Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1917-03-10
AUTOMOBILE BUYER
PAYS THE FREIGHT
Even Break on Transportation
Square for One Side of
Transaction.

"Breaking even on the freight"
they call It in the automobile busi-
ness when the dealer collects from
the customer as q transportation
charge money enough not only to
bring a motor car from the factory to
the salesroom. but TO cover all the eN-
penses of making it ready for delivery
to the buyer
This may be an even break for the
man who sells the car. But the man
who buys it, If he knows what he Is
paying for as "A freight charge" is
entitled to have a very different opin-
Jon of it. .. ,,
the automobile buyer than he ought
to be asked to pay is another heri-
tage from the bad old days of the
business, when II was held that 1t was
fair to get money out OF the customer
at every turn that offered. 1t is a
custom that does not operate to the
benefit of the buyer. 1t is making
him pay the freight with vcnge
ance
For be II understood most automo-
bile dealers give their customers the
impression that when they deliver a
new car cleanly washed and polished,
tested, fabricated and with five or ten
gallons of gasoline i'm the tank, they
are making him a present of some
thing. Actually about all the custo-
mer gets free is the air that mixes
with the gasoline. what he has not
already paid for in a good round sum,
he can put in his eye without discom-
fort.
Any automobile dealer is entitled to
collect from the customer the actual
freight and handling cost to get the
car from the factory to the sales
room. Not only do most dealers
charge enough to cover these two
items. but they stick on more to make
1t certain that any factory testing and
adjusting left undose, the removing
~ CRIME and dust from the car accu-
mulated in the course of its journey,
and the gasoline and lubricating oil
needed to make it ready to run when
taken out by the customer are all in
cluded And that is going too far.
These latter items most automobile
buyers think come out of the sales
profit on the car. They imagine 1t
largely because they are induced to
believe that the dealer takes care of
this out of his own pocket. And he is
only too content to let the customer
rest under that impression
But worse than that group which
collects large charges to cover all the
incidentals is group that goes even
further. These dealers actually make
money out of the freight charge. 1t
IS a petty exploitation of the customer
in a way that is unworthy of a real
standard industry.
There isn't even good team work
among dealers in cars of about the
same size and weight shipped from
the same town Take, for instance,
New York dealers doing business II
our comparison ! include the Stearns,
Winton, Peerless, Chandler, Hal and
Jordan.
The automobile rate for 36-foot
freight car from Cleveland to New
York is s6l50 4 dealer may say
that he can charge a customer all
that as being the cost of bringing
single automobile from Cleveland to
New York, but the dealer practically
never gets less than two automobiles
in a freight car, So he cannot go shat
far.
Half OF s615O is s3O75. Some
times there is divergence charge of
So freight car to enable IL to be
shifted about to a convenient unload
ing place. That makes a cost of
S31.7j for each machine of two-car-
load delivered in freight yards here.
Handling costs some money. DriV
ers have to be sent down to the yards,
and it takes their time, paid for at a
good rate, to get the automobiles out.
An estimate of 81 to 50 an automobile
for this item is high enough. These
charges ought to include gasoline
enough to bring the cars to sales
rooms or warehouses, with lubricating
oil put in. Say at the outside it costs
between S35 and $36 to bring auto
mobiles in when they are hacked two
in a freight carload.
Here are the charges made by the
dealers for the various Cleveland con-
Germs named Stearns, S35; Winton,
sS5; Chandler, $40; Peerless, $40;
Hal. S45; Jordan, $50.
on the face of it. Winton and
Stearns charge no more than cost. Yet