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Karl's Daily Log Book
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Now that we've solved that problem, on to the next one...
Does anyone really want an H3?
regards,
kyfdx
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I suspect I'll be seeing a lot of these around town ... we have the first or second largest Hummer dealer in the state in my town. Most of the H2s are driven by soccer moms who are too tough for a minivan or an Expedition, Tahoe or Durango.
What's funny is that I can probably smoke them with my 130HP Focus....
I can say the only thing really going for the H3 is that boxy style. Don't know that I'd be willing to pony up the dollars for something that is inferior in almost every way to the competition just to say I own a Hummer.
Maybe there are enough buyers who prefer exterior flash in their cars ..vs.. engineering and refinement to keep Detroit alive? More power to 'em.
And who'd buy an H3? Good question...
Also, in terms of the H3 - if they knew the I-6 definitely didn't fit, then maybe they should have based it off the Trailblazer/Envoy which does fit the I-6 and can even have a V8.
Although, they may have gotten lucky here, in that the marketplace may be ready to give up some HP in return for a few MPG.
Also, at the time of launch, GM press focused quite a bit on the fuel economy offered by the I5. Probably for good reason. GM's CAFE rating is pretty dismal. Having to pay CAFE fines on top of all their other cash-related issues would be tough.
I had originally posted a message on this board suggesting a midsize wagon comparison test featuring the Dodge Magnum, Subaru Legacy, Ford Freestyle, Mazda6 and Volkswagen Passat. You said it was a good idea, but apparently not good enough for you to do.
"You're a car enthusiast who has set his (or her) sights on a sporty wagon priced in the low $30K range — what are your choices?"
Anyway, my main issue with theMagnum vs. Legacy test was simple. You forgot to include, or even mention the Mazda 6. The Mazda 6 is a better competitor to the Legacy because their horsepower numbers are similar and they're both Japanese So basically, you should have included the 6 along with the Legacy and Magnum or dropped the Magnum so it would be 6 vs. Legacy. That would have been more evenly matched.
By the way, will you guys ever do a real wagon test with the Ford Freestyle, Volkswagen Passat, Dodge Magnum, Mazda 6, Subaru Legacy and maybe Chrysler Pacifica? The other wagons out there deserve consideration, even the underpowered Freestyle.
Somehow the HEMI makes it much more enjoyable than I remember.
Man walks into garage and climbs into H3. Man starts engine and everything hanging on the walls of his home comes crashing down. Man communicates his approval to a passenger using the time-honored series of grunts and noises perfected by Tim Allen. Man turns on radio and listens to local emergency broadcast warnings of a 6.5 reading on the Richter scale with an ear to ear grin splitting his face. Man giggles like a school girl as he tools around town, ripping down traffic signals as they get caught on the cylinder tower protruding from his hood. Terrorists begin plotting how to fly a plane into it...
1. Ford F-Series pickup — 335,269
2. Chevy Silverado C/K pickup — 274,869
3. Toyota Camry — 178,890
4. Dodge Ram pickup — 163,094
5. Toyota Corolla — 147,146
6. Honda Accord — 143,304
7. Honda Civic — 115,577
8. Nissan Altima — 108,237
9. Chevrolet Impala — 107,181
10. Ford Explorer — 105,925
11. Dodge Caravan — 103,811
12. Ford Taurus — 92,879
13. Chevrolet TrailBlazer — 87,847
14. GMC Sierra pickup — 87,210
15. Jeep Grand Cherokee — 83,590
16. Chevrolet Malibu — 83,118
17. Ford Focus — 82,963
18. Ford Mustang — 81,541
19. Chrysler Town & Country — 78,350
20. Ford Econoline — 75,721
Ok...where are all the RWD sales?
Where is the Chrysler 300 that Los Angeles CA cannot get enough of?
Also interesting to note that biggest sellers remain Trucks.
Then again, these days perhaps most people consider "trucks" to be "cars" with an open trunk attached?
If I missed the obvious, my apologies - was a very long day at work.
No, it was actually a good enough idea for use to do. Then we called the manufacturers and started scheduling wagons. Then we were told what was -- or, more often than not, what wasn't-- available. Between massive price disparities ("the cheapest Pacific available is coming in at $36,000 and the most expensive Mazda 6 is coming in at $26,000) and the flat out "none in the fleet" responses (Passat) we were left with our long-term Magnum and a Legacy. Hey, at least they were both dark blue, cost with $2,000 of each other, and can both be had with all-wheel drive (though our Magnum in the test was RWD).
