Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
Options
Comments
Might buy a VUE next year, we need something a little bigger soon for kids and cargo. Looks like the VUE interior is getting an upgrade also.
I guess that means you will get rid of one of the Oldsmobiles or are you going to become a 3-car family like so many in our fair 'burb. Half the houses on our street have three or more cars because of all the growing kids. Lots of newish Saturns (all S series), Cavaliers, Civics and Corollas. Oddly not that many Foci despite being a Ford town.
Dindak :::: Great link. Glad to see the Ion is getting upgrades for 2004. I guess you miss out on stuff like that when you buy first year. Ah well, we love our Ion.
dunworth....my potential future options are quite varied and will be dependent on what my car budget is come year end after new house and new kid. if i can swing a 9-3 lease for cheap, i will do it.....if i am forced to step down, the ion would be under consideration mainly because of cheap price (for less contented models), decent power, nice clutch and shifter, plastic panels, big trunk. The Protege holdovers would be the main competitors then, and the Focus would also be considered. The new Mazda3 looks like the real deal, but so will the price be for a year at least until all the spoiled rich little punks daddies buy them their car to drive to high school in until the next big fast and furious japanese compact comes out. but as suggested the current proteges will practically be given away for the next few months. I really love the protege, but too bad the motor is slow and noisy. if it had the new PZEV four cylinder that the focus and Mazda3 are getting, it's be a no brainer.
In a scenario that i would choose an ion, i would definitiely be looking past the styling of the car. i could overlook that deficiency if needed. hopefully i could still use my gmcard dollars....if not, then its out.
http://thehollywoodextra.com/Ion%20test/Ion%20test.html
our buddy vince did a review on the ion he test drove.....you ion fans may see it as a very good review....he did find many of the same positives i found about the car when i tested it out.
I wish they had the free tix when I tried one.
You are luckier than us. When we bought our current house in the mid 1990s, we stretched a bit over our budget and interest rates were in the 8% range. Even though the house was an awesome deal for its size and location, it needed some work. There was no way we could afford anything more than the new-ish Hyundai and Saturn we had. It was a good thing the cars never needed more than basic service.
In hindsight it was a good call, because real estate prices were in the dumper at the time while car prices, and especially for Japanese ones, were really expensive (car loans were over 11%!). Cars are a lot cheaper now plus financing rates are negligible, while house prices have really gone up
This weekend, there was a review of a Mercedes C class 4-matic wagon in the local paper. This beast is over C$54 K plus tax. The reviewer was struggling to say nice things about it and its value proposition, especially since his other tester was a Saturn L series wagon with the four banger. He mentioned how much faster the Saturn was at less than half the cost.
In addition to numerous S series models, there is now an ION on our street - the first one. It is that nice light blue, grey roof rails and in ION3 trim. Looks pretty good.
I have driven a four cylinder with 5-speed version of this car and it is a nice one. Big enough for a family and yet still sporty and economical. Add to that it is dirt cheap and you have what should be a strong seller - but for some reason it is not.
I used to frequently drive the Opel/Vauxhaul versions of this car as rentals in Europe and the larger Holden variants in Australia. The old Vectra platform is a pretty decent one.
You are right though, sales are not picking up for the L, even with the bargoon prices.
Meanwhile Saturn was starved for product. They could have refreshed the Olds designs with some branding type stuff and given Saturn a chance to succeed profitably,and keep former Olds plants going.
Instead you have good product from Saturn which is not selling and good product from Olds which is being killed out right. The choices we are left with are the clad-mate specials from Pontiac or the coma inducing Buick designs. Fortunately the new Grand Prix looks like a winner and the drawings I have seen for the new Buick product on Vince's website are also quite striking.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
Honda and Toyota probably spend as much per vehicle as GM does when they redo a model but come out with better results. Even when GM spends money it looks like they have not. The new Grand Prix and Malibu look too much like the cars they replace despite each one being vastly better.
The original Saturn was hugely expensive to develop and was a decent car but generally received luke warm reviews. I will bet if one of the foreign brands spent this much they would have come closer to the mark. Look what Hyundai has done a less than two decades!
whether that's a lot i don't know. i never see more than a few corollas on hand at toyota.
I actually saw someone test driving an ION tonight, a dark green one. I have yet to see any quad coupes on the road in MD yet. Oh yeah, I saw another ION on the road the other night, when I was test driving my new PT.
cars like the Ion aren't wide enough for 3 butts anyways so that's ok.
I think the ION is very distinctive. I always notice them immediately. Saw a loaded ION3 today with the fog lights and all, pretty slick. Hopefully with the new interior upgrades sales will improve.
;-)
Aveman :::: See quite a few Ions these days, almost daily actually. I saw my first quad coupe on the weekend.
I wuld definitely buy a hybrid if it was reliable and sensibly priced. The new Prius is attractive for many reasons, among them good price and lots of room, but the shape is unsettling.
Of course, no more so than the Ion.
Dindak ::: COOL. Nice to see Saturn make some performance oriented vehicles finally. Red Line, Green Line, some thing for everyone.
http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content.mv?port_code=autoweek&cat- _code=carnews&loc_code=index&content_code=00857406
Edmunds info has been pretty accurate in my research thus far. (Well, maybe I spoke too soon since it lists the destination charge as $485 when the literature lists it as $565.) Thanks.
So we now have two ION owners on the street.
Both of them in blue, one with silver rails and one with matching blue ones. Also a daily visitor (nanny?) comes with a silver one. The blue ones are ION2 while the silver is ION3. Both colours look good on this car as does black IMHO.
I am seeing lots of IONS in the Toronto area in general not just my little 'burb. They are finally catching on. Generally, as Dindak will know, Saturns are extremely popular in our little town. However, I still have not seen an ION quad coupe in the flesh yet.
On the other hand, there's the no-financing route. The $2000 cash allowance is listed on the GM corporate site http://www.gm.com/automotive/vehicle_shopping/currentoffers/. But I have been trying to figure out if (a) the $2500 cash allowance was in effect in my area and if so, (b) whether I should take the $2500 cash allowance and arrange my own outside financing.
Other incentives I have heard of through the SaturnFans bulletin board: (1) GM loyalty discount = $1000 rebate; and (2) Non-GM trade-in = $500 rebate. I am trying to put together the best deal possible. I do not know if these incentives can be added.