2 sales will be lost this week at the local GMC dealer...mine and my neighbor.
Me replacing the GMC Denali I bought back in 2003 and my neighbor who needs a winter sled and has been burned at the same dealer. The biggest reason is the local "Fiance Manager" the rest is price. There are simply too many choices that obviate any need to buy GM products (aside from their past historical performance).
That's right! Giving equal ground to quality, GM will loose market share going forward by 2 glaring facts:
Continued arrogance and pricing out of the market.
Draw a line in the sand now as they exit some of their C-11 public ownership.
Going from an all-season tire compound to a winter/ice tire will probably cut you mpg by 5+% right there, even on dry pavement. If you have snow on the roads, you have a lot of extra friction, reduced rolling momentum.
I don't want to have 2 vehicles on the road right now, so I opt for an AWD vehicle, and many of my neighbors opt for 4WD PU's and SUV's, sacrificing year-round fuel economy to have the extra traction 5 months of the year. So winter weather causes big drops in what we might otherwise opt for in vehicles' mpg.
I bought a house a few years ago with a 15-degree, long drive-way here in NH. I have an AWD vehicle with limited-slip and snow tires. I have no idea what GM vehicle I could get that would serve that need without spending over $25K. If I need to replace that vehicle, Subaru, Suzuki, and Nissan have options I'd consider.
I live in Iowa and experience about 5% lower mileage in the winter months and I thought that was bad!
I have a feeling my mpg is going to drop a lot more than that this winter, but my recently shortened commute is the primary culprit. 2.6 miles from my driveway to where I park. The car hardly has a chance to fully warm up, and usually the bun warmer in the seat will get me toasty before the heater will!
I might circle around the block a few times every once in awhile just to let the car get up to operating temperature every once in awhile!
I see in the news that GM wants to be able to raise their executive salaries beyond the Obama administration's guidelines.
...but he wants to continue freezing white collar worker pay. They will pay for this down the road. Younger talent won't find them an employer of choice as the job market improves... and what has high priced executive talent really done for American business anyway - run it into the ground?
Exactly. We have numerous decades of experience of well-paid executives running companies into the ground. Wagonner was the last at GM. What did it get them? Many of these executives are clueless, country-club-smug bums, who are where they are because they are tall, smile nice, and most importantly connected or went to the right schools.
If GM needs new management then let them turn to some foreign talent. The rest of the world does not have the ridiculous executive salary structure here in the U.S. So let's start out-sourcing our executive jobs, not just the direct labor positions.
it was a year ago on this day, December 14, that I brought the Park Ave home from the Cadillac dealer. One year, and 11,000 miles later, I'm only into the car around $440 for repairs, maintenance, and an emissions test.
Hopefully the next year is as low-cost as the first!
When Better Cars are Built, Buick Will Build Them! My wife and I probably have spent less than that on her LaCrosse - just a few oil changes at $32.25 each at the local mechanic. Would've been even less if I had done them, but it's a problem to get rid of the waste oil around here. Back in the day, there was a Ford dealer that had an underground tank where people could dump their waste oil. I believe they had a special furnace that burned waste oil to heat the building.
Burning waste oil was standard practice before many states/epa said thats a no no. Hope your cable gets fixed so you can watch your MTV.
Oh, I can go one worse than that...back in the day (before my time) my Granddad used to save old motor oil and use it to flea-dip the dogs! :surprise: Old days, rural area, and they were outdoor dogs, but still!
I think it was also common to use old oil to spray down dirt roads to cut back on the dust?
Yep, they did that back in Mississippi when I was growing up. You'd only see it near farmhouses though - wasn't enough oil around to spray all over the county.
Poison ivy is an evil thing. When I was younger, I was so sensitive to it that I could practically look at it the wrong way and I'd catch it! I still remember Christmas 1985, when I was in 10th grade, we went to a tree farm where you could chop your own tree down. When we took it back to the van, I carried it from the stump end. By next morning, my hands were breaking out, along with my face and anyplace I might have scratched with my hands! Sure enough, my stepdad found a small poison ivy vine nestled in the crevices of the trunk.
Thankfully, I'm not as sensitive to it now. I might still catch a bit every once in awhile when doing work in the yard, but now it's more like a bug bite, where in the past it was downright debilitating!
A lady a worked with had a bad case of ivy poisoning. I thought she had been in a fire by the looks of it!
Speaking of Buick, a coworker of mine currently has a 2004 Honda Accord and is interested in the new Regal. He likes the car, but wished they had an AWD option. Any plans for a future AWD Regal?
A lady a worked with had a bad case of ivy poisoning. I thought she had been in a fire by the looks of it!
Yeah, when it gets into its final stages and really starts scabbing up, it can look like a fire burn.