You know how wagons, while cool and slightly on the upswing in terms of market share, are still quite limited in the marketplace and total sales? You can assume that same situation is reflected in the press fleets. It's like the H3 engine thing -- if we conduct the test with major variances between competitors we'll be told how "unfair" this version of wagon XYZ was versus that version of wagon ABC. If we keep it "fair" and only include vehicles that are truly comparable the response is "Why didn't you include wagons D through W?" Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
Actually, a large number of the cars on this list are the equivelant of fleet/corporate sales. All those utility trucks with plumbing/construction/etc. logos on the side? That's what drives a good chunk of the Big 3's domestic truck sales -- corporate sales. The Impala, Malibu and, yes, even Camry? Fleet. Even the minivan sales -- ever noticed how many cabs these day are minivans, not to mention airport shuttle vans?
The reason Chrysler is seeing success with the 300/Magnum is because they are one of the few RWD, non-truck offerings in the marketplace. It doesn't take many customers, and it doesn't even take that many sales, for these vehicles to be successful. If a tiny sliver of the market wants a rear-wheel drive sedan for less than $30,000, and only four exist (300, Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, and -- soon -- Charger) then those models essentially have a monopoly on that tiny sliver. And with Crown Vics and Grand Marguis being a) ancient designs and b) not exactly "hip" between their styling and their "retiree" image, the Chrysler products are really the only consideration for people under 60 who aren't cops or cab drivers. Yes, I know cops are going to start using Magnums, but it will take awhile for the image of them as cop cars to filter into the marketplace.
The real question is -- is this a fleeting fad or a sustainable shift in buyer demands? If it's sustainable than Chrysler is the first to jump on it and will have an advantage until the competition catches up (think 1984 and minivans). If it's a fad, they can still own the market while it lasts, and because the cars come largely from the last generation E-Class the development costs were probably pretty low, meaning they'll come out OK financially, even if the cars only survive one model cycle (the current one), which is doubtful.
Of course, if it's a fad, that means in five years the market for sub-$30,000 rear-wheel drive sedans/wagons will be dead...which of course means GM will just be hitting the market with theirs...
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I remember Toyota one time in 2003 combined 0% and $500 cash on the Camry. Probably the only reason I remembered was that a friend had bought a Camry and qualified for the deal.
Honda is also starting to increase incentives.... The low APR and lease offers are becoming a year round thing instead of a year end thing like it used to be.
I can tell you what my Dad used to always say in the 1970s and 1980s as nearly every domestic car went from front-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive. "I don't see automakers like BMW or Mercedes jumping on this front-wheel drive bandwagon. When front-wheel drive becomes good enough for them then I might consider it good enough for me, until then I'm always going to consider it an inferior design used for cost savings."
There's no denying that rear-wheel drive has a more premium feel to it, regardless of other considerations that made front-wheel drive dominant 20 years ago (cost savings, interior packaging, inclement weather advantages, etc.).
I also know you could throw the styling elements of the Chrysler 300 out the window and I'd still be interested in it for the drivetrain design alone. But I could be unique in that respect, which means it may never catch on with mainstream buyers and may never come back as the dominant drivetrain layout.
We'll see.
http://www.edmunds.com/news/column/carmudgeon/105685/article.html
Be happy to hear anyone's thoughts on it.
As for the notion that teh 300 is essentially a last generation E-class, that is not true. Chrysler has said numerous times that the platform was under development before DCX starting sharing parts between the two brands. The 300 only has a few components from the E-class, mainly suspension parts and some other minor under the skin pieces. It is not a E-class in Chrysler sheetmetal and it is wrong to make it sound like the car was developed by Germans and then wrapped in American styling.
Will you guys be doing a premium wagon test, with the Jaguar X-Type, Mercedes C-Class, BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 and Volvo V50 anytime soon? I know you will have to wait until the BMW comes out, but are there any such plans?
And also, how come the Honda Ridgeline wasn't included in your midsize truck comparison test? Was it because you couldn't find any press cars? I know Car and Driver tested it, and rated it 1st out of the same batch of trucks that you guys used. For them, the Ridgeline was 1st, Frontier 2nd, Tacoma 3rd, Dakota 4th and Colorado 5th. They didn't include the Ranger.
