GM hides a price hike within OnStar, Ford raises F-150 Lightning prices, Kia Optimas recalled for bonking occupants. All this and more in today’s issue of The Morning Dump.
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
GM Makes $1,500 OnStar Subscription Mandatory On Some Models
Imagine seeing a new car advertised for a fair price and waltzing down to a dealer that doesn’t charge markup, only to find a $1,500 line item on the window sticker appears for a telematics subscription you can’t opt out of. Sounds like a nightmare, right? Well, Automotive News reports that this is the reality Buick, GMC, and Cadillac Escalade buyers face thanks to a new required OnStar subscription.
The mandatory upcharge provides a three-year subscription to OnStar, GM’s long-standing in-vehicle safety, security and connectivity service. It’s included in the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of all Buicks and GMCs ordered starting June 2 and all Cadillac Escalades ordered starting July 18.
The $1,500 plan is listed on the window sticker as a separate line item along with other additions to the vehicle’s standard equipment, but there is no option to remove it or order the vehicle without it. Customers who decline to activate their OnStar service will not be given a price reduction, GM said.
“By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless onboarding experience and more customer value,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email.
While price hikes are nothing new, most price hikes are fairly transparent. Even on the Buick configurator, this mandatory OnStar subscription is definitely somewhat opaque. For instance, a base 2022 Buick Encore GX lists for $25,595 including a $1,195 freight charge on Buick’s website. Select that trim on the configurator and net price jumps to $27,095 with zero explanation.
If an option is mandatory, it is therefore standard equipment and should be included in a vehicle’s MSRP. GM’s decision to conceal this price hike through a mandatory OnStar subscription listed as an option is deceptive, full-stop. A mandatory hidden charge doesn’t add “more customer value,” it drives customers away. Does GM really think that the person buying a base-model Buick Encore GX has an extra $1,500 laying around?
Ford F-150 Lightning Gets Massive Price Hike
The Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck has proven to be a hot commodity, with many reservation holders missing out on first-round ordering due to excess demand. Well, order banks are open again, although you’ll need to splash out significant additional cash to get an F-150 Lightning this time around.
Ford hasn’t released freight charges for new F-150 Lightning orders, so expect to add somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 to each of these prices. The fleet-spec Lightning Pro now starts at $46,974, up $7,000. The XLT trim now starts at $59,474, an increase of $6,500. Add the extended range battery, and MSRP jumps to $80,974, up $8,500. Moving on to the Lariat trim, standard range models get a $7,000 price hike to $74,474, while extended range models see a price increase of $8,500 and an MSRP of $85,974. Want a top-trim Platinum model? You’re now looking at $96,874, an increase of $6,000.
Wow, those are some enormous price hikes. Is there any extra standard equipment to somewhat offset the new pricing? Hardly. Standard range models see range increased 10 miles to 240 miles, and that’s it for no-cost changes. Right, let’s hear Ford’s justification for the new pricing.
Ford is adjusting the MSRP on the F-150 Lightning for the first time since it was revealed in May 2021 and has honored MSRP for all customer orders to date. Due to significant material cost increases and other factors, Ford has adjusted MSRP starting with the opening of the next wave of F-150 Lightning orders.
I shouldn’t be terribly surprised about the price hikes. Lithium is still quite expensive and with large battery packs of either 98 kWh or 131 kWh, a lot of resources go into manufacturing the F-150 Lightning. There is potentially some good news, though. Ford will be extending private offers to some customers who deferred their Lightning orders, although details on those offers aren’t exactly public knowledge. In the wake of these price hikes, I’m curious as to whether or not Chevrolet sticks to the expected $39,990 base price for its Silverado EV. If GM stays firm on expected pricing, the electric truck wars could get very heated indeed.
Volkswagen Reportedly Looking To Cut Board Positions
Another executive shakeup could occur at Volkswagen as Reuters reports that incoming CEO Oliver Blume plans to shrink the management board down to eight or nine people from the current 12. As for who could be cut from the team, the report has some ideas.
The future of China board member Ralf Brandstaetter is unclear, one of them said, as is that of IT chief Hauke Stars.
The posts of purchasing manager Murat Aksel and sales manager Hildegard Wortmann, meanwhile, could be at risk.
“One could ask why the purchasing manager of the VW passenger car brand also has to be on the group board,” the second source said, adding that also applied to Wortmann, who heads the group’s sales department in addition to Audi.
Up for discussion is also the wide range of tasks of technology head Thomas Schmall, who is responsible among other things for the group’s automotive suppliers, the development of a global network of battery plants and technology platforms.
You know what they say about having too many cooks? It seems like Volkswagen’s board has grown a bit too large, so shrinking the board should align nicely with the concept of lean management. Plus, Reuters claims that the majority-stake Porsche and Piech families are looking for calmer management, and a tighter board could help with that. Regardless of what happens, this will be an interesting saga to watch.
Don’t Get Bonked By A Kia Optima
Safety recalls don’t normally verge on slapstick, but Kia’s found a way for Optimas to bonk occupants on the head. As it sits, 257,998 Kia Optimas made between Aug. 12, 2011 and Sept. 27, 2013 have been recalled for headliner plates that might detach. Let’s delve into the NHTSA recall report and see what it says.
The subject vehicles are equipped with headliner plates designed as part of the energy absorbing structure of the headliner. Under certain circumstances, the headliner plate(s) may detach from the headliner upon deployment of the side curtain airbag(s), increasing the risk of injury to an occupant.
Talk about adding insult to injury, or should that be adding injury to injury? Kia reports one injury from falling headliner plates and head trauma is certainly something to take seriously. Thankfully, Kia has a plan to fix this issue and it seems incredibly low-tech.
The headliner plates will have an industrial-grade adhesive tape applied to the plates to provide additional adhesion to the headliner.
Taping up headliner plates may sound janky, but who am I to question this repair should it prove effective? Said tape was applied to 2014 model year Optimas and they don’t seem to be having this issue. Owners of affected Optimas are slated to receive recall notices in the mail between Sept. 26 and Sept. 30, right as the fix becomes available. Getting injured in a crash by your own car doesn’t sound fun, so this should be a recall worth getting done ASAP.
The Flush
Whelp, time to drop the lid on today’s edition of The Morning Dump. It’s officially Wednesday, and I’m starting to pack for our car show in Los Angeles on Saturday. Between shirts, jeans, camera gear, and contact lens solution, I’m starting to think about snacks for a five-hour flight. Where in a car or on a plane, I just can’t seem to beat beef jerky as a relatively low-mess bite to eat. Be it for a road trip or for a flight, I’d love to know what your favorite travel snacks are.
Lead photo credit: Buick
I’ve been permanently forbidden from eating jerky in the car or on a plane. The smell is a bit much for those nearby. I mean the smell of the jerky itself, although this jerk can make a stench with or without the help of preserved meat. My go-to travel snacks are dried mango or cantaloupe, trail mix, cut up apple and cheese, or pretzels. The goal is to not coat my fingers with fine powders of flavor adjutants while killing hunger in fewer motions. Apple and cheese requires help if I’m driving.
GM and Ford can get boned with a rusty pitchfork. GM is just shitty and Ford is predictable considering the Lightning sold out so fast, but it’s still bullshit. As some others have said Combos are my go to for snacking on trips. I can’t remember the last time I had them somewhere other than a plane or a car.
Let me get this straight…
Boned as is in fucked in the ass… or fucked in the face? Inquiring minds want to know.
Wow, I’m interested in that Maverick and it’s in my price range! Oh, I can’t get it, but they’re introducing an expensive special addition which makes no sense? Great. Wow! This electric F150 looks interesting. Maybe I can increase my budget a bit and get one? Oh, I can’t get that either? And they’re raising the price by 8 grand, even if I could find one? Ok, I’ll try something else like an Encore GX. What is this $1500 line item?. Wow does this car market suck! WOW!
Non-optional options: this is why I buy older used cars. My newest is a 2017 Fiat which I admit might be selling anonymized location data from the TomTom system, but I don’t think it has any other spyware in it. It certainly doesn’t have any “driver assist” bullshit.
Higher Ford prices: It’s just supply and demand, my dudes. When the first round of Lightnings sold out instanter, they knew they had themselves a hot commodity and that they had seriously under-priced it. My bet is that the next round will sell out, although more slowly. They’re just titrating the market to see what it will bear. If people stop buying, the prices will come down.
Somehow I only pay $13 monthly for two vehicles with GM, I have the app with the remote start functionality, I get some reports once in a while about the vehicle in general. I can do other minor things like locate my vehicle, send notifications if the vehicle leaves the dealership when its in for service, score for my driving and that’s about it. That’s not even close to $41.66 they are charging per vehicle, what else do people will get? Calling 911 in case of an accident? Towing? I have AAA for that, way cheaper. Not even WiFi worked good when they offered it for free for one month, and if the kids need internet I would rather use my phone as hotspot. I hope they lose future customers
My go-to snacks are almond granola bars and dried cherries. I’ll also take fresh bananas and mandarin oranges, but those are only for eating while stopped.
I don’t like any jerky or similar stuff as a road snack because it leaves your breath so persistently foul so very quickly.
“I just can’t seem to beat beef jerky as a relatively low-mess bite to eat.”
Make it grass-fed if you haven’t already!
I thought OnStar was in the gutter with VHS tapes. Haven’t thought about it in years. I don’t know anyone who ever kept it past the trial period. The only thing allowed in my cars is water. My cars are nothing special, but they don’t smell like a Kum & Go in a janky neighborhood. Yes. That’s a real chain.
I’m going to be very disappointed if they’re not selling what the name implies.That would make the funniest false advertising lawsuit ever,right?
Smokehouse almonds and grapes. Tasty, and reminds me of when I was a kid flying on Piedmont airlines for a trip and they gave everyone smokehouse almonds instead of peanut packets… first time I’d ever had them, and they were amazing.
While a smaller “option,” when spacing out a diesel Escalade at the dealer, the $100 plug-in block heater “option” was automatically added and could not be removed. I was going to get it anyway (I live in Michigan) but it just seems like if something is optional, I should have a, what is the word? Oh yeah, OPTION.
If an option is mandatory, then it’s not an option. This seems shady & stupid.
Sounds like HIGHWAY THRU HELL…
CLOSURE IS NOT AN OPTION! = CAN NOT CLOSE THE DAMN ROAD!
I knew a guy that figured Mountain Dew and pretzels were the move. Claimed the pretzels soaked up the Mountain Dew and you didn’t have to stop to pee. I Personally never tried his theory.
What is it with people and not stopping to pee? Is it really such a win to say, “I drove 900 miles with two liters of sugar water in my bladder and didn’t have to stop, not even ONCE!” Is anybody really impressed by that, even amongst our car-loving kind?
I sweat out my ass.. but Ive done that. Drove from FL to SC.. never peed once. I got the bladder of the Exxon Valdez.
I like to have a couple different snacks. Gummies make a great sweet snack, so long as you don’t leave them on your dash in the sun. (Even then, you end up with one large formless gummy when it cools down.) Beef jerky or pepperoni sticks are my favorite salty/savory. I don’t want anything likely to cause a mess, so nothing likely to drop a lot of crumbs or the like, and I am nervous about things like nuts, where I am likely to drop one or two if I grab a handful. If I want something like that, I like the small packs of Planters salted peanuts where I can open the top corner and pour them into my mouth.
I left a bag of alphabet letter gummies used for supermarket compliance bribery in the door pocket. That’s how I discovered the green ones must use a different release agent, because they happily detached from the solid lump as I gnawed my way through.
So, for road trips, my go-to snack is Combos. Preferably the cheese and cracker variety or cheeseburger, if it’s available. You do have to be careful not to eat too many, because you will get hard gut syndrome.
GM’s move with OnStar is straight-up deceptive marketing, it’s a classic Bait & Switch gambit. I wonder what the FTC will have to say.
I also love beef jerky, however it has to be the stuff from Love’s truck stops. Very lightly rebranded version of Robertson’s Hams beef jerky, out of Marietta Ok.
Why do I insist on this stuff? Cause none of the other jerky out there is dry enough. You open a normal beef jerky pack and if you don’t eat it all in a day or two and its turned. This stuff is damn near completely dehydrated. It takes effort to chew.
I love it.
This Onstar nonsense had better not spread to the Blackwings during this model year; GM already raised the MSRP by $7000 between 2022 and 2023.
I eat fairly healthy at home, so trips of any kind are an excuse to enjoy some junk food. You want something self-contained, bite-size, and that doesn’t “shed” (no Cheetos, etc). Those Combos thingies are a perennial favorite, as are peanut butter filled pretzel bites. Peanut M&Ms are good too. Just something you can grab a handful of now and then and not get your hands messy.
I sure hope that my GM (with long-dead OnStar) is still telling GM what radio stations I listen to. Especially since I use an RF modulator to connect my phone, using a radio frequency that no station in my area exists on. Have fun selling that!
combine where they live with where they work and … it’s 99.9%
I remember when I bought by first new car, the dealer told me that the immobilizer security system was already installed and was, therefore, a mandatory option. I told them that if they installed it, they could also uninstall it and I’d wait there to complete my paperwork until they finished. They did.
As for travel snacks, I usually go with beef jerky, trail mix, and Larabars. I like the Larabars because they are not crumbly like some others (Kind bars in particular shatter when you bite into them) and leave me less messy in my airline crypo pod.
I pray for the day of reckoning coming for auto manufacturers (and dealers). They’re like pigs at a trough, and still making brazen attempts to soak the customer as much as possible. This flies in the face of the increasing costs to finance, an uncertain economy, and other costs of living straining household budgets.
Here’s my hot, possibly unpopular take. It’s not as fun to be a car person these days because the low bar of entry for “eff it” cars has risen so greatly, parts are of marginal average quality with equally poor availability, labor rates are up if you can’t or don’t want to swing wrench, etc. That said, I’m glad I found a vehicle I can live with before things really went belly up. I’m also fortunate to have enough knowledge, space, and tools to be able to do my own work and the dogged determination to source the correct parts at a reasonable cost. My heart truly goes out to everyone else caught up in the maelstrom of suck, though.
Yeah, I’m sure they were losing a good amount of money due to come backs and warrantied work. It’s possible that they’re padding some of that with the increased labor rates. Because, obviously, those labor rates are not trickling down to the technicians doing work by way of take home pay or retention bonuses…something else is trickling down on them from above, though.
On one hand, my thought is, “about time” in regard to not casting off cars with only one tire in the junkyard. On the other hand, I feel for folks who have to lay down four and five figure money to keep their tired DDs going. It’s funny, I thought I was crazy spending $1,300 about 20 months ago to get a 1993 ZJ (admittedly it was very nice) baselined with a bunch of suspension and steering work, and other stuff I didn’t want to do.
I’m in the PNW so I know fuck all about rusted out cars, but the question I asked myself last time a repair bill seemed close to the value of the car was: can I get a car I want more by some other path than this repair? Wasn’t close, and I’m still driving a 2005.
Maybe it’s all relative, because I recall thinking something similarly after the aughts concluded, but I have no interest in most new, modern vehicles. It’s kind of like a kid in school coasting at the end of the semester because he’s found out with every permutation on his grades, he’s gonna pass. A lot of companies aren’t putting their full developmental might behind ICE as a powertrain, so you’re getting half-assed engineering that ticks all the boxes and satisfies federal mandates.
We’re seeing modern engines grenade after 1/4 or 1/3 of their useful life with 10,000 mile oil changes, low weight oils burning up past lightweight oil rings, basic reliability issues with brakes, electronic controls, and an overall (IMO) decline in reliability. I’m sure someone with enough time could prove to me that I’m wrong, but there’ve been massive recalls on engines that can’t go the distance (H/K, Toyota, Subaru, some FCA/Stellantis stuff, Ford, Chevrolet, etc…).
This is my roundabout way of saying that I agree with you, and that I prefer simpler, more robust technology (again, all relative there). I’ll do my own work and keep my existing vehicle working, even if the pills are bitter and hard to swallow.
