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Comments
Fleet sales aren't inherently bad, but what gave them a bad reputation was the domestics' habit of using them as a near/at/below-cost dumping ground for vehicles the general public had largely rejected.
Hyundai's capacity constraints are the only thing that might keep Malibu ahead of Sonata and Elantra this year.
Sometimes I think GM had the right idea with having rental only models - the Classic, which was actually a generation back Malibu. Maybe they should make Bel Airs (Impalas for fleets).
Word is the Cobalt rentacar will be relegated to fleet duty when the Snuze comes out.
"China’s Top-Ten Selling Sedans In July"
1. VW Jetta
2. VW Santana
3. VW Lavida
4. Buick Excelle
5. Honda Accord
6. Hyundai Elantra Yuedong
7. BYD F3
8. Toyota Camry
9. VW Bora
10. Toyota Corolla
I think Buick in general is viewed as more of a prestige brand in China, versus a mass-market. If you look at the top ten sales chart for the US, even if you factor out trucks and SUV's, you're still probably not going to see too many Benzes, Lexuses, BMW, Cadillacs, etc on that list.
The Buick Excelle, however, is just a rebadged Suzuki Forenza, which I think is a Daewoo design. Dunno if I'd call that prestige. It's actually not a bad looking little car, but, IMO, not what a Buick should be.
:sick:
Yeah, tell me about it. :sick: If I'd thrown everything I had into it at the market bottom back in late '08/early '09, I'd be thinking about early retirement right now. Well, I mean, seriously, thinking about early retirement, rather than just daydream about it! :shades:
When I was in China in 02 Jettas were everywhere.
The thing I find interesting on all the GM IPO comments are the ones complaining that Obama ruined their stock. Their stock was dead. Left alone they might have gotten 23 cents for what at one point had been 10 grand worth of stock.
LOL...I was thinking it. Glad someone else said it!
Accounting problems. The filing includes an admission that GM can't keep track of its money. GM said that as of June 30, "we concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective at a reasonable assurance level because of the material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting..." Thus, you might not be surprised to learn, GM can't promise to "report accurately our financial condition and results of operations in the future in a timely and reliable manner..."
Comical, how are you suppose to evaluate the value of a company when they admit their financial reporting is correct. Sounds like a government run organization to me.
Unbelievable!
Regards,
OW
Cruze has better front end styling. Focus grille openings inelegant. Also, roof line of Cruze flows smoothly to rear while Focus rear quarter looks choppy. Rear quarter side of Focus looks lumpy while Cruze flows smoothly.
Focus styling might be appealing to very young people in early 20's who like boy-racer look as Andre puts it. Cruze will appeal across all age groups.
Corporate or individual brand name? There is nothing wrong with consistency of look over the decades. Look at Cadillac. The front end of current models can be traced back 50, 60 years. Succesful auto companies from Germany, such as Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche keep their look (front end) over decades. Maybe Audi has ventured a little from its look of years' back.
So you are saying that Malibu has surpassed many competitors and non-competitors and now only 4 cars are ahead of them. That is exceptional progress.
It is, I think it's way better than the model it replaced and it can be legitimately be considered competition to any car in the class.
Yesterday I received a letter from Chevrolet about the possibility that the 2005 Malibu may lose its power steering assist at any time with no warning -- possibly, for example, when you're in the middle of an emergency manuever at high speed to avoid an obstacle on a freeway. Needless to say, this offer to pay for repairing a problem that GM already knows exists only after it happens is completely unacceptable. To me, it shows an appalling disregard for the safety of their customers, and it shows that GM simply does not care about customer satisfaction.
I have purchased a number of GM vehicles over the past 25 years, but I do not plan to consider any GM product when I go car shopping in the future.
I feel for you. Join the Club!
Regards,
OW
Yes, it is exceptional progress FROM WHERE THEY WERE.
It is an embarrassment as an American that it took 30 years to get this much improvement.
Whatever Ford did to elude the dreaded Bankruptcy Government Style was worth it's weight in GOLD. The Other 2 are mockeries of the USA. Period, The End.
Regards,
OW
Crank up those fleet sales and Incentives!!! :P
That sounds so government-ese!
I admit that I was swallowing the Kool-Aid in the media and thought GM had really turned some corners, so I began following the threads on the new Equinox. It seems like a very nice vehicle and something we were interested in maybe buying next year. But now it is beginning to sound like history may be repeating itself, back to the reasons I stopped buying GM products years back. People really like the vehicle initially, but then after awhile those electronic gremlins and the like seem to start appearing and GM and their dealers don't seem to able to fix them satisfactorily. See some similar stuff in the new Buick threads. Very sad!
My (one of my few) positive lied in the latest SRX (even with the dog engine choices) which looks a lot better inside and out than the Lexus RX it is competing with IMO. But after a coworkers complete lemon I cannot believe such a pile of garbage would roll off the line like that... Gawd aweful. No surprise to me when I saw a local Lincoln dealer already has 2 used ones on his lot for sale.
To be fair, it is one of the many "foriegn" GOVERNMENT MOTORS products built in Mexico, so I wouldn't expect the greatest quality right out of the gate... :sick:
People really like the vehicle initially, but then after awhile those electronic gremlins and the like seem to start appearing and GM and their dealers don't seem to able to fix them satisfactorily
Berri, can you back this up with links?
The worst comment I saw was one delivering 24 combined mpg on regular with ethanol from a 2.4 liter. I do slightly more city driving than the complainer with a similar drivetrain in a lighter 4 dr car and get 26-27 mpg combined without ethanol. I avoid walmart gas because of the ethanol reduces mpg by 10% but doesn't save you 26 cents a gallon at the pump. Maybe 2 cents saved. BP gives me 5% rewards and so I get a $25 BP rewards card every month or two in the mail. Sometimes I wait a few months and get 4 of them at once.
terex, "2010 Chevy Equinox Problems" #521, 20 Aug 2010 7:39 am
roho1, "2010 Chevy Equinox" #501, 1 Aug 2010 2:00 am
http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.f1cc229
Downshifting on an automatic a problem? OMG!!
The only issue I see is the stalling on the one owner.
You keep your eye out on the Sonata...I'll watch the Regal!
Regards,
OW
I personally can't figure out why there are still so many glitches at this level of manufacturing and technology we can't get almost everything solved in the initial manufacturing/engineering of a vehicle. To me, it has to do with too many cost cutting materials, parts, etc and the ridiculous use of cheap plastics inside and outside cars now a days. Even once resepected luxury and non-luxury automakers for quality I've seen begin cutting corners in quality over the last few years. Very sad in deed.
The only difference between quality in all the automakers now is who does the best job of hiding their cheap plastic crap in their vehicles compared to the others.
That's one of those things that would probably annoy me at first, simply because I'm not used to it. But then once I got adjusted, and drove a car that didn't noticeably downshift when slowing down, I'd be like WTH is wrong with this thing!
The only issue I see is the stalling on the one owner.
I wonder if that could be the camshaft or crankshaft position sensor? I had that problem with my 2000 Intrepid a couple years back. It wouldn't necessarily stall out at traffic lights, although it did die at a stop sign once. It was more of a random occurrence though. At first it would just stall the car, and then I could start it right back up, but then it got more and more common, and harder to re-start.
Another remote possibility, I guess, could be the lockup torque converter? I remember years ago, my grandparents' '85 LeSabre would sometimes stall out when slowing down, or at least start bucking and hesitating, and you'd have to feather the gas pedal to make it kick down, or just shift into neutral and then back to drive. It turns out it was just a switch that kept the converter from unlocking when it needed to.
Stalling problems can be extremely irritating, and frustrating to track down. That's usually when I really start wanting to get rid of a car, when it keeps stalling out and the source of the problem is hard to find.
Fixed with a reflash. Runs like a champ.
When my Intrepid had its sensor position problem, it never did trigger the check engine light, and never stored any codes that could be read. The one thing it did do, that was amusing and scary all at the same time, was when it finally died in the parking lot at work. I got a ride home and drove another car in the next day, and the second evening, tried to start the Intrepid. I turned the key on-off a few times, tried to start it here and there. Suddenly, the numbers on the odometer disappeared and it displayed, simply, "dOnE". As in, that was it, the fat lady has sung, and the car was done for. And then, the next time I turned the key, it fired right up!
I think I might have accidentally triggered a function that displays the stored codes in the car. On old 80's K-cars, you could turn the ignition key on-off a few times, and then watch the check engine light flash. I remember "5-5" meant, "end of codes". So, if you had, say, a code 33, the light would flash 3 times, pause, flash 3 more times, pause again, then flash 5 times, pause again, and finally flash 5 more. The Intrepid probably had something more sophisticated built into it.
Regards,
OW
LOL! Actually, I remember the mechanic finding a vacuum leak and fixing it, and told me to take the car back home for the weekend, drive it around, and see if it acted up again. Well, the car made it all the way home, and then all the way to the liquor store. And, once it was about as far from the mechanic's shop as I was planning on driving that evening, it stalled out again. :mad:
Thankfully, so far my 2000 Park Ave has been behaving itself so far, although I did something bad to it the other week. We had a serious rain storm, and the main road was backed up, so I tried taking a back road. Well, there was water running across that road. You know how they say you should never drive through water running across the road, because it's really hard to gauge how deep it is? Well, they were RIGHT!
Thankfully I made it through, but right when I got to the middle, it was deep enough that the car lost all momentum. It didn't stall, though, and I was able to regain traction and drive out the other side. The Acura TL that was behind me did the smart thing though, and turned around!
This morning I noticed a squeaking sound coming from the left front wheel, so I'm wondering if I might have gotten water in some place that GM never intended. Oh well, it's about due for another oil change, anyway.
Now that is kind of strange. I had a coil pack go bad on my Expe and I definitely got a check engine light. But it never stalled. I'm surprised one cylinder could cause a stall.
Mine OTOH, was a heavy throttle induced miss when the engine not fully warm. Once warm it ran fine.
those posts do not support berri's opinion. try again.
222 reviews. try reading some.
Fixed with a reflash. Runs like a champ
Wow, its gettin pretty deep in here. If you had of heard through the grapevine that your co-workers, cousins, friends, aunts, next door neighbours, step mom, had a gm that displayed this behaviour youd be posting it on here and stating how gms are all crap. why do you give subaru the free pass? surely with their miniscule market share every car should be perfect. maybe your name should be anythingbutsubaru, cause thats what my name would be after driving around in a deathtrap that exhibited that behaviour :lemon:
One person unable to properly link their ipod turned into electrical gremlins in Equinox's?
Well that's not surprising considering this report.
Strategic Vision's 2009 New Vehicle Experience Study found that 13% of Chevy owners have never used the Web. By contrast, only 3% of Honda owners remain in the technological Stone Age. While 70% of Honda owners boast a college degree or higher, only 35% of Chevy owners can say the same.
I'd guess that's car and truck, so it would certainly skew the results some. Ford was similar with slightly better numbers.