If you go back and look at my original post, you'll see that I was referring to the fact that the 300/Magnum are unique in the sub-$30,000 sedan market because they are the only cars to offer RWD beyond the old, un-hip Crown Vic and Grand Marquis.
The reason Chrysler is seeing success with the 300/Magnum is because they are one of the few RWD, non-truck offerings in the marketplace. It doesn't take many customers, and it doesn't even take that many sales, for these vehicles to be successful. If a tiny sliver of the market wants a rear-wheel drive sedan for less than $30,000, and only four exist (300, Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, and -- soon -- Charger) then those models essentially have a monopoly on that tiny sliver.
So, this isn't about GM's success being pinned on RWD sedans, it's about GM being a market leader, taking some risks, and offering something that isn't yet available for the most part. They didn't do this, Chrysler did, and now Chrysler is reaping the benefits.
By the way, it's not just Chrysler 300 sales that matter here (I suspect an impending post of how 300 sales aren't that high, relatively speaking). This is about the 300 creating increased press coverage and recognition from the media and the buying public at large. The 300 won't save Chrysler by itself, but what really matters are accolades like Edmunds Most Significant Vehicle, Motor Trend's Car of the Year, etc. These put Chrysler on the brain, bringing more people to dealers to look at "this new 300 model I've been hearing so much about" and, hopefully, in the process leaving the dealership with something wearing a Pentastar on the side (a Neon, Caravan, Dakota, or maybe even a 300). It obviously is working, as Chrysler is the only domestic automaker with sales and market share increases over the last 12 months.
As for it being "an old E-Class with a new body," I never said that. I said "because the cars come largely from the last generation E-Class the development costs were probably pretty low" and that much is true. I know the idea of creating a new breed of rear-wheel drive sedans existed before Mercedes bought Chrysler, but the actual execution of these models, and the parts they used, happened AFTER the "merger of equals" (which was in 1998, and the 300 just came out last year, so don't try to argue that this platform was developed without Mercedes overseeing everything).
Of course Chrysler and Mercedes want to downplay the level of platform sharing because, like every modern automaker, they HATE the idea of consumers knowing where different models come from. They want every consumer to think every model is unique and special, created just for them without cost cutting by using the same parts from other models. Do you think Ford wanted people reporting that the 1964 Mustang was really just a rebodied Falcon? Of course not, but that doesn't change the fact that it was.
When I was at the A3 event a few weeks ago and a journalist asked how much of the A3 comes from the Golf the Audi people got very testy. "We must get past this misconception of platform sharing. We call them modules, not platforms." So the journalist says, "OK, what other product does the A3 share modules with?" and the Audi engineer gets this sort of forlorn look and sheepishly says, "Uh, the Golf."
That test was performed back in January and posted in February. The Ridgeline press vehicles didn't come out until April, so yes, we couldn't get a Ridgeline back then. Also, while the Ridgeline has much in common with those other trucks in terms of dimensions and look, it's not a body-on-frame design so we don't consider it a true competitor.
Please don't start in with Honda's rhetoric about how it's more than a unibody and less than a body-on-frame. More corporate spin. We have a long-term Ridgeline, and at 2,000 miles we just drove it on a national park road (not off-road, but a dirt road in a national park that was basically like a fire road) and three of the four struts were blown out in the process. Our editor saw a Subaru Baja out on that same road when he was in the Ridgeline, and I know that any of those trucks from our comparison test would have handled this road with ease. I also know that if we took the Ridgeline off-roading, like we took those other trucks during the comparison test, we would have had to tow it home.
I'm not sure what sort of torture test C&D put their trucks through as part of their comparison test, though I admit that if you never actually go off road, the Ridgeline has a better ride, smoother engine and better interior design than any of those trucks. But it's not a "real" truck.
Honda is inspecting the damaged struts right now, so maybe it was a fluke involving bad struts or something, but we also had a Ridgeline press car a few weeks before buying our long-termer, and it also proved incapable of serious, or even light, off road activity. I suspect that the Ridgeline is the ultimate expression of the world we've come to live in:
"Give me a vehicle that looks like I live an active lifestyle. Don't worry about it actually supporting this look in the least."
I don't mind automakers responding to this demand from the market, as long as buyers know what they really are (and aren't) getting.