Speaking of Buick, a coworker of mine currently has a 2004 Honda Accord and is interested in the new Regal. He likes the car, but wished they had an AWD option. Any plans for a future AWD Regal?
I dunno, but offering AWD does sound like a good idea. It's probably not something I'd ever spring for, but in areas that have worse winters with more ice and snow, it could be a good selling point.
Speaking of Regals, my Dad still has his '03 LS. Nothing major has gone wrong with it yet, although he's only up to around 70,000 miles.
The old Regal's really not a bad car, and neither was the old Century. The fuel economy was fantastic for one. It was the plain interiors that made an old Chevrolet Biscayne look like a Maybach in comparison that killed them. When I first looked at a LaCrosse several months before my wife bought her car, I thought it was a quantum leap over the Century/Regal per the interior. The new LaCrosse makes her car look like those old Century/Regals in comparison.
Speaking of the 3800 engine, I was reading an article in the December 2010 edition of Collectible Automobile about the 1961-63 Buick Special. Seems the Buick V-6 has a long and interesting history. Not only did Buick use it, but also Land Rover and AMC.
The sticker price for the car, a Chevrolet Volt with the "Premium Trim Package" of options, including leather seats plus a back-up camera, is about $45,000, GM spokesman Monte Doran said.
I dunno, but offering AWD does sound like a good idea.
I guess it depends on why one wants AWD. If it's just for snow traction, then it's probably a waste.
When my brother was looking to buy his '10 Fusion Sport, he was going to buy one with AWD. I asked him why he wanted AWD. He said for the winter. I told him to consider forgoing AWD, save the $1500 or so (along with the extra weight and complexities), and buy a good set of winter tires instead. So that's what he ended up doing.
He lives in NW Indiana where they've had a blizzard the last few days. He said his Fusion with a set of steel rims and Blizzaks feels safer in the snow than his wife's 4wd blazer with all season tires. He said it stops so well in the snow and ice, he's now concerned about being rear ended by those w/o winter shoes.
Granted there are always scenarios where AWD is probably a must, such as in hilly/mountainous areas and with a high HP/torque engine in a fwd layout to avoid torque steer.
As far as the Regal, I thought originally they were going to offer AWD in the GS trim. Guess it got axed.
He said it stops so well in the snow and ice, he's now concerned about being rear ended by those w/o winter shoes.
Yeah, stopping isn't really a concern for me, but sometimes it's getting started. When we had our first blizzard last December, I remember digging my '85 Silverado out and venturing out to the end of the road, and onto the road it empties onto. I got out just fine, but unfortunately, when I turned around to go back home, the first hill on my street was just steep enough that I couldn't quite get enough speed/traction to get up over it. So, instead of driving the 1/4 mile back to my house, I had to go around the "block"...if you can call it that. It's about 3 miles and took me out onto a more major road where I had to deal with all the other idiots who should not have been out driving. And, I ran into a few! (figuratively, not literally!)
Strangely enough, that old '85 Silverado, with its disc/drum brakes, seems to stop better in bad weather than my 2000 Park Ave with its 4-wheel disc and abs!
Strangely enough, that old '85 Silverado, with its disc/drum brakes, seems to stop better in bad weather than my 2000 Park Ave with its 4-wheel disc and abs!
ABS tends to lengthen stopping distances in mud, gravel, and snow, as it doesn't allow the tires to dig in. Also, tires can make a huge distance. But it does allow you to steer and hopefully maintain control. I believe my Expedition (as does most trucks/SUVS) uses a different algorithm for the ABS when using 4 high and 4lo to allow for more wheel slip on low traction conditions.
Yeah, stopping isn't really a concern for me, but sometimes it's getting started.
That's another area my brother reporting being much better with snow tires. There is a road near his office that has an incline which required momentum to go up it in the snow (in his previous Altima w/o snow tires). He said he was stopped on it with 3" of snow or so and was able to accelerate from a dead stop up the hill with the Blizzaks, something he claimed never would have happened before.
Plus current traction control systems work far better. The system in my wife's GP is basically useless as it doesn't have any means to redirect power to the front tire with traction, plus the power cuts in and out far more abruptly than the system in the Expe . Newer systems like what my Expedition has will activate the brake of the spinning tire which directs torque to the tire with more traction and throttle is managed far more smoothly. While still fairly crude (compared to the most advanced systems available) it works surprisingly well.
They sold the tooling to AMc in the late '60s because everyone wanted / needed more horsepower plus that V6 couldn't pull the ever-growing land yachts around. They bought the tooling back in the early-mid '70s.
Land / Range rovers used the V8 and its architecture basically until they were bought years back. Kind of like Jaguar and the TH400.
