What Do I Get with a GMC Extended Warranty?

A GMC extended warranty may be the best choice for your vehicle. There are pluses and minuses to the warranty. Some things are covered while some are not. In order to ensure that everything remains covered, you need to keep up with recommended maintenance for your car or truck. The GMC extended warranty covers a lot of the basic automotive repairs that your car or truck will need. It is considered to be a service contract and it covers primarily the essentials. For many people, purchasing an extended warranty for their vehicle provides them with peace of mind.

You can get a GMC extended warranty for both new and used cars and trucks. The warranty covers parts and the labor costs associated with fixing them. It also covers towing in certain situations if your vehicle breaks down on the road.

There are specific parts to your GMC car or truck that are covered by the extended warranty. If you have a mechanical problem with one of these parts, you can have it repaired at any GMC dealership across the country. The four covered components are the engine, the transmission and the transaxle, the front/rear-wheel-drive assemblies, and the fuel system. You can also purchase a separate extension that covers corrosion to the vehicle. If you live near a body of water, this is a good idea. Rust and corrosion are more than just unsightly annoyances, they can actually wear away at your vehicle’s body and cause stability problems.

In addition to repairing these systems and covering the cost of labor, there are benefits to getting a GMC extended warranty for your car and truck. The warranty comes with roadside assistance that is available to you 24 hours a day.

Not everything is covered in the GMC extended warranty. The extended warranty only covers basic wear and tear on the systems. Repairs to the various parts are not covered by damaged caused if the vehicle has been in an accident. Also, the car or truck must be properly maintained. Failure to properly maintain the vehicle voids the warranty. Also, if you use any aftermarket products on the car, the warranty will become void as well. Don’t install anything new on the vehicle or alter the engine components in anyway if you want to remain covered. To remain in good standing, make sure you following all the recommendation maintenance guides, such as routine oil changes. Tire and wheels are not covered.

Understanding Steel Economies

Steel wire rope

Steel is often seen as a dying industry in the United States. What was once the center of the world for steel production, many countries like China and India are taking over a large percentage of the production. With internal natural resources at their disposal, and new facilities to manufacture steel in large quantities, they have been giving the United States a run for their money in recent years. Here's a few reasons why the steel industry is very much alive and well in the United States today.

National Infrastructure

The real estate markets have been heavily down over the last few years, which has had a negative impact on the global steel industry, however there are many signs that this trend is turning. The national government has acknowledged that many of the US infrastructures, like roads and bridges, are in serious need of renovations and need supplies of materials, including steel, to be carried out.

Specialized Steel Suppliers

Chinese and India steel is being made in large quantities, however there is still great concern of the quality of the products that come out of the nations, which have much more relaxed laws and fewer quality checks than steel from the United States and other North American and European countries. Other steel distributors like Capital Steel & Wire, which manufactures steel wire and steel bar products, make very specific steel products that are needed in smaller quantities and at more precise requirements. These high quality and higher margin steel products have been in high demand in the United States from all ranges of industries, and these companies have been working hard to meet those demands.

Efficient Manufacturing

Many steel suppliers and distributors in the United States are making technology advancements on many of their manufacturing processes, making steel of higher quality at lower costs. This is great news for an industry that has seen diminishing returns lately, and shows signs that US steel can hold its ground with any other market in the world.

Related articles

• Heavy imports hinder domestic steel industry
• The Steel Industry of Today
• Under $200: Industrial Steel Storage Solutions
• Steel: Forging a future

Understanding Your Car Insurance

Do you feel like pulling out your hair when it comes to car insurance? If so, then settle back and let us clear-up some of the definitions and details you will encounter when it's time to buy or renew your car insurance policy.

Do You Really Need Car Insurance?
The answer to this question is a legal one - not all states require a driver to have car insurance, but those that don't require a driver to provide a financial responsibility bond in place of insurance. So either way you must show financial responsibility in some form or fashion. This leads us to the next question: How much insurance is needed?

Full Coverage: If you buy a new car and you have a loan on it, then your bank will require that you have full coverage. This means you have liability plus collision/comprehensive coverage on the vehicle. Once your loan is paid off, then you have the option to drop the collision/comprehensive coverage.

Limited Coverage: A used car sometimes has less value compared to the cost of collision insurance, and in these cases the owner may elect to drop the coverage on the car. What's left is the liability coverage.

Definitions

Collision Insurance: If you're involved in an accident, then collision insurance will cover the damages. You'll have to choose the deductible amount; this can vary from as low as $100.00 up to $1000.00. This is the amount you will pay before the insurance starts paying.

Comprehensive Insurance: This part of the insurance plan is generally combined with the collision policy. This insurance generally covers: fire, theft, vandalism, natural disasters, and falling objects.

