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A disabled Accord? Who'da thunk it.
Glad I had a Chevy today.
Of course they're not if it is a foreign manufacturer. If it is a domestic recall it is because of their inferior manufacturing/engineering/quality control etc.
The volume of used sales coming from fleets is zero incentive to buy one at retail (new), as the downward pressure on used prices causes the model to depreciate even faster than it would normally (as if that isn't fast enough).
Having a different model name for fleet sales might help ease some of that downward price pressure, even if the 2 models are different in name only.
I think the point is obvious... All recalls aren't equal. If my vehicle is being recalled for sticking accelerator pedals, it's far more serious than the one I described above. So, number of recalls on a vehicle is not nearly as important as why the recalls are being required.
Just like break-downs, all makes have them. Lemons, too. You just hope you don't win that particular lottery.
"Neither fun to drive nor particularly good with fuel, with a cramped back seat and a questionable interior design, the Malibu was a consistent disappointment. Lieberman even categorized it as 'not so much a car as it is a collection of things I hate about rentals'..."
...
"To be fair, it's asking price is modest and it's exterior is sharp, though Markus noted, 'The deck lid is chafing the bumper fascia paint'. Reynolds summed it up: 'GM is really in danger if it thinks it can drop back into its old mediocre quality rental car habits. This car is worrying'."
A rather harsh review.
Nice try. My story is factual.
That's a cute story, but one-off incidents happen to all makes. The statistics show that more people who owned GM/F/C have migrated to T/Ho/Hy than the reverse. The flocks (as opposed to one-offs) moved more to the foreign nameplates than vice-versa, which suggests a greater level of satisfaction in the makes that gained market share.
What I never understood is why GM, with so many divisions (previously) didn't allocate one division to servicing fleets. Then the Impala could be say, a fleet vehicle and even perhaps a clone with better features/interior/etc. could be a consumer vehicle. Sort of like what they're doing with the Captiva, but for an entire division.
At least not that biased CU!
As is mine. But if it makes you feel better to think everyone is lying about their experiences with cars then feel free to do so.
There's no reason they can't, but they are probably thinking that people who rent Chevys or other GM marqes will remember that when they're shopping for a new car.
They're probably right, but those memories probably aren't positive.
I honestly cannot recall seeing a 2007-era Chevy disabled in my area. That is fact.
In my field, auditing vendors among other things, I regularly deal with BS'ers. I respectfully call b******* on your "fact".
I'm fully aware that what I saw was anecdotal. But when I can't recall being in a similar situation with any other car--at least in recent memory--what do you think is going to stick in my mind?
I'm a car guy, I notice this stuff.
They're probably right, but those memories probably aren't positive.
Well, I would say that the GMs I rented in the last 5 years or so are better than the ones of a decade ago. Yet none that I've rented would make me want to run out and buy one, either.
Are you in the midwest where part of the issue might be a disproportionately high % of GM vehicles?
The last two that come to mind were a BMW in a rest area trying to get a jump (bad alternator?) and an older Caravan getting flat-bedded for a tow.
Back when I was a kid, you'd see broken down cars all the time. That trend finally started dying out in the 80s. My cars back in the 70s were dogs and were always stranding me, with the exception of the Bugs (not the '69 Bus mind you - that one died in the middle of a busy Memphis intersection one Saturday).
My wife's family is from the Cornwall area - your commute doesn't take you through the crack house neighborhoods of Newburg I hope! :shades:
I did notice more broken down cars in GA/FL than here, might have been from hot weather.
I think the most obvious answer is usually the correct one. In this case, it just isn't in the DNA of GM to look at the situation in that light.
The current methodology of how GM is divisionalized is a century old, and the thinking is different model branding instead of different utilization branding.
Fiat/Chrysler is staring to figure it out, and one sign is them moving the trucks under the name RAM and moving it out from under the Dodge nameplate. In a few years, when one talks Chrysler truck products, they'll be talking about the truck division (even if its in name only), and not a sub-section of a car division.
