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So you are completely clued in on why buying an extended auto warranty is a great idea. New car or old car, you have to be covered because having a car is just too essential to getting to your job and a number of other things. Let’s look at a few tips for the best practices there are to buying an auto warranty.

Your first mantra to a successful time with an auto warranty is only buying from a company that’s completely believable. Any time you buy an auto warranty, there are two businesses involved in the transaction – the business that will actually stay with you for the duration of the warranty and give you your repairs and replacements, and the business that sells this deal to you. Go with a company that sells and administers their own product. A reputable company like WarrantyDirect or NationWarranty is what you’re looking for. And they will even cover you for a car rental when your car is in the shop in for repairs.

If you find that the thought of laying out big bucks for an extended car warranty bothers you, there is a way to psychologically trick yourself into looking the other way. When you go in to buy that new car and they give you a rebate on it, you can right away use the rebate to buy an extended warranty. You don’t see the money coming out of your pocket, and it’ll weigh less heavily on your budget-conscious mind. Buying an extended auto warranty at the car dealership though is rarely a good idea. Go online and buy from one of the online firms. They’re usually much cheaper.

Not all auto warranties are created equal. You need to really study the policies of a company before you sign up with them. Just because something’s called a ‘warranty’,  it doesn’t mean that it covers everything you need. Lots of people file lawsuits against their auto warranty company just because they thought that a warranty protected them against everything. If for instance, you don’t stick to your schedule of maintenance services, you lose your warranty. And most warrantys exclude upholstery, paint scratches, tires, air bags, glass, shock absorbers and so on You need to be conversant enough with the terms and conditions to not let that happen.

If you want an affordable auto warranty, you had better get a car that’s known for its dependability – like a Toyota or a Honda. A Buick or Chevy is known for its high rate of failures; a BMW or Mercedes-Benz can be dependable, but expensive to fix should anything go wrong. Cars like these will have expensive warranties. But you had better buy those warranties, expensive or not. Because repairs are something will really have your shirt.

The new financial reform legislation from the government makes sure that car dealers can no longer try the kind of oily tricks they used to be recognized for before. While you are more protected these days than you used to be, there still are areas where you would be better off watching your back. Almost all auto car loans in this country are applied for not at a bank or another lender, but at a car dealer’s. And the new consumer financial protection Bureau has no oversight over them. Basically, as far as new auto car loans go, if it comes from a car dealer, you’re on your own. There are just the FTC and the other consumer protection groups – and they haven’t been nearly enough. You don’t even have to the Truth in Lending act protecting you, for instance. And protection is something you really need when you’re dealing with lenders involved in auto car loans. The Better Business Bureau deals with more complaints to do with this area of business than any other. Here are a few tips on how not to get ripped off when you step into the dealership for help financing a new car.

Dealers don’t make loans out for cars themselves, of course. They get loans from banks and other lenders, and mark them up before they pass them them on to you. They can mark those loans up by three percentage points as far as the law is concerned. Of course, that would be highwayt robbery. But it does go to show how they will raise their rates as much as they could possibly get away with depending on what a given individual customer will tolerate. The best idea then, would be to keep the loan process separate from the car buying process. You can get a much better deal shopping around at the banks and other local lenders. When you walk into the dealership, you’ll have a list of offers that you can get from elsewhere, and you can ask the dealer to match them.

One of the most profitable ways in which dealers make profits on auto car loans is through the sale of add-ons. They’ll try to sell you extended warranties, and extras like a VIN etching to make a little extra on the sale. Often, they’ll add those on sneakily, without even telling you. It’s up to you to read the paperwork closely to make sure that there isn’t anything unnecessary you are signing up for. And speaking of paperwork, make sure that you don’t buy a car to drive home under the condition that the finance is approved later on. You’ll end up a week later getting a call from the dealership that says that your finance fell through. And then they will try to sell you a higher-priced package. Steer clear of any moves that could place you at a disadvantage in the bargaining process.

The Best Hybrid Car Models on a Sharing Basis

What is better than owning the best hybrid car there is – not owning one, and still getting to use one whenever you want of course. Around Silicon Valley, hybrid car sharing is the new mantra around high-tech companies that want to stay green not just by using the latest in hybrid car technology, but by also making the most efficient use of what cars are already on the roads, to prevent future landfill material as far as possible.

The top player in the field of course is Zipcar, whose fleet of Priuses and Mini Coopers made available at convenient parking lots across cities has turned it into a household name. The company that started its operations by succeeding in appealing to the green instincts of the individual driver at urban centers across the country has made quite a mark, and is now expanding to include the corporate customer base as well. For an individual driver, car sharing and getting to drive the best hybrid car anytime they want will cost no more than about six dollars an hour, a price that includes gas and everything. For a corporate client of course, using Zipcar instead of maintaining a corporate fleet makes it all very easy. There is no maintenance to worry about, and accounting has less to keep track of. The age of the corporate Lincoln Town Car is now truly behind us.

Zipcar is doing so great at winning customers that the established players in the renting business, Enterprise, U-Haul, Hertz, are all scrambling to provide the best hybrid car technology around on a sharing basis, all costs included, at a reasonable price point themselves. Enterprise, for instance, offers Ford Escape hybrids to Google employees at the company’s parking lot. Anyone who doesn’t use a car and quickly needs to run out on personal business, always has any number of cars to choose from.

Hertz is so convinced of the viability of the new model, its new car sharing idea, called Connect by Hertz has opened up across the world. Since rental companies like Zipcar and Hertz always close by midnight, customers who need to take a car home for the night find that making use of the sharing method comes with a great deal of savings. For small businesses, party planning services, startups and such, savings like these can make or break a budget. In many instances, it can free up money for use elsewhere. Ask Twitter – when the company was just starting up three years ago, Jack Dorsey and the rest of the moved around in the best hybrid cars available on Zipcar. And look where it brought them.