Liability: If you choose not to cover your car, then most states still require that you maintain a liability policy for your car. Liability covers: personal injury (you, passengers, other parties), property damage, and medical payments. The amount of coverage will depend on how much of your personal assets you want to protect. Lawyers for the opposing team are known to go after your personal assets if your liability insurance doesn't fully cover damage to their client.

No Fault Insurance: It's hard to collect damages from someone who doesn't have insurance. This is why no fault insurance is offered. Not all states require a driver to carry no fault, but many drivers elect to buy it anyway. In the case the other driver does not have insurance, then your insurance company will pay for your damages from the accident - no matter who's fault it is.

Personal Injury Insurance: Some states, not all, offer this coverage. This coverage will reimburse your loss of income, medical expenses, and other covered expenses resulting from an accident.

Gap Insurance: When you drive a new car off the lot you immediately have depreciation. Gap insurance takes care of this, you can consider it "supplemental insurance" in case your car is totaled in an accident. Having gap insurance alleviates the headaches and disputes if your car is deemed totaled.

Working with a car insurance agent you trust is the key to buying the type of insurance you need. You may not need all of the options we discussed above; your agent will help you put together an insurance policy that fits your specific needs.

Turning Off The Money Conveyor In Supply Chain

(Photo credit: Alyssa & Colin)

The seasoned sourcing and category experts at a conveyor systems and logistics management firm would add an additional strategy to the list — apply proven strategic sourcing and disciplined compliance approaches to new spend categories.

One spend category ripe for reigning in this year: marketing. My new teammates put it this way: “Marketing organizations are under constant pressure to find innovative ways to promote their brand. And they must carefully balance their investments across print, online and broadcast channels. With budgets typically very tight, CMOs must identify the right mix of programs and work closely with their peers in procurement to maximize their investments and the returns they generate.”

Indeed. As a new-age marketeer, I am all too familiar with the bullseye enterprises place upon marketing spend. (If I had a penny for every time my former CFO reminded me tat “Marketing is the single largest controllable expense at our company,” I’d be a very rich man.) Having been on both the purchasing and marketing side of this equation, I also understand that supply managers looking to target marketing spend will need to educate themselves on various marketing channels and buying patterns. They must also become fluent in the language of their CMO and marketing managers.

Most marketing types will shut you off if you lead by telling us how much money you can save us. However, if you can demonstrate how you can reinforce brand integrity, speed the turnaround of marketing and print programs, and help me drive more programs from my existing budget dollars, you have my attention.

Here’s a sneak peek at recommendations on how to cozy up to the CMO to control marketing spend:

1. Get a grip:
The key to successfully sourcing marketing spend lies in understanding the unique requirements and concerns of key stakeholders and developing an integrated approach to address them. Be sure to allow stakeholders to communicate their needs and be willing to make the trade offs necessary to drive savings without sacrificing quality.

2. Remove the fear factor:
Demonstrate how cost-efficiency and quality can co-exist and increase the value that marketing delivers through re-pricing and aggregating vendors, re-defining specifications, formalizing processes and tying them to contract compliance, and increasing collaboration with key suppliers.

3. Educate:
By outlining the value and opportunities created by effective spend management - for instance, money saved can be used to fund additional projects - you can gain the buy-in needed to drive your program on an enterprise-wide basis.

4. Customize your approach:
Marketing projects have unique requirements that must be taken into account when developing strategic sourcing events. By adapting your approach to account for their nuances and allowing suppliers to outline their creative capabilities, you can adequately compare price and non-price factors to make optimal decisions that align with and advance both marketing and overall business goals.

5. Look beyond technology:
When it comes to effectively managing marketing spend, software alone is not enough. By leveraging solutions that combine technology, commodity expertise and services, you can more effectively compare suppliers based on unique characteristics and make optimal sourcing decisions that lower costs while increasing quality.

Related articles

• Cost Cutting: What You Can Learn from Small Business
• What The A-Team Can Teach Us About Supplier Negotiations
• The Introduction of the Gen X CMO

Preparing for the IRS

If your business receives an audit from the Internal Revenue Service, you will probably want to employ an attorney as soon as possible. Government agents will just provide you with a little window of time in order to get all of your documents ready and to provide them with all of the information that they want. You need a tax audit lawyer that specializes in assisting business organizations that are audited.

As the proprietor of a business you will want to defend your investment as much as you can. By doing so, you will need to hire a pro when it comes to affairs as serious as a tax audit. The IRS will send auditors out to your business and have them begin going through your paperwork. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of your papers is there and that it has been filed properly. Your tax audit lawyer will aid you to organize all of your paperwork and to make a point that you're not missing any vital records or documents.

