Today: how to save $500 the next time you insure your car; how to make your mother not think you are an ungrateful son or daughter or both; how the government has blown its election chances by not introducing a first-car buyer’s scheme; how there are only four cars in tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix; how going to see the start of the Shitbox Rally on May 28 means you will miss out on The Weekend Australian freebies (well, because I made a mistake and it really starts on May 27); and we ask the big question: “Is Red Bull putting the Mark Weber curse on Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo?
All this and more in this bumper Mother’s Day edition.
Sydney reader Amanda had been an AAMI customer since 1999. She duly rolled over her car and home-and-contents insurance with them every year naturally presuming the Suncorp-owned company would be rewarding her loyalty with a good deal. Big mistake. Friends, loyalty is brown bread, has hopped on the last rattler, gone swimming with concrete shoes, is wearing a pine overcoat and is definitely deceased.
Now Amanda is the kind of customer you don’t really want as a customer. She does her homework and lays it all out on a spread sheet. When she bought her new Toyota Corolla Sport this month she got a super deal with more extras thrown in than a Tesla has quality issues. And the Toyota sales person offered to insure her car for $650 drive away no more to pay. You need to know Amanda has never had a claim in her whole life, she is a mature but not old person and lives in a suburb not known for car assaults and thefts.
“Oh,” she said to the Toyota rep, “nice try, but AAMI, owned by Suncorp, a top 20-listed ASX company, will look after a loyal long-time client like me”. Poor old Amanda. Not only is she dealing in the car industry but worse she is dealing with a financial services company in the car industry. Talk about double jeopardy. The nice AAMI phone sales consultant quoted $1200. “But” and she ran through “the long-time customer, three policies with you” story.
“But,” said the AAMI phone person, “you won’t get all the benefits with the $650 Toyota policy that you get with our $1200 policy”. “I have the spread sheet here,” replied Amanda, now getting a little cross. “Toyota (through Allianz) have all the features you have and a few more.” Naturally, Amanda went with Toyota for the new car and St George for her house, which turned out to be a lot cheaper, too.
The vibe on AAMIon social media is also not great. Remember, every insurer is super until it comes time to pay up. The moral is forget loyalty and make sure you’re not being done over every time you renew your insurance.
Forgot to buy something for Mum? Don’t be too disturbed. I have a friend who works underground in the Hunter Valley. On the way home after coming off night shift on Christmas Day, he suddenly realised he had forgotten to buy presents for his wife and three young kids. No problem. He stopped at the Shell servo and filled the Santa sack with a great range of car care items, model cars and air filters.
If you don’t have a servo nearby can I suggest the 1928 Mercedes-Benz 680 S Torpedo-Sport Avant-Garde that RM Sotheby’s is selling at Villa Erba on Lake Como. This is the car that even besotted James S. Rockefeller. The all-aluminium body is from Jacques Saouthchik, the most flamboyant of the designers of the 1900s. Born in Belarus, Jac moved to Paris as a cabinetmaker before setting up in the car body caper.
Chuck Levine, who made his cash from brass recycling, ordered the Merc from his local New York dealer. By the time the very expensive car arrived Chuck had gone belly-up with tax and other issues. So, Standard Oil director Fred Bedford Jr paid cash, drove away with no more to pay and it stayed in the family until Texan Paul Andrews paid Dave Gooding $5.6 million for it at auction. Your Mum would love this at only $12m.
Talking of Mercedes, when you’re heading over to Mum’s tomorrow don’t forget to get her to check if the Foxtel’s working because you don’t want to miss the Spanish GP. Who doesn’t want to watch a four-horse race between Vettel, Hamilton, Bottas and Raikkonen in two brands of cars?
In the weeks since the Russian GP, most of the teams have been working hard to make their cars go faster. Mercedes, for instance, have made the drivers’ numbers and names bigger on the side of the cars. Red Bull need a new engine from Renault but that’s not happening. They need the aero fixed and maybe a bit of that is happening and they need to make the car more reliable.
This is a shortened version of the original article – read the rest at The Australian
