Archive for General

Totally Annoyed with Toyota of Plano service guys

July 19, 2008 at 12:59 am · Filed under General, rants

I went to Toyota of Plano and was pretty annoyed with their service department and this Chris guy who was upset that I didnt get the Dealer recommended maintenance for $300 and got just the factory recommended one. Here is the story..

I needed a 15000 mile maintenance for my car and I called up the Toyota of Plano guys and asked how much it would cost. The guy on the phone said it costs me $335 or so. I was indeed surprised at such high amount and checked the Toyota website. All the Toyota recommends for my car is the following. (Source)

Replace engine oil and oil filter 1
Rotate tires
Clean cabin air filter
Visually inspect brake linings/drums and brake pads/discs
Inspect the following:
Ball joints and dust covers
Brake lines and hoses
Drive shaft boots
Engine coolant 3
Exhaust pipes and mountings
Steering gear box

I then asked this service dept. guy if it was the factory recommended one or the Dealer recommended one. He said it was dealer recommended one and he went on to list a bunch of things they would do. He said they were very important for the car. The only question I had in my mind was if all those were so important for the car then why wouldn’t Toyota recommend that. But I didnt ask him that and asked him how much would the factory recommended one cost me. He says $93.20. He said I could come in and talk to some Chris guy who would take care of it. I say okay and start out to get one.

I go there and wait for my turn and then some guy comes in and fills my request form. I mentioned clearly I needed 15k facory recommended maintenance and asked him how much it would cost. He said, oh it costs 80 bucks and notes 80 on the sheet. I say okay and ask are you Chris. He is like, no, that guy right there is Chris, I will fill it and keep it on Chris’ desk so he can take care of it. I say okay and then leave my car and wait. After an hour or so, Chris guy comes and tells me its ready. I say okay and go to pay the bill. The lady at the counter says $85 and some change. I asked her if I could get a sheet that describes what all has been done and she shows me a billing list which doesnt contain most of those listed above. I asked if they have been done at all and like to see the detailed list and she tells me, Oh ask Chris and he will have the checklist that they check the boxes when they perform the inspections and all. I say okay, pay my bill and walk out to Chris.

I ask this Chris guy if I could get a detailed list, he is like, wait and he says, If you got a dealer recommended one, I would have the list, and then he answers his cell phone, and then says it would be in the maintenance guide you have in the car, and then brings me a list that has the above checked. And then he goes on, “See you just have tire rotation and oil change, there is no wheel balancing and all done because you took a factory recommended one and not a dealer recommended one”, and I say, “Okay, so what difference does it make”. He says “Oh you will not know that now, after a few miles when you hit 70 miles per hour and your wheels start vibrating then you will notice.” I never knew thats a way to talk to a customer and in such derogatory tone. I got really pissed off and asked him, “So if its gonna affect my car and all, why doesnt Toyota recommend whatever your dealership is recommending. And he says “Look man, I am just trying to help you..” Great way to escape without an answer.

The checklist that he gave me says the service is $93.20 and I show it to him and ask if it costs $93.20 then how come, I was charged only $85 and change and he says, ya its lesser than that right. I say, of course, but I am just curious why the difference. And he says, the guy who talked to you put 85 on the paper (he had actually put 80 but may be taxes is 5), so I had to give it to you for 85. This was totally ridiculous. I dont know if they have a pricing system at all, some guy says its 80 to me and so he says he gave it to me 85 instead of 93. The difference might be a few dollars, but what I dont like is the fact that the same thing costs different amount to different people. So, you go to walmart and ask a rep what the price of a hdtv on a tv stand is. He mistakes the price of the tv stand to be that of TV and says 200, so now will Walmart give the TV to you for 50 bucks. Doesnt make sense to me at all..

And then I ask him, did you put the seal on my Toyota Passport guide, and he was like you didnt give it to me. The last two times, the service rep guys took care of it without me even asking them. I say, okay, let me get it for you, and then he walks with me to the car. I give him the booklet, and I say, I just need the signature and your seal and he goes “I know what I need to put in there, I have been doing this for some time”. I wouldn’t mind if he said that in a friendly way but he was outright rude. He goes, fills it up and comes back and I ask him, one last qn, is the blinking message on Dashboard that says “Maint Reqd” reset, and he says, it should have been, and guess what I start and the blinking is still present. And then he resets it and says, now it is reset. If I hadn’t asked I needed to go back again for that.

I am totally surprised by the total inefficiency and the carelessness that they show towards the customers and the worst part is they are getting away with it. And I am also appalled at their discretionary variable pricing system. May be today was a bad day or I got the wrong guys, but in my opinion today, Thumbs down to Toyota of Plano…

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Mee Sreyobilashi – Suicide is not an option, so is giving up for an entrepreneur

June 19, 2008 at 3:26 am · Filed under General, Opinions, entreprenuer, movies

Just watched the Telugu movie Mee Sreyobhilashi. Gist of the story. Around 10 people who are vexed with life and want to end it travel together in a bus to take the bus down to a valley and die together. Their journey to the realization of the value of life is the movie…

The movie spurred a bunch of thoughts. First of all, why should anyone commit a suicide. God has given us the life to live. Life is a challenge, we need to face it. If everyone starts ending their life due to some problems or the other, then what is the essence of life in itself. Death is just the absence of life, not an end to it. No problem on earth is big enough to force any one to death. People who are handicapped or have many other disabilities are living a happy life with tons of self-confidence. Why cant normal people do the same…

And then there is one more way of looking at the whole thing. If living the life symbolizes your dream of making it big, your dream of being a success, giving up symbolizes the death of a life, the death of an aspiration, the death of a hope.. A person never really is a failure until he gives up. One thing is for sure. Every one of us is going to die sooner or later. And that is one thing that we can never avoid. That is one thing we cannot run away from. Then whats the point of living life in an insipid manner. What is the point of giving up… Live life to the fullest and never give up… The day you give up is the day you fail, whether you give up your hopes or dreams or even your life… Dont quit your hopes, your aspirations, your life…

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Pay auto/car Loan or Invest in a CD or other investment. When do you break even

March 14, 2008 at 6:57 pm · Filed under Financial, General, Opinions, Personal

The previous post of mine on auto loan had lots of discussion and ifs and buts. I decided to make it pretty simple this time. Here is the case. You have $10000 with you today, that you can use to pay off a car loan of equivalent amount which is at a interest rate of 5.5% or you can pay the monthly installment on the car loan and invest the current $1000 you have in a CD or shares..

Analysis
——–

Current car loan = $10000
Interest rate = 5.5%
Term = 2 years or 24 months

From Bank Rate Calculator the equal monthly installment is $440.96

Let us say Best CD rate available is 5% (which is impossible at this time). So the case under study is that you have $10000 in hand today and you have $440.96 from your monthly income available to you to pay the car loan

Pay the car loan
—————-

In this case you paid off the car loan and you put the $440.96 in a Savings account like ING Direct. Let us say in an ideal scenario you are making 4% on your savings account (ING doesn’t offer this interest at this time). So putting $440.96 in a Savings account for 2 years, at the end of 2 years, (from dinkytown)

Total = $11,505
Taxes = 28% of (11505-10000) = $421.4
After taxes total savings = $1083.6
After paying taxes, money you have with you = $11083.60

Put in a CD
————

From Bankrate $10000 at 5% for two years will yield a total of $11,052.

Total = $11,052
Taxes = 28% of (11,052-10000) = $294.56
After taxes, net with you = $757.44
After paying taxes, money you have = $10,757.44

Paying the car versus CD
————————

Difference you lose by not paying the car loan and investing in a CD = $11083.6-$10757.44 = $326.16

Incentives for not paying the car loan is the fact that you are only liable to $441 a month, if you lose the job or if you are on bench in consulting, then you have $10000 with you and you are only liable to $441 a month. So, that makes it easier for your mental peace

If you do not put in a CD and invest in shares or something, then what percent interest rate on your $10000 investment justifies your not paying off the car loan? lets calculate that. This means that your $10000 has to become $11,505 in 2 years. Using the formula for compound interest, that would be 7.26% assuming interest compounded annually. That is a very low interest rate compared to gains on Shares. But then, you never know about Shares. You might as well lose your money.

So, that’s the calculation folks. Know your facts, analyze your situation and make a good decision :)

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How much do you understand your auto loan – Can you find the fault in this calculation?

November 1, 2007 at 3:21 am · Filed under Financial, General, Opinions

A small discussion with my room mate brought up the subject of auto loan that I have on my car and why I should / should not pay it off. I have some savings in my savings account and I have an auto loan on my car. If I open a CD (Certificate of Deposit) with Indymac bank they will give me an APR of 5.5% and my car loan is financed by a Credit Union at 5.5%. The argument that my roomie was making was that I should pay off the car loan instead of opening a CD. His reasoning was that, though the car loan and the APR on the CD were the same, I am actually losing money, because on the interest that I earn on the CD, I have to pay a tax. And since I am single and fall in the higher tax bracket, I will end up paying 25%(+) on the interest earned. Which means that I will actually be making around 75% of the 5.5% which is around 4.13% which means that I am losing around 1.37% (5.5-4.13) on the whole amount that I am planning to open a CD with. In a way, it made sense for a brief moment.

But then, further investigation showed that it is not a valid argument to me. Here was my case that I presented. Let us say you have $10000 with you, and you have two choices, put it in a CD for two years at the rate of 5.5%, or pay off your loan which is 5.5% and ends in 2 years. If you don’t pay off the loan now, you keep paying it in monthly amounts of $440.96 (Calculation from Bankrate calculator) with your salary. If you put it in CD for 2 years, you make a simple interest of $1130.25 (550+550). Let us say, you pay 28% tax on it. So your net interest earned from that amount after paying taxes off is 72% of 1130.25 which is $813.28 and the total interest you pay on the car loan for these 2 years is $582.96 (Calculation from Bankrate calculator). So I argued that I actually am making $230.32 (813.28-582.96) extra by not paying off the car loan.

Sounds logical right, but the above calculation is wrong because it was one-sided. The reason is, if I pay off the car loan with the $10000, then I don’t need to pay them the $441 that I was paying every month, which means that I can put it in a savings account like ING Direct for an APY of 4.3% or an APR of 4.21%. This means that the total amount I make in two years with this monthly savings would be $11541 (Calculation from dinkytown). This means I make an interest of $1541 in two years. After cutting the tax at the rate of 28%, I will be left with around 72% of 1541 which is $1109.52. This means the total I save is this 1109.52 plus the interest I would have paid for the car loan which is 582.96. So the net total I would have saved is $1692.48 So by not paying off the loan today, I am actually losing is $879.20. So the conclusion of the whole calculations is it is better to pay off the car loan, if you have the cash instead of saving in your bank account and having the loan aside and paying monthly payments.

Agreed this calculation has some flaws because of some assumptions. It assumes that the rate from ING Direct will be 4.21%, but since it is variable it can go up or come down. Also, we are assuming that you will have continuous money from your salary, and that you will actually put aside the car loan amount payment in a Savings account instead of spending it on the next cool thing like the Iphone :) It also assumes that you would pay the money off instead of having it in your savings account, which you can withdraw in case of an emergency. You obviously can’t get a car loan again on your car in case of an emergency right :) It also assumes you have 10k or the total amount of your car loan with you in your savings. But anyways, under the given set of assumptions, it makes sense to actually pay off the car loan rather than put the amount in the CD or Savings account. One more thing, you can consider is taking the amount from a special offer like 0% APR (be careful with the Balance Transfer fee in the fine print) on Balance Transfer from a credit card company like Citi and paying off the loan, provided you have a good credit history. That way, you don’t pay the interest to the auto loan provider and you can pay off monthly amounts to the credit card company. And when the balance transfer offer ends after one year, take another card and transfer the balance to that. All this provided you actually have time to do some research on these and wish to save some dollars :)

Feel free to challenge the above calculations or present counter arguments :)

PS: There is a big fundamental mistake in the above calculation, and the net amount you actually save is $272.19 and not $879.20 as mentioned above. Can you prove this?

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A caching area

May 11, 2007 at 3:59 am · Filed under General

As I was traveling back from work to home, thinking what should I write in my newly opened blog, many a thought wavered in my mind. I wanted to write about every little thing I saw on my half hour drive back from work. About a cop car, a lady driving carelessly while chatting on a cell, a benign smile of a small kid from a neighboring car at the traffic signal, what not. Then a thought struck me, as to why I should look for something to write about, while I should be writing about something I am thinking about. Well, a blog basically is a web log, a log where you want to store your thoughts and feelings. Not an area where you would write just because you want to blog or because it’s something that the cool kid on the block is doing..

Now that brings the question, what thoughts would I want to cache or store here. Well, its probably things I would like to complain about, or things I feel good about. But I won’t say that I will take this blog forward to such an extent that it would be the No.1 blog in the town. Honestly, I don’t want to. Want this to just remain a repository of thoughts, that I would like the world to know some day or any day when they do a relevant ‘Google’ search. Oh did I just say google, well, let’s take on the google topic some other day. For now I sign off with my first post not essentially conveying any message or any feeling.. I want this to stand as what flows in my mind at the point of writing..

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