Exterior-wise, I see a lot of Lexus GS DNA in the new Buick vehicles, except Regal of course, which now that more & more people are reviewing them they seem to be falling short performance-wise (will there be a V6 in its future?) and somewhat in its packaging. In any event, as long as they don't badge-engineer it to death with Chevy-clones...
Emotorcons don't show up for me when I put them or when I read someone else's post.
For crying out loud, how long have they been broken? Even in the old system? I looked at the source code and it just points to an emotorcon image on edmund's web site. They should be able to fix this easily.
Does that make Edmunds the Land Rover, rather than the Honda, of the web site reliability ratings?!
How do the Malibu and Camaro end up better than the cars mentioned? They are only "ahead" because Chevrolet is alphabetically before Honda, Nissan and Toyota.
They are all 4 star rated.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
They sold the tooling to AMc in the late '60s because everyone wanted / needed more horsepower plus that V6 couldn't pull the ever-growing land yachts around. They bought the tooling back in the early-mid '70s.
Yeah, 1967 was the last year for the Buick V-6, a 225 CID unit that put out 160 hp gross...probably around 120 hp net. It had only been offered in the midsized Special/Skylark, as the full-sized cars were too big to take an engine that small. For 1968, the Special/Skylark were redesigned, and the coupe put on about 100 lb, while the sedan put on around 200, and the wagon put on around 300 lb! That year, what few buyers wanted a 6-cyl were forced to go with the Chevy 250 inilne-6, which put out 155 hp gross...probably about 115 net, although by the time they got to net ratings for 1972, it was rated at 110.
In '68, Buick also dropped their 300 V-8, and their 340 smallblock was replaced by a 350.
By the time that engine came back, around 1975, as the 231, it only had 105-110 hp, but the cars had only gotten heavier. They actually put that engine in a few thousand LeSabres in 1976...that must have made for one of the slowest cars of all time!
A guy I knew in college had a yellow two-door 1976 Century with that V-6. My 1988 Park Avenue's 3.8 (231 CID) V-6 was rated at 165 hp. That doesn't seem like much now, but it moved the car with authority and delivered phenomenal fuel economy. I sure do miss that car!
Consumer Reports tested a 1977 Cutlass Supreme sedan with the Olds 260 V-8. It had all of 110 hp, and moved the beast from 0-60 in about 21 seconds. The 231 had similar hp, but less torque I'm sure, and I'm sure would have been slower. All other things being equal, a car with the 231 probably weighed about 150 lb less than one with the 260 V-8, but I imagine it was still probably a bit slower than the little Olds V-8.
One of my friends once had an '82 Cutlass Supreme sedan with the 260, and by then it was strangled down to a meager 100 hp! But it must have still been fairly torquey, or the gearing kept it right at the sweet spot, because it really didnt' seem that bad.
As for your '88 Park Ave, while 165 hp might not seem like a lot, the 231 has always been fairly torquey for its displacement, although admittedly, outclassed in its later years. Plus, your '88 Park Ave was fairly light, maybe 3300-3400 lb.
I always thought that downsized C-body would have been a great replacement for the RWD A/G body sedans. It was about the same size, but more space-efficient. It would've been a great replacement for something like a Cutlass Supreme or Regal sedan. But for something more grandiose like an Electra or Ninety-Eight, it just doesn't seem worthy.
I'd say the 1988 Park Avenue was lighter than my wife's LaCrosse and I believe it was either the same length or shorter. I definitely seemed lighter. Funny how cars are smaller, yet a lot heavier these days. I swear my much shorter 2007 Cadillac DTS is heavier than my 1989 Brougham.
By the way, did you ever get the August 2010 edition of "Collectible Automobile?" There is an excellent article on the 1967-70 full-size Pontiacs in it. Some of the pictures of Pontiacs being developed in the styling studios at the time bear a striking resemblance to the 1970 Dodge Coronet.
Here's a bit of trivia: Pennsylvania wouldn't allow the front turn signal/parking lamps to be placed behind the slots on the front end caps of the 1967 Grand Prix. GPs that went to PA had the signals/parking lamps in the same place as on your Catalina instead. The slots were blanked-out from behind.
Let me know when that changes...until then anythingbutgm for me as well.
Just took home a CX-9 for a x-mas gift for my beautiful wife. I'm going to the local GMC/Buick dealer with it on Monday to say hello to the salesman I really like who works there.
I want the Fiance Guy to know that since my wife's Denali, he'll see me until the sales guy leaves but only to visit..never buy from him ever again...just like my neighbor who got burned from him on his 2004 Envoy Denali...
I'd say the 1988 Park Avenue was lighter than my wife's LaCrosse and I believe it was either the same length or shorter. I definitely seemed lighter. Funny how cars are smaller, yet a lot heavier these days. I swear my much shorter 2007 Cadillac DTS is heavier than my 1989 Brougham.
