I spent the better part of the last month looking to buy a new car.  I have to say, I am quite surprised at the tactics that would be employed to sell a car.  It’s bad enough that we are in a bit of an economic, erm, situation borne of borrowing too much and living beyond our means, but to willfully create fiscal irresponsibility is something I could not let go.

Let me start by saying I ultimately bought the Honda Odyssey from the lot in question, Bellevue Honda.  The sales person, Gil, was a great guy, and had nothing to do with my issue.  I take Honda to task.  Since I didn’t notice this “issue” until the day that I was buying the car, I don’t know whether or not this is an issue with other lots.  I suspect it is.

This first picture is from the window of a Honda Insight.  At a whopping 40-45 miles per gallon, what’s not to like about this car?  Sounds great, and the $1,464 in fuel costs per year sounded normal to me.  Normal is a relative term, of course, and I didn’t do the math in my head to sort out if this number made any real sense at all.  It wasn’t until I wandered past a Honda Pilot that I did a double take, with the words “WTF” flying out of my mouth.

You see, the Honda Pilot is one of those SUVs.  They tend to drink gasoline.  I should know, I used to own one.  This sticker shows that they get 16-22 miles per gallon.  That’s an improvement over the initial model year (when I was an owner), but clearly worse than the Insight, right?  Apparently, your estimated fuel costs for the Pilot will be about $1,585 per year.  Again, WTF?  At first I thought that Honda was playing games with the number of miles per year that someone would be driving.  You know, because someone who is driving a hybrid will drive that shit to death because of all the great gas mileage they are getting.  Nope, it turns out that they estimate 15,000 miles per year on both cars.

So the culprit lay at the feet of the estimated fuel costs.  $4.10 per gallon for the Insight and $1.90 for the Pilot.  Again, WTF?  I really, really want to believe that this is not a calculated move on the part of Honda, and in fact the fuel prices reflect the reality of the fuel costs at the time the lot took ownership of the car.  Regardless, with that kind of spread in pricing, the lots should take the initiative and change the stickers in the cars to reflect a price of gasoline more in line with reality.  At $1.90, the estimated fuel costs for the Insight would be about $680.  The Pilot, at $4.10 per gallon, would estimate out to about $3,400.

Again, I want to believe that Honda just dropped the ball.  I don’t want to think that since SUVs have historically been the profit honey pots for car dealerships that they are maliciously misleading customers with an artificially low per year fuel costs to make them seem more affordable.

It’s been a while since I have posted anything about motorcycle racing.  The pre-season testing has finally started, and while I am excited to see Hayden on a Ducati, it would appear the Bologna rocket is not too impressed with the former World Champion.

In reading one of my favorite sites (Kropotkin Thinks), I read this note about Honda introducing rev limiters for their satellite teams.  You see, in the world of racing, you have the haves, and have nots.  The privateer teams generally understand that they are never going to be contending for the win.  Unless they have Tony Elias on the throttle or some Japanese wildcard who is really riding factory equipment (Nori Haga, 1998 anyone?), you have no shot at being on the box.  None.  This is such a predicament that there was talk of running a separate championship within the MotoGP championship.  You know, to have a trophy ceremony for 10th loser.  I’m not dropping hate flakes on the privateers, but you have a choice to run in the series, and you choose to lose to the factories.

With that in mind, however, Honda probably had enough of Andrea Dovizioso crashing the party late in the season.  This year, the boys at Honda will have none of that non-sense.  In the name of “reducing costs” and “maintaining engines for longer life spans,” the satellite teams will find themselves with detuned engines.  Honda basically gave them the finger.

Even better, because there is talk of requiring engines to last 2 weekends in the 2010 season, Honda will be using the satellite teams as logistics testing for the 2009 season, ensuring that parts get where they need to go.  That would be the second finger.

The way Honda treats riders (see Rossi and Hayden departures and the tangled stories of pain they told post exit), and now how they treat their satellite teams, it’s any wonder anyone wants to work with them.  It’s too bad they can field so many bikes, and the green boys have to leave the series and the blue bikes were close to bowing out, if not for the amazing run of Capirossi and Vermuelen at Sepang.