I guess either CR's off-road course must be really really easy to get through, Edmunds.com got unlucky, or CR is REALLY biased towards Japanese cars.
As for those LA, CAers who want thrills....
Try driving Route 23 (Decker Canyon road) from Pacific Coast Highway to USA 101, or from 118 to Fillmore; No guard rails and 1000 foot drops on many of the curves.
Another good one is route 41 between the I-5 and 170 (some inhabited stretches, so beware).
Perhaps some racing organization can petition the CHP to do what they do in Nevada - close a major road for a day or so and do nothing but run races on it, as fast as drivers want to go.
Well, neither (I suspect) does Karl; but lowering the speed limit to an aritificially low number won't solve the problem, it just creates more 'lawbreakers'.
If the problem is "crazies who want to double the speed limit", then why not crack down on them? Address the problem through increased enforcement/stiffer fines, not dropping the speed limit which only affects those who WERE ALREADY OBEYING THE LAW. Do you think the fatalities mentioned were from people who were stone sober and obeying the old 55mph limits? Or perhaps were they from individuals who were DUI and/or vastly exceeding the speed limit? And precisely HOW would a lower speed limit affect these individuals?
Wow! I thought those only existed on cloverleafs.....
Some of our roads here in the Texas hill country are so curvy that I once ran up on my own taillights. Worse part was I had my brights on and about blinded myself..... :P
Precisely! Lowering a speed limit has absolutely no effect on drunkards or blatant law breakers. I will be curious to see if there is any reduction in fatalities after these limits are put in place. Of course, having lower limits helps justify ticketing all the people who use the road, even those who are otherwise driving safely, which makes perfect sense...from a government revenue generation standpoint.
Setting speed limits artificially low has two direct effects: increased revenue for the state and decreased respect for the law. Is the first result worth the second? IMO, no.
Questions: how do we restructure driving in the USA so "expert" drivers get truely classified as such, and therefore allowed to drive twice as fast as everyone else? Should the DMV do this, and can it actually make money teaching us HOW to drive twice as fast as everyone else? How do drivers who get their licenses "the regular way" cope with "experts" driving 120 mph on a 60 mph road? What kind of penalities will experts get nailed with if they decide 160 mph instead of 120 mph is "their right" to drive?
I am happy to get out of the way of a pick-yer-favorite-brand, but on a freeway there is often no place to pull over to, given "we" love to drive bumper-bumper at 85 in LA..
Or, as I once asked, is the answer to build more racetracks, speedways, or whatever?
Short answer: you don't. But that wasn't a serious question, was it?
Long answer: set speed limits according to the max speed at which 85% of the traffic would travel in lieu of any posted limits (this speed may be derived mathmatically based on pavement widths, grades and degree of curvature, presense of visual barriers, traffic counts, frequency of intersecting roads, etc. etc.). I suspect that this is the way the limits were initially set by the D.O.T. and they probably worked fine for decades.
If there is a problem with 'expert' drivers attempting to show their stuff on public roads, CHP should enforce the EXISTING laws and/or penalties enacted to get the violators attention. The solution is NOT to lower the speed limits affecting EVERYONE in the hope that the violators would molify their behavior. This approach does NOT increase compliance with the law (that is what we are trying to do, right?). In fact, the opposite occurs: you've increased NON-compliance by setting the speed limits artificially too low.
I have a feeling the 5.3L will easily fit in the space taken up by the I-5. Why? Well, it's only 4 cylinders long and it doesn't have tall OHC heads. The only potential issue would be width and, again, since it has compact OHV heads, I don't think it would be a problem.
2. Chevy Silverado C/K pickup — 274,869
14. GMC Sierra pickup — 87,210
Just an interesting side note. I know how Ford likes to say how their F-series is the best selling vehicle in the world, but I just did some math, and GM's fullsize trucks outsell Fords. Does it really matter that I combined Chevy + GMC? In my opinion, no. Ford is Ford and GM is GM. It's just that "Ford" also happens to be a brand nameplate, whereas "GM" is not (except for the EV-1, which is now out of production).
Sad, but true. I'm a GM guy and they have nothing for me. Hence all my posts about the SRT-8. I'll probably keep driving my two RWD solid axle GM cars with 350s until the wheels fall off. Since they have about 156k and 217k each, that'll be...still a long, long time.