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Comments
I'm not suprised my astro is holding up better $ wise and feels so much more solid in spite of CR probably rating the Honda 3x better.
As far as the mileage difference, the 3800 got 30 on the only trip I took (about 4700 lbs tot. load). No civic will get 40 with the foot on the brake. The 3800 just got 28 mpg on the last tank of 50-50 commute driving. The m/t Civic got 32 mpg on last tank on a mostly interstate trip without a/c.
Well if it get's a 600 hp. version of the LS-7 it should be a member of the 200 mph club.
-Rocky
I also have a 3800 auto mustang. It has rating of 90 HP less than my 3800 S/C Riv. They both get 28 mpg on my 94 mile round trip to work, but the mustang is considerably smaller and lighter. The mustang also needs an O2 sensor which is probably costing 1 or 2 mpg.
Rocky, you need to buy one to keep you under 100 MPH
Well Loren, you won't have to worry as it appears I might be stuck with the Impala, my wife forged my name to pal. It's not a bad car but I look at it like driving a Yaris, from a power stand point compared to my other cars. :sick:
I probably won't be able to get the car I'd want to drive and own for at least a few years depending on how my divorce goes.
The good thing about Michigan, is you can go 80 mph on the highway and the cops won't even turn their head but go over 80 and most will chase you down. I've gone by State Boys in the past 84 mph and they threatened me with their brake lights
-Rocky
Loren
Loren
The new Chrysler IPO in 4 or 5 years.
The union should lock in a option price now for a huge block of shares down the road. Then they could write a new slogan - buy your car from an employee owned company.
I'd like the same to happen for Ford and GM. A employee ran corporation keeps the greed of investors out to make a quick buck of the mix.
-Rocky
I just told my Step-dad to have a good nightat work as he is working 3rd shift at Delphi about a mile from their house. He is a Millwright making the Big Bucks. I just hope for his sake it lasts as he is a good man and deserves it.
-Rocky
I'm going to go after that dealership with my lawyer real soon as they hosed me pretty darn good. :mad:
Well it all cost me $119.00 dollars but I did get a interview in the process.
I just applied for a Armed Security Officer job tonight on-line transporting money to ATM's in a armored truck here in Grand Rapids. I don't know what it pays but I'm assuming it's got to be half-way decent ?
Well back to the GMC Acadia, it was a Red SLT AWD model. I was very impressed and can see why it was edmunds most significant vehicle after sitting in it. I was really impressed with the Bose 5.1
-Rocky
People sometimes pass info on that they want to believe themselves. My first, and possibly last, Toyota was perhaps the most expensive vehicle I have owned. I'm a CR subscriber, an honest one, and I do partake in the on-line survey, but I certainly do wonder how many others send in factual information when asked. You've heard of selective memory?
I don't know if you're aware of Lemon-Aid by Phil Edmonston.
He is the founder of the non-profit Automobile Protection Association. He writes that one of the automobile myths of our time, is that Honda and Toyota have impressive reliability. No longer; Trannies, engines, and sliding doors are their nemesis.
The ideal way to handle these things is to figure out at what speed the CTS-V hits its aero limit for 600 hp, and gear the car from there. In reality, GM will use one of its standard 6-speed gearsets and the car will probably end up gear limited.
I've driven it a few times, and, once you remember that the dials are in the middle, it actually is more comfortable - to me. Guess it has something to do with the distance from my eyes and that it isn't as much of an adjustment when looking at them from the road. For having 140HP and an automatic, it gets down the road pretty nicely. I haven't driven it any long distances (mainly from my house to the dealer), so I cannot comment on the seat comfort. Overall, a nice appliance - even looks it, in the color she wanted - Storm Grey.
We picked the ION for a couple of reasons: 1) the dent resistant side panels, which we thought would be a good feature to have in a college town; and 2) the AUX adapter for her iPod.
The new Astra may be your daughters next car. After graduation, and big bucks made,
This is the only car she's getting from us. I suspect she'll drive it for 10 or 15 years, since she cares nothing about cars or her image in what she drives. Plus, with her wanting to be a vet, graduation is a long way away.
Wonder if the current generation will appreciate the hatchbacks?
Ironically, we traded in a Ford Focus ZX5 on the ION. We had bought the Focus a few years ago as the car she was supposed to drive when she got her license. On the day we bought th Focus, the daughter was with us and refused to get the Focus sedan, and I figured the insurance would be too high on the 3-door, so we settled on the 5-door.
