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Without all of the features that GM puts on their cars, like the leather, heated seats, moonroof, XM, remote start(love that!!). But, in my opinion, GM forget something..... They forgot to make a decent engine. I still think something is wrong with my car. I came from an newer Accord though so my opinion is from that. My 08 G6 car would not be much more than a rental car. I had a loaner when I was waiting my new car, the loaner was a G6, "base" model. It was so boring, and cheap feeling. The 06 Accord SE with cloth, had so much more pizazz than this base model GM. At least, the Accord had a nice engine with refinement. I am not saying perfect, but a powerful 4cyl. Then, at that point, one doesn't need all the features, rather they have a car with a good engine, and that is exciting. Sorta, like a VW, or Subaru, you can get a base, and have that zippy engine.
Now, my G6 has a 4cyl, its decent, but at times I really hate it, because its just not smooth at all. Unpredictable.
Its all the features that sorta sugar coats the underlying problem one thing....
refinement.. That seems to be something GM has really battled with.
I love my G6, but man, are they truly serious that the engine is the best they can do? I miss my Accord. When I can drive my 08 Jetta, It puts a smile of my face.
I wish GM all the luck, they certainly can do it, but it will take time.
I am also mad that my re-sale value is so low, I am completely stuck! Way to go!
But, longer for me to make an educated decision on another car. Either the new Acura TSX, or Honda Product.
Will I lease or purchase a new GM car after my G6? Chances are slim.. ..For now.
It's not snobby and it really give people a reality check.
The simple fact is that car companies, like people, EARN their reputations. And they aren't changed overnight by a bunch of hand waving, a flashy advertising campaign or bashing consumers or Consumer Reports. They are changed by several years of consistently top-notch models. This takes time and effort, and, quite frankly, GM, with its multiple divisions and often clueless management, has displayed a very bad case of corporate ADD in this regard.
GM builds some vehicles - Corvette, Silverado, Suburban, Tahoe, CTS, Malibu - that can run with the best in their respective classes. The problem is that those vehicles are drowning in a sea of mediocrity.
Take the Malibu. It competes well with the Accord and Camry. It looks better than either one of them. But it sits in the showroom with the Aveo, which virtually defines "bottom-feeder" and is hopelessly outclassed by the Honda Fit, and the Cobalt, which is mediocrity personified in glass, steel, rubber and plastic. Even worse, it shares space with the Impala, which is outclassed by virtally all class rivals, looks larger than the Malibu, but usually ends up being LESS expensive because of discounts.
So which is the "better" car? Is it the Malibu...it looks smaller, and historically the Malibu nameplate has slotted below the Impala nameplate. But it's also more expensive, and looks more "up to date" both inside and out.
This sort of muddled message confuses customers, prevents both the Malibu and the Impala from breaking through the today's clutter of many makes and models, and blurs the identity of Chevrolet as a whole.
Is Chevrolet the maker of competitive, attractive modern vehicles that offer American styling and nameplates (Silverado, Tahoe, Suburban, Traverse, Corvette, Malibu)? Or is it the seller of bargain-basement models that offer a low price and not much else (Aveo, Cobalt, Impala, Equinox, Colorado, Trailblazer)?
One can say the same thing about the CTS, Enclave and G8 in relation to their divisional siblings...not to mention Cadillac, Buick and Pontiac as brands.
Good Example: Cadillac / Audi /Hyundai / Corvette
http://www.edmunds.com/new/2009/buick/enclave/101035082/cto.html?setzip=02809&vd- p=off
http://www.edmunds.com/new/2009/lexus/rx350/100975629/cto.html?setzip=02809&vdp=- off
Enclave:
True Cost to Own
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5-yr Total
Depreciation $8,113 $3,920 $3,448 $3,056 $2,744 $21,281
Financing $2,262 $1,825 $1,355 $850 $308 $6,600
Insurance $1,645 $1,703 $1,762 $1,824 $1,851 $8,785
Taxes & Fees $2,695 $36 $36 $36 $36 $2,839
Fuel $2,524 $2,600 $2,678 $2,758 $2,841 $13,401
Maintenance $214 $556 $349 $1,481 $630 $3,230
Repairs $0 $0 $0 $297 $454 $751
Yearly Totals $17,453 $10,640 $9,628 $10,302 $8,864 $56,887
RX:
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5-yr Total
Depreciation $1,924 $4,690 $4,127 $3,657 $3,282 $17,680
Financing $2,346 $1,892 $1,405 $882 $320 $6,845
Insurance $1,997 $2,067 $2,139 $2,214 $2,247 $10,664
Taxes & Fees $2,640 $36 $36 $36 $36 $2,784
Fuel $2,653 $2,733 $2,815 $2,899 $2,986 $14,086
Maintenance $332 $642 $367 $1,139 $1,600 $4,080
Repairs $0 $0 $0 $397 $607 $1,004
Yearly Totals $11,892 $12,060 $10,889 $11,224 $11,078 $57,143
What's amazing is that while the Enclave suffers from a $4,000 deficit in resale, it more than makes it up in fuel, ins, maint., and repair costs.
