regfootball

zeta saves the world news dished up on a platter to a bunch of starving folks in need of fall comfort food.....

ok, i do see they have 2k saab loyalty. so i guess that means 25k really. sorry i jumped the gun on that. but it is a 30k saab for 25. i know back exactly 2 years ago when i got my trex i got a quote on a new 9-3 for 20k. but of course that was back then. i guess the 'saab loyalty' does sort of skew it a bit. but its not much different than GM loyalty i guess. still think the sweet spot for the cruze is that area between 20,500 and a tish below 23 on how its equipped....in theory its a 20k vehicle.

saab dealer is advertising new closeout 010 9-3's for 23k on up. the saab is cheaper than the LTZ turbo Cruze.

disclaimer, i have not checked the Cadillac website. today, i saw in the flesh an orange / copper color CURRENT gen CTS. I was not aware this color was available on the CTS anymore. Was this a custom paint job? Looked hot by the way. Better than it did on the first gen CTS.

I always thought that J2000 was a really nice car. those foglights are pretty.

well, regardless of the direction you think Buick needs to be on, that is more or less the recipe of how I see Buick making a go of it. The Pontiac references were not really directed at you (more directed at a mythical dealer person who may be lamenting lost pontiac volume and wanted Buick to replace that), even if in hindsight review they might seem to be. One particular point i missed is that there also can be no 'Buick Grand Ams'. I was more thinking that Buick can not be made to replace Pontiac, and also, Buick and Cadillac must have as little overlaps as possible. ANd aside from that, I was stating that Buick needs to be a bit above the median bar in terms of what it has to offer, all while still being close to an upper tier mainstream bunch.

fall / winter does depress me, but the economic mess bothers me even more. Tired of it. That's ok though, election day will rectify a lot of it. So I am not sure one can have fall blues if election day comes in fall!

it certainly doesn't help that BMW has a 335i now that will outperform the old M3's. essentially the new 335i is an M3, the M3 was purposely made more exclusive. your point, about price point, well made. I guy i know who is about 30 has an older M3, but I can tell you he has told me he has wanted to get a newer one and all he can afford is the 335. For some reason he keeps his old M3 (but strangely he has a spare BMW AWD wagon to drive as a winter car). Bottom line, BMW took the price of the M3 up even further to make them absolutely exclusive. the thing is, Cadillac does not have the same status in the market and 45k is pushing it, maybe 50k sticker if the car is lights out on the track and GM has room to throw 5-10 grand of incentives at it to move it at the end of the model year. any ATSv needs to be the 'entry level V car' that can bring in exactly the sort of buyers Dwight says. And also as said, it has to set up the pricing for success with the CTSv as well. there may be no XLRv or XTSv and there probably should never be an SRXv. Cadillac needs to get the ATSv and CTSv dead on in every aspect to keep any sort of performance cred with Cadillac. I wonder what production level goals caddy has set for the ATS and next gen CTS. I am certain caddy is expecting a big rebound in sales vs the DTS when they bring the XTS to market.

Buick will achieve more by making GS models have real power (not just 255hp). the drive wheels will be immaterial as long as they use AWD on the high performance models. It will basically be a budget Audi then. AWD>RWD for most modern car shoppers in performance vehicles. providing all the rest of their models with above average power levels and superior handling, interiors, road feel, comfort, build quality. As an example there, 182hp LaCRosses and Regals are inadequate to do that. Base Regal non turbo should be at 200hp+ and turbo should be able to outperform a soon to be common hyundai sonata turbo at least. GS should have eye popping performance. The Regal should be above the mid size class baseline in every measurable, whether it is on the spec sheet or a subjective thing one you drive or sit in the car in person. But simply put if Buick really just is aiming to be a lesser price clone of Cadillac without actually having a substantive difference then we are setting it up for Epic fail. THe other component of this is most of Buick's new demographic will desire a front or all wheel drive car, its simply pure fantasy to think that Buick can serve the market GM wants it too with RWD bias cars. Buick is still aiming for the middle ground that is ascending up the hill, and the dealers do not want cars that will rot on the lot in winter either. What you want is a new age cadillac at old pontiac prices. RWD Pontiac ain't coming back, not even with a Buick badge on it. Now I do think Opel needs a flagship and that could be on a rear bias platform, but you are talking much higher prices and much less sales volume. Its a niche vehicle and it by itself is not going to buoy Opels volume and if it were cloned as a new Buick flagship it too would not shoulder the load. But if Buick does bring a RWD offering to market it should be as a flagship, to compete with Hyundai Genesis and the like. And even then you are still back to stepping on Cadillac's toes.

perhaps the msrp should be adjusted to reflect what the price would have been 15 years ago, aka the age the vehicle feels like.

yet the magazine comparos and even gm's own advertising compare it directly to those. try again....... the tucson is fantastic by the way. refined but with still a little too much noise...at least it delivers the mpg....

it's not even an issue of what size or class or price this thing competes in. its pretty near unfit for consumption at any price or class until they get the refinement and interior sloppiness under control. i leave a test drive thinking my cobalt is a luxury car in comparison, this pretty much says it all. some of it they can fix, some its not worth the spit. the ford escape is a far better choice even. the kia twins can be had for some price. a bottom end equinox (current version) has to crush it.

ATS -V will play to a young demographic, 45k is about right. But, at that price point to that demographic, a pushrod v8 may not be a motivator for purchase. Which is why a twin turbo with balls out horsepower may be more marketable. Let's argue that caddy and chevy for that matter if they put ats and camaro on alpha and are developing a new 2.5l 4 ecotec, maybe the v8 needs to a 5.0 litre double ecotec 4 v8 that can both mate into the alpha for camaro and ats....for camaro so it can match mustang 5.0 and for ATSv so it has the cred to battle in the luxury segment.

quick summation JUST SAY NO. MSRP a little under 23. White, front drive 2.4 CVT. Highs - better than expected engine performance, better than anticipated CVT behavior, solid 'trucklike' (Jeeplike?) feel, feels robust and secure (or did it just feel porky), steering that was decently quick, decent gauge layout and controls, seat was ok in terms of comfort, gets out of its own way (with a lot of groaning), basically sounds like you are driving a tractor. Lows - rear seat accomodations are a bit of a joke, so is cabin with, so is the cargo space, lots of road noise, lack of powertrain refinement, cheap interior, whole thing feels 15 years old, oddly quirky styling of Jeep on a FWD chassis, nothing in the way of steering and suspension feel, dash is constricting on front driver and passenger, ergonomics are strange, only 21/25 epa mpg. basically what you have a vehicle that is way behind the curve in packaging and space utilization, refinement and NVH, fuel economy, interiors, sense of detail and quality......just say no. One might say at this price you must accept some shortcomings and be ok with its basic function but the competition is too fierce. One qualifier here....if you don't need to bring people in the rear seat and aren't in desperate need of a cavernous rear cargo area.....it may serve well for the single or couple that can afford to fold down the second row. As it is, the vehicle needs a bitchslap. The steering and handling and road feel need work. