".....When I bought the 2008 CR-V, I cross-shopped the Ewequinox for the fun of it....dependability a sore thumb aside, the price was laughable and the design quite boring."
Did you just look at the sticker, or even ask what could be done? My co-worker's '08 Equinox stickered for around $24K, yet she bought it brand new for just over $17K. The only problem she has complained about was the CD player skipping with her burned CD's but not a store bought one.
"..... Things are going to miraculously fix themselves in 5 months?"
Well remember, they shed a lot of debt in the bankruptcy, plus got more concessions. I guess what would be more telling would be to see if the average transaction price of the new models are up, and are still high 4 months from now after those models have been out awhile. Not sure when the Cruze goes on sale, but if those sell better than, and for more money than the Cobalt, that too will help the bottom line, but not until say, the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2010.
Well that tells me that the dealer literally dumped a model with a very limited to zero appeal. A cloth seat, 2WD crossover with a nasty Chinese boatanchor under the hood is grossly overpriced at 24k to begin with IMO.
It's the equivallent of a "Managers Special" at the meat Counter in the local food store.
No, I just looked at the thing and knew I could never buy it and also based on all of the necessary important criteria. You've gotta admit it was a pretty bad model...look at the sales of the thing.
That's the same story that drove many to the competition....who knows if any will return to GM any time soon.
".....You've gotta admit it was a pretty bad model...look at the sales of the thing."
I know it was. Most of the reviews on it were pathetic too. I even cringed when I heard the new version was sitting on the Theta platform. But, the reviews are pretty good on the new one. I had a chance to ride in a new one last week. An LTZ 4 cyl, w/ the 2 panel sunroof. It was about $31K. It rode nice, the leather was top notch. The only thing I didn't like was the 4 banger revving up to 4250 in first, but my friend's wife likes to get into the gas.
As long as it remains dependable, it will be a good seller. If not, here we go again. I just do not think it will ever outsell the CR-V unless Honda gets GM disease!
I do prefer the look of the Equinox but not the Terrain.
So the industry lost tons of volume. Four automakers lost tons of market share, "tons" definable as double-digit losses: Chrysler Group LLC (-18.7 percent); General Motors Co. (-10.6 percent); Mitsubishi Motor Corp. (-29.7 percent) and Suzuki Motor Corp. (-40.5 percent).
But where there are losers, there are winners. The can't-do-much-wrong Hyundai Group (Hyundai and Kia brands combined) piled on a heady 40.4 percent of share, from 2008's 5.2 percent of the market to 7.3 percent share this year.
Afaic, Hyundai has got the momentum. GM just doesn't.
The good year for Hyundai Corp has come by increasing fleet sales to 20% for the Hyundai brand and 28% for Kia.
That's 20/28% of ALL sales. Remember when GM was selling those kinds of fleet numbers, what we all said about their profitability with such practices?
Yup.
All that has really happened is Hyundai has picked up any and all rental sales that F/C/GM were dropping. It's good for Hyundai in a way, because they had an underutilized plant in the States that is underutilized no longer, but we all know how that story ends.....
As for GM, look at their models in the top 10 - same story: Impala and Silverado, the fleet queens. Don't know about the Fusion with Ford - I would like to believe that one is mostly on the strength of retail sales, as it seems like a winner. GM's "new" Malibu, so much vaunted by the press etc, their midsize sedan, didn't make the top 10 list because they kept it out of the rental fleets and sold 2/3 of the Impalas to Hertz et al instead. We will see if the Equinox can make the list next year.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
"......I just do not think it will ever outsell the CR-V unless Honda gets GM disease!"
Don't mistake the Equinox not outselling the CR-V w/ GM not outselling Honda. That is the fallacy about truck sales. The F-series may be the best selling nameplate, but GM routinely but not always outsells Ford in full sized pickups.
That's 20/28% of ALL sales. Remember when GM was selling those kinds of fleet numbers, what we all said about their profitability with such practices?
Well, back when GM was busy being a fleet whore, their rental mules were running 40-70% fleet sales. At the time, Toyota and other non-Honda volume makes would typically be something like 20% fleet (commercial, government, and rental combined). GM's problem was they had to dump product at or below cost since they couldn't shut or slow the lines. Fleet sales aren't evil per se, as long as they don't become a crutch for sales woes or influence product design.
Remember a decade or so ago when Ford had 5 or sometimes 6 of the top 10 sellers: F-150, Explorer, Taurus, Escort, Ranger, and one more I can't remember. How times have changed!
I'm not sure if you understand that the cost of any manufactured good is mainly a factor of how many you make and sell. The costs for an auto factory are relatively fixed and sunk. The engineering, design and tooling $ have already been spent. The building, heat, lights, security, maintenance, property taxes, hourly and salary labor are all going to cost $ whether 1 or 50,000 cars are built.
Take all those costs already spent and all those costs that you can't easily get rid of and it's a large number. Divide that by how many vehicles you make. That number may be 70% of the cost to the corporation. The parts to the car may be 30%.
So the more you build, the less cost there is per vehicle. So I could see with many slow selling vehicles, that a corporation is going to try and sell enough of that vehicle such that they can lower the cost per vehicle, and maybe, just maybe get the cost lower than [their retail sale price + fleet sale price average].
The reason many manufacturers encounter trouble is that they forecast to sell 50,000 units, and gear up the plant and labor for that, and then especially with unions can't cut costs quickly, and the costs are too high for a reduced volume to absorb.
their rental mules were running 40-70% fleet sales
Individual models, but not entire brands. The worst brand was, I believe, Pontiac, when it was selling close to 1/2 of all its vehicles to fleets.
Toyota and other non-Honda volume makes would typically be something like 20% fleet
Speaking of Toyota, the highest they ever let ANY model get is 15-18% of sales to fleets, and certainly sales of Toyota-branded vehicles overall never get over 10-12% to fleets. Honda is much less, less than half that much in fact, and from what I understand Subaru is around 6%.
Hyundai is just trying to keep the North American Kia and Hyundai plants busy during the downturn. As a result, their sales overall are up a few percent in a bad market. But this isn't a Hyundai discussion - my original point stands: what Hyundai has done in the short term to pick up market share is not a sustainable course in the long term and leads to reduced profits. Certainly GM made a good decision when it decided to reduce these sales by a large amount.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Where did you get those figures? They are quite different from the Wall Street Journal numbers:
Tuesday, December 01, 2009 Top 20 vehicles, current month's sales Nov 2009 % Chg from Nov '08 YTD 2009 % Chg from YTD 2008 Ford F - Series PU 30,494 -19.6 365,416 -22.9 Toyota Camry / Solara 27,385 8.6 321,878 -21.7 Chevrolet Silverado PU 22,101 -25.2 283,243 -34.4 Toyota Corolla / Matrix 21,899 +0.4 262,654 -20.1 Honda Accord 16,754 -3.9 261,333 -25.4 Nissan Altima 15,490 +43.1 184,925 -26.7 Ford Escape 15,149 +51.2 153,888 +5.7 Honda CR-V 13,955 +14.8 172,528 -5.9 Ford Fusion 13,774 +54.5 161,819 +17.9 Honda Civic 13,652 -22.8 237,403 -26.3 Chevrolet Impala 12,375 -3.7 151,952 -37.9 Toyota RAV4 11,512 +24.3 132,346 +3.2 Chevrolet Malibu 11,113 +17.4 142,194 -11.0 Ford Focus 10,196 +24.4 146,228 -20.6 Dodge Ram PU 9,787 -37.0 165,254 -27.9 Toyota Prius 9,617 +11.1 127,907 -15.3 Chevrolet Equinox 9,587 +273.0 73,437 +19.0 Subaru Legacy 9,308 +120.8 74,334 +21.9 GMC Sierra PU 8,371 -20.3 99,698 -35.9 Hyundai Sonata 8,178 +52.0 109,543 -1.1
Ford F series is still No. 1. There are 5 GMs on the top 20. Chevy Equinox monthly sales increased 273% while YTD increased 19% Ford Fusion monthly sales increased 55% while YTD increased 18% Toyota Prius YTD dropped 15%
since anyone can rattle off a bad experience with a vehicle, including Honda, you now need to change the argument to whoever sells the most is the best. That is an argument that a hundred holes can be shot into. You would have to combine sales of like vehicles by same manuf. You would also factor in the masses are asses side of sales.
