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The Current State of the US Auto Market
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Comments
Point is you don't have to take the keys out of picket or (especially) purse.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I guess in my case, I had the keys in my hand to unlock the door two seconds before I got in the car. I don't dislike it, but I haven't experienced it enough (I've driven it three or four times total) to see a big advantage. If I drove it all the time, I'd probably see some.
I don't see the need for satellite radio when I can use a 128 GB USB drive that I customize infinite music with.
Also, keyless entry/push start is today. No power anything? At least your battery will last 10 years!
This just in....
GM's recalled Cobalt was a failure from the start
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/17/news/companies/cobalt-failure/index.html?iid=Lead
Another factor: A labor agreement with the United Auto Workers union that forced manufacturers to keep paying autoworkers whether they were on an assembly line or laid off.
This is the dysfunction that GM was! At lease the deal-seekers were satisfied!
Failure means a poor-seller. That was never the case for the Cobalt.
Nice try.
More reliable even in its first year than other makes including Asian, Korean, and German.
Nice try for GM
Push button start means you leave the keys in a jacket pocket or purse or briefcase. Grabbing the door handle will then unlock the doors and pushing a button on the handle will lock it when you get out. Doors will not open if there is no key in proximity so it's not a security problem. To start the car, You just push the button once with your foot on the brake and it starts right up. I love it. I am also enamored of Sirius/XM. if you let it expire they will keep lowering the price, but I like it so much I might not do it the next time around. It's relatively inexpensive as an extra even at the initial price.
'17 Chevy Volt Premiere
I believe the point of the article was that it wasn't a very profitable car for GM.
"When you put heavy incentives to sell to retail customers, and sell them to rental companies, you damage your prices," said independent auto analyst Michelle Krebs. "That's something Honda and Toyota didn't have to do."
media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2014/Apr/0416-cd-award-gm.html
NEW YORK – Diesel enthusiasts around the world have determined the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel is the top diesel car of the year and Chevrolet is the top diesel manufacturer of 2014.
“The Chevrolet Cruze Diesel, with a market-leading 46 mpg highway (5.11 L/ 100 km) is clearly setting the pace for diesel-powered cars in the United States,” said Jonathan Spira, editorial director of The Diesel Driver. “The message from our readers is clear. Diesels are back and Chevrolet is in the forefront.”
The Cruze finished with 59.3 percent of the 11,030 votes cast. Competitors included the Audi A6, A7, A8, Q5 and Q7; BMW 328, 535 and X5; Jeep Grand Cherokee; Mercedes-Benz E250, GLK250, ML350 and GL350; Porsche Cayenne; and Volkswagen Beetle and Beetle Convertible, Golf, Jetta, Jetta Sportwagen, Passat and Touareg.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My 2012 Ram came with a free year of Sirius XM. Hate to say, but I never even bothered to mess with it. Let it expire, and I'm still getting offers begging me to sign back up!
As for small cars, one problem is that most of the cost to build a car is the R&D, safety equipment, assembly lines, technology, features, etc. Raw materials cost very little. So, all things being equal, a smaller car isn't going to cost much less to manufacture than a bigger one. But, buyers expect it to cost less. Another problem is that, back in the old days at least, Ford, Chrysler, and especially GM built a huge amount of full-sized cars, so they got the economy of scale of all that mass production. So, with smaller cars, the manufacturers had to cut corners to keep costs down, and take a smaller profit.
IMHO what's better than keyless ignition is keyless lock/unlock. I've never had it on my own car, but a friend demoed it a number of years ago on his Prius, and I had a rental Ford C-Max with it. Leave key in pocket, grab handle, door unlocks, open door, sit down, push start button. Really a major convenience feature. Pretty much the reverse on the way out.
I have XM in my car but dropped my subscription years ago. I found the sound quality not all that great and I have better options on free podcasts, which I listen to while driving.
I disagree. The Vega sold a lot of vehicles, too. But it was a failure.
It's pretty easy to be reliable in year 1. Some of us keep our cars a long time to get our value out of them. What about year 5 and year 8?
I think most buyers forgive Year One failures, and many even forgive Year Two failures, but once a pattern of problems brand a certain make or model, the word gets out.
Any "bad" car can be made better, but that requires the automaker to actually act fast and not allow the concrete to dry.
I'm talking about the first model year, 2005...in its ninth year.
I've heard that the Vega was actually pretty good its first year out. In fact, didn't CR even rate it "Much Better Than Average?" Of course, once they started rusting, needing to be sleeved, etc, things went downhill fast.
If anything, I'd say the Vega showed just how mighty GM was back then. As bad as the car was, it lasted seven model years, still managing to sell about 100,000 units in its final year. And it did well enough that Pontiac got a version. And, it served as the basis for the Monza/Sunbird/Skyhawk/Starfire, which hung on through 1980.
In those days, a lot of people still expected small cars to be cheap and throwaway, so there wasn't too much harm done to GM's image. In 1975, when the Honda Accord first hit our shores, its base MSRP was $3995. For comparison, a Vega started at $2766. Moving up through the ranks, a Nova started at $3347, a Camaro at $3540, a Chevelle at $3402, a Monte Carlo at $4249, and even a full-sized Bel Air at $4345.
Adjusting for inflation, that $1229 difference between a base Accord and a base Vega would come out to around $5400 today! So, that was no small chunk of change. That would be sort of like choosing between a Chevy Sonic today, or paying an extra $5400 for a Honda Fit! I'm sure the Fit is a nicer car, but not sure if it's that much nicer. Many people were faced with a similar decision back in the 1970's.
However, there was a small group of people who were expecting more out of small cars, and willing to pay it, and that, plus the fuel crisis, helped the imports establish a strong foothold in the United States.
Actually my mother bought a small Toyota in 1968. She had to drive to LA to get it, over 3 hours trip. It's not that she was willing to pay more; we were not well off. Why? In her words, "I wanted a small car and I couldn't find an American one." She had also been burned by her previous experience with the unlamented Nash Metropolitan. Remember those?
'17 Chevy Volt Premiere
If you want to get picky, those Metropolitans were "foreign" cars too. They were built in England and shipped over! If you wanted a small car in 1968, I could see making a long trip to get one, as what passed for "small" by domestic standards in those days was a Falcon, Corvair, Nova, Valiant, or Dart...cars that are more midsized by today's standards.
What were the choices, really, in 1968 if you wanted a subcompact? There was the Beetle, which was really showing its age by then, although still selling well. What was Renault selling by that time? I'm sure they were a presence. compared to those, I'm sure the Toyota looked really tempting. Just out of curiosity, do you know how much your Mother paid for it?
One area where the Japanese really took a big leap was offering more versatile 4-door models in the small car range. It took awhile for the domestics to catch on in that regard. I don't think it was until 1978, when the Omni/Horizon debuted, and the Chevette added a 4-door hatchback. Ford wouldn't offer one until the 1981 Escort.
"While warranty expenses are down significantly among vehicle makers as a group, the real progress has been made primarily by Ford and GM.
GM ended 2013 with a 2.0% claims rate and a 2.1% accrual rate. Ford ended the year with a 1.7% claims rate and a 1.5% accrual rate. So after multi-year warranty cost-cutting efforts, they're each saving hundreds of millions of dollars per year in warranty expenses and have freed up billions in warranty reserves"
Automotive OEM Warranty Report (Warranty Week)
In 1968, one still had the choice of the Rambler American as well. None of those 1968 domestic compacts would've been a bad choice as I still see plenty of them on the road. The domestics just seemed to suck at making a decent subcompact at the time.
Funny you mention that, lemko. I was thinking that very thing. I can remember an American being advertised at $1,799. Trust me, I've done my share of snickering at AMC's, but fact is, I've never heard a thing that would imply those last Americans were bad cars. That's a mid-size car for little more than the price of a Beetle.
California is a loonnnngggggg way from where I live and lived, but I never knew a soul to drive three hours to buy a new car...although my Cobalt was six hours away but my dealer went to get it from the dealer who'd had it in inventory seven days.
Concerning Cobalts being able to be bought as cheap used cars....I did on eBay, but only because the N.J. seller didn't have a reserve and put an auto auction to end on a Tuesday morning, plus understated the mileage in the ad by 6,000 which resulted in him shaving five hundred more off the price. Plus, he said the car had ABS when it doesn't (although I anticipated that beforehand), and brought the title for the wrong car to OH when he delivered it a hundred miles or so from my place.
On top of that, he was fined by the PA State Police for having the car not secured sufficiently on the trailer. And this guy was a business owner and had also run unsuccessfully for a congressman's seat in the state--I googled him and saw a pic and it was the same guy!
Used Cobalts were ridiculously priced around here IMHO. I paid a good three grand less for the one I bought on eBay than people wanted around here for theirs. And, it still had a few months left on its 5 yr./100K powertrain warranty.
Oops...I made a goof. Looks like the Accord first came here as a 1976 model, but in late 1975. It was $3995, but the various Chevy prices I quoted are off by a year (and a year could make a bit of difference in those inflation-ridden times).
So, I apologize for having a Mr. Roper moment! (and for that obscure reference...)
As for that $1800 price for a Rambler American...I think a VW Bug started around $1600 back then. And I believe the Valiant started at $2094 or so. Not sure about a Falcon...they were probably pretty cheap. But I think a Chevy II/Nova or Dart were a bit more expensive, around $2300-2400?
I know the '68 Dart 270 hardtop I had MSRP'ed for about $3300 new, but that was a mid-range trim level, hardtop body style, and it had air conditioning, automatic, power steering, a radio, and a 273 CID V-8 (318 by the time I got it though).
Oh, concerning Cobalts being overpriced, I've noticed that too, around these parts. I've looked them up on Cars.com occasionally, and they're a bit too pricey for what's supposed to be perceived as a "cheap used car"! So maybe they're not held in such low regard, after all?
A friend has a G5 2008 bright red coupe with 60K and new tires. Not a scratch to be seen on the perfect car. He mentioned the Buick dealer had offered him 4500 trade in for it on a demo top of line Verano. I told him to put a $12000 sign on it while driving around and he'd probably get a $12K offer because the car is so good. At worst he'd get $11K for it. Edmunds says $8200 roughly for retail sale.
He keeps getting letters from dealers wanting to buy it. I get letters about buying mine. Some suggest a price with the usual disclaimers that the price suggested means nothing.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Isn't the Cobalt coupe supposed to be popular among the tuner crowd? I kind of like the coupe myself. The back end reminds me a bit of my Dad's 1961 Biscayne.
I think the Cobalt coupe is a bit of a hot item among the tuners. Also, I could be wrong on this, but didn't the Cobalt start offering leather seats earlier on than most of its competitors did?
I think the turbo Cobalt is a cult item, yes.
I like the rear end styling of the Cobalt coupe, but my kids were complaining about getting into the backseat of my previous Cavalier coupe, so I opted for the four-door...a bit harder to find 5-speed 4-doors then, although a guy I work with who lives south of Columbus has had 2007 and 2010 new Cobalt 4-door 5-speeds. His 2010 is navy blue, which looks a lot nicer than the silver I decided to get. Back to the taillights--I was surprised they offered to have two different rear-end styling jobs based on coupe or sedan.
This is a college town I live in, and in NE OH near where Cobalts were built, but going to Dunkin Donuts this morning, I swear I noticed six or seven Cobalts in a two-mile stretch. I didn't see a single Corolla (that I noticed, anyway), and, as usual, I spotted a decent-looking second-gen Neon. I see those frequently around here still.
I don't remember leather in Cobalts, andre, unless maybe in the turbo and/or SS variants...of which I never spent any time looking at.
Yes, I get those letters as well on different vehicles (a couple of which I no longer own, BTW).
I put ZERO stock in those letters, but I guess they induce enough gullible people to come in and at least consider trading, or they wouldn't be spend the $$$ to mail them out.
I get them pretty frequently for both my Cobalt and my daughter's PT. I've even gotten
a phone call recently about my Cobalt. I said, "stick shift and no power windows or locks; you wouldn't even want it".
When we owned our '93 Caprice Classic which we bought new (at ages 35 and 28), we would get three or so postcards weekly from different companies, wanting to buy it. We did in fact sell to one of them, as they offered more than I was offered as a trade-in, in 1999 at 93K miles. I was told it was going to Saudi Arabia. We did a cash transaction in my driveway and changed the title over right there.
Maybe that was it, just the Turbo or SS models that had leather in the Cobalt. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing some variant that had it, but didn't pay that much attention to it...other than being impressed that it had leather!
I remember, a few years ago, sitting in a Chevy Aveo at the Philly Auto Show, and being impressed at the "leatherette" interior upgrade that it had. I'm sure it's still a far cry from "MB-Tex", but for such a low-end car, I thought it dressed it up pretty nicely.
As for those buyback letters, my housemate gets them all the time for his Xterra, under the guise of "we're running low on used cars, and need yours to fill our inventory!" And I've already gotten one or two of them from the dealer trying to seduce me in to trade my 2012 Ram.
The guy on the other end probably thought he was speaking to some sort of Neanderthal... LOL!
No doubt.
As that recently quoted article said, there is a big difference between the coasts and the midwest. Your states are where all the cars we don't buy on the coasts are going, along with Hertz and Avis and...
Hondas are built in Ohio and trust me, there are tons of them on the roads here.
'17 Chevy Volt Premiere
My '08 Honda is junk! This CR-V had one recall for a computer reflash(trans), 8 oil changes, trans/rear dif. oil changes, new tires and cost me $1,350 in 68Kmiles!!
That's a ridiculous $0.02/mile! The resale value is 78% of original cost after 5 years??
I'm done with Honda!
My '10 CX-9 is garbage as well. 38K miles and original tires with 50% tread life, 6 oil changes and never seen the dealer? 70% retained value?
Mazda is finished!
My '11 Optima SX is the worst! 38K miles and new tires? 2 trips to the dealer for turbo sensors and 7 oil changes. 75% resale value? Pure junk!
Kia can go to .....!!
Apparently your Optima story is 'anecdotal', as I and imidazol (and my coworker who has bought three new Cobalts; one for his daughter) would be told here.
Remember, it's neither me nor imidazol who initially chose to post '(choose one of circlew's cars here) is a real POS'.
You left your battery out of your CR-V expenses, BTW.
Remember to turn your headlights on at night in your CX-9. That is the car I saw last week in Columbus with no headlights on at night, and my old friend who was driving said, "what the hell?".