In general cars today are heavier than cars 10-20 years ago. Increased chassis rigidity, safety features, standard equipment, and optional equipment have all increased weight substantially.
A 1997 Ford Expedition had a base curb weight of around 4,800lbs a 2010 base mode weighs around 5,800lbs. I know my 07 is over 6,000lbs. It's crazy how heavy everything has gotten.
I'm pretty sure the 231 + LeSabre weight = hella slow times. But even the mid-sized vehicles that original engine was intended for were not that light to begin with. IMO it was really better suited for a Chevy II / Falcon-type, i.e. "compact", car.
Well, enough going down memory lane, but to present Buicks and GM.
Well, enough going down memory lane, but to present Buicks and GM.
Actually, on a similar note, I thought that Buick putting that 4-cyl in the LaCrosse would be another '76 LeSabre 231 in the making, but from what I've heard, it's not that bad. I've seen 0-60 times quoted around 9.1 seconds. Now, that's not gonna be enough to make anybody write a song about it, and it's not what you'd call luxury league, but it's still not bad, if all you want is a nice, comfy, roomy fairly economical car.
For comparison, I think my '00 Intrepid was good for around 9.5 seconds. I believe the supercharged Park Ave is good for around 7.6 seconds, but I think the regular one took around 9 seconds, and I believe that's about what the Lucerne with the V-6 was good for as well.
And 9.1 seconds is probably quicker than anything Buick was offering in 1976, unless you could maybe track down a Century or Regal with a 455 and the right gearing.
Yeah, I'd say a 4cyl Lacrosse would probably be fine around town. Load it up with 4 adults and some junk in the trunk and it will probably be to sluggish on the hwy for my tastes.
The biggest question is how isolated the cabin is from the racket going on under the hood. I've not sampled many N/A 4cylinders that have NVH that would pass in a premium car.
I'm curious to see the sales numbers of the 4cyl model. I think it would make more sense to offer the turbo 4 from the Regal as the base engine. But I guess this is simply an EPA based decision.
The local GMC dealer also sells Mazdas so I had the opportunity to drive both side by side. In fact I drove both twice to make sure that they were comparable. Congrats on your new ride. I just couldn't buy a CX-9 after driving one of these:
I thought everyone bought a Cutlass with the 403? The 350 was anemic at best. Don't even mention what a mess GM made of the Cutlass in the 80's.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority of them were 350's. I still see them fairly often at classic car shows, and they're almost always a 350. My '76 LeMans has a Pontiac 350-4bbl, and yeah, sadly, the 350's in these cars were nothing to write home about by that time.
I always theorized that CR chose the 260 V-8 in that '77 Cutlass on purpose to make it look bad. That was a 4-way test, where they compared a newly downsized Impala (or maybe it was a Caprice) with a 305, to a Ford LTD-II with a 302, and a Fury or Monaco with a 318. Even though those other cars were technically midsize, they were about the same size and weight as a Caprice. And CR said that anything bigger, like the huge LTD/Marquis, or Gran Fury/Royal Monaco, were just too big and obsolete, and out of the picture, as far as they were concerned.
Anyway, as it was, the 305, 302, and 318 performed similarly, with 0-60 times around 13 seconds. The tiny 260 managed something like 21 seconds. I have a feeling that if they had tested a 350 Cutlass, it would've pulled around 11 seconds. And the point of this article was to show how much better, in every respect, the newly downsized B-body was. So, we couldn't have one of the old-school cars blowing it away, now could we?
Unfortunately, Olds didn't offer anything in the 300 CID range in the Cutlass that year. You went from the 231 to the 260, to the 350 (2 or 4bbl) and finally topped out at the 403.
The test might have been fairer if they found a Chevelle with a 305, or a LeMans with a 301. The Buick Century/Regal was in a similar situation as the Cutlass. Base engine was a 231 V-6, and then you went straight to the Buick 350, with nothing in between.
Or, I guess CR could have just picked a Caprice with a 350, a Cutlass with a 350, an LTD-II with a 351, and a Fury/Monaco with a 360! However, I think they did the right thing in picking the engines they did, because those 305's, 318's, and 302's were the most common engines in their respective cars. It's just that the Cutlass was the odd man out in that test.
I think the Cutlass Supreme in the 1980's was a nice car, IF you got a V-8. The 231 was junk through 1984, with poor lubrication, and a tendency to shred its timing gear, and other issues. It was beefed up for 1985 though, when all 231's got the stiffed up a'la the turbo block. A buddy of mine had an '82 Cutlass with the 260, and it wasn't too bad. And I've seen them with Chevy 267's...another engine that probably wasn't too horrible for the time. And if you get one with a 307, they're really nice cars.
I had an '82 Cutlass Supreme, but it had the 231, and it was pretty much shot by around 73,000 miles. My 2000 Park Ave has 67,000 on it now. I hope its 231 outlives my old Cutlass! :P
No. In fact, Olds sold so many Cutlasses that yr. they had to put Chevy 350's in some because the Olds engine plant couldn't keep up!!!
Olds was predicting that the newly downsized Delta 88 would cut into sales of the Cutlass, as they were similar sized cars. And with Olds, Buick and Pontiac, the downsized big cars did steal a few sales from the midsizers. But somehow, the Olds Cutlass ended up becoming even MORE popular for 1977! I think sales shot from around 500K in 1976 to 620K in 1977.
From what I've read, the Olds 350 was dedicated to the Cutlass, so it got first dibs. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of Delta 88's and possible some Ninety Eights got stuck with Chevy 350's instead.
And to make things worse, in California and high altitude areas, Pontiac got their engines banned for being too dirty. I think Buick did, as well. So, an Olds 350 would get substituted where you would have otherwise had a Pontiac or Buick 350, and an Olds 403 would be used in place of a Pontiac 400.
I think the biggest "loser" in that debacle was the Delta 88, which tended to be the most likely to be stuck with a Chevy 350.
I almost bought a 1979 Pontiac Bonneville that had a Buick 350 in it. I passed on it, partly because that Buick 350 looked kinda like the 231 in my '82 Cutlass that blew, and it gave me a bad vibe, although later on I did find out that the Buick 350 had none of the 231's traits.
I dunno why it had a Buick engine in it though. Maybe Pontiac quit building their 350 after 1978? Or perhaps engine swapping just got that rampant by that time (and B-O-P engines were easy to swap around, while it wasn't as easy to put a Chevy engine into the mix)
I think the biggest "loser" in that debacle was the Delta 88, which tended to be the most likely to be stuck with a Chevy 350.
I dunno Andre - we actually had a 75 Malibu with its 2bbl 350 and a 76 Cutlass with its 350 4bbl at the same time. The Chevy was a much better driver in town. I kind of wished the Olds had been a Chevymobile because I would have gotten a $500 settlement and a better driver. The Olds was a PIG! When you tromped on the accelerator you could count to 5 or 6 before it kicked in. It was like having the spool up of a turbojet without the thrust. The only advantages the Cutlass had IMHO was it looked better and was heavier so it rode smoother on the Interstate and went through the snow better.
Comments
Me replacing the GMC Denali I bought back in 2003 and my neighbor who needs a winter sled and has been burned at the same dealer. The biggest reason is the local "Fiance Manager" the rest is price. There are simply too many choices that obviate any need to buy GM products (aside from their past historical performance).
That's right! Giving equal ground to quality, GM will loose market share going forward by 2 glaring facts:
Continued arrogance and pricing out of the market.
Draw a line in the sand now as they exit some of their C-11 public ownership.
No help on my block.....
Regards,
OW
I live in Iowa and experience about 5% lower mileage in the winter months and I thought that was bad!
I don't want to have 2 vehicles on the road right now, so I opt for an AWD vehicle, and many of my neighbors opt for 4WD PU's and SUV's, sacrificing year-round fuel economy to have the extra traction 5 months of the year. So winter weather causes big drops in what we might otherwise opt for in vehicles' mpg.
I bought a house a few years ago with a 15-degree, long drive-way here in NH. I have an AWD vehicle with limited-slip and snow tires. I have no idea what GM vehicle I could get that would serve that need without spending over $25K. If I need to replace that vehicle, Subaru, Suzuki, and Nissan have options I'd consider.
I have a feeling my mpg is going to drop a lot more than that this winter, but my recently shortened commute is the primary culprit. 2.6 miles from my driveway to where I park. The car hardly has a chance to fully warm up, and usually the bun warmer in the seat will get me toasty before the heater will!
I might circle around the block a few times every once in awhile just to let the car get up to operating temperature every once in awhile!
...but he wants to continue freezing white collar worker pay. They will pay for this down the road. Younger talent won't find them an employer of choice as the job market improves... and what has high priced executive talent really done for American business anyway - run it into the ground?
If GM needs new management then let them turn to some foreign talent. The rest of the world does not have the ridiculous executive salary structure here in the U.S. So let's start out-sourcing our executive jobs, not just the direct labor positions.
Hopefully the next year is as low-cost as the first!
Oh, I can go one worse than that...back in the day (before my time) my Granddad used to save old motor oil and use it to flea-dip the dogs! :surprise: Old days, rural area, and they were outdoor dogs, but still!
I think it was also common to use old oil to spray down dirt roads to cut back on the dust?
Thankfully, I'm not as sensitive to it now. I might still catch a bit every once in awhile when doing work in the yard, but now it's more like a bug bite, where in the past it was downright debilitating!
Speaking of Buick, a coworker of mine currently has a 2004 Honda Accord and is interested in the new Regal. He likes the car, but wished they had an AWD option. Any plans for a future AWD Regal?
GM is shipping:
2011 Chevy Volt: Out For Delivery (Inside Line)
Yeah, when it gets into its final stages and really starts scabbing up, it can look like a fire burn.
Speaking of Buick, a coworker of mine currently has a 2004 Honda Accord and is interested in the new Regal. He likes the car, but wished they had an AWD option. Any plans for a future AWD Regal?
I dunno, but offering AWD does sound like a good idea. It's probably not something I'd ever spring for, but in areas that have worse winters with more ice and snow, it could be a good selling point.
Speaking of Regals, my Dad still has his '03 LS. Nothing major has gone wrong with it yet, although he's only up to around 70,000 miles.
Speaking of the 3800 engine, I was reading an article in the December 2010 edition of Collectible Automobile about the 1961-63 Buick Special. Seems the Buick V-6 has a long and interesting history. Not only did Buick use it, but also Land Rover and AMC.
But here is the regular price.
The sticker price for the car, a Chevrolet Volt with the "Premium Trim Package" of options, including leather seats plus a back-up camera, is about $45,000, GM spokesman Monte Doran said.
I'm sure they will sell out fast!
Regards,
OW
I guess it depends on why one wants AWD. If it's just for snow traction, then it's probably a waste.
When my brother was looking to buy his '10 Fusion Sport, he was going to buy one with AWD. I asked him why he wanted AWD. He said for the winter. I told him to consider forgoing AWD, save the $1500 or so (along with the extra weight and complexities), and buy a good set of winter tires instead. So that's what he ended up doing.
He lives in NW Indiana where they've had a blizzard the last few days. He said his Fusion with a set of steel rims and Blizzaks feels safer in the snow than his wife's 4wd blazer with all season tires. He said it stops so well in the snow and ice, he's now concerned about being rear ended by those w/o winter shoes.
Granted there are always scenarios where AWD is probably a must, such as in hilly/mountainous areas and with a high HP/torque engine in a fwd layout to avoid torque steer.
As far as the Regal, I thought originally they were going to offer AWD in the GS trim. Guess it got axed.
Yeah, stopping isn't really a concern for me, but sometimes it's getting started. When we had our first blizzard last December, I remember digging my '85 Silverado out and venturing out to the end of the road, and onto the road it empties onto. I got out just fine, but unfortunately, when I turned around to go back home, the first hill on my street was just steep enough that I couldn't quite get enough speed/traction to get up over it. So, instead of driving the 1/4 mile back to my house, I had to go around the "block"...if you can call it that. It's about 3 miles and took me out onto a more major road where I had to deal with all the other idiots who should not have been out driving. And, I ran into a few! (figuratively, not literally!)
Strangely enough, that old '85 Silverado, with its disc/drum brakes, seems to stop better in bad weather than my 2000 Park Ave with its 4-wheel disc and abs!
ABS tends to lengthen stopping distances in mud, gravel, and snow, as it doesn't allow the tires to dig in. Also, tires can make a huge distance. But it does allow you to steer and hopefully maintain control. I believe my Expedition (as does most trucks/SUVS) uses a different algorithm for the ABS when using 4 high and 4lo to allow for more wheel slip on low traction conditions.
Yeah, stopping isn't really a concern for me, but sometimes it's getting started.
That's another area my brother reporting being much better with snow tires. There is a road near his office that has an incline which required momentum to go up it in the snow (in his previous Altima w/o snow tires). He said he was stopped on it with 3" of snow or so and was able to accelerate from a dead stop up the hill with the Blizzaks, something he claimed never would have happened before.
Plus current traction control systems work far better. The system in my wife's GP is basically useless as it doesn't have any means to redirect power to the front tire with traction, plus the power cuts in and out far more abruptly than the system in the Expe . Newer systems like what my Expedition has will activate the brake of the spinning tire which directs torque to the tire with more traction and throttle is managed far more smoothly. While still fairly crude (compared to the most advanced systems available) it works surprisingly well.
Land / Range rovers used the V8 and its architecture basically until they were bought years back. Kind of like Jaguar and the TH400.
Exterior-wise, I see a lot of Lexus GS DNA in the new Buick vehicles, except Regal of course, which now that more & more people are reviewing them they seem to be falling short performance-wise (will there be a V6 in its future?) and somewhat in its packaging. In any event, as long as they don't badge-engineer it to death with Chevy-clones...
GM Absent
You do not need to bash GM...the market speaks.
Regards,
OW
https://www.alg.com/deprratings.aspx
2010 Malibu and Camaro depreciation ratings are equal to:
2010 Accord, Altima, Maxima and Camry
amd better than:
Audi A6, Sonata, Rav-4, and VW CC
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
For crying out loud, how long have they been broken? Even in the old system? I looked at the source code and it just points to an emotorcon image on edmund's web site. They should be able to fix this easily.
Does that make Edmunds the Land Rover, rather than the Honda, of the web site reliability ratings?!
They are all 4 star rated.
Yeah, 1967 was the last year for the Buick V-6, a 225 CID unit that put out 160 hp gross...probably around 120 hp net. It had only been offered in the midsized Special/Skylark, as the full-sized cars were too big to take an engine that small. For 1968, the Special/Skylark were redesigned, and the coupe put on about 100 lb, while the sedan put on around 200, and the wagon put on around 300 lb! That year, what few buyers wanted a 6-cyl were forced to go with the Chevy 250 inilne-6, which put out 155 hp gross...probably about 115 net, although by the time they got to net ratings for 1972, it was rated at 110.
In '68, Buick also dropped their 300 V-8, and their 340 smallblock was replaced by a 350.
By the time that engine came back, around 1975, as the 231, it only had 105-110 hp, but the cars had only gotten heavier. They actually put that engine in a few thousand LeSabres in 1976...that must have made for one of the slowest cars of all time!
One of my friends once had an '82 Cutlass Supreme sedan with the 260, and by then it was strangled down to a meager 100 hp! But it must have still been fairly torquey, or the gearing kept it right at the sweet spot, because it really didnt' seem that bad.
As for your '88 Park Ave, while 165 hp might not seem like a lot, the 231 has always been fairly torquey for its displacement, although admittedly, outclassed in its later years. Plus, your '88 Park Ave was fairly light, maybe 3300-3400 lb.
I always thought that downsized C-body would have been a great replacement for the RWD A/G body sedans. It was about the same size, but more space-efficient. It would've been a great replacement for something like a Cutlass Supreme or Regal sedan. But for something more grandiose like an Electra or Ninety-Eight, it just doesn't seem worthy.
Fleet sales are a killer. :P
By the way, did you ever get the August 2010 edition of "Collectible Automobile?" There is an excellent article on the 1967-70 full-size Pontiacs in it. Some of the pictures of Pontiacs being developed in the styling studios at the time bear a striking resemblance to the 1970 Dodge Coronet.
Here's a bit of trivia: Pennsylvania wouldn't allow the front turn signal/parking lamps to be placed behind the slots on the front end caps of the 1967 Grand Prix. GPs that went to PA had the signals/parking lamps in the same place as on your Catalina instead. The slots were blanked-out from behind.
Just took home a CX-9 for a x-mas gift for my beautiful wife. I'm going to the local GMC/Buick dealer with it on Monday to say hello to the salesman I really like who works there.
I want the Fiance Guy to know that since my wife's Denali, he'll see me until the sales guy leaves but only to visit..never buy from him ever again...just like my neighbor who got burned from him on his 2004 Envoy Denali...
Regards,
OW
In general cars today are heavier than cars 10-20 years ago. Increased chassis rigidity, safety features, standard equipment, and optional equipment have all increased weight substantially.
A 1997 Ford Expedition had a base curb weight of around 4,800lbs a 2010 base mode weighs around 5,800lbs. I know my 07 is over 6,000lbs. It's crazy how heavy everything has gotten.
Well, enough going down memory lane, but to present Buicks and GM.
Actually, on a similar note, I thought that Buick putting that 4-cyl in the LaCrosse would be another '76 LeSabre 231 in the making, but from what I've heard, it's not that bad. I've seen 0-60 times quoted around 9.1 seconds. Now, that's not gonna be enough to make anybody write a song about it, and it's not what you'd call luxury league, but it's still not bad, if all you want is a nice, comfy, roomy fairly economical car.
For comparison, I think my '00 Intrepid was good for around 9.5 seconds. I believe the supercharged Park Ave is good for around 7.6 seconds, but I think the regular one took around 9 seconds, and I believe that's about what the Lucerne with the V-6 was good for as well.
And 9.1 seconds is probably quicker than anything Buick was offering in 1976, unless you could maybe track down a Century or Regal with a 455 and the right gearing.
The biggest question is how isolated the cabin is from the racket going on under the hood. I've not sampled many N/A 4cylinders that have NVH that would pass in a premium car.
I'm curious to see the sales numbers of the 4cyl model. I think it would make more sense to offer the turbo 4 from the Regal as the base engine. But I guess this is simply an EPA based decision.
I thought everyone bought a Cutlass with the 403? The 350 was anemic at best. Don't even mention what a mess GM made of the Cutlass in the 80's.
