The adage my dad used to tell me that "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is" looks like it applies here: In the news today, a suburban Chicago car dealer is selling a PT Cruiser for $1, if you buy a $40,000 luxury SUV.

The Cruisers that Frank Mancari is selling are used 2008 models with about 10,000 miles on them that usually retail for $10,000. The Chrysler Pacifica has a list price of more than $39,000. It's a great way to get people in the door as car sales drop around the country, but a little difficult to swallow when you do the math, as Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter did.

You're already down some cash by agreeing to the sticker price of the SUV, instead of any negotiated price. As Rhodes points out, maybe you could get the Cruiser for $8,000 and the SUV for $32,000 without the deal. With the deal, the two cars would cost $40,001 together. Not much of a deal so far.

The deal was to have ended Monday after the five Pacificas were sold, but Mancari says he may extend it to other models.

Neither vehicle gets great gas mileage. The Pacifica gets about 15 mpg in the city while the PT Cruiser gets less than 20 miles per gallon in the city. With gas prices dropping, returning to the gas-hog days of the past with an SUV may look like a deal now. But wait until gas prices go up again, because you know they will.

Aaron Crowe is an unemployed journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read about his job search at www.talesofanunemployeddad.blogspot.com

Pay as you go isn't just for cell phones anymore, it turns out some auto insurance companies are switching to pay as you go plans in order to offer better rates to customers. Traditionally insurance rates are based on, among many things, the estimated miles that each driver will travel during a year. Many people argue that these estimates are inaccurate and that a pay as you go plan would provide consumers with an incentive to drive less. Legislation is currently underway in California to let insurance companies base rates on actual miles traveled it is estimated that it would be the equivalent of removing 10 million cars from the road!

While California is only on the cusp of letting insurance providers make use of this information to determine what your premium will be at least one other company is already offering pay as you go insurance rates in several states. Progressive offers a My Rate program in four states and requires that users hook up a device to their car which tracks the miles traveled as well as how you drive to recalculate your rate every 6 months.

Both of these plans have some similarities, neither will track where you go with GPS and both of them are under fire by privacy groups. The programs differ in that the My Rate plan from Progressive tracks WHEN and HOW you drive in order to determine your insurance rate. In California, much to the chagrin of insurers, neither of these pieces of information can be tracked.

Have you been to a car wash lately? If you're like many Americans, you may have decided having a spiffy car is just one of the things you're going to let go of in tight economic times. After a decade of growth in high end services, some car washes are slowing down with the economy. The Sacramento Business Journal reported that area washes saw business decline 15%.

Car washes used to be thought of as recession proof--resistant to any economic cycles, analyst Robert Roman wrote in Carwash and Detailing Magazine. Now that may be changing. Luxury services might be fine because they are serving the affluent, Roman says. Discounters live on tight margins, but may gain cash-strapped customers. The middle of the road car washes are what worry Roman. In the May AutoLaundry News, car wash executive Chris Wade advises car wash owners to start upgrading to high end products to survive these times.

During the decade of the dot com and real estate booms, fancy car washing services exploded. Car washing is now a $23 billion industry. They changed their name to "detailing" and cost up to $150. Between 1995 and 2005, the number of time-strapped Americans who have been washing down their cars at home declined by 20 percent, according to a 2005 survey by the International Carwash Association. Only 38% of car owners said they most often lathered up their cars at home, down from 48% in 1996. I bet that number has climbed back up again.

Anytime you go car shopping you get slapped in the face with dealer incentives swathed in bright colors and exclamation points. While many people filter out similarly structured sales pitches online, for some reason car dealers are given a pass on the use of ALL CAPS and big promises. Take for example the $500 in free gas which many dealerships are quick to offer. This "generous" offer is yet another way to convince the buyer that they are putting one over on the dealer and getting a better deal. One of the providers of the gas rebate service is FreebieGas.com, which still proclaims an all time high gas price of $2.50 per gallon. Like all dealer incentives there is a catch, and in all my years of dealing with rebates I don't think I have heard one with this many hoops to jump through.

What the dealer doesn't tell you about the gas rebate you just used to rationalize purchasing a more expensive car, is that it will cost you money just to sign up for the rebate program. From here the process only gets shadier and trickier, you must buy $100 in gas each month to receive a $25 gas card AND you have to make all these purchases at the same gas station. After you spend your monthly quota for gas you better head to the post office and overnight your receipts as they need to be received before the first day of the next month in order to count for redemption. Finally 2 grand and 20 months later -- if you are lucky you'll have recouped the $500 in gas incentives. In case this still sounds like a good deal or you feel like you can beat the system with your moleskin notebook and in-car stapler, the $500 in gas you receive still needs to be reported as income on your state and federal taxes. I like to consider myself a frugal shopper but a gas rebate process like this is too involved even for my stingy ways.

Heading out to purchase a used car soon? Be sure to read, Tom Barlow's latest post to learn how to make a car dealer your agent as you search for your dream car.

The last time the United States faced a gas crisis, Europe and Japan provided the solution. While America's big auto producers were busy churning out eight-mile-to-the-gallon behemoths, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Honda undercut them with zippy little compact cars that went a lot further on a tank of gas.

As they say, the more things change...

Volkswagen announced today that it will be unveiling a new diesel/electric hybrid at next month's Geneva Motor Show. The Golf hybrid will get 69.9 miles per gallon and will release only 89 g/kg of CO2, which means that it will comply with even the most stringent emissions guidelines. While the car will be released in Europe by the end of 2009, Volkswagen hasn't announced its release date for the United States.

While you're waiting for your local Volkswagen dealer to stock the new Golf, here are a few things that you can do to improve your gas mileage:

Here at WalletPop, we're always on the lookout for signs that consumers are behaving responsibly.

Automotive consulting firm R.L. Polk, the median age of cars on U.S. roads was 9.2 years in 2007, tying the record set in 2006. In 2007, 41.3% of all cars were 11 years or older compared with 40.9% in 2006. Dave Goebel, who worked on the study, said that "Each new model year the technology continues to get better, and there are fewer components that fail, so we expect to see these trends continue."

Buying high-quality cars that are a few years old continues to be one of the savviest things you can do for your finances.

I know: a brand new sports car is exciting but, as Suze Orman says, "I see so many of you shelling out big bucks for tricked-out cars that you can't afford because of some insane need to impress people you don't even know who pull up alongside you at red lights."

Don't be stupid: Buy a quality used car and drive it for a long time.