$300 and change difference in ownewrship costs. Basically, A WASH!
We have to note where the Lexus sits on this aforementioned chart. It doesn't get any better.
Look, someone is going to get the world's worst RX and someone else will buy the world's best Enclave, and their stories will totally contradict these charts.
But that's what a large database is for. To defeat anecdotal evidence.
If I were head of GM, I'd pin this chart to the office wall of every high level EXEC in the company.
That difference would be 1.34 problems for your Enclave vs. 0.94 problems for the RX. In discrete math that means 1 problem for Enclave vs 1 problem for RX.
In the old days, there might have been a larger multiple difference between the number of problems reported by such a JD Powers report. But as JDP and CR have commented the differences in such numbers have shrunk in recent years.
For me it would come down to the dealer and how they are with problems. The Buick dealer with which I've been familiar through lots of years would take good care of me and any problems. I've had no contact with the Lexus store other than seeing advertising and browsing their showroom and used lot a few years back.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Irregardless, There's NO American Entrepreneurial Spirit being driven by buying Imports or Transplants, even if they squeak out an extra couple thousand in value at trade-in time, 6 yrs down the road.
So true cost to own is not quite that. Look around to see what the true cost of buying Japanese is. Reduced tax base. Reduced education of America. Falling markets and home values. Rising unemployment and higher tax rates.
You could use the Contact Us link in the Help section I suppose but you may get a response like "our formula is proprietary." But you never know.
The other "TCO" stuff is beyond the scope of Edmunds, but surely someone has tried to peg those costs somewhere. One example - The China Price.
Also your idea of "no problems" and mine might be different, because you have owner bias and I don't. (Although I could have anti-Cadillac bias, which I don't, but I could).
Also you could be (and probably are) exceptionally diligent compared to most car owners and thus have dealt with problems before they became break-downs.
Or to put it bluntly---your "good" 1989 Cadillac does not prove that 1989 Cadillacs were "good". The very opposite is just as possible. We'd have to collect a good database to know more about it.
The nice thing about JD Powers are CR is that they are merciless, unbiased and not in love with the cars they are testing (hopefully not anyway). They are statisticians.
Did you mean the 5 yr 100K mile powertrain only warranty of GM's. You get 3 yr 36K bumper-to-bumper with no maintenance included. I think I'd opt for BMW's 4 yr / 50K mile warranty with free maintenance included for the life of the warranty.
Does Cadillac offer free maintenance? free wiper blades and brakes? or is about $100 maintenance every 3K miles?
Unfortunately, those numbers by themselves don't really tell a whole lot. And what counts as a "problem" isn't always a defect. Remember the debacle over the Hummer H2, and how poor fuel economy was cited as a "problem"?
The bottom line is, 93 problems per hundred cars or 137 problems per hundred cars, chances are, if you buy one of either, you will have a problem.
Given this "perception vs. reality" thing, even IF Lexus and Buick were completely equal, you would probably find at the very first problem, that the Lexus owner will keep quiet and the Buick owner scream all over the internet.
Unfair? Yes, but it's reality right now. Some call this the "Hawthorne Effect" meaning that a person feels peer pressure to "say the right thing".
it seems that people are almost "conditioned" to expect perfection from Lexus and trouble from a GM car.
I admit to it. I'm brainwashed. I'm afraid to buy a GM car.
I've always found GM vehicles to be fairly reliable quality, in that they've never stranded me, or had any major drivetrain issue. They do have bland and cheap interiors, depreciate quickly, and not be the best value - MSRP vs. the competition.
But if pricing and features are the same in any market-segment, I'd choose Nissan, Honda, BMW, Infiiniti, Mercedes, Mazda, or Subaru over the comparable D3 vehicle. (I don't like Toyota styling and lack of sportiness).
Actually maybe you are part of the problem, driving around an old Caddy :P
The numbers also don't tell the complete story, because brand A could have its most common problems be knobs falling off and tight gas cap, and brand B's most common problems could be transmission failures and failure to start. All "problems" are not equal and we don't see the distribution of types of problems by make or brand.
That's only over 3 years, not necessarily over the entire ownership. And, the Edmunds chart shows a higher cost for repairs for the RX (by $250) over 5 years.
Funny, I would think that it would be the opposite. Let's say they both had the same problem ( a defective sensor). No big deal. light came on, thing drove fine, brought to dealer, fixed in a jiffy.
If they are "conditioned" as you say, then it would be "Oh well, that's what I get for buying a Buick" as opposaed to "I thought these Lexus' we goddamned perfect? This isn't supposed to happen"
My impression is that while a Buick might have 2 problems and a Lexus might have 2, the Buick might have them 10 minutes after you leave the dealership. I think dealer prep, etc. is rather slipshod in the GM system right now and this accounts for some undeserved reputation.
The Lexus dealer system is renowned for excellent service, and having helped friends at various lexus dealerships, I can attest to getting very very good treatment.
ON THE OTHER HAND, I have a friend who owns a dealership---and the service, the work, the prices, the buying experience, is totally first rate. You couldn't ask for more if you bought a Bentley. What kind of car? Mitsubishi of all things.
Only goes to prove that anyone can do it, IF THEY HAD THE MOTIVATION and the leadership.
Puzzling is that the Honda is $76 less to insure over the 5 years despite holding $1000 more value on average. I would have expected the G5 insurance to be less due to the car being lower cost to replace.
And $3875 in repairs and maintenance for a car (G5) under a 5 year powertrain warranty, ON AVERAGE?? What is a BAD one while under warranty cost?
The Civic has lower repairs in years 4 and 5 despite having NO powertrain warranty left. Miracles never cease at Honda. All this distortion puts the Honda ahead by a penny a mile. Proof that it is really just perception.
Your mission should you decide to accept it? Get the dealer to fix your warranty item in your GM car that is under warranty. Impossible, ON AVERAGE.
also was a rebadged Opel .
The only vehicles I ever owned that DID strand me were made by GM. Stranded twice, once during the initial 36K warranty period, once after it. That was 1997.
I have had a huge multitude of different cars over the years, many used, a half dozen new (including the most recent GM), so it's really quite telling that the only time I was ever stranded was by a GM car.
Haven't had another GM car since '97, think pehaps next time I venture into domestic waters it might be to try a Ford.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Of course the engine/transmission packages are totally American.
If they were to leave GM and import under the Saturn name, they could bring the European power trains. Ship in the parts and assemble them in Saturn assembly plant.
I see nothing wrong with rebadging to maintain a brand name across an ocean.
There are a few cars built in Australia I would like to see brought to the US and branded with the American parent company's name.
It's the smaller GM vehicles that I really don't trust. My wife's Cavalier was a piece of junk, and friends with Cavaliers also had many problems. GM has historically treated smaller vehicles as the red-headed stepchildren, and given the level of effort it put into the regular Cobalts (not the SS models) versus, say, the CTS, I'm not sure that things have changed much.
I'm not sure what they're using for miles/year, but 12K - 15K maybe? So that's 60K - 75K miles. So you have an oil change every 3K miles, 1 set of tires, 2 sets of brakes and rotors, several alignments, radiator flush, replace wipers once a year, the cheap OEM battery, and lightbulbs which are your maintenance items. Then it comes down to repairs - switches, AC system, loose trim ...
The Civic has lower repairs in years 4 and 5 despite having NO powertrain warranty left.
Most engines and transmissions are designed to go luch longer than the powertrain warranty, even GM's. Really the only powertrain issue that should come up in the 1st 150,000 is a design flaw, or a defective part, so the powertrain warrany is rarely needed.
