regfootball

i think as crucial as the powertrain data is on these engines, its all pretty tough to digest unless you got some curb weights to go with it. GM needs to cut the fat. for market reasons too, we need to know that this car will have AWD on the option sheet or its pretty much DOA in the market.

nice rig, congrats! the Terrain is a sharp looking ride.

especially since those all get better mpg..... no one is going to buy an expensive GM compact just for the brand.

these days I am excited by any car that doesn't drain my bank account, doesn't require trips to the shop, and has lots of tech options. And one that gets around nicely in all this miserable effing snow this year.

yeah, that indeed does sound like it, GM will need to demonstrate it pretty soon. I doubt they are incapable, I think its all about manufacturing issues and money with GM most of the time. And execution.

AU's biggest seller is a niche volume here.... i see the difference.....problem with gm is they never do ANY of that....

trinacriabob, welcome to C&G.

04 Endeavor had em too.

exactly / LMAO IMO all that is happening right now is just a further repackaging of all the same stuff that has occurred since o, 88 or so when the W bodies came out. The new cruze is the new grand am the new regal is just the new midsize the XTS is a new DTS and that's not really bad. we have the Volt, but perhaps a new Fiero would have been more exciting. at the same time, people are drawn to buying off the shelf.

camry + accord + altima + (name the other fwd appliances) = the sales positively dwarf the commodore (aU+export) not saying the commodore doesn't matter at all, but you gotta really place it in perspective. it's easier for the beancounters to euthanize it. the one little kid in the back row in class is lucky to be heard at all.

the astra hatches would still be what i would most be interested in besides the Regal. Undiluted. I think a Riviera should be AWD. AWD should be on the Regal option sheet too.

the best selling car in AU sold less than 50k units..... chump change......

one never buys a vw. you lease vw's and only within warranty period.

just to note on the lease issue. the LS lease is majorly subsidized. The LT's are not near as attractive. Clearly the current leases are for ad fodder, and that's ok. The LT lease is still not bad per the guesstimate numbers I was given. Something about 2 percent money and a 5% residual advantage for the LS over the LT. What i was told, a legit question, i asked what the buyout was at the end of the lease. I am not sure if this is an ALLY/GMAC thing but there is a nasty POISON PILL in this lease. You used to have a buyout fee of an additional 500 bucks if you wanted to keep and buy the car. In the instance I asked about i was told that fee got raised to 2500 dollars. This to practically guarantee you would turn in the car, and get a new one, and they would have a lightly used off lease unit to put up for bids to their dealers. With that poison pill, I just think you gotta look at buying the car. Not leasing it.

I took an LS manual out last evening. Unfortunately it was a shorter drive than I would have preferred. And, a lot of it was spent in BTB rush hour traffic. At the same time, that is a real world situation and is actually a nice test for that. Also it was at night. Really just summarize that quickly. I really wanted to compare that to my Cobalt which I drove up in and to the other Cruze with the turbo. Myself and salesguy loaded into the car (usually I prefer to go on drives alone) and the first thing that is apparent is at least in manual form, the Cruze is quiet/er than the Cobalt. I also felt it was as quiet or less so (will explain that) than the turbo. And even though I didn't get to ring it out I have to say I was not upset over a lack of grunt in any of the situations I encountered. In fact, coming off the freeway up an incline and flooring the throttle produced quite a bit of go. And the cruising rpm in 6th was a little lower than I expected; in that situation the car is very quiet too. The six speed manual helps, you have 1st as your get going gear, but second is an extremely handy gear for 'acceleration'. 2nd and the torque band of the engine are very well matched to make the car feel spunky. The engine revs nicely and is decently smooth. It's not as frenetic as the little buzz bomb in the turbo. Third and fourth are handy gears too. I thought the ratios were spaced nicely, and also what I liked was that 6th was not a big drop from 5th. Just allowed you to drop the rpm just a little for quieter cruising. Everything else about the LS seemed to match the positives of an LT. Wide and stable, I still think there are some seat adjustability issues, the dash is great. The ride still feels a bit harsh although a little softer with the base tires. I don't really mind that because the good quick steering and solid handling in corners is still there. As for the clutch and shifter on the LS. The clutch is lighter than my cobalt by a fair amount. It has a long travel. Feels ok, has a much more definite engagement point. Doesn't glide, not among the best I have encountered. For the LS, its pretty good. The shifter is a nice knob. The location is initially weird, it seems like its back a little far. But that could be just the difference between getting out of my car and into this one. It's weird because the shifter is not tall so you think the throws are short, but the throws are actually longer than you are expecting. The gearbox is not slick like most VW's and some Hondas are. It's way improved over the Cobalt though. It's a decent gearbox, but its got some weirdness locating the gears initially and there is some notchiness and resistance that maybe goes away. Overall, I didn't have objections to the gearbox. The LS overall was very drivable. It surprised me. I'll need to find one for a longer drive. Non leather steering wheel has molded grips and is thick and feels great too. Still, after adjusting the front for my 6'1" bod with short legs and moving the seat up as far as I can tolerate with my knees practically up in the dash....there is still inadequate leg room in the back. Yes, one can get into the back. But your knees are on the seatback and your legs are splayed. The Jetta and Elantra have big advantages in leg room. Its embarrassing for a car with this huge of wheelbase to lack that rear seat space. Of course the room was taken away from the back seat and its all in the engine compartment, with twice the room needed for the hamster wheel that is under there. The LT2 I drove must have been a flashed unit. There was a noticeable improvement in some of the driving behavior. It was not enough of an improvement to give it a gleeful endorsement. It's merely enough to say it won't be a huge headache. It did not seem as determined to keep reaching for and holding a higher gear so much. And it had a fairly reduced amount of indecisiveness. It wasn't hunting as much; and there were no bouts of waiting for what seemed like forever for the car to make up its mind as in my previous tests. It still was shifting too much in some of the situations I was in compared to other cars. If you are just cruising at 70 mph, the car isn't shifting, everything is fine, its a great little FRISKY engine for that. The rest of the time, the car is a bit of a buzzbomb, the little engine that can, but you get tired of it working so hard and revving so much. You seem to have to develop this all on or all off sort of thing with your throttle foot that is annoying. It's zippy and no one should complain about the amount of power if you are always gunning it, and there is no turbo lag. It's just making too much theater about propelling the car. Makes you wonder why a nice 2.0 with about 160hp wouldn't just have been a better decision. Or a 2.4. Or a 1.6 or 1.8 turbo. One where just a partial throttle surge will just quietly downshift and give you a gentle and efficient surge. Really makes me want to try the Jetta now. The dealer said cruise can be added aftermarket by a local customizer to the LS for 400 bucks. And, the LS has manual mirrors, which is a headache. Chevy is blatantly telling the customer FU by limiting the LS in this regard. Not good business. At least we didn't get black door handles, should we PTL for that progress in motown? Advice to Chevy. Please add cruise, power mirrors, sunroof, SWAC, alum wheels, remote start, heated seats to the option sheet on the LS. You'd have a nice little everyday car. Maybe make it a 2.0 too.

