Deadbeat car owners beware. The used car dealers are getting clever with those people who aren’t making their car payments.
The new feature to disable deadbeats is a small black box mounted underneath the dashboard. When the light starts blinking, you’re in trouble. Presumably, your car shuts off in a matter of minutes and you won’t be able to restart it until you make your payment.

So this is what it’s come to, eh? Although it’s not the worst thing in the world, it does seem a little cruel. I think the feature should give you more warning before shutting down the vehicle.

But on the other hand, I can understand the dealers’ point of view. They probably get stiffed on a regular basis by people who simply won’t make their payments. That’s why they need to hire repo men to retrieve those vehicles with overdue payments.  As long as the customers know what they’re getting into when they buy these vehicles with the box, it seems like a perfectly viable option to keep dealers from having to repossess cars.

But if you do business with a certified Ford dealer, you probably won’t face this hassle. These vehicles come straight from the dealer’s used car inventory, and they generally attract a more responsible clientele. Don’t mess around with subprime car dealers. Stick with the names and dealers you can trust.

There are probably not many people who don’t know what their “Check Engine” lights look like. This little mystery light has probably come on in almost every car ever made at one point or another. And the funny thing is that many mechanics are just as stumped as you are when you take your car in to see why the light came on in the first place.

Of course, there are the obvious reasons: you let the engine run too low on oil, there’s a short in the dashboard lights or any one of many other reasons. And many car owners experience the horror story of paying hundreds of dollars to fix the problem only to have the light come back on within hours of leaving the service station.

If you check your dash, though, you’ll notice that the warning lights are color-coded. The “Check Engine” light is yellow, which means that there’s nothing seriously wrong yet. But it’s in your best interest to get the car checked as soon as possible. The red lights are the ones that mean something serious is wrong and you need to pull over right away and turn off the car. By this time, though, the damage is probably done already.

But if you have a certified Ford, you don’t have to worry about any costs associated with the “Check Engine” light. As long as you keep up with the vehicle’s preventative maintenance such as oil changes, tune ups and other services, you won’t have out-of-pocket costs when the yellow light comes on. Think of how much peace of mind that brings to car ownership and visit a Ford dealer today.

If you remember, we started a series of posts on Thursday of last week talking about five things your car will be able to do in 2020 and beyond (maybe even a year or two before). The first two capabilities were predicting the future and communicating with the road. For the third installment, today’s feature is:

Your Car Will Know When It Needs Repairs

With Wi-Fi networks taking over everything in our society and infrastructure, why wouldn’t they be able to affect the way cars run, too? Analysts predict that in the next ten years or so, cars will be able to communicate wirelessly with service stations along the road. With this interaction, the possibilities are practically limitless. The service station’s network can send your car a signal to tell it that it’s time for another oil change. Or it can even check your car’s safety sensors to see if there are any potential problems that could occur farther up the road.

But that’s not the most exciting part. When hybrids and electric cars take over the road, there’s a possibility that satellites could recharge your vehicles from space. By gathering solar energy and them transmitting that power to vehicle receivers through a wireless communication signal, satellites could recharge your vehicle while you sleep!

While these changes are taking effect, though, invest in a certified Ford to get you through these Dark Ages of car technology. You’ll get the quality vehicle you need at a price you want, and it’ll probably last you until the days when your car will be more intuitive than you.

We all know that we can use the cruise control feature on a certified Ford or other vehicle when we’re driving down the highway. But did you know you can use it in other ways to help you save gas mileage?

Intrigued? Keep reading.

By accelerating slowly from a complete stop, you save gas. You can accelerate slowly with the gas pedal, but you can also use the “accel” button on your cruise control feature. Actually, the label could vary, but it’s the button that allows you to accelerate with the cruise control engaged.

With this button, your vehicle will only accelerate in small intervals. When you click the button, you can accelerate between ½ mph to 1 mph with each click. Or you can simply hold it down and continue to accelerate smoothly at a slow rate.

Unfortunately, some vehicles only allow you to engage the cruise control feature after you reach a certain speed. But you can slowly accelerate up to that speed and then use the acceleration button from there when needed.

Instead of braking to cancel the cruise control, it’s much more fuel-efficient to simply click the cruise control button that cancels the feature. Only use this button when you don’t need to stop quickly. After a while, you can almost start driving with just your thumbs and barely use your feet at all!

For fuel-efficient Ford vehicles, visit our Ford dealer in Missouri or our Waterloo area Ford dealers.

You know that many of the new cars on the market include Sirius Satellite Radio, but did you know the company is expanding into the used-car market, too?

It’s an exciting time for Sirius, as the company is also planning a merger with XM Radio. This creates a win-win situation for the consumer who, until the merger goes through, has to choose between the two services for their satellite radio needs.

But last week, Sirius also announced plans to work with certified pre-owned programs to offer the service in those vehicles in the same way they offer it in new vehicles. That means you can get a certified Ford with Sirius Satellite Radio installed,  just as if it were a new car.

Because of the popularity of CPO vehicles, Sirius recognized the potential of the market to increase profits over the next three to five years. With more than 40 million certified vehicles sold each year, this presents a great opportunity for any supplier to introduce its  products into the used-vehicle market.

In 2007, Sirius reported nearly 600,000 new subscribers to the satellite radio’s service. That’s compared to 1.6 million new subscribers in 2006. The company attributes the decline in new subscribers to confusion over the possible merger with XM. The slower economy and misinformation are also reasons for fewer subscribers since 2006. Hopefully, offering the service to the pre-owned-vehicle market will increase the company’s subscribers and make used cars even more popular than they already are.

Have you ever thought about adding spoilers to your certified Ford? Chances are that you’ve seen these contraptions on other cars traveling down the road. And you’ve definitely seen these if you’ve ever watched a NASCAR race. But you might not know exactly what they do (besides make a car look uber cool).

Spoilers typically help make cars go faster. They do this in a couple of ways. First, they break through the air resistance that vehicles encounter at higher speeds. With dissipated resistance, your car can break through the air with less effort. This also increases the vehicle’s fuel efficiency because it takes less effort to move. You probably never noticed, but there are also spoilers underneath the front bumpers of some vehicles to break through the air resistance.

Spoilers also give the driver more control over the car. By adding weight to the back of the car, they keep the rear wheels on the ground at higher speeds. This gives the car better traction and performance when making fast turns.

You can find specialty shops that will install spoilers on your Ford. Many sports cars already come with these devices, too. But now that you know exactly what they do and what they are for, you can decide if you want to install an aftermarket spoiler or not.