I'd rather have a 4 year bumper-to-bumper warranty with the same powertrain warranty than GM's shorter bumper-to-bumper but rarely used longer powertrain warranty.
My last GM car was an '01 Firebird, and it didn't have any powertrain issues thru 40K miles, when I got something more practical. But it did have a recurring issue of headlights failing. I had about 5 replaced under warranty, and of course the hassle of being stopped by the police that goes with that, until the dealer would get the car in to change the bulb. They never found any reason for it; after the warranty that was going to be an expense for the owner (I believe it was a 1 hr labor charge, as they were pop-ups). I felt bad for GM paying $100+ each time to the dealer to change the bulb.
When the boomers did return to Detroit for their SUVs, GM's managers should have realized that Saturn represented the polar opposite of what the public really wanted. They didn't."
The Boomers Stop Buying
And here's the top ten with their score:
Lexus LS 460L 99
Infiniti M35 X (AWD) 97
BMW 135i (manual) 97
Porsche 911 Carrera S (manual) 96
Infiniti M35 (RWD) 95
Infiniti G37 95
Toyota Sienna XLE (FWD) 93
Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (manual) 92
Hyundai Genesis 3.8 92
Lexus ES 350 91
In my consulting I'm often asked by clients "How do we get a bigger piece of the pie" "What can we do, to get back to the good old days of 1 hour waits to get a sit"?
Folks, remember the "Good olde days" there was the BIG 3, now there is the BIG what 37!
If there are "X" number of cars sold in the USA each year, say 10,000,000, and that used to be sold by the big 3 (with a few in the other MUCH smaller companies), that is about 333,333,333 cars per company. Now take that same number and divide by 37, and that's 270,271 cars sold per company (plus or minus a few).
Now I know the numbers aren't right, but my point is, just because there are 37 companies selling cars now, it's not because there is a 12.5 times more folks looking to purchase cars, it's because these companies are (or thought they would be) ok with a small part of the pie. The only ones who are being hurt by the pie providing smaller slices, are the companies who's vehicles aren't as good (or at least don't appear to be) as good as the competition.
Some of the new companies selling cars in America said "Let's provide them with a good inexpensive car they don't have that yet" while others said "Let's give them an outstanding luxury car they don't have that anymore (or at least, not as good as we can make / offer" and still others said "Let's give them a great car priced right where most Americans are looking, a great car, with a great finish, nice interior, and let's make the options they offer, standard features in our cars", and we WON'T be a Union plant, so we can do it for LESS!
"If you build it, they will buy it"!
I have owned some 35 - 40 cars over the years, and yes most have been American made cars. But once I drove cars from the "Other side" it became much harder to purchase "American" made cars.
Is NAFTA part of the problem ; many say yes! And logic would agree. If we still only had the big 3, and we still bought 10 million cars as year, they would each be selling enough to get by.
The answer, who knows, but mark my words this is one thing that might happen.
The All-New "American Car Company" will be formed, and it will be GM, Chrysler and any other brand that wants to join hands, all under one name, one roof, and selling maybe 12 - 15 models of cars and 6 or so models of trucks.
Now this IS going to suck, and IS going to be hard, but WE the American people CAN NOT and SHOULD NOT keep giving BILLIONS of dollars to a dying horse. We CAN NOT afford it, nor should we have to. These a companies started by folks to make THEM money, and like ever other company, if it isn't making money, you close or change things is it does start making money.
We can't make folks buy "American" (I believe Toyota is made in America" and I know that all of the folks who work at the local dealership are Americans so I'm not sure if we should feel bad for buying a Toyota), and by buying American, I mean "GM, Ford (Who isn't asking for money yet), Chrysler, Cadillac and such.
Well I've carried on more then I should
Skip
Of course are they all foreign if they are made here? By this I mean, most folks say "If it's not a Ford, GM, Cadillac or Chrysler, it's foreign.
Skip
Make immediate plans to close all Pontiac/Saturn/GMC plants within 90 days.
Take only the most talented employees/managers and transfer them to other divisions within GM.
Start a severe cost cutting plan. Reward those with incentives to cost cut and become more productive.
Throttle back production lines immediately!!
Take only the most talented employees/managers and transfer them to other divisions
How do you handle union contracts? The plants can't be closed without paying the employees per the contracts in place. If I'm wrong on that, I'm sure someone will correct me. It's not like closing a local Walmart store.
