ehaase

Your knowledge is so advanced it's like having a PhD sit in a class with sixth graders.

Which won't help GM's domestic CAFE if not manufactured in North America.

It would be a paradigm shift for Michigan and some of the other Great Lake states. The effect for the rest of the country is fairly minor.

Some believe that the U.S. economy may be better off if GM went away: A lot of people out there can't imagine an America without GM. I certainly can, and I'm not sure it wouldn't be a better place. Business is a brutal ecosystem, where even the strongest of the old lions eventually flop over, never to roar again. It may be time for this long-weakened wheezer to finally fade away. http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2006/mft06033...nce=y&bounce2=y

Corporate average fuel economy.Some of you are salivating about 400 and 500 hp RWD Chevrolets and Pontiacs, but $4.00 to $6.00/gallon gasoline could easily suppress demand for such cars. And many want CAFE increased dramatically. A few even support the return of the 55 mph speed limit.

GM can make the Equinox and Torrent just as nice if people are willing to pay $30,000 for them.

The Sonata barely is a full size car, with interior space of 105 cu. ft. and a trunk of 16 cu. ft. While I was in South Florida the past few days, I reserved an economy car with Hertz, but was given a Sonata LX V6, and I was impressed as The O.C. was when he rented one.

Yes, the Accent competes against the Yaris; the Elantra is in the Corolla class.

The Accord hybrid should use a 4 cylinder instead of a V6 to maximize fuel efficiency. Let Acura have the high performance hybrids.

GM will continue bleeding red ink until the UAW allows it to pay workers wages comparable to its competitors and it gets relief from legacy and health care costs.

I heard on CNBC this morning that the Elantra will be rated as a mid size car in interior room. That is enough to consider it against the Corolla, Civic, and Cobalt, in my opinion.

The Aura is pleasant looking, but it's not going to win anyone already predisposed to buying a Camry, Accord, or Altima, except for those wanting the Saturn dealership experience.

For some unknown reason, I am not surprised that you would have to attack evangelicals again.

No matter the circumstance, I don't think it's ever appropriate for a 17 year old boy to ever use foul language towards an adult in his 40's or 50's. I don't read or respond to Buickman's posts because his posts bore me, but no kid should talk like that to an adult. I guess young people are taught that their self esteem is more important than showing respect to elders.

The company ignored warnings 20 years ago that changes were needed. Is it too late? By John O'Dell, Times Staff Writer April 2, 2006 Buick was the seed from which General Motors Corp. sprouted. And for generations, the luxury car line was one of GM's most bountiful divisions. The Buick brand filled a crucial niche for the auto giant, attracting well-heeled consumers who wanted more than an Oldsmobile but weren't comfortable with the flash of a Cadillac. Now as GM faces the threat of bankruptcy, Buick has emerged as an emblem of the auto giant's broader woes. GM sold nearly a million Buicks in the U.S. in 1984. By last year, sales had sputtered to 282,288, a 70% decline over two decades, the biggest of any major auto brand. Buick has broken down in U.S. showrooms for the same reasons that Americans deserted GM brands such as Chevrolet, Pontiac and Olds in favor of Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Buick offered bland designs and ignored consumer demand for pickups, minivans and SUVs. Buyers' shift toward snappier styling, snazzier features and — most of all — higher-quality cars left Buick vulnerable in the late 1980s when Lexus, Infiniti and other foreign luxury models invaded its home turf. Even using golf superstar Tiger Woods as pitchman hasn't helped Buick. Warnings that GM's luxury car stronghold was about to collapse went unheeded as the automaker clung to the conviction that Americans really would rather have a Buick. "I remember being told by a GM executive … that they'd never worried about Buick because as people got older and richer, their asses would get fatter and they would always buy Buicks to sit 'em in," said Dan Gorrell, vice president of San Diego market research firm Strategic Vision, which has done consumer studies for GM. In the mid-1980s, a Burbank market research firm hired by the automaker warned that European and Japanese rivals were revving up to leave GM in the slow lane. "The sounds of heavy armor can be heard in the suburbs, in what may be the final assault on General Motors' long-time stronghold, the luxury car market," the report from Vista Group said. If GM didn't satisfy car buyers' tastes for smoother handling, sleeker designs and fewer but more luxurious options, Buick would start losing customers to the new competitors. The Vista report proved prescient. The failure of Buick and its sister brands has thrown GM into a tailspin. After losing $10.6 billion last year and with its U.S. market share at an 80-year-low, GM's chief executive, Rick Wagoner, recently offered buyouts to 125,000 hourly workers. Many Wall Street analysts are increasingly concerned about GM's finances. Some believe the world's largest automaker might file for bankruptcy protection, a move that — because of GM's size — could convulse the entire U.S. economy. In the end, analysts say, GM's corporate hubris led to Buick's descent. "They had this arrogant belief that when baby boomers turn 50, 'they belong to us,' and that just didn't happen," Gorrell said. GM executives insist that Buick is still a "relevant" brand. "I'm convinced Buick's turnaround has already begun," said Bob Lutz, GM's 74-year-old vice chairman for product development. "We are now focusing on its original role as an affordable near-luxury car that isn't just a Chevy or a Pontiac with a different name badge." To succeed, GM would have to win over consumers like Myron Wozniak. That could prove difficult. Wozniak, 46, a Northrop Grumman engineer in El Segundo, has owned three Buicks and an Oldsmobile. "I was raised in a 'buy American' family," he said. But Wozniak and his wife harbor unpleasant memories of replacing the alternator in their Buick Skylark; the alternator, several electronic ignition controllers and the air conditioning compressor and anti-lock brake system controller in their LeSabre; and the entire automatic transmission in their Oldsmobile Intrigue. That was enough to drive the Wozniaks into the foreign camp. Their last three purchases have been a Honda Accord, a Toyota pickup and a Lexus sport coupe. "All we've had to do with them is change oil," he said. "My next new car sure won't be an American car, I don't care what kind of incentives they offer." Last year, Lexus — the luxury division of Toyota Motor Corp. — gave Buick the final push off its perch, outselling it for the first time. Buick was founded in 1903 by a marketing genius named William Durant, who gobbled up the competition. Five years later, he formed GM. His successor, Alfred P. Sloan, crafted the strategy of offering a car brand "for every purse and purpose." "Buick was known for decades as 'the doctor car,' " said Jeff Taylor, curator of the Alfred P. Sloan Museum in Flint, Mich. "It was for professionals who just weren't comfortable with the flashiness of a Cadillac." Buick prospered by building big cars with powerful engines and often stunning styling. They scored hits with the sporty 1953 Skylark convertible and the knife-edged 1963 Riviera. But Buick seemed to have lost its way during the 1970s gas crunch and the demands in the '80s to meet new safety standards. "Designers at GM were used to wider, lower and longer," said Charles "Chuck" Jordan, vice president of GM Design from 1986 to 1992. "It took us awhile to learn how to hide safety bumpers" that looked like steel I-beams. In the 1980s, Roger Smith, then GM's chief executive, bought Hughes Aircraft Corp. and Electronic Data Systems Corp. Cash that could have gone into the design and marketing of new cars was used to finance these acquisitions. GM produced look-alike cars because it no longer could afford to do different designs for each brand, Jordan said. "I remember when you could look at a Buick Park Avenue, an Olds 88 and a Caddy El Dorado and not be able to tell much difference," said Brad Willingham, part-owner of the Boulevard Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealership in Signal Hill. "It's tough to sell someone a car like that." Young, wealthier customers who wanted better cars and more luxury went to the Japanese, "while Buick just kept on being Buick," said auto historian Ken Gross, former director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. As with other GM divisions, Buick suffered from corporate shortsightedness. In the mid-1990s, for example, Buick sought a new V-8 engine to recapture its reputation for powerful cars. After internal wrangling, GM bosses granted the engine to the Oldsmobile division because it was ailing even more and needed an image boost. Olds is the only other GM division that has performed worse than Buick. GM killed it in 2003. As they struggled to make quality vehicles, GM executives had a more difficult time marketing them. In the early 1990s, then-GM Chairman John Smale brought some of the practices he learned as president of Procter & Gamble Co. One idea was to put different labels on essentially identical cars — the "sporty" Pontiac Grand Prix and the "luxurious" Buick Regal — then market them to different audiences. It didn't work. "Some of those ideas, from people who thought car marketing was the same as toothpaste marketing, didn't help," said former Buick General Manager Ed Mertz, an engineer who joined GM in 1960 and ran Buick from 1986 until his retirement in 1994. Since 1999, Buick has used Tiger Woods, whose name and face are known globally. But the golf tournaments that carry Woods' endorsements don't reach out to young buyers because they are largely watched by older men, some of whom might already gravitate to Buicks. "While you can sell a hot car designed for younger buyers to an old guy, you can't sell a stodgy old car to a young guy," said Bill Porter, Buick's design chief from 1980 until 1996. "The average Buick buyer is 69, the oldest demographic in the industry, and there aren't many new buyers coming in to replace them," said George Peterson, president of AutoPacific market research in Tustin. GM scored a small public relations coup in 1991 when the LeSabre won top domestic car honors in the widely watched J.D. Power Initial Quality Survey. Buick has received a number of quality awards since, but has been unable to turn them into an effective marketing tool. Last year, Buick introduced its first minivan, the Terraza, 21 years after Chrysler's Dodge minivan hit the market. It wasn't worth the wait. Car & Driver said the Honda Odyssey minivan offered more power, a newer transmission and better fuel economy at the same price. Consumer Reports gave the Terraza a poor reliability rating, writing off the vehicle as "outdated." There are some signs that there still might be life at Buick. A pair of new sedans, the LaCrosse launched in late 2004 and the full-size Lucerne introduced in December, though not runaway hits are selling well and receiving positive reviews. Critics also praise the sleek look of the Buick Enclave, a sport utility due later this year. When that happens, Buick dealers will have only three models to sell. Lutz, GM's vice chairman, says that's part of GM's new strategy to eliminate competition among brands. By offering only a few upscale models and combining Buick dealerships with Pontiac and GMC truck franchises, the Buick brand can have a long life, he said. GM's goal for Buick shows how far the once mighty has fallen: Company officials say they're now aiming to become the American Lexus. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-buic...dlines-business

