Groupon’s Epic Fail

Someone forgot to tell Groupon that their site is solely based on impulse purchases such as sky diving, flowers or massages. Furthermore that message was lost on the LaFontaine Buick GMC Cadillac dealership that offered a voucher for $500 off the purchase of a vehicle for only $199. The offer ran for two days and was capped at 150 vouchers by the dealership that had also set the minimum purchase of 10 in order for the price to be honored. Total buyers?  Three.  Insert game show buzzer here.

So what went wrong? A lot of things. To start, as mentioned before, this is not an impulse purchase. People are willing to spend upwards of $100 on Groupon for certain offers that they can use, but there are many limiting factors such as your buying audience being in the market for a vehicle, and also be willing to do business with that specific dealership. People may be willing to look for vehicles at various Buick GMC dealerships, but they will typically research online and don’t want to be pressured into shopping at just one dealer.   And some people have the perception that the dealership will simply raise the price to account for the voucher.  The General Manager of the dealership, Robert Milner, explained that they could shop online and bring the voucher in as a down payment, so they could be assured that price fixing is not occurring.

Milner also explained that while the Groupon trial failed, the dealership did receive a lot of feedback and questions from other dealerships considering the same advertising tactic, as well as a good bit of media attention.  The better tactic for dealerships with Groupon is to offer discounted oil changes, merchandise (for example, hats and t-shirts for a Porsche dealership where fans are a tad more rabid), and other car care accessories.

Big ticket items like cars and trucks are a long way away from being embraced by buyers like the ones that visit Groupon everyday.  As for this specific deal, it was a major lesson learned for not only the dealership and Groupon, but also car dealerships everywhere.

Porsche 911 Hybrid Details Finally Released

Porsche has finally given us some details on the much awaited 911 GT3 R Hybrid.  The vehicle did have some gas engine problems when the engine died during Nurburgring’s 24hrRace last year (which it almost won by the way when it failed less than 2 hours from the finish line), but apparently all of those kinks are worked out. And the primary purpose of the vehicle is at the heart of racing with the 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp.

Car Magazine did great coverage of this super powered vehicle here and a good exciting read for people who like to geek about all things under the hood.  In short, this new Porsche 911 showcases two electric motors which doesn’t come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team.  These powerful engines produce 75kWof power each that give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking.

The consensus is that there’s no doubt is the biggest contender at this years 24hr race and a tremendous accolade and tip of the hat to the engineers if they can accomplish this massive task.  Be sure to check out Car Magazine’s coverage of even more details along with some more photos of this mean machine.  Then we can wait with baited breath to see if it will make an appearance at Jim Ellis Porsche dealership to gaze upon for a little bit.

Top 10 Hardest Cars To Steal

Mr. Christopher with some great news for Audi and Porsche owners (and even Hyundai). There was a extensive study from Auto Club RACV a couple years ago and apparently, not much has changed as it announced its findings of vehicles that were the most difficult to steal. The results were very interesting. The scores range from 0 to 120, with 120 being the highest a vehicle could score against being broken into, stolen and then “re-birthed”.

Of all the vehicles tested, Audi and Subaru faired the best making it extremely difficult for thieves to get away with doing any of the three. The absolute worst vehicles were from Honda and Nissan although both of them faired incredibly well on the fuel efficiency side. That’s great! That means they can drive far, far away once they steal your car. The highest score out of all the breeds was the Audi S5 Coupe that walked away with an astonishing 117 points out of 120 scoring 100% theft resistance score. Almost all of Audi’s models scored in the 100′s. So who were the top 10 regardless of size or class? All of the top 10 scores with exception of only one were in the Large category;

1. Audi S5 Coupe – Score 117 (Large Category)
2. Audi R8 Coupe – Score 115.5 (Large Category)
3. Porsche Cayman S Coupe – Score 113 (Large Category)
4. BMW 335i Coupe – Score 112.5 (Large Category)
5. Audi A3 3.2 Quattro 5 Door Hatch – Score 112 (Small-Medium Category)
6. Subaru Impreza WRX 5 Door Hatch - Score 107 (Large Category)
7. Subaru Impreza STi 5 Door Hatch – Score 107 (Large Category)
8. Audi TT Coupe – Score 105.5 (Large Category)
9. Mini Cooper S 3 Door Hatch - 105.5 (Large Category)
10. Tie – FPV FG Ute and FPV Sedan - Score 104.5 (Large Category)

Overall Winners;
Large cars: Hyundai Grandeur Sedan
People movers: Subaru Tribeca five-door wagon
Four-wheel drives: Audi Q7 five-door wagon
Luxury vehicles: Audi A8 4.2 V8 Sedan
Small cars: Hyundai Getz five-door hatch (all models except SXi)
Small/medium cars: Audi A3 3.2 Quattro five-door hatch
Medium cars: Subaru Liberty five-door wagon

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