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Try this summer: 2010 Lacrosse.
No, it doesn't. 62 just got done telling us, Honda is the brand with the most customer loyalty. But it's possible that Cadillac directs the greatest number of its customers to other GM brands.
62: thanks for the clarification with the Lacrosse to Impala example, I get it now. :-)
It IS a little suggestive though, isn't it? GM with the customer loyalty rate among its 8 brands can barely top Honda's single-brand loyalty rate. Another piece of evidence that GM has too many brands, I think.
I am also a little surprised that none of the luxury brands could beat Honda for customer loyalty.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
One is a sporty sedan that drives like a European car.
The other is an old folks car with a pillow suspension.
It IS a little suggestive though, isn't it? GM with the customer loyalty rate among its 8 brands can barely top Honda's single-brand loyalty rate. Another piece of evidence that GM has too many brands, I think.
How so? Exactly the opposite. GM has a brand for more buyers than anyone else. You bought a chevy for your first 2 cars and now you can afford something with a bit more premium lux you buy a Buick. If you prefer something a bit more premium sporty, you get a Pontiac. Now you really made it and you get a Cadillac.
Now take Honda corp. You really have only one choice to move up to and that is sporty lux the Acura. You want something more premium lux you gotta go somewhere else like BMW and I bet a lot of Honda owners go in that direction.
No, owner loyalty is not a reason to say too many brands.
But as you know I have always said GM has too many brands. Just the facts are that it is almost impossible to drop a COUPLE or so w/o losing big bucks and lots of sales. The Olds experience jsut gives the proof of how that works.
Better get used to dropping big bucks AND big sales losses. Too late for anything else.
About 2,500 U.S. auto dealers may close in 2009, or more than 10 percent of the nation’s car and light-truck retailers, consulting firm Grant Thornton LLP wrote in a report today.
U.S. dealers sold an average of about 60 new vehicles a month for much of the last decade, a level last seen in 2007, the report said. To reach that volume at a U.S. sales rate of 11.4 million to 11.7 million vehicles this year, about 5,000 dealers would have to close, said Grant Thornton, whose automotive practice is based in Southfield, Michigan.
GM is the world’s second-largest automaker after Toyota Motor Corp.
GM Quotes Under $10MM 2009 Sales
Regards,
OW
It doesn't work that way, not when Pontiac is a carbon copy of most Chevys (just with different bodywork and interior details)...it's even priced about the same, there's nothing "Premium" about it. It mostly exists so Buick/GMC dealers have "Chevys" to sell.
Remember, these are usually different dealers. People don't move up from Chevy to Pontiac, they cross-shop them. Same with Buick and Caddy, and GMC and Chevy Truck. Chevy/Caddy and Pontiac/Buick/GMC compete with each other rather than complementing each other. That's good for manufacturer loyalty, but bad for badge loyalty, compared to manufacturers who keep everything under 2-3 badges.
You want entry level? buy a Toyota...want to move up some? For sporty premium they have Scion and entry-level Lexuses, entry level lux in the Avalon, and lux in Lexus.
Hmm? That's funny. From what I heard Buick's customers are the most loyal I know of over any other brand in US, fiercely indeed. As for Cadillacs, well, not here at least.
In event of 2-division GM, Chevrolet and Cadillac, Chevy could upscale their offerings by rebadging the Buick Enclave, Pontiac G8 and perhaps the new Lacross to Chevrolet. Someone earlier suggested that the G8 could be the new Impala and the present Impala dropped in favor of Malibu.
However you made a really good point in GM's case. Too many brands fighting in the same class: Chevy-Saturn-Pontiac in low end and regular classes, Buick-GMC (upscale brands) somewhat sneak into the luxury territory while Cadillac seems to be moving to reach the lower upscale territory as well. They're bound to cannibalize each other this way.