I asked my BIL about his roughly 1 yr old Tahoe. He mentioned his 4 kids are extremely rough on the interior and he has had to get warranty replacement of the interior door handles that they broke. They also left the dome lights on enough times overnight to kill the battery and need a new one under warranty.
He likes the roominess and utility and power. He was so impressed with the Tahoe after getting rid of his MDX that he went out and got a new '09 LT4 with 430 HP. I didn't ask him if the Vette has a storage under the seats problem like you think his Tahoe does.
>dome lights on enough times overnight to kill the battery
Doesn't the Tahoe have battery protection? On my GM cars nothing stays on over 10 minutes approximately. It all switches off. Leave on the map lights to read with a cup of coffee; 10 minutes they switch off unless the key is in the ON position. Turn headlights on manually instead of through the Twilight Sentinel; if the key is not ON they go off after approximately 10-12 minutes so the battery doesn't drain down.
I was wondering the same thing. Both my '00 Suburban & my current 07 Expedition have that feature. Yep, kids leave reading lights etc on all of the time. Never have had a dead battery from it. About 5 to 10 minutes and they are automatically shut off. And yes between our black lab and kids, interiors take a beating. That's where I tend to appreciate the hard plastics in the Tahoe/Suburban/Expedition type vehicles. IMO, they stand up to abuse a little bit better.
As for the MDX vs Tahoe comparison, maybe he was impressed with the extra room, I don' t know or maybe the older MDX isn't as good as the new one, because my BIL's '08 MDX shames my Expedition in interior materials, fit-n-finish, powertrain refinement, and performance. It's like comparing a sports sedan to BOF truck. The Tahoe probably has a softer ride.
Alberto, a 77-year-old General Motors Co. retiree from Flint, died in April 2008 after her Camry sped and hit two trees although she “vigorously and desperately” applied her brakes, according to the lawsuit filed in Genesee County Circuit Court by Lilia Alberto, a representative of her estate.
But the Mini's resale is of 2007 vehicles now, whereas your list is 2010 vehicles predicted a few years from now. It's possible that the Mini is losing some popularity due to stabilizing gas prices. Not to mention that while it may always have a following here, some of the sales may just be a fad.
I am a bit surprised not to see MINI on this list at all:
Not me, only because I was looking at buying a used Cooper S a few years ago. The S model has unbelievably high resale, to the point I was thinking about buying a new one instead. They are neat cars that certainly don't appeal to everyone. But the ways they can be equipt and customized from the dealer is impressive.
Yeah, Buick really crashed in the aughts. The other brands that did as poorly are either dead or survive only as rebadge specials (and Mitsubishi, somehow). Buick will live so long as Chinese customers continue to support it, but this pretty much guarantees that its future in the US will be tarted-up Chevrolets and/or Chinese imports. It simply doesn't have enough volume to chart an independent course anymore.
What's amazing is how far Mitsu has fallen over the years. Even worse is the fall of Pontiac, wow 616 thousand units 10 years ago to zilch now... :sick: and Buick less than a quarter of it's sales now.
Saturns fall is pretty drastic as well, also down to zilch. The joke is over.
I had forgotten that Pontiac was doing that well back in 1999! But then, they did have a broader, more popular lineup. The Grand Am was a smash hit, and IIRC 1999 was when that new style came out. True, a lot of them went into rental fleets and such, but they seemed to be everywhere! The Grand Prix was only a couple years old at that point, and a fairly strong seller, and in those days there was more demand for bigger cars, so the Bonneville was still selling respectably, although that style was long-in-the-tooth by then. And rounding out the lineup, they still had the Firebird/Trans Am, Sunfire, and TransPort or Montana or whatever they were calling it by that time.