I'm sure, in the beginning of fleet sales, it was considered "found" business. I doubt anyone ever envisioned something like 2/3 of a model such as the Impala being dedicated to fleet sales
Drove to my parents house and back today to pickup my daughter which is 140 miles each way. Saw an older body style Equinox with the hood up on the way there and a '00 era Taurus abandoned on the way back. Maybe they were just out of gas;)
It's been 20 years since I've been stranded on a trip. No surprise it was a GM vehicle. I was in Florida with my grandpa in his '92 Roadmaster. We stopped for gas and the starter failed. It only had about 60k miles on it. AAA towed it and got us back on the road within a few hours.
Ironically, my dad had a starter go out in his '92 Crown Vic when it only had a few thousand miles on it, but he was only a few miles down the road at a grocery store and basically across the street from a Ford dealer.
Besides the occasional dead/bad battery, the last car to quit on me while driving it was my '98 Ford SVT Contour which I purchased new. I had it about 3 months and put 9k miles on it when it developed a short to the fuel pump. I wasn't far from home, but I was out in the country. Sat out there for over an hour waiting for a tow truck.
Since then I've had lots of issues with various cars but none left me stranded. Even when the trans went out in my Suburban, it was drivable, though barely.
Slow, inefficient, loud unrefined engine. For some reason it took a lot of strength to open the trunk lid, and I know the trunk lid isn't made of a particularly thick or heavy metal like platinum or lead.
On the plus side it didn't break down on me during the work week, so one brownie point is won.
The odds are far different depending on the manufacturer though. Just like some people choose to play slot machines or Keno when they visit a casino.
A very telling statement. The BK was a way to try and rip the very DNA of GM out and change it. And they didn't do enough of a job there - they preserved too much of the old stuff.
This statement from GM's VP of marketing, regarding moving from 2/3 fleet sales for the previous Impala to a target of only 1/3 fleet sales for the new model is telling as to how much they are still "not getting it":
"Chris Perry, vice president, Chevrolet marketing said, “We’ll build on the success the Impala nameplate has generated over its history."
So they're still in love with the nameplate's history, even though it's been a fleet queen selling 2/3 NOT to consumers. Wow. Unless they are marketing to mostly 70+ year olds, nobody cares about Impala's history.
I think if they call for gas, they don't bring the big truck with the hook.
Andres3, it is possible a Honda needed service work.
I'm very interested in seeing the article.
I know tlong (I think) says "no one under 70" cares about the Impala's heritage, but apparently the folks at the WSJ disagree.
I think andre mentioned hoping the Impala is as roomy as the LaCrosse. I hope so too. From what I've seen, I like the Impala's styling better than the LaCrosse.
If the new Impala is a good car then people will care.
More people tlong's age should, that's for sure! But in Cali....I don't know.
I'm making an assumption based on some comments. I really don't know his age though.
As for the wsj, I was joking. I used to subscribe, but I don't anymore.
Any article that quotes Edmunds has to be good.
"The redesign looks better than the old model," says auto-information website Edmunds.com reviewer Dan Frio. "Is it good enough to compete against the Taurus and Chrysler 300? I don't know."
Last month, only about 7% of the shoppers who searched for large sedans on Edmunds.com bothered to check out the Impala, down from 15% in May 2007. This year GM is on track to sell about 170,000 Impalas, down from the 311,000 it sold in 2007 and a fraction of the more than 1 million Impalas sold in 1965 and 1966.
Today, only about one in four Impala are bought by consumers. The rest go to rental, police and government fleets.
"There was some discussion about not putting the emblem back on but we are proud of it," said John Cafaro, who lead the exterior design team. "The [new] car is awesome and the badge means something. Sometimes things like that can get thrifted out but it is a beautiful piece of jewelry."
My wife's 11 Taurus company car is peppy enough with the 3.5 and gas mileage isn't bad either. I drove it nearly 300 miles yesterday cruising between 70-90 most of the way. Got home with a little under a 1/2 tank and according to the computer averaged 26mpg.
Was this a newer, 2011+ Charger, or the older 2010 and earlier style? Most of the older Charger rental cars used the 2.7 V-6...same engine my 2000 Intrepid had, but way overmatched in something as heavy as a Charger. And while its EPA ratings weren't bad for something its size, in real life you'd probably have to floor it all the time to get it to move, which is going to kill your economy.
I'd think the 2011 and newer, which have a 3.6 V-6 standard and either a 5- or 8-speed automatic (most rentals are probably just 5-speed), I'd think it should be fairly decent. But, I haven't driven one yet so I don't know, first-hand.
I'd thinks so too. Everything I've read about the penstar 3.6 has mentioned it's fairly smooth and powerful.
I quit getting the WSJ daily a number of years ago.
And no, I'm not close to 70 yet. :P
Fortunately, my Intrepid only left me stranded twice. First time was when I picked up a nail in the snow, in my grandmother's driveway, so that wasn't the car's fault. I had to get to my second job delivering pizzas, and didn't want to drive around too much on the temporary spare, so I just left it there and took her '85 LeSabre.
The second time was around 138,000 miles, when I was having fits with one of the sensors, either camshaft or crankshaft position sensor. It wasn't too bad at first, but got worse and eventually the car left me stranded at work. Luckily, it started the next day, and made it to the mechanic without trouble.
The only time that car ever saw a tow truck was its final day with me, after it was totaled, and they came to tow it away.
As for the Silverado, it hasn't left me stranded since 2004, when it was having intermittent fits with the distributor and ignition coil. It has left my roommate stranded a few times though. Once he forgot and left the lights on, and a little over a year ago, he ran over a piece of shrapnel that destroyed the tire, and to make matters worse, the spare was flat, and the bracket that held it under the truck was rusted in place.
LOL
Same here, although I'm not too proud of the more recent W-body Impala. But even in the case of the W-body, I'll say it doesn't totally suck.
Even though the Caprice was more luxurious, I always preferred the style of the Impala (at least, in later years when they began to differentiate the grilles more). The Impala's grille always seemed a bit less pretentious, a bit cleaner and sportier.
The original Impala lasted 28 model years, 1958-85. Then there was the interim 1994-96 Impala SS, but I don't really consider it to be an Impala. To me it's more of a trim package of the Caprice. A VERY nice and desirable trim package to be sure, but I still associate it more with Caprice than Impala.
Hard to believe that the current Impala has been around for half as long as the original nameplate's run...14 model years, 2000-2013. I wonder if the nameplate will ultimately make it at least 28 years, like it did originally?
The battery in my Suburban died on a June morning when we were trying to leave for vacation at 4 am. That sucked. Had it packed up, the boat was hooked up, I had carried the kids out of their beds and put them in the car seats. Get in and click. DOH!!! That was probably the one time I was thankful for a Super-Walmart as I was able to drive my wife's car over there and get a battery at 5 am.
What really would have sucked is if the battery had one more crank left in it and then died the next start while we were out in the middle of nowhere, which would have been likely as we were pulling our boat from Wichita, KS to meet friends from Ohio at Lake Cumberland, KY.
The craziest battery story I have is back in '03 when we were moving from Oh, to KC, MO. The moving truck (semi) was parked in front of the house and driveway. My Pathfinder was in the driveway, loaded with our boat hooked up. At 9pm the movers were suppose to leave and I was to meet my wife that night near Chicago with the kids and dog. Well the movers get into the semi and click, the batteries are dead. Crap, now what! The drive asked me if I could give him a Jump.
WHAT! You want me to unhook the boat, drive through the yard, turn around, and then use my 2 year old Nissan Pathfinder to jump start an 18 wheeler!!!!! Well, yeah. Um, okay. So that's we did and that Peterbuilt fired right up. Crazy.
Sometimes they do. If it's an independent working for them, they will tow for no gas because they make more money on that.
What years?
Of course, as andres3 would say, they could all just be out of gas.