Edmunds dealer partner, Bayway Leasing, is now offering transparent lease deals via these forums. Click here to see the latest vehicles!
Popular New Cars
Popular Used Sedans
Popular Used SUVs
Popular Used Pickup Trucks
Popular Used Hatchbacks
Popular Used Minivans
Popular Used Coupes
Popular Used Wagons
Comments
My wife is a PR person. She's a professional B.S. artist.
I'm skeptical, too. :shades:
Aztek was a notable winner. Subaru Baja as well. Avalanche won, too.
I guess if you like an oddball car, and the public doesn't and gives you grief about it, then you must really like it in order to still buy that car.
Over the decades, I find HR people to be some professional BS'ers! LOL
The JDP IQS is about problems, which can include both things gone wrong as well as poor design issues; and
...the JDP 3 year survey is just about reliability (but excludes those "poor design issues" that were counted in the IQS, unless that leads to actual breakage of parts or system functions?
My interpretation is that they treat the problems the same but I'm guessing that most people who a consider a design issue "a problem" in the first 90 days get used to it and don't complain about it in year 3.
My neighborhood only gets the google flyover - not the drive by. But it was updated as of last summer. I can see the trampoline in the backyard , one neighbor's new solar panels and the ostentatious neighbor's new pool.
My son had mentioned he saw a google vehicle on High St that runs from OSU campus thru downtown when he was driving back to his apartment from working downtown. I checked the google pictures a few weeks later but no Cobalt. Now I think I'll have to recheck since andre's car didn't show up for quite a while.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Here's why. NO BS...JUST FACT!! No need to check J.D. Power, CR or Edmunds or any other survey.
10 reasons why you should still worry about GM
Despite a number of hopeful notes in the continuing turnaround at General Motors, the automaker's North American ops are still dealing with the same problems.
#1 -Weak Yen - Since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was elected in December, the yen has moved from 86 to the dollar to 92, helping make Japanese auto imports cheaper for American buyers. The U.S. auto industry's lobbyist complains that Japan is engaging in "currency manipulation," a frequent, if empty, complaint from the pre-bankruptcy days. Says independent analyst Warren Browne: "If the Detroit Three need help from the government now, then perhaps their performance was not as good as everybody was indicating during the election cycle."
#2 - Toyota nearly outsold Chevy in January - Chevrolet outpaced Toyota by a mere 683 units. Chevy may run deep, but Toyota (TM) is running fast. These days, the competition between the two brands seems a bit more even keeled, says Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds.com "Chevrolet has the pickup truck launch coming this year," she says, "which will make a big impact, but with the new Corolla coming later this year, Toyota should be in a better place -- fixing a weak link in their lineup." Somebody may have to rewrite the words to that old song about baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolet.
#3 - Silverado and Sierra are losing share - As full-size pickups go, so goes Detroit, and GM is getting a smaller slice of that business. Combined, the Chevrolet Silverado and its sister GMC Sierra took 34.7% of the full-size truck market through the first 11 months of 2012, in figures compiled by the Los Angeles Times, down from a 40.3% share in 2008. Meanwhile, Ford's (F, Fortune 500) F-series has gained nearly seven points of share, and Chrysler's Ram two and a half points in 2008. Chrysler's Dodge Ram is at 18.1%, up from 15.6% in 2008. :shades:
#4 - The new Silverado fails to excite - When times are tough, GM gets conservative. When the automaker ran into trouble in the early '90s, it introduced a Chevy Lumina that was so tired that it looked like it had been designed a decade earlier. Ditto for the Silverado and Sierra. After they were unveiled recently, Car and Driver reported, "The latest iteration of Chevrolet's big-selling Silverado is here, and -- surprise! -- it looks pretty much like the last one." That may satisfy Chevy die-hards who said don't change it, but it won't do much to recover lost market share. :lemon:
#5 - Malibu is losing ground in mid-sizes - GM just slashed prices on the distressed sedan so it would perform better in online searches. But it can't do much to stretch the room in the rear back seat that resulted from an ill-advised decision to save money by building the 2013 redesign on a shorter platform. :lemon: With 13 new or refreshed models on tap, Chevrolet is telling dealers to expect a 7% gain in U.S. sales this year. But it needs the volume from a strong mid-size contender and, so far, it doesn't have one.
#6 - Cadillac ATS is cannibalizing CTS - The ATS was aiming for BMW's 3-series, but it seems to have hit the CTS instead. CTS sales fell 15% in 2012 and another 17% in January. The arrival of a new larger CTS later this year should slow the defections, but in the meantime, GM has foregone some profit by substituting sales of the smaller car for the larger one. And will someone remind me how the larger-still, front-wheel drive XTS fits into this lineup of rear-drive Euro-car wannabees?
#7 - GM cars lack stature - Take a look at the list of top-10-selling vehicles in 2012, and you see cars from Toyota, Honda, and Nissan but none from GM. The Chevy Cruze just misses the cut. This is more than a popularity contest. "GM can't consider itself on the road to recovery until it gets a car in the top 10 vehicle category," says analyst Browne, "and Buick has a car that sells 100,000 units." (Buick sold 57,079 LaCrosses in 2012). It is just too inefficient to have so many nameplates with so little volume.
#8 - Inventories are piling up - Malibu stocks rose as high as 129 days as of January 1 before sliding to 94 days on February 1, still well above the standard 60 days. But GM's pickup inventories rose 24% to a 117-day supply at the end of January. The automaker plans to work them off during a 10-week shutdown for model changeover, but that's a tough way to run a business.
#9 - A firmly entrenched bureaucracy - In his American Turnaround memoir, former CEO Ed Whitacre describes the cover-your-butt attitude at GM he saw when he was steering the automaker through its 2009 bankruptcy. According to Whitacre, managers who weren't sure who to ask for approval wound up asking everyone. "This contributed to a stall-and-delay mentality. Engineering projects were regularly vetted by the board -- why, I have no idea." There's very little to indicate that anything has changed post-bankruptcy. In GM's military-like bureaucracy, everything still has to go up the chain of command.
#10 - GM's newest board member - So then -- who does current chairman CEO (and Annapolis grad) Dan Akerson appoint to GM's board? Admiral Michel Mullen, a former military adviser to President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. "We're fortunate to have Adm. Mullen join GM's Board of Directors," said Akerson. "He brings proven leadership and deep experience in change management, strategic planning, technical innovation, and risk management gained over the course of his 43 years serving our country."
Wonder what he knows about Malibus and Silverados?
Same Old GM. :lemon:
Regards,
OW
It opened at 28.74 this morning.
Should have grabbed some at 3:59pm. :shades:
Regards,
OW
Nah! Europe is only the tip of the iceberg. The insidious "GM Disease" is alive and well in it's undying structure!
Regards,
OW
Such is the "new" math...
We'll still have the General Motors Fans discussion for those who want to talk about the good stuff GM is coming up with lately.
Meanwhile, check out The State of the US Auto Market or Will Car Sales Really Recover?.