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Krafcik says US Gov. shutdown is slowing Oct. auto sales

The government shutdown is eroding consumer confidence in the auto market, says John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai's US sales unit, and could lower October sales by as much as 10 percent, Automotive News reports. "It's that anxiety that keeps customers, potential buyers, on the sidelines when making a big purchase like an automobile," Krafcik says, adding that industry sales could be off by five to 10 percent in October compared to September.
The fourth quarter, which started October 1, usually consists of increased auto sales as dealerships clear their lots to make room for the next year's models. Leading up to the fourth quarter this year, the auto industry was doing well in the fragile, recovering US economy, although September deliveries decreased by 4.2 percent, due in part to this year's Labor Day sales being recorded for August.
To help its customers, Hyundai announced it is deferring new-car loan and lease payments for furloughed federal workers until they're called back to work and also offering them a three-month payment deferral if they buy a new Hyundai in October. "We have already had requests from over a thousand people to have their payments deferred," Krafcik says.

2021 Ford F-150 goes hybrid and we drive the Cadillac CT4-V | Autoblog Podcast #633

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder and Associate Editor Byron Hurd. They start with the big news of the week: Ford unveiling the 2021 F-150, complete with a powerful hybrid powertrain. The guys have been driving some eclectic vehicles, including the Cadillac CT4-V, Toyota Prius AWD-e and a 1967 VW Samba Microbus. To finish things off, Greg springs a few trivia questions on his guests. We'll post those in the comments, and you can see if you'd have gotten those right. Autoblog Podcast #633 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown 2021 Ford F-150 revealed Read more about the heavy-hitting hybrid Cars we're driving: 2020 Cadillac CT4-V 2020 Toyota Prius AWD-e 1967 Volkswagen Samba Trivia Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on iTunes Related Video:

Toyota expands airbag recall to 2.27M vehicles worldwide

Was your Toyota inspected under the company's recall campaign for faulty airbag inflators last year? You might have another trip ahead to have it repaired again. The automotive giant says that it found "the involved serial numbers provided by the supplier were incomplete, and did not include all of the potentially involved inflators," according to its official announcement. That means more replacements are needed.
Toyota's April 2013 inflator recall covered the Corolla, Matrix and Tundra from the 2003 and 2004 model years, the Sequoia from 2002 to 2004 and the Lexus SC 430 from 2002 to 2004. At the time, the company said it would need to inspect about 510,000 vehicles in the US but only expected to replace around 170,000 inflators.
However, the latest announcement increases that figure to about 766,300 vehicles in the US. Toyota spokesperson Cindy Knight told Autoblog that the new amount is the combination of owners who need to have their vehicle looked at again and those who didn't come in for the initial recall. The company learned about the problem when Takata, the supplier, provided it with an improved list of the faulty part's serial numbers. According to The Detroit News, the latest recall affects about 2.27 million vehicles from them worldwide. Knight said owners would receive notification of the problem around the end of the month but repairs would come in phases because the automaker doesn't have all of the necessary parts at the moment.