62's model of moving up worked for GM through the fifties and into the sixties. By the 70s it was starting to lose its steam and when they put the Chevy engines into the Oldsmobiles it started looking like the emperor had no clothes.
Today you have at least Chevy, Pontiac and Saturn competing against each other. What used to be a clear picture is now muddy. They really do have to redefine themselves in a clearer way.
But getting back to GM, Chevy has the lowest end to itself, then you have a huge mass of mid-upper Chevies, Pontiacs, Saturns, low-end Buicks, etc. all piled together, then a tier of Saabs, upper-end Buicks, and Cadillacs, plus a handful of race-type vehicles at the top. Choosing a GM badge these days is a matter of which dealer you like or which is the most desperate.
Hmm, this is something the Japanese can't do simply because: the core brand actually represents both regular and luxury class (like Toyota Crown, Honda Legend, and Nissan Fuga for example). Unlike the American brands, which already had segmentation at the start (there's no Chevy luxury car).
Btw, just an info, Acura's engines used to be exclusive to the brand until 2009 models rolled into dealerships.
There was probably nothing particularly wrong with putting Chevy 350s in there - good engines. The problem ws that it got found out when people who bought Oldsmobiles starting asking why they had Chevy engines.
Had GM said up front that's what was happening things might have been different. Some people started thinking the Olds brand was cheapening. A misperception but it hurt.
Saturn was a nice idea at the time but GM never developed it beyond stage one.
I think of those as:
trendy/stodgy/stodgier
Y'all can have fun with your own stodgy line with GM but good luck finding enough stodgy adjectives for all eight (?) makes.
However, if you wanted something beefier, they'd throw a truck size engine in the thing. Of course that was such a wildly popular idea, nobody else ever copied them :sick:
I think the problem arose because of Oldsmobile advertising, in which the Oldsmobile "Rocket" V-8 was prominently featured. Buick, Pontiac, and Chevrolet really didn't play up their engines in their advertising by that time, just the cars themselves. But Oldsmobile would talk about the superiority of the "Rocket" V-8.
A lot of people bought Delta 88's thinking they were getting the Rocket, and were understandably miffed when they found out there was a Chevy V-8 under the hood.
For some odd reason, the Cutlass got first priority for the Olds 350 in 1977. GM had expected the downsized big cars to cut into midsized car sales somewhat. And that's exactly what happened at Chevy, Pontiac, and Buick. But for some strange reason, the 1977 Cutlass sold even better than the 1976!
Well, that helped create a shortage of Olds 350's, so they had to start substituting Chevy 350's in Delta 88's. I guess it's possible that some Ninety-Eights got the Chevy 350 as well, but I'm not sure. My understanding was that it was mainly the Delta that caused that controversy.
Another problem that caused a shortage of 350's was Pontiac. Their 350's and 400's couldn't pass California emissions standards, so they were banned there, and instead Olds 350's and 403's were substituted. They also used Olds engines in high-altitude areas. I think Pontiac's 301 even got banned, and the substitution here was the Chevy 305.
Lets see:
Saturn-Chevy-Pontiac-Buick-GMC-Hummer-Cadillac
Stodgy-Stodgy(ish)-Overwrought-Stodgiest-Stodgy clones-Extreme-Not bad
:P :P :P
Regards,
OW
That works for me. The step up that Pontiacs USED to have can be done for each model. Impala would be that step up while Malibu a smaller brother.
pontiac is dead anyway. All should be Chevy now. Let's at least agree this would work.
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
Caprice, too.
Lemko could buy the garnish to dress one up as the China-only Buick Park Avenue.
Sounds like a precursor to "We need more bailout money" as this is now below worst-case....
General Motors Corp.'s attempts to cut its debt as required by the government's $13.4-billion loan hit a serious roadblock after one of the world's largest bond investors pulled out of talks with the automaker, an analyst said Thursday.