The Malibu resale being better than the Sonata doesn't surprise me, as it's the official car of the under/unemployed.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority of them were 350's. I still see them fairly often at classic car shows, and they're almost always a 350. My '76 LeMans has a Pontiac 350-4bbl, and yeah, sadly, the 350's in these cars were nothing to write home about by that time.
I always theorized that CR chose the 260 V-8 in that '77 Cutlass on purpose to make it look bad. That was a 4-way test, where they compared a newly downsized Impala (or maybe it was a Caprice) with a 305, to a Ford LTD-II with a 302, and a Fury or Monaco with a 318. Even though those other cars were technically midsize, they were about the same size and weight as a Caprice. And CR said that anything bigger, like the huge LTD/Marquis, or Gran Fury/Royal Monaco, were just too big and obsolete, and out of the picture, as far as they were concerned.
Anyway, as it was, the 305, 302, and 318 performed similarly, with 0-60 times around 13 seconds. The tiny 260 managed something like 21 seconds. I have a feeling that if they had tested a 350 Cutlass, it would've pulled around 11 seconds. And the point of this article was to show how much better, in every respect, the newly downsized B-body was. So, we couldn't have one of the old-school cars blowing it away, now could we?
Unfortunately, Olds didn't offer anything in the 300 CID range in the Cutlass that year. You went from the 231 to the 260, to the 350 (2 or 4bbl) and finally topped out at the 403.
The test might have been fairer if they found a Chevelle with a 305, or a LeMans with a 301. The Buick Century/Regal was in a similar situation as the Cutlass. Base engine was a 231 V-6, and then you went straight to the Buick 350, with nothing in between.
Or, I guess CR could have just picked a Caprice with a 350, a Cutlass with a 350, an LTD-II with a 351, and a Fury/Monaco with a 360! However, I think they did the right thing in picking the engines they did, because those 305's, 318's, and 302's were the most common engines in their respective cars. It's just that the Cutlass was the odd man out in that test.
I think the Cutlass Supreme in the 1980's was a nice car, IF you got a V-8. The 231 was junk through 1984, with poor lubrication, and a tendency to shred its timing gear, and other issues. It was beefed up for 1985 though, when all 231's got the stiffed up a'la the turbo block. A buddy of mine had an '82 Cutlass with the 260, and it wasn't too bad. And I've seen them with Chevy 267's...another engine that probably wasn't too horrible for the time. And if you get one with a 307, they're really nice cars.
I had an '82 Cutlass Supreme, but it had the 231, and it was pretty much shot by around 73,000 miles. My 2000 Park Ave has 67,000 on it now. I hope its 231 outlives my old Cutlass! :P
Olds was predicting that the newly downsized Delta 88 would cut into sales of the Cutlass, as they were similar sized cars. And with Olds, Buick and Pontiac, the downsized big cars did steal a few sales from the midsizers. But somehow, the Olds Cutlass ended up becoming even MORE popular for 1977! I think sales shot from around 500K in 1976 to 620K in 1977.
From what I've read, the Olds 350 was dedicated to the Cutlass, so it got first dibs. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of Delta 88's and possible some Ninety Eights got stuck with Chevy 350's instead.
And to make things worse, in California and high altitude areas, Pontiac got their engines banned for being too dirty. I think Buick did, as well. So, an Olds 350 would get substituted where you would have otherwise had a Pontiac or Buick 350, and an Olds 403 would be used in place of a Pontiac 400.
I think the biggest "loser" in that debacle was the Delta 88, which tended to be the most likely to be stuck with a Chevy 350.
I almost bought a 1979 Pontiac Bonneville that had a Buick 350 in it. I passed on it, partly because that Buick 350 looked kinda like the 231 in my '82 Cutlass that blew, and it gave me a bad vibe, although later on I did find out that the Buick 350 had none of the 231's traits.
I dunno why it had a Buick engine in it though. Maybe Pontiac quit building their 350 after 1978? Or perhaps engine swapping just got that rampant by that time (and B-O-P engines were easy to swap around, while it wasn't as easy to put a Chevy engine into the mix)
I expect the Sonata to move up as the 11s hit the used market but not yet.
I dunno Andre - we actually had a 75 Malibu with its 2bbl 350 and a 76 Cutlass with its 350 4bbl at the same time. The Chevy was a much better driver in town. I kind of wished the Olds had been a Chevymobile because I would have gotten a $500 settlement and a better driver. The Olds was a PIG! When you tromped on the accelerator you could count to 5 or 6 before it kicked in. It was like having the spool up of a turbojet without the thrust. The only advantages the Cutlass had IMHO was it looked better and was heavier so it rode smoother on the Interstate and went through the snow better.