"solar roof package"

^^^^^ Capitalism^^^^^^


A business shall sell to the ill informed at a higher price/ profit margin just because that's how it is.

They can afford to sometimes make that hard sale "under dealer cost", because they know Mr. And Mrs ______ will walk in in a couple days and be happy to buy the next car at $100 under MSRP....

It pays to be an informed consumer.

 

Of course it's capitalism, I don't have a problem with that, and I know why they do it. I just think the automotive industry would have a better reputation if they'd set a price and quit all the shenanigans. That will never happen though because there's always someone who won't play nice. And you can't be an informed consumer if the info isn't available. I think I got a great deal, but I don't fool myself that the dealer still didn't make a lot of money via the kickback. I suppose I shouldn't care that Mr and Mrs________ gets taken advantage of, but I do because they are probably somebody's grandparents. All I know is I'd never make it as a car salesman because I couldn't compromise my scruples. They aren't called shysters for nothing.

 

And I agree 100%, they are not known as stealerships for nothin!

Thing is nowadays, with truecar, USAA auto circle, Edmunds, costco pricing, the internet, etc, sometimes you can even find dealer holdback and factory to dealer incentives online (now that's another story if the dealer pockets that or passes it along.....and also there is dealer relationships, referrals, past customers.

It does make it a little easier to find out the dealer cost vs MSRP, etc. knowing above info.

But yeah it's never easy buying a car, I to the lore of my wife am pretty good at buying and trading cars (Am done buying / trading for a while anyways). It just takes patients, being prepared for the shenanigans, and knowing when they won't deal anymore and making the deal. Oh and deal with the sales mgr. it blows going back n forth with the salesman.

 

Absolutely BP. I use those, but don't believe I've ever seen bona fide holdback numbers though. I've seen some estimates, but from what I gather they vary depending on how long it takes to sell the vehicle, how many vehicles a dealer sells, by manufacturer, etc. I don't mind that part, they need to make a profit, I just hate the whole haggling process and then the "bragging" or "chastising" that goes on in forums when someone posts that they got a good deal and someone just has to burst their bubble. Sometimes it's okay for education purposes, but sometimes it's mean-spirited. I did deal with the manager, but I'm not naïve enough to think someone else couldn't have made an even better deal. I just think the industry would have a better rep and get more loyal customers, including in their service centers, if the process weren't so adversarial right from the start.

Truth be told though, I don't trust any mechanic. Why? Because I can't see what they're doing. There are exceptions. For example, I have a service center nearby that is attached to a carwash and they do oil changes, transmission flushes, detailing, etc. I trust them to a greater degree because the service bays are all behind a huge window where I can see that the air filter they're telling me is dirty is the one they took out of my car and I can see the new one being put in. I can also see what oil they are using, etc. My Discount Tire is also behind a huge window and I can watch them rotate/balance my tires, etc., so I know it was done. I've yet to find a dealer here that will allow me to watch my vehicle being serviced. I can't go in the bay at my local repair shop either, but at least there I can stand outside the bay and see what's being done. Heck, even at Wally World, I can see them do their jobs.

 

I just had solar installed on my house, so I've been looking at panels a bunch recently... I doubt you could fit a 200W panel on a car, and almost certainly not when considering the temperature, vibration, future part availability, and other automotive specs you have to meet. There's also a need to have structural support for the roof, which may reduce the available panel size (or require a tradeoff of a thicker roof). My panels are 260W, and 17.6 square feet each; I don't know how much area is on the top of the roof, but I'd guess that it's less than that. I think the panel Toyota is using is roughly 60W; but it's also at least a 6-year-old design, and a fair amount of efficiency advancements have been made in that time.

In any case, even if you could fit a 200W panel up there, you won't get 200W. That rating is more of a "guaranteed not to exceed" value than anything you would ever see with any sort of regularity; it assumes that it's a chilly day with a nice breeze, the sun is directly over the panel, there's not the slightest bit of haze, etc. etc. etc.; this is what they call "Standard Test Conditions". My 260W panel also offers a "Normal Operating Cell Temperature" rating which is intended to be more like real conditions; in that case, it's only 197W. That's still assuming that the sun is basically directly overhead near the middle of summer, though. On a winter day like today, my solar panels will only produce a peak of about 40% of that 260W rating, give or take.

And finally, even if you are in the perfect conditions, the earth keeps turning; even if your 200W panel is producing 200W this minute, it won't be 5 minutes from now, as the sun's position changes.

So I'd say it's generally true that the panel is insufficient to really be used to charge the battery. You might get some improvement if it were hooked up that way, but not a whole lot.

 

This time of year we can have cool but very sunny days. With the solar roof package, I could turn off my car with the windows rolled up and sit quite comfortably inside and read while the vents streamed in cool air. I've spent as much as an hour doing this and noticed even the lightest puffy white cloud passing over could dramatically reduce the fan speed making the car seem as if it's almost breathing. creepy.....

Besides running a fan, the next best application of a roof solar panel is charge maintaining the 12v battery.