It's also amazing to see how far Buick has fallen. 90K units, wow! Just as a reference, back in 2000 they sold 45,000 copies of my Park Avenue, which was probably down from 1999, as that car was starting to fade in popularity. Back then the LeSabre and Century were popular cars. I think the Century was starting to hit the rental fleets alot, but these cars were also popular among older people who had been happy with Buicks of days gone by, and were either now on a reduced income, or just wanted to downsize. That's one thing that kept the old A-body, Celebrity-based Century going for so long.
Buick is down to just two cars these days, plus the Enclave. But even back in 1999, they essentially only had two cars. The Century and Regal were the same car. The Park Ave and Riviera were on the G-body. The LeSabre was still on the older H-body, but would become a G-body for 2000. But they varied the cars around enough that it gave the illusion of a much broader lineup.
So far so good. I'm definitely happy with it. As for fuel economy, well I haven't driven it enough to need a fill-up yet, as I've only put about 250 miles on it. I'll check it next time I get gas. Hopefully the dealer sold it to me with a full tank of gas!
According to the trip computer, I've gone about 250 miles and used about 13.3 gallons of gas, which comes out to about 18.8 mpg. Not too impressive, but other than driving down to my Mom's in southern MD for Christmas, most of that has been local, short-trip driving, and when we had the snow, it spent a lot of time idling as it warmed up. Yesterday, on my drive to work, I averaged 14.8 mpg. Got 17.2 going home. And on that trip down to my mom & stepdad's, I got about 26 round trip. Not bad, considering I had 3 people in the car, and it wasn't pure highway. I have a feeling this car will break 30 mpg pretty easily on the highway, but my <5 mile trips to work are going to kill the mpg, locally. At least, until warmer weather gets here.
Did you get hammered with a lot of snow last Saturday? Philly got hit with about 23 inches - which broke the old record of 21" set some time back. I didn't think I'd see my Grand Marquis until April! Funny thing, is most of it is now gone except places where there were big snow piles.
The Grand Marquis is a pig driving around town, but it seemed to get pretty decent fuel economy when I made the 106-mile trip visiting friends and family in NE Pennsylvania. Fuel economy is even better on the return trip as it is all downhill.
You can say that again! These are the stories of history, one that will show the resistance to change and a rule of arrogance that brought down the biggest automobile manufacturer to failure. You can paint it any way you want.
Failure is failure. Toyota, Honda and Nissan didn't fail and take a look at Hyundai, because there's no looking back for this company. Theirs will be a success story as long as they keep the excellent focus on the customer they have shown recently. AFAIC, Hyundai is following the famous words of Lee Iococca: "You can lead, follow or get out of the way."
Now we will see what the new company can do. So far,there are bright spots with the Camaro, LaCrosse and CTS and I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the Equinox (which I believe will NOT beat the competition). There are plenty of legacy models that need to go away and the arrogance still shows it's ugly head frequently I'm afraid.
"When I make my next trip from Worcester, MA to Ashville, NC, I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for cars behind or off to the side that seem to be out of control due to the driver not being able to see out of his frosted over windows. I don't want to be a victim of the next runaway GM product due to this alarming and potentially fatal recall.
While in New Hampshire, I reminded the mother-in-law of our friends whom we visited that her Chevy Cheapuinox may be prone to a climate control malfunction. She doesn't even like to use the heat."
are already questioning their recent 2009 Equinox purchase. The MIL is happy enough with it, but the FIL has regrets as he doesn't like the handling at highway/freeway speeds as he feels the backend gets a little herky/jerky even on straight-aways. He said if he could go back in time he'd of probably got something different.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
I was interested in the new Equinox and began following its blogs. But there seem to be a lot of electronic problems - sounds too reminiscent of why I left GM vehicles several decades ago. Gremlins would pop up and dealers couldn't fix them. I hope GM can turn it around this time, but I think I'll be keeping my distance until its clear they have resolved everything. I don't want those hassles and frustrations all over again. Its very disappoionting because this vehicle is more comfortable than its Asian counterparts and gets similar, or better mileage.
Comments
Things are going to miraculously fix themselves in 5 months? :confuse:
Did you just look at the sticker, or even ask what could be done? My co-worker's '08 Equinox stickered for around $24K, yet she bought it brand new for just over $17K. The only problem she has complained about was the CD player skipping with her burned CD's but not a store bought one.
Options? Trim level? 4wd? Did she buy it as a leftover?
Well remember, they shed a lot of debt in the bankruptcy, plus got more concessions. I guess what would be more telling would be to see if the average transaction price of the new models are up, and are still high 4 months from now after those models have been out awhile. Not sure when the Cruze goes on sale, but if those sell better than, and for more money than the Cobalt, that too will help the bottom line, but not until say, the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2010.
It's the equivallent of a "Managers Special" at the meat Counter in the local food store.
Regards,
OW
That's the same story that drove many to the competition....who knows if any will return to GM any time soon.
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
Well, there is no Buick dealer within 50 miles of my region, which is kinda what I meant by that statement, in a sideways sort of way! :-)
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I know it was. Most of the reviews on it were pathetic too. I even cringed when I heard the new version was sitting on the Theta platform. But, the reviews are pretty good on the new one. I had a chance to ride in a new one last week. An LTZ 4 cyl, w/ the 2 panel sunroof. It was about $31K. It rode nice, the leather was top notch. The only thing I didn't like was the 4 banger revving up to 4250 in first, but my friend's wife likes to get into the gas.
I do prefer the look of the Equinox but not the Terrain.
Regards,
OW
But where there are losers, there are winners. The can't-do-much-wrong Hyundai Group (Hyundai and Kia brands combined) piled on a heady 40.4 percent of share, from 2008's 5.2 percent of the market to 7.3 percent share this year.
Afaic, Hyundai has got the momentum. GM just doesn't.
Oh, and here is the top 10
2 GM's. :surprise:
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
That's 20/28% of ALL sales. Remember when GM was selling those kinds of fleet numbers, what we all said about their profitability with such practices?
Yup.
All that has really happened is Hyundai has picked up any and all rental sales that F/C/GM were dropping. It's good for Hyundai in a way, because they had an underutilized plant in the States that is underutilized no longer, but we all know how that story ends.....
As for GM, look at their models in the top 10 - same story: Impala and Silverado, the fleet queens. Don't know about the Fusion with Ford - I would like to believe that one is mostly on the strength of retail sales, as it seems like a winner. GM's "new" Malibu, so much vaunted by the press etc, their midsize sedan, didn't make the top 10 list because they kept it out of the rental fleets and sold 2/3 of the Impalas to Hertz et al instead. We will see if the Equinox can make the list next year.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Regards,
OW
Don't mistake the Equinox not outselling the CR-V w/ GM not outselling Honda. That is the fallacy about truck sales. The F-series may be the best selling nameplate, but GM routinely but not always outsells Ford in full sized pickups.
Well, back when GM was busy being a fleet whore, their rental mules were running 40-70% fleet sales. At the time, Toyota and other non-Honda volume makes would typically be something like 20% fleet (commercial, government, and rental combined). GM's problem was they had to dump product at or below cost since they couldn't shut or slow the lines. Fleet sales aren't evil per se, as long as they don't become a crutch for sales woes or influence product design.
The engineering, design and tooling $ have already been spent. The building, heat, lights, security, maintenance, property taxes, hourly and salary labor are all going to cost $ whether 1 or 50,000 cars are built.
Take all those costs already spent and all those costs that you can't easily get rid of and it's a large number. Divide that by how many vehicles you make. That number may be 70% of the cost to the corporation. The parts to the car may be 30%.
So the more you build, the less cost there is per vehicle. So I could see with many slow selling vehicles, that a corporation is going to try and sell enough of that vehicle such that they can lower the cost per vehicle, and maybe, just maybe get the cost lower than [their retail sale price + fleet sale price average].
The reason many manufacturers encounter trouble is that they forecast to sell 50,000 units, and gear up the plant and labor for that, and then especially with unions can't cut costs quickly, and the costs are too high for a reduced volume to absorb.
Individual models, but not entire brands. The worst brand was, I believe, Pontiac, when it was selling close to 1/2 of all its vehicles to fleets.
Toyota and other non-Honda volume makes would typically be something like 20% fleet
Speaking of Toyota, the highest they ever let ANY model get is 15-18% of sales to fleets, and certainly sales of Toyota-branded vehicles overall never get over 10-12% to fleets. Honda is much less, less than half that much in fact, and from what I understand Subaru is around 6%.
Hyundai is just trying to keep the North American Kia and Hyundai plants busy during the downturn. As a result, their sales overall are up a few percent in a bad market. But this isn't a Hyundai discussion - my original point stands: what Hyundai has done in the short term to pick up market share is not a sustainable course in the long term and leads to reduced profits. Certainly GM made a good decision when it decided to reduce these sales by a large amount.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Top 20 vehicles, current month's sales Nov 2009 % Chg from Nov '08 YTD 2009 % Chg from YTD 2008
Ford F - Series PU 30,494 -19.6 365,416 -22.9
Toyota Camry / Solara 27,385 8.6 321,878 -21.7
Chevrolet Silverado PU 22,101 -25.2 283,243 -34.4
Toyota Corolla / Matrix 21,899 +0.4 262,654 -20.1
Honda Accord 16,754 -3.9 261,333 -25.4
Nissan Altima 15,490 +43.1 184,925 -26.7
Ford Escape 15,149 +51.2 153,888 +5.7
Honda CR-V 13,955 +14.8 172,528 -5.9
Ford Fusion 13,774 +54.5 161,819 +17.9
Honda Civic 13,652 -22.8 237,403 -26.3
Chevrolet Impala 12,375 -3.7 151,952 -37.9
Toyota RAV4 11,512 +24.3 132,346 +3.2
Chevrolet Malibu 11,113 +17.4 142,194 -11.0
Ford Focus 10,196 +24.4 146,228 -20.6
Dodge Ram PU 9,787 -37.0 165,254 -27.9
Toyota Prius 9,617 +11.1 127,907 -15.3
Chevrolet Equinox 9,587 +273.0 73,437 +19.0
Subaru Legacy 9,308 +120.8 74,334 +21.9
GMC Sierra PU 8,371 -20.3 99,698 -35.9
Hyundai Sonata 8,178 +52.0 109,543 -1.1
Ford F series is still No. 1.
There are 5 GMs on the top 20.
Chevy Equinox monthly sales increased 273% while YTD increased 19%
Ford Fusion monthly sales increased 55% while YTD increased 18%
Toyota Prius YTD dropped 15%
I asked my BIL about his roughly 1 yr old Tahoe. He mentioned his 4 kids are extremely rough on the interior and he has had to get warranty replacement of the interior door handles that they broke. They also left the dome lights on enough times overnight to kill the battery and need a new one under warranty.
He likes the roominess and utility and power. He was so impressed with the Tahoe after getting rid of his MDX that he went out and got a new '09 LT4 with 430 HP. I didn't ask him if the Vette has a storage under the seats problem like you think his Tahoe does.
Doesn't the Tahoe have battery protection? On my GM cars nothing stays on over 10 minutes approximately. It all switches off. Leave on the map lights to read with a cup of coffee; 10 minutes they switch off unless the key is in the ON position. Turn headlights on manually instead of through the Twilight Sentinel; if the key is not ON they go off after approximately 10-12 minutes so the battery doesn't drain down.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I was wondering the same thing. Both my '00 Suburban & my current 07 Expedition have that feature. Yep, kids leave reading lights etc on all of the time. Never have had a dead battery from it. About 5 to 10 minutes and they are automatically shut off. And yes between our black lab and kids, interiors take a beating. That's where I tend to appreciate the hard plastics in the Tahoe/Suburban/Expedition type vehicles. IMO, they stand up to abuse a little bit better.
As for the MDX vs Tahoe comparison, maybe he was impressed with the extra room, I don' t know or maybe the older MDX isn't as good as the new one, because my BIL's '08 MDX shames my Expedition in interior materials, fit-n-finish, powertrain refinement, and performance. It's like comparing a sports sedan to BOF truck. The Tahoe probably has a softer ride.