Unfortunately, we bought a stick shift because we couldn't find a Focus equipped the way we wanted (tilt steering, ABS) with an automatic. She tried to learn to drive it, but gave up, so I was driving the Focus and she was using my L300.
When I started looking at $25-30K cars as a replacement for the Focus and let the daughter just have the L300, the wife decided that it made more sense to keep the payment in the same range as the Focus. Ergo, the ION.
This does NOT mean that a GM or Ford say is not as good or better in any particular model comparison for reliability. I just do not find any data to support the claim that over the last few decades the average car produced by the Japan big two was not more reliable. Too much data supports the past claims of these cars being reliable. Now let's move on to today. Most all cars are pretty darn reliable. End of story.
Loren
You are right and wrong. Toyota's actual names aren't any better than GM's; we can agree on that. Toyota is not named any better than Ford or Chrysler, either.
As another post pointed out, the reason Toyota and Honda's names are better is because of what they represent. Just like the name "Suburban" has a value, so does the name "Camry" or "Accord". The Camry name dates back to 1984. The Accord name goes back to (about) 1976. The value of the name represents the market perception of the value of the vehicles. Successful vehicles that are reengineered keep their names. Hence the Suburban with the longest name history of almost any vehicle.
For GM, they've done tons of name changing over the last 30 years. This represents models that didn't do well in the market and have some real or perceived stigma.
Yes, even Toyota had the Celica, the Echo. GM has had a huge number of names (often exacerbated by the number of divisions, when a platform tanks there might be 3 rebadges from Buick, Pontiac, Chevy, etc. that represent almost the same vehicle). Those names go to the great name heaven in the sky. The plethora of GM dead names represents the plethora of failed models over the years.
GMs names have often had poor consistency, and often sounded silly as if they wanted to imply a level of quality or excitement that never really existed. Examples are Sunfire, Firenza, Fiero, Firebird (they like fire!), Sunbird (they like birds, too!), Calais, Venture, etc. Perhaps the best name that was true to the car was "Cavalier". All those years not caring about the market. :P
But names aren't the real issue. It's the quality of the vehicles behind them. Hopefully with the recent improvements, we will some names from GM that will still be in use 30 years from now.
Report finds most of the crosstown rivals' models performed worse than they did a year ago.
DETROIT -- All of General Motors Corp.'s and the Chrysler Group's brands scored below average in initial vehicle quality, J.D. Power and Associates reported Wednesday.
While Ford Motor Co. had more segment-leading 2007 model-year vehicles than Toyota Motor Corp. in the annual survey, which tracks quality during the first 90 days of ownership, its crosstown rivals stumbled.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070607/AUTO01/706070417/1148
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070607/AUTO01/706070378/1148
Porsche and Lexus remained virtually the same but Hyundai dropped from 3rd to 12 (102-125).
Cadillac 7th to 25. (117-135) disgusting drop. Could the Escalade be that bad? CTS/DTS/STS were carryover!
GMC also dropped from 119 to 131. Again the only vehicle changed was the Yukon?
Interesting that Chevrolet stayed at about industry average (124 to 129). Perhaps improvements on some of the chevy car models made up for the Tahoe/Suburban? Also Chevy is not so heavily volume biased to the large SUV's as GMC.
Saturn/Pontiac/Buick stayed about the same.
Saab increased quality from 163 to 133. A somewhat significant improvement. Hummer improved only slightly form 171 to 162.
All in all I would surmize (I can only surmize) that they new SUV's with their huge volumes pulled down the divisions that sell heavily in SUV's-GMC/Cadillac/Chevy with fisrt year problems. Be very interesting to see their actual numbers.
Overall though the difference in intial quality went down. 91 - 204 (2006) and 91 - 170 (2007).
The real difference in problems is +- .25 problems per car. Not a heck of a lot of difference. I mean the best is aobut 1 problem per car and the meat of the industry is at 1.3 problems per car.
Intersting that the GP/LaCrosse Oshawa plant won best in America IQS plant with score of 42. The Grand Prix won the "large car" segment award.
Also I see the Suburban/Tahoe were 2/3 in their segment under the Sequoia. Per my above comment I surmized that they were the vehicles that dragged down GMC/Chevrolet. Actual scores are not available but SUV's have much higher PPH scores than the cars so it is still probable the new SUV's hurt the divisional scores. Escalade did not make the ranking this time.
hey how can the Monte Carlo be a midsize while the Grand Prix a large? Same platform. They must be on the border. Camry does not show up in the rankings again.
You have a problem with GM and thus many of your posts are full of half truths. GM's increase was driven by quite a few models and most of those models are not fleet darlings. YOu failed to mention Saturn's increase or the increase of the Acadia which is obviously not a fleet vehicle. YOu are making excuses because the sales numbers dont line up with your opinions.
As for average incentive per vehicle, that number means little unless we know the average price of the vehicles sold. Since GM sells a lot of trucks (which are expensive) it makes sense that their average incentive cost per vehicle would be higher than Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, etc. On top of that those figured include financing which is not the same as cash back rebates. GM has done a lot of low rate financing offers and that is OK by me because it doesnt affect resale value.
I think you need to talk to more import owners. My sister in law has a 2002 Camry and has had numerous problems, several of which have cost her serious money.
Can you let me know where you found out that alpha numeric names can only apply to sporty cars? I have never heard that before. Hyundai was using alpha numeric names on their old large sedan and it was hardly sporty or impressive. Pontiac only makes three cars and in their top trim levels I would say they are reasonably sporty. I think the G6 GTO, GP GXP and Solstic GXP are just as sporty as anything sold by Mazda, Nissan or Honda. I would think the G8 is only going to improve Pontiac's reputation.
Yes. I can see (shockingly) that you have read nothing about this car. I think your opinions would be a little more informed if you actually read some online and print magazines. MT and Edmunds did reviews of the Commodore and were VERY impressed with the car. In Australia this car is compared to the E class, 5 series, etc. and holds its own. This is not Crown Vic or a 60s muscle car that cant do anything but go in a straight line.
You can argue about the name, but the performance is undeniable.
Actually the new Tundra has higer incentives than GM's new pick ups. Toyota is really trying to get a bigger portion of that market to fill up their new assembly plant(sounds like GM trying to keep their plants full. Toyota has introduced the new truck against a formidable opponent and in times of high gas prices.
Also chrylser and Ford are really incentivizing their trucks to keep the cash flow going and that really cuts into Toyotas projections.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/pressrelease.aspx?id=2007088
Lexus, Honda and Toyota are still doing fine. Acura has fallen. Hyundai, Kia have risen.
Ford has risen despite lackluster performance from its Detroit rivals.
Benz, Lincoln have risen. But BMW seems to be in deep trouble just like Caddy.
Now that's the one thing you said I can agree with out of all the spin. You have your tense wrong: "Too much data supports the past claims of theese cars
beinghave been reliable. But today more cars are all within close ratings in JD Powers, etc., in re reliability. So the jabs at "spin doctors for the Big Three of days gone by" aren't proper, are they?2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Pontiac advertises driving excitement and sells rebadged snoozeboxes (except for the Solstice, granted). They haven't differentiated their product enough from the Chevy models for the "driving excitement" image to take hold, therefore their brand and product attributes don't match up. Giving up product names puts more focus on the brand name, which means if the brand itself is not successfully marketed and the cars don't match that marketing, there's going to be problems.
Neighbor has only 3 Honda Acuras since his daughter took his 4th. He only has them because he has a special Honda-Acura only mechanic several miles away who does the work much more cheaply and does the preventative maintenance in a realistic manner compared to the dealers.
Actual experience in variety of brands is best foundation for opinions. Anyone owning and driving more than one brand at same time and over many years can see differences between brands very clearly. Example would be owning/driving GM and Honda over say last 15-20 years. Other examples would be Chrysler and Toyota, Ford and Toyota, etc.
If one has owned driven GM "exclusively", then they are leading a shielded life. Same would be true of owning only Hondas over 15-20 years. If one has had 2+ brands (American, Japanese) over many years, the differences in design, engineering, quality and reliability will be very apparent.
Acuras in my experience have been bullit-proof. The used car marketplace reflects Acura and Honda superiority over GM in terms of retained value or percent of what you can get back of your original cost at trade-in time. That is pretty clear. For example, might want to compare 04 Acura TL with 04 Cadillac model.
Did not understand why they gave up on the Grand-Am name. Didn't this model produce good sales figures through the years? The G6 could have been the totally new and improved Grand-Am.
If present Grand Prix configuration going away, the the G8 could have been named the Grand Prix. That would have been fitting given the strong heritage of the model going back to the 60's. The coming TV commercials could be much more powerful with the Grand Prix name vs an anonymous acronym of G8. Will some think of the vegetable juice or something obnoxious in their computer files or world leader summit when G8 is mentioned. For anyone thinking of looking at or test driving to buy, would they rather have a G8 or a Grand Prix. (I had a Grand Prix a long time ago as well as a 71 Trans Am).
Ford saw the error of its ways by bringing back the Taurus name and putting on the 500. Being that their Fusion got/gets decent reviews, perhaps it could have been the new and improved Taurus. Will GM learn something from Ford.
Chrysler got it right by bringing back the Charger name for its RWD car.
Thankfully, the coming Camaro will be the Camaro and not a C8 or SS8, or SST, etc.
Cheers!
You forgot to say tht it's in your opinion.
You missed my point because you are pro foreign. Neighbor acknowledges failures in transmissions and high maintenance costs which he mitigates by using a quality nondealer mechanic. He can afford to just buy a new one each time, but he prefers to buy a full-sized Honda Acura and drive the heck out of them up to 300, 400K if he can. He doesn't pretend his Legends, Integra (daughter's), and their current twin 3.5 RLs are perfect. Like most cars they cost to own.
You can read in discussions on Edmunds about the shortcomings of each car model. The trend has been toward the mean for all cars since 2000, in my opinion.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
You forgot to say tht it's in your opinion.
I suppose there are folks that do not have the ability to discern excellence of design, quality, reliability, etc on various attributes on the various brands of vehicles they own/drive.
It also doesn't help that you see very few commercials for the vehicle. And their previous offerings, L-Series, Ion, and Relay, have not set the world on fire. Saturn is finding it is hard to get yourself back on consumer's radar screen. it will be interesting to see how the Outlook does. Nice vehicle but do you really go shopping at Saturn for a $30k vehicle?
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
And no, I would never argue with a Commodore over a name.
Loren
I don't see how this new stuff is any more special. Especially when the exact same thing is across the street and can be negotiated for less price.
when the G6 first came out and didnt match Grand Am sales many "experts" claimed this was because of the name change. Now after nearly 3 years the G6 is selling about as well as the Grand Am and probably is doing so with higher transaction prices and less fleet sales. The Grand Am had big rebates in it last few years on the market. I dont agree that people are so wed to nameplates that they wont consider a vehicle with a new nameplate.
The current commodore is on a new RWD platform, it has nothing to do with the GTO. The GTO was on the old RWD Holden platform. This new platform is obviously designed to compete with top RWD cars from Europe and Japan.
-Rocky
The G6 was a step in the right direction, but engining up the Torrent is going to be a mistake; that chassis isn't well designed for handling, especially the suspension (which is identical feeling to the Equinox, slow steering and all). They'd be better off co-opting the new VUE Red Line.
And if they're selling "driving exitement" it needs to be pervasive in ALL models and trims, not just the higher trim lines. The base models are still snoozers. The G5 is a mistake that should never have happened (Indeed, originally Pontiac didn't WANT it, and GM stated that Pontiac wouldn't be selling a rebadged Cobalt).
Scrap both the Clonebalt and the Clone-rolla Wagon, and get a version of the Saturn Astra. Call it the G3, or maybe just use G5 again (G4 is taken by a cable network). Pontiac is the next logical brand to take advantage of the stuff Saturn is bringing over from Europe, as "Euro-sporty" and "Driving excitement" naturally fit together. That's why the Solstice is so loveable.
Well the question should be what do you consider modern ???? If the UAW, allows these new work rules like is predicted the assembly process within' the plants will have to change thus may be starting from scratch might be better and more efficient ?
They have plenty of automobile's like the Silverado, where some of em' is being made in Mexico, that could be made here instead at a profit in one of these new facilty's ? How bout the G8, GTO, or a version of the Holden Statesman ???? We both know the Camaro is goingto be made in Canada,but what about the Buick Velite ???? I thought GM, was going to start building Saab's here in the U.S. ????? That's what I read about a year or so ago in Motor Trend, or on this site ???? I believe GM, has enough models over sea's and across the Southern border to honestly get worker's out of the job banks at these closed facilities. The bottom line is they are going to have to ink a deal with the UAW, to get these worker's out of the job's banks and back to work. They can build cars at a profit in this country and both sides will have to work togeather to make that happen a long with getting people at the government level elected with enough "intellegence" to grow the economy at least 1.8% instead of 1.3% and protect american business and jobs thus more auto sales.
-Rocky
Loren
GM will not get out of Mexico or Canada. They probably will not build new plants in Mexico but GM builds vehicles where they sell them and GM will continue to have assembly plants there.
Work rules have very little to do with plant design. It has more to do with breaks and who can do what skilled trades jobs. Will no longer need to call in an electrcian to change the light bulb. The mill wright can do it while he is stand there.
Saab's? Do not know but seems like they could build them anywhere in the world where the Epsilon II is built.