I'm holding out for an plug-in electric car. I drive maybe 75 miles a day at the most and I've been thinking about the Volt...but I hear it only gets 40 miles to a full charge... '-[ Meanwhile my daughter is bugging me for the Toyota Corolla for her first car... David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA 94044 Original message From: "Jeff Tanner" To: Received: 11/24/2008 2:45:33 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] "All Steinway" -What does it really mean... Alan Eder wrote: "...it is not just marketing that has kept my family rolling in Toyotas and Hondas for the past twenty years. Most of their models really do require less maintenance than most models made by American manufacturers." Hi Alan, But what is deceiving about that is that when you have to do maintenance on Toyotas and Hondas, the costs are exponentially higher. And much of what keeps most people in foreign cars is perception that grew from the 70s and 80s. That has been studied and evaluated. They have even studied whether "liberals" or "conservatives" are more likely to buy foreign or domestic cars. They know why people aren't buying American cars. Same is true for the piano industry. Much is written about the cost of Steinway parts from Steinway until we learn that a set of hammers and shanks for a CFIII from Yamaha are 50% higher, and even the piano itself is quite a bit more expensive. My point was that there is as much marketing involved when people call my dealership wanting to know if I carry Yamaha and "isn't that about the best piano?" (after which you can only ask, "which model series?") because they see Yamaha in big letters on the side of almost every piano in the more commercial genres of music. Yamaha is in big letters on the big bass drum in the high school band and on a large majority of other entry level band instruments, digital keyboards, guitars, etc., and yes, motorcycles, ATVs, golf carts and boat motors (but we wanted to scoff at Steinway when they wanted to start that boutique marketing campaign?). The prospective buyer has seen the "stars" playing CFIIIs, S4s and S6s and then they walk into a dealership where those $62,000 - $128,000 models are nowhere to be found and assume that the performing artists are on stage playing pianos no different from the GB-1s (or whatever that model is now) sitting on the sales floor priced at $9,995. The obvious deduction is that that's a lot cheaper than a Steinway, and if the "stars" are playing them, they must be better pianos which must mean Steinways are way overpriced. After all, if Steinway were actually a good piano, Elton John simply must not be able to afford one, right? Why would anybody pay $50,000 for a Steinway S when "comparable" Yamahas only cost $9,995? And the Yamahas are better built because they are more consistent from piano to piano? (yes, I heard this from a Yamaha dealer with my own ears, and the crazy thing about it was that she was also a Steinway dealer talking to a prospect who came in wanting to buy a Steinway, but she didn't have one on the floor!) Steinway is not the only piano company with a clever marketing department and smooth talking sales professionals. There is plenty of coolaid to drink all over the industry. The part of it that most frustrates me is the stuff that is designed to take advantage of consumer ignorance. "Our pianos don't need to be prepped at the dealership. In fact, they arrive in the crate from Japan in perfect tune and nothing needs to be done to them at all. They never go out of tune. (read a Yamaha owner's manual sometime and compare the language about tuning) Those American made pianos require hours and hours of work before they can be sold and they have to be tuned at least a couple of times a year. Why would you pay so much more for them? Here, this C7/RX7 is a much better piano than a Steinway B because it has longer bass strings, a larger soundboard area, and is less than half the price!" and the kicker: "It takes 7 years for the Steinway to mature in tone. This Yamaha/Kawai (at half the price) is perfect direct from the factory!" It really is difficult for customers to educate themselves on pianos because so much of the information out there is so biased. I, personally, take offense to sales language designed to exploit that difficulty. Our family also did the Honda, Mazda, Izuzu thing for years, as well. But when we had to replace something as simple as a starter on an Izuzu Trooper to the tune of $600, that was an eye opener. (yeah, I grew up putting $30 rebuilt starters on Chevy Then there was the $1200 oil cover gasket for the same vehicle. (neither were done by dealership shops, where the cost would have been much higher) Both my Mazdas with 5-speed transmissions needed a new clutch at 90K miles, and a new linkage not long after, and it takes a pretty skilled tech to do those. Both times the clutch repair wound up resulting in trading for a different vehicle. And every Mazda I had went through brake pads like a baby through diapers. Seems like my parents' Hondas were the same way. Nearly all my GM trucks have gone close to 100K without needing brake pads. Neither Honda air conditioner made it much past 50K, and we had a timing chain break on one 90 miles from home in the middle of nowhere which was a pretty costly repair. (I did at least learn how to take a Honda Accord motor loose from its motor mounts to replace the air conditioner. You have to do that to replace the belts, too, by the way, which is the reason you have to do it for the air conditioner compressor. Or at least that is so on those early/mid-80s models. So, what should be a simple 10 minute belt replacement is a half day job!) I'd say our experience doesn't reflect Consumer Reports claims at all. It's difficult for me to make that comparison today, since I haven't owned a "foreign" car now in over 10 years and the cost of repairs has risen just with inflation. But I'd say the American made cars I've owned have been no more "trouble" than the foreign ones, certainly no more expensive to upkeep. Tanner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081124/b08ff679/attachment.html>
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