The decision by Pacific Investment Management Co., known as PIMCO, raises questions about whether the Obama administration will have to recast the goals of the loan agreement and increases the chances some analysts have forecast that the automaker might have to ask a bankruptcy court for help in cutting its debts.
As part of its federal loan deal, GM has to outline a strategy by Feb. 17 for reducing about $27.5 billion in debt by two-thirds. To accomplish that, GM had been negotiating with a committee of bondholders and the UAW, which must consider taking half of the money it's due for retiree health care costs as GM stock.
Without bankruptcy, GM must rely on bondholders and the UAW to voluntarily take cuts.
"Without a competitive labor structure and a reduction in near-term cash payments to fund future retire health care costs, GM is only postponing an inevitable bankruptcy down the road," Penniman said.
Let's get ready to file! Now I'm excited!
Regards,
OW
HOLD IT!!!! I said the 2010 Lacrosse. It will have a DI, 3.0 or 3.6 liter V6. the CXS version will have the same magnetorological(???) shocks as the Corvette.
Basically all of those dealers wanted to offer fuller lines of products, so GM started rebadging to give everybody a piece of the action and lost their way with brand differentiation. The problem is that if each make was to stick to it's intended knitting then the product offerings would be way too narrow to support the dealerships, with the possible exception of Chevy and Caddy.
U.S. Car Sales in January: More of the Same, GM Says
January 21, 2009
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- Expect another month of dismal sales in January, a General Motors forecaster says.
"Don't be surprised to see a SAAR [seasonally adjusted selling rate] under 10 million vehicles," warned Mike DiGiovanni, GM's top sales analyst, said in a conference call with media and analysts Tuesday.
That's even lower than the SAAR of the previous three months, which ran at a rate of about 10.5 million each month.
DiGiovanni said the January will see deep drops in sales to fleets, notably rental-car companies, for GM as well as Ford and Chrysler. All three automakers have slashed production to keep inventories from building as demand weakens so they can't fill daily-rental car company orders. In addition, daily rental-car companies don't needs as many cars since they are struggling financially due to consumers staying home instead of vacationing and declines in business travel. DiGiovanni expects those orders to pick up as the economy improves throughout the year.
On the bright side, DiGiovanni sees the retail, excluding fleet, sales stabilizing. He predicts January's SAAR for retail sales will be at 8.4 million vehicles. That's in line with the 8.2 million to 8.4 million retail SAAR of the last three months. "We're seeing a stabilization in retail run rates," DiGiovanni said.
Still, he predicted: "The first quarter will be very challenging in the U.S. and Western Europe."
So, what forecast is pegged to the solvency??? :confuse:
Regards,
OW
With 62% retention, it must. You may not like the styling of the Pontiac, but DO like the Chevy, and considering it has the same engine/tranny combo, if you liked that when you test drove the Pontiac, it makes the Chevy that more palateable.
HOLD IT!!!! I said the 2010 Lacrosse. It will have a DI, 3.0 or 3.6 liter V6. the CXS version will have the same magnetorological(???) shocks as the Corvette.
Another one of those "Real Soon Now" stories! Let's wait until the 2010 LaCrosse *actually* comes out and is driven and then perhaps we will see it is far superior to the old pillow model.
That's TEN makes, not counting Holden and Opel (!!!!)
You can't erase years of bad product by a few nameplates that finally are good. The entire structure must change so the new products are presented properly in the marketplace with severe efficiency toward customer service. You have to believe all of your products are home runs and then prove it to the market.
I am still waiting for GM to take the Hyundai promise, let alone the warranty. No one need wonder why market share is going down fast.
You believe in your product??
PROVE IT!
Regards,
OW
I counted seven in m4d_cow's reply, and now you know why I had my "8" followed by a question mark. Who can keep track?
'Ponzi economy'
As he outlined in 2007 in his first book, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse, Schiff believes that the U.S. economy has become dangerously and unsustainably dependent on consumption - fueled by trillions of dollars borrowed mainly from Asian countries like Japan and China.
"We have an economy that's based on the same principles as Bernie Madoff's investments," he says. "It's a Ponzi economy. It's not real. We don't save and we don't produce anything anymore. We simply borrow from the rest of the world, and then we spend it. We've had a giant party. We bought all these plasma TVs and iPods. We remodeled our houses and took vacations. But you know what? The bills are coming in."
Schiff is predicting a wicked post-party hangover. He sees a multiyear recession ahead marked by rampant inflation, a steadily weakening dollar, soaring commodities prices, slumping U.S. stock indexes, and falling wages.
some extra rant:
‘WE DON’T PRODUCE ANYTHING ANYMORE’ is hard to reverse.
But intellichoice said not to worry and that the fit is go?
California unemployment hits 9.3% and Indiana hits 7.0%
2% of Californias 26 million vehicles use some form of electric. This made me wonder if the other 98% can't afford the extra $5000 to $10000 to go electric in their next new car.
25% of home mortgage holders over 50 are in danger of foreclosure. Social security checks go up 2% a year to cover inflation as food goes up 10%.
reminds me of coach Mora's "Playoffs? Playoffs? Playoffs? Playoffs? Playoffs? "
I think survival is the task at hand.
Viking and Marquette expired after a few years. Pontiac became the successor to Oakland after that make was discontinued after 1931, and LaSalle was terminated after 1940.
OK, let's give it a try:
Chevy
Saturn
Pontiac
Buick
Caddy
Hummer
Saab
GMC
Ok, my mistake, it is 8 in the US, plus:
Holden
Opel
Vauxhall(!)
So that's ELEVEN divisions!
And don't forget in the past 20 years they had EDS, Hughes, and lost Billions on a deal with Fiat! All this time not making very good cars.
So AGAIN I make the point that GM has been strategically screwed up for a long, long time.
So they blame the economy for their problems. Can anybody say SCAPEGOAT?
I did have a great experience with a Rocket 350. A 2bbl that I had to borrow all but $100 to buy, but was so dependable that I got the second decade out of it. It was noisy in it's 17th and 18th year, but ran great. It needed a gasket at the header to exhaust. The engine and tranny were indestructible. 203k miles on everything but the timing chain and gears. I sold it for $230 less than I paid for it.
Uh, I can. GM in all has 12 brands, not 11.
US market:
Chevrolet
Pontiac
Saturn
Buick
GMC
Hummer
Cadillac
Saab
Non-US:
Opel
Vauxhall
Holden
Daewoo
California unemployment hits 9.3% and Indiana hits 7.0%
I might add to that Michigan has 9.6% unemployment. You have to ask yourself, why does Michigan have 25% higher unemployment than neighboring Indiana? Both have large ties to automaking? I would say workers in Indiana are more open to change. They have Toyota and Honda building GREAT vehicles in their state. The UAW has not corrupted the work ethics as they have in Michigan. No company with any brains would locate in Michigan. Unless they want to be "brought to their knees" by the UAW. Probably why VW passed on the generous offer from Michigan and is building in TN. All the tax breaks in the World cannot offset a Union that has a strangle hold on the companies in the state.
Social security checks go up 2% a year to cover inflation as food goes up 10%.
I just got my January SS check and it was 8.1% more than my December check. I was only expecting a 6.2% increase. Maybe December inflation changed the figures. In reality we are overall in a deflation which can be worse than inflation. As an example we just bought beautiful tomatoes 3 lbs for a dollar. Eggs for 99 cents a dozen. We rarely buy any processed foods so I am not familiar with the price fluctuations on fruit loops. As a retiree the economy is good for us. Other than the friends & relatives we keep bailing out.
PS
We don't own a plasma TV or iPod. This computer I built 7 years ago still works great. I did upgrade the processor and memory about 5 years ago. The only thing we buy at Walmart is Purina cat food, wine and wild bird seed. All produced in AMERICA.