Who would have thought 10 years ago that we would have fallen so far as to have gas as the reason we would buy a car. We have Chrysler and their $2.99 a gallon for three years and Suzuki and their Free gas for the Summer Sales Event.

As their advertisement says:

“FREE GAS FOR SUMMER with 0% financing. It doesn’t get much better than this.”

Well, I don’t know if we’d say that. If they were really were giving away all the gas you could use for the summer that would be pretty cool… but their not!

What they forgot to include is the very fine print. Everybody is giving rebates this time of the year and Suzuki is trying to disguise theirs in the form of a prepaid card that you can buy gas with.

Unlimited card for three months?

No, sorry… try more like $320 for a SX4 Sedan, $355 for a Reno, SX4 Crossover, and Forenza ($370 for the wagon). Onwards to the BIG savings… $450 for the XL7, and finally $470 for the Grand Vitara.

Let’s see, if we calculate a summer of upwards of $4.00/gallon… you might have a months worth of gas at best… and that’s not counting any trips to Suzuki to complain about your card not working at certain gas stations.

Now we’re not saying that THESE particular cards won’t work… but from experience with such prepaid cards, they are usually a pain in the rump to deal with and half the stores you try to use them at, you end up in front of the line of 10 other customers behind you while the attendant is calling for the manager to figure out why their machine is not accepting the number.

Giving Suzuki credit however… the 0% financing is a nice touch, as long as you are not currently under a $350,000 mortgage, have 6 maxed out credit cards, and a Hummer sitting in your garage for $1,000 a month you can barely afford. In that case you will probably be getting the regular financing.

But you can’t blame car manufacturers who are trying to get creative in order to boost their dwindling sales. This one gets a B+ for effort and a C- for execution. Some folks will probably see past the gimmick and then go over to the Chrysler dealer, who is at least offering a few thousand dollars in rebate over the next 3 year period (assuming they don’t go bankrupt).

You have until June 3oth to get in on this deal, which should give you plenty of time to decide for yourself which manufacturer is offering the better deal for your circumstances.

You’re getting warm Suzuki… lukewarm!