Audi Certified Pre-Owned – worth it?

As consumers when we buy goods and services we typically look into what we’re getting for our money. Some research on the Internet, reading labels, comparison shopping etc… Decision making based on information at hand – not an uncommon process.

You go buy a Dell and you’ll get a million details and options to compare when making your choices – it’s not the easiest set of data to mull but if you’re willing, the data is out there. You go buy a car and you have lots of options to add to your car – each at a price. One of those items, ‘Certified Pre-Owned’ status as some manufacturers call it is a black hole of mis-information.

1st problem with Certified Pre-Owned: Understanding the premium you’re paying for CPO  – sure you could compare KBB or other pricing sources but lack of transparency is the cornerstone of auto pricing.

2nd problem with Certified Pre-Owned: Understanding what you’re getting with CPO

It’s sold as an assurance, a vehicle warranty. During the sales process when you ask what CPO covers on your new (used) car you don’t exactly get a clear answer – sure they mention coverage, blah blah, and this and that, blah blah, but there’s no documentation for it and a car salesman well, they’re a car salesman. When I pressed for details I was told that I would receive information in the mail once I own the car. Not the answer I was looking for but hey, something tangible in the mail, ok, I guess I’ll be patient (it never arrived). Another detail that was left out was the $50 deductible for any repairs that are covered.

As I’ve discovered in the past 18 months, Audi Certified Pre-Owned does NOT cover:

• Buttons (radio, dash, climate, etc)
• Rattles (funny rattle in the door, too bad)
• Upholstry/Leather/door panels (Oh, right, that makes sense too)
• Noise dampening material that falls apart (ok)
• Wear and tear items (I’m not talking about brakes/tires, but tubing found around the engine)

What was covered so far:

• Replacing power steering rack

Conclusion:

While I still don’t know what’s covered and what’s not or what I really paid for CPO – it seems to cover some catastrophic failures. I’m guessing with the power steering rack I got my money’s worth (on the CPO) but how often is a major component going to fail like that on a car with 50K miles?

My thoughts exactly!

Finally someone has written what I’ve been feeling about voice mail for a very long time!

It’s a waste of your time and my time!

I haven’t gotten around to it but I need to change my outgoing VM message to remind my callers that if they need a quick response or need to deliver a piece of information to me, my Blackberry certainly deals with good old fashioned emails/sms messaging just fine.

Consider the fact that Apple went to the trouble of patenting their Visual Voice Mail on the iPhone for that very reason – VM is an archaic pain in the ass. I have to dial, listen to some dumb greeting, perhaps enter a password, listen to some more instructions, memorize a few digits that control each of the different VM systems I use and deal with message in a linear fashion. I’m no iPhone fan, but their Visual VM is plain genius!

The folks at LifeHacker have a great posting on this today:

“It will come as news to most people over 30 that most people under 30 do not leave voicemail messages. Think about it: Voicemail takes a long time to retrieve and it’s almost never earth-shattering, so it’s not worth the time it requires. Microsoft is such a big believer in this that all voicemails you leave at the company go straight to email. And you can do the same if you use eVoice. Young people treat their list of missed calls as a page system. And they call the person back. No extra step for listening to the message.”

East Coast v West Coast….

Bono v The Edge

This week while, Bono was one of the speakers at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference The Edge, well a huge poster of The Edge, was at the CTIA (the Wireless Association) tradeshow promoting a ringtone download from The Edge.

The poster instructed attendees to text “CTIA” to 23333 to receive a CTIA-exclusive video and ringtone from The Edge.

Attendees were then sent this URL to download the ringtone and see the video clip of The Edge.

Try it out…

CTIA 2007 (SF) Parties

The folks over at mobileslate.com have put together a great list of all the parties going on next week during CTIA in San Francisco.

Check it out and let me know if you’ll be attending any of them.

A380 Visiting SFO…

A couple of weeks ago an Airbus A380 came to visit SFO.

They flew in for a test fitting. You know, kinda like getting fitted for a suit or something but more like making sure that the A380 and SFO were all properly sized-up for each other. Unfortunately I didn’t hear about it till I read the newspaper that day. Here are a few shots of F-WWEA @ SFO (from airliners.net)

Here’s a couple more shots from airliners.net of A380s in flight. Amazing plane and amazing photography too!

Here are a couple of articles on the wiring harness problems that the A380 program faced last year. These articles do a pretty good job of explaining the amazing engineering feats involved in just wiring one of these things up. Apparently no two A380s have the same wiring harness as each airline customizes pimps their aircraft as they see fit.

Warning: if you don’t need/want to read about wiring a comercial aircraft… no need to click the links below.. 

An article from the International Herald Tribune

And one from AirMech.co.uk

Random trivia #1

How can you easily identify a first generation Boeing 747?

That would be a 747-100 (or a 741 in airplane geek speak)

Here’s a great Wikipedia entry on the 747

Yes, you’re on an airplane!

Singapore Airlines just picked up the key’s to this beauty the other day…

Hopefully they opted for the extended warranty and roadside assistance for this one!

First route/flight for this plane is scheduled for a relatively short SIN-SYD hop on October 25th.

More pictures at cnet.com

iPhone + Newton = ?

It was bound to happen… Apple is close to announcing an iPhone-like tablet device!

From: fiercedeveloper.com

“Roughly a decade after terminating production of its Newton personal digital assistant, Apple is reportedly planning a return to the PDA market, putting the finishing touches on a touch-based device in the tradition of the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Citing sources close to the project, AppleInsider reports that the as-yet-unnamed PDA runs an embedded version of Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard platform–the device is described as an ultra-thin “slate” resembling the iPhone, but at 1.5 times the size and with an approximate 720×480 high-resolution display that spans virtually the entire surface.”

For the love of usability geeks everywhere, please make it a bit more grippable! Curved aluminum edges just don’t cut it in my opinion.

Funny Sign

I was waiting in line at an appliance parts store yesterday and I spotted a hand written sign that gave me a good laugh….

“Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy” 

Pretty creative and funny folks there!

Spotted in NYC

But I think they need to put up a few of them in Cupertino!