New Hyundai warranty covers job loss*

*Mostly.

In a mark of how bad things are “Hyundai is providing a complimentary vehicle return program for the first year on every new Hyundai that is financed or leased for owners who experience an involuntary loss of income within 12 months of the purchase date.“

What that actually means is Hyundai is offering to cover up to $7.5K of the debt on a new car in case of

• Involuntary unemployment
• Physical disability
• Loss of driver’s license due to medical impairment
• International employment transfer
• Self-employed personal bankruptcy
• Accidental death

Details: You have to have made at least two payments; you are still on the hook for everything over $7.5K and; they get the car back.  Which means if you bought the bottom line Accent with nothing added to it (MSRP $9.9K) and make just the two payments you are only on the cuff for about two grand. Not great but so far it’s better than anything else out there. (What dumbass wrote that? Truth is below)

You are on the hook for only the depreciation OVER $7500. Example: if the car had an msrp of around 25 grand and you were on the peverbial hook for the whole magilla and the depreciation over the first 10 months was 30% ( 7.5 large ) you would owe nada.

The deal looks even better when you consider that none of your tax dollars have gone into propping the company up.

So the new motto is, “Hyundai — the car to buy if you think you’re going to get canned.”

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Buy 1, get 1 free is worldwide trend among car dealers

Can the US get the same deal with car makers?

• Antwerp-based Cardoen, which sells about 10,000 new and nearly new cars per year, started the promotion at the end of November and said it would run until December 15.
• An Oak Lawn [IL] car dealership has started a new and unusual promotion: Buy one 2008 Chrysler Pacifica and get a second car, a 2008 PT Cruiser, for $1
• A Quebec car dealership offering a two-for-one vehicle promotion says it will help save money down the road. Girard Chrysler, a dealership in Repentigny, launched the offer earlier this week as a way to curtail a slowdown in the auto industry.
• The U.K.’s Daily Mail reports, “Desperate car dealers today stunned experts by launching an extraordinary credit-crunch busting deal — buy one new car and get another completely free.”
• To jump-start slow sales, one South Florida auto dealer shifted to an aggressive promotion. Rob Lambdin’s University Dodge in Davie has been offering customers a buy-one-get-one-free deal on select new Dodge Ram trucks.
• A Kia dealer in West Palm Beach is offering two Kia vehicles — for the price of one.

I totally fail to understand the economics on this for the dealers beyond: UH OH.

When all else fails … hope for divine intervention:

With sport-utility vehicles at the altar and auto workers in the pews, one of Detroit’s largest churches on Sunday offered up prayers for Congress to bail out the struggling auto industry.

“We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this week,” the Rev. Charles Ellis told several thousand congregants at a rousing service at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple. “This week, lives are hanging above an abyss of uncertainty as both houses of Congress decide whether to extend a helping hand.”

Local car dealerships donated three hybrid SUVs to be displayed during the service, one from each of the Big Three. A Ford Escape, Chevy Tahoe from GM and a Chrysler Aspen were parked just in front of the choir and behind the pulpit.