island to keep up appearances. The bankruptcy judge let them and later they ended up going out of business anyway.

There's a time to polish up and show off your new hubcaps, GM and Chrysler, but this is not it. They'd be wise to be rather conservative this year. After all, they still don't have all the bailout money yet.

It's about time the quality came back. Maybe it has. At least for some.

Vehicle recalls totalled 10.2 million last year, a 30% drop from 2007 and the lowest number of vehicles recalled since 1994, reported the Detroit News after examining the government's motor vehicle recall statistics. Surprisingly, a higher total number of recalls occurred than ever before, 642 for the year, which means that the typical recall involved fewer vehicles than ever before. That jives with what we've been seeing too.

The drop in vehicles being recalled is probably a signal of a quality improvment level that has been a long time coming. Who went up and who went down is not much of a surprise, really. GM and Toyota and Honda all had more recalled vehicles than they did last year. Chrysler recall numbers were down a little, but Ford's recall numbers were down substantially from last year.

The government statistics come from a database that was created in 2000 which Congress mandated federal bureaucrats (in charge of overseeing the actual safety investigators) to begin keeping the numbers and making them public, largely because of the recall of 14 million Firestone tires that had been linked to the deaths of more than 270 people, mostly in Ford Explorers in rollover crashes.

Federal safety officials say that the final 2008 recall figures won't be available until much later in 2009, but as of the end of the year the unofficial talley showed automakers had recalled 10.2 million vehicles. That compares with 14.5 million vehicles recalled in all of 2007, which was up from 11.2 million in 2006 but still far lower than a record 30.8 million vehicles called back in 2004 in 600 campaigns.

So, how do the factories compare? Among the top six automakers, two of Detroit's Big Three fared well, with Ford Motor Co. sharply reducing its recalls to 1.6 million vehicles from 5.5 million in 2007, and Chrysler LLC dropping to just 360,000 vehicles from 2.2 million recalled in 2007. General Motors Corp. saw a sizeable increase, to 1.9 million vehicles recalled in 2008, up from 538,000 last year.

Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. also recalled more vehicles this year than last, while Nissan Motor Co.'s tally dropped. Toyota called back 833,000 vehicles, up from 640,000 last year, but far below its 2005 tally of 2.2 million. Honda issued recalls for 797,000 vehicles this year, up from 550,000 in 2007, but down from 1.2 million in 2006. Nissan recalled about 581,000 vehicles this year, down from 1.3 million in 2007.

Whether you're driving a recalled Ford or a recalled GM, or a Honda on its recall list, or one of the rarer Nissan recalled cars, if it's your car being recalled, it matters.

If you've got a lemon, don't put up with a runaround. Call us (toll free phone 888.331.6422) or email us today. Getting rid of lemons is what we do. All kinds, everyday.