Horrible, but strangely ironic.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/autos/0711/gallery.2007_best_resale_value_to- p_10/4.html
Wonder what the sales leader are on the Continents?
Regards,
OW
Not me, only because I was looking at buying a used Cooper S a few years ago. The S model has unbelievably high resale, to the point I was thinking about buying a new one instead. They are neat cars that certainly don't appeal to everyone. But the ways they can be equipt and customized from the dealer is impressive.
The lady scoots around effortlessly now! Great stuff! :surprise:
Regards,
OW
Win NONE Loose BIG
Regards,
OW
Saturns fall is pretty drastic as well, also down to zilch. The joke is over.
And back out of the closet, the same recall that affected Z06's a few years ago now spreads to regular models as well
http://www.leftlanenews.com/gm-recalls-20000-corvettes-over-faulty-targa-top.htm- - l#comments :surprise:
It's also amazing to see how far Buick has fallen. 90K units, wow! Just as a reference, back in 2000 they sold 45,000 copies of my Park Avenue, which was probably down from 1999, as that car was starting to fade in popularity. Back then the LeSabre and Century were popular cars. I think the Century was starting to hit the rental fleets alot, but these cars were also popular among older people who had been happy with Buicks of days gone by, and were either now on a reduced income, or just wanted to downsize. That's one thing that kept the old A-body, Celebrity-based Century going for so long.
Buick is down to just two cars these days, plus the Enclave. But even back in 1999, they essentially only had two cars. The Century and Regal were the same car. The Park Ave and Riviera were on the G-body. The LeSabre was still on the older H-body, but would become a G-body for 2000. But they varied the cars around enough that it gave the illusion of a much broader lineup.
So far so good. I'm definitely happy with it. As for fuel economy, well I haven't driven it enough to need a fill-up yet, as I've only put about 250 miles on it. I'll check it next time I get gas. Hopefully the dealer sold it to me with a full tank of gas!
According to the trip computer, I've gone about 250 miles and used about 13.3 gallons of gas, which comes out to about 18.8 mpg. Not too impressive, but other than driving down to my Mom's in southern MD for Christmas, most of that has been local, short-trip driving, and when we had the snow, it spent a lot of time idling as it warmed up. Yesterday, on my drive to work, I averaged 14.8 mpg. Got 17.2 going home. And on that trip down to my mom & stepdad's, I got about 26 round trip. Not bad, considering I had 3 people in the car, and it wasn't pure highway. I have a feeling this car will break 30 mpg pretty easily on the highway, but my <5 mile trips to work are going to kill the mpg, locally. At least, until warmer weather gets here.
The Grand Marquis is a pig driving around town, but it seemed to get pretty decent fuel economy when I made the 106-mile trip visiting friends and family in NE Pennsylvania. Fuel economy is even better on the return trip as it is all downhill.
You can say that again! These are the stories of history, one that will show the resistance to change and a rule of arrogance that brought down the biggest automobile manufacturer to failure. You can paint it any way you want.
Failure is failure. Toyota, Honda and Nissan didn't fail and take a look at Hyundai, because there's no looking back for this company. Theirs will be a success story as long as they keep the excellent focus on the customer they have shown recently. AFAIC, Hyundai is following the famous words of Lee Iococca: "You can lead, follow or get out of the way."
Now we will see what the new company can do. So far,there are bright spots with the Camaro, LaCrosse and CTS and I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the Equinox (which I believe will NOT beat the competition). There are plenty of legacy models that need to go away and the arrogance still shows it's ugly head frequently I'm afraid.
Regards,
OW
Looks like a blow for GM, once again, in the quality arena. New model, same story so far. The Ewequinox 1, CR-V 0.
Regards,
OW
While in New Hampshire, I reminded the mother-in-law of our friends whom we visited that her Chevy Cheapuinox may be prone to a climate control malfunction. She doesn't even like to use the heat."
:P T.I.C.
Regards,
OW
Isn't heat an option? :P
http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.efda853/4027#MSG4027
:P