that word 'vitriol' has sure been bouncing around a lot these last few days........

the Passat went downmarket so the CC appeared and could exist more upmarket. VW was not going to achieve world domination selling the stuff they had at the prices they wanted. They determined more copies at a cheaper price was needed and to do so they would have to reduce it to an LCD....... The CC can still be the CC and now the Passat next to it on the lot will look a lot different than it. How VW will gain share with this car will be entirely dependent on model mix. I see few of the v6. I think they should have kept the turbo in the mix somewhere. I'll prob keep an open mind about this car myself. I thoroughly enjoyed driving my staid looking 500 for 3 years with its upright 2D dashboard and unimaginative features. To some degree there is a similar approach here. If there is more value in the mix, but the style is a bit more dull but its not like say, a mazda3, then i want to see the prices, and i want to see if it drives well. There may be a configuration of this new Passat that is below 25 grand and feels spunky, and provides some kit....along with space that one can't find in say a chevy cruze or buick verano. Maybe VW wised up that they couldn't gain cred with W8's and really pricey Passats. when does this thing hit showrooms?

so Buick is not sport injected on this car. I would dare say NO, YOU ARE NOT. of course compact cars shouldn't weigh 3400 pounds and at 3400 pounds they should have good leg room all around.

sort of moronic and contradictory to say the alpha will have limited application due to 'exotic materials and construction' but in the next paragraph to say that zeta will need to adopt lightweight high tech materials to stay relevent. as if what, the 'lightweight and high tech materials' aren't expensive in either application? wtf.

yeah, you hit it on the head actually. very 2 dimensional. the new Jetta is an IKEA JEtta but seriously this new Passat looks like a Korean or Chinese VW knockoff. Something that they would sell in dollar stores and VW would license the badge to glue on the trunk. I don't dispute that maybe it still looks semi classy on the inside when its new, but the interior like the exterior is already dated beyond belief. even the camry interior shows more imagination than the insides of this thing. hey at least price is competitive now.

hows about an oval pistion "v-4" with 32 valves? (Honda) that would be an interesting small displacment configuration although I am sure that doesn't really adress the smoothness issue.

the 2001 Passat probably had a base price of 20,000. 10 years later, the same price for arguably the same amount or more stuff. http://blogs.vw.com/passat/ do you spend 22 grand on this or 22 grand on a Cruze LT2?

VW really turned this into a turd, but i have to admit, a TDI with manual on a car this large is very interesting. It would be a great trip car. I think the CC carries the real Passat torch now. This is just like Levi's jeans at Target. Same brand but watered down to sell at a price point. The dash reminds me a bit of my old 500's dash. Still plain, too. As a matter of fact this sort of has the same sense of dull all over that my 500 did. Big staid lumpy sedan with an upright dash and a big rear seat. It really is a stretched and pulled Jetta. I bet there are a ton of parts this car shares with the Jetta. What will be interesting is how the performance is with the 5 cylinder, pretty good in this class maybe and i know they supposedly worked on the NVH with it. Mpg should be in the hunt I would guess. In a way though it could be a bit of a sleeper. A handful of the cars in this class have the manual trans, but still none of them are terribly entertaining. If the driving dynamics are above class average, and the price is low equipped the way you want it, it could be an interesting stealth sort of budget fun sedan. If it really starts at 20 grand, with a 5 speed, hopefully with an armrest....its not a bad deal at that price. Maybe add alum rims, some VINYL seats, and a leather wrap wheel and it might just be kinda fun. BUt whoa man is this the epitome of dumbing down.

i was thinking of that 4.5 litre duramax v8 diesel with the reverse intake setup?