>Take only the most talented employees/managers and transfer them to other divisions within GM.
>Start a severe cost cutting plan.
Don't you think they've already done that?
Another problem is the property taxes on plants that have been closed along with maintenance and preservation work, I assume.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Don't you think they've already done that?
If it was severe enough, people wouldn't be talking about a GM bankruptcy now, now would they?
That would depend upon what benefits were given the competition through the decades and how the playing field wasn't level in terms of currency exchange and support from the foreign homeland government through those years. Competition is predicated upon things being fairly balanced to have competition. Otherwise you're just playing the game til it's finished. And then there's the problem of labor costs for GM et al. No matter whether you blame GM for giving or blame the UAW for greedily getting, it's still there.
So just like when schools are compared between countries and the media ad company decries how the science competition has the US students 17th in the "world" the information behind the statistics is what matters. The students picked for the comparison... how, why, what? ARe they sampled the same from country to country? Naaaah. but it makes good headlines for the talking heads.
So I think back to when charges of dumping autos just like other products were dumped here by countries' manufacturers with the support of their governments because it kept jobs working there. That's in the era of jobs for life at Japanese companies. So all kinds of other factors can be brought it, but "the rest of the story..." Now there wouldn't be more to the story of the decades of competition, now would there?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
As far as eliminating vehicle lines, that will be tough to do. A Congressman from VA, who has substantial equity interests in auto dealers, has sponsored a bill that would severely penalize GM for dropping brands (and thereby closing some of his dealerships). The bill would make it so expensive that GM might be forced to keep all its dealers in place. However, GM should negotiate with dealers as a group to devise the best retail sales plan and cull the weakest dealerships (who would be compensated for shutting down).
Whatever happens, the government must support all efforts to keep the US auto industry alive (which is not to say that we shouldn't let them go bankrupt, we just need to make sure they emerge strong). We only make a handful of economically significant products in this country: war materiel, airplanes, agricultural products, and autos. (Some might add software and entertainment, but I'm talking about manufacturing and ag). We can't afford to lose any of these industries. The last thing we want to be is a service economy...
Up by my family they've lost two Pontiac dealers in the last couple of years. The one closed up two days ago. You've now got a pretty big circle in northern NJ without a Pontiac dealer. Someone needs to tell them the game is up.
I can. That's what bad businesses are supposed to do, fail. You can't make money, you fail. You make rotten products, you fail. You can't fix it yourself before you run out of money and have to go BK, you fail. Natural order of things. Everyone (including me, by the way) figured "Well, GM and Chrysler got blindsided, let's give them a LITTLE help restructuring, they said they were going to anyway." They're not, they have little intention to. They instead want to stick to their failed business model as closely as possible and have you and I subsidize it. Basically, they couldn't earn our money by making a better product, so now they want to take it anyway, in exchange for hot air (which may in fact be more valuable than some of their current models). Now they're saying they need more, and more. And as long as they think they can get it, they have little incentive to actually restructure.
Ford I give credit...they actually ARE restructuring, and trying their best to AVOID getting a bailout while they do. Some have said that's because the Fords want to avoid losing their super sweet stock deal....if so fine, I don't care. It's helping the company to work as it should. Maybe if GM were still a family business like that they'd be in better shape.
Worst of all are the dopes in DC who have the audacity to criticize CEOs
Hate to paint such a broad brush, since some of them actually believe they're there to serve their country and all, and work hard at it. But most of them are in Washington because they're not good enough to get a real job in the private sector. So what do you expect?
I went to a GMC dealer today and left disgusted. The only 2009 Yukon on the lot had a sticker of $56455. Notice I didn't say Denali or Escalade--just Yukon SLT. That same vehicle listed for at least $5k less in 2008. I plan to buy a GM SUV or CUV this summer, but not if it is going to cost me significantly more than a comparable Mercedes, Acura, or BMW.
As a Corvette aficionado, I can't help but check out Corvette row. Unfortunately, the Corvette had increased by more than $5K over the last two years. That's a problem too...
I can't help but think that GM is trying to bleed out the weakest of its dealers by raising prices and decreasing available inventory. I'm just hoping they hang in there long enough to buy my Camaro Convertible.