Should your attorney discover that you're missing some key documents, they will assist you to get them together and furnish them to the IRS prior to you're found to owe back taxes. You don't wish to mess with the Internal Revenue Service, if you are got to owe back taxes the Internal Revenue Service can seize your holdings and everything inside of your business in order to recuperate what is owed to them. This is a ordeal that no well-intentioned business owner should ever have to undergo.

This is one of the reasons why it is so important to call a attorney at the first mention of an audit. It is even possible to have a tax attorney professional come into your company and look through your bookkeeping before you ever even get audited as a easy way to ensure that everything is being filed the right way and that you have all of the crucial documentation that you need organized.

Other Posts

• What Are Tax Audits?
• Determining the Environmental Condition of a Property
• Products and Businesses in the US

Crane Rail Maintenance

English: RAIL CRANE (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In any automated material handling system that includes a Storage/Retrieval (S/R) machine, fast and accurate material handling is extremely important. Machines must get from point A to point B in a timely manner. The speed of the system is directly proportional to how smooth and precise the crane rails are installed.

Crane rails provide the surface over which the S/R machines move back and forth, up and down the aisle. Over the course of a year, these machines will travel over the rail thousands of times. Because of this, crane rails require maintenance and/or replacement once the components start to wear or break down.

If the surface upon which the S/R machine travels is not in good condition, with joints that are not aligned side to side or top to bottom, they can provide unwanted vibrations or jolt expensive on-board electronics, which can be costly to repair.

Crane Rail Repair or Replacement Warning Signs

When crane rails begin to deteriorate, there are a number of warning signs. Being aware of these warning signs and fixing a problem correctly will keep other parts of the system from becoming damaged as well. If a damaged crane rail is not repaired quickly, electrical or mechanical components also start to wear and break down.

Inspect the aisle(s) for loose anchor bolts. When S/R machines travel over the anchor bolt locations repeatedly throughout the day, the bolts can begin to pull out of the floor. This often causes misalignment of the rail. The bolts can also work their way out and come in contact with the moving machine.

If there are unsupported sections of crane rail between anchors, depending upon the distance between supports, a bending of the crane rail between supports can occur. This will likely cause the machine to move up and down and work to pull the anchors out of the floor. If this sort of movement happens long enough, structural stresses can occur and machine components may crack.

One part of the crane rail that may wear down is the crown. As that happens, more surface area of the wheels comes into contact with the rail head, causing faster wear on the wheel and side guide rollers. In addition, worn spots will tend to form where the S/R machine(s) stop most often, like at the pickup and deposit end of the aisle. These spots could lead to more issues later on.

Fixing the Problem

In all these cases, depending upon the level of damage, the best option is to resurface or replace the damaged crane rails. The specific repair regimen depends on the size, weight, and type of the machine as well as the acceleration and deceleration speeds. Getting in touch with a professional to make repairs or replace broken parts ensures the machines will be up and running efficiently in no time.

Contact viastore systems, Inc. customer service for all your crane rail questions or for a quote on repair or replacement.

This guest post was provided by us.viastore.com.

Preparing To Send The Kid To Ohio State Law School

So after my son was accepted to Ohio State Law School, a million things went through my mind.

"Do we really need another lawyer in the family?"
"Is he going to like it in Columbus?"
"Is this a good move since he already has a successful career?"
"With the family being from Michigan, will he get attacked at Thanksgiving?"

These were all legitimate thoughts (save, possibly, the last one) that went through my mind. It gets pretty solid reviews from the major publications, as Moritz ranked 39th in the US News reports and the class size seemed to make perfect sense as well, so I was pretty happy with how things looked on paper.

Additionally, the program is heavily recruited with more than 100 recruiters visiting each year - which eases my mind that a smart kid like mine will be able to land a job. Not to mention their rates for passing the bar exceeds 90%, that's also another notch in the cap of the program and something that sells well to a parent. While the school is largely regional in its recruiting, I'm perfectly happy seeing my kid stay nearby after he finds a job!

Most importantly, he was comfortable with his decision. Probably the most important bit, but hey, now my nerves are at ease and I can focus on being a parent!

So what do parents do? They go overboard buying stupid things to celebrate, and of course I felt the need to outfit my wife and my son in as much Ohio State Buckeye merchandise as possible. Here's a few things that we picked up that I got a kick out of:

Ohio State seat covers. Found these on Amazon and thought they'd look great in his Tahoe!

Ohio State drinking gear. Once they hit law school I figure I should be doing the drinking...college part two - for adults.

Anyhow, looking forward to the next few years and collecting more Buckeyes stuff as a semi-fan!