I think that’s the wildest repair i’ve ever heard! Replacing a frame is nuts in itself.Putting a new frame under a rusting body is completely over the top.
The things people are forced into when in debt…. 🙁
A co-worker just had the diff fail in his F150. Dealer charged $3000 (CAD) and he assumed he was getting a new diff. Talked to the mechanic after the job was done and found out it was a used diff with 150,000 km on it. I guess you could say it was on him for not making sure it was a new diff but he said at $3000 he just assumed it would be a new one.
“The average labor rate in my town is now over $125 per hour, and the average mechanic is taking home about $22/hr book”
Wow, this is disrespectful. I’m not surprised but it doesn’t make it any less shitty.
I know it’s not the same but this is the closest example I have, I work as a personal trainer and the gym I work at charges $60-90 for an hour session. I make $36 for that. I can’t believe that I make more than a mechanic. Most people can do without a personal trainer (don’t tell some of my clients!), most people can’t do without a mechanic.
Being a mechanic has got to be the worst trade to be in—it easily pays the worst, the work is mostly the worst, there’s more tech that you need to keep updated on, way more money to spend buying your own tools, minimal advancement opportunities, and people treat you like you’re extorting them when you tell them they need new brakes they “just had replaced 5 years ago” and can show them the shadows of the cooling vanes in the human hair-thin rotor surface. If someone is smart enough to be a GOOD mechanic today, they’ve likely already figured that out and moved to a better trade or never pursued it. Electrician, HVAC, plumbing can almost work whenever they want and charge whatever they feel and they’re so in demand that customers will put up with horrendous waits, terrible workmanship, and/or tolerating far less than professional behavior while paying out the ass, but that’s the consequence of telling students for decades that only losers go into the trades.
Interesting! And sad. I knew the USA have some low minimum wages but wouldnt have thought mechanics are at that end of the spectrum.
as an electrician, LOL.
“Electrician, HVAC, plumbing can almost work whenever they want and charge whatever they feel and they’re so in demand that customers will put up with horrendous waits, terrible workmanship, and/or tolerating far less than professional behavior while paying out the ass,”
i get none of these benefits. where do i go to get to treat people like this?!?
My favorite travel snacks are some kind of mixed nuts or fresh fruit. If I’m going to be doing a hike or something similar when I arrive my go to is energy balls I make at home. Cheaper and healthier than whatever road snack I’d come across.
Fresh fruit all the way! A good pair of honeycrisp apples makes cross-country flight doldrums instantly disappear.
I buy a coke and a box of those little soft baked Chocolate Chips cookies. . .bad choices, maybe?
So Ford is taking the new EV credit for themselves. Got it.
Does the Lightning qualify? Some trims are over the $80,000 price cap, so those are out. I believe the battery packs are assembled in Georgia, but I don’t know if the components of those packs will meet the new regulations.
You are right–any extended range Lightning will be out now. Surprised they didn’t keep the extended XLT just under the 80k cap.
As for components, that’s gonna be tricky for everyone. We’ll see how it goes after the guidance is released.
Ford was still eligible for the old tax credit, so this is just extra.
The manufacturers have always taken the EV credit for themselves. That’s why MSRP on Bolts dropped precipitously when their credits ran out.
““By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless profitmaking experience and more customer wallet-vacuuming,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email.”
There, I fixed it for you.
There are definitely tapes that would be perfectly fine in an application like this. I assume they will be using some variation of 3M’s VHB (very high bonding) tape, which among other things has been used to affix exterior panels and windows to skyscrapers and other large buildings. It’s serious shit, as far as tape goes.
VHB tape is no joke. We use miles of it in the sign shop I work in for a day job. Many times I’ve asked our structural engineer what size fasteners I need for something, and he’s replied “Just use VHB.”
BASF-“We don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy deadlier”
My go-to snack is a bag of almonds. On 1,000+ mile drives, I’d usually buy a 1 lb bag of almonds. By the end of the drive, it would usually be finished off completely. Don’t have to stop at restaurants along the way.
OH!
YOU Like DEEZ nutz?
hahaha