I believe Hudson said over at GMI that the Chevrolet/GMC 1500's are getting a 4.9 L Duramax V6 - 3/4 of the 6.6L V8.

This morning I watched Maria Bartiromo interview Bill Clinton on her Wall Street Journal program. Clinton supports the federal government bailing out GM in exchange for GM producing more fuel efficient cars. Clinton stated that Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton have proposed such a program. He pointed out that GM can not compete with other automakers when its health care costs are so much higher. He also pointed out that, in recent years, workers losing their jobs suffer, on average, a 40 percent drop in income in their new jobs. This proposal is interesting, but it would mean substantially fewer of the V8 powered vehicles most of us here desire in exchange for hybrids and more 4 cylinder cars.

Wouldn't it be easier to put Toyota's 2.4L from the Camry or Scion tC in the Vibe?

I don't have confidence in people your age. I just have less confidence in Peter DeLorenzo.

What an ego. Any of the teenagers that post at C&G would do a better job on the GM Board than Peter DeLorenzo.

Top priority is an Impala sedan. Next priority is a Buick sedan. Following priority is a Pontiac sedan. After that, a GTO, then a Buick coupe and convertible.

Although I disagree with both of you on various non-automotive issues, I highly respect both of you for your intelligence and debating skills.I also enjoy Blackviper's posts more and more also and regret some of my harsh comments in the past.

No

Lately I enjoy the posts by Ellives. I find his posts to be highly intelligent.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...id=970599119419 Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative. At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals. The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding. But the new results are worth a look. In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids' personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There's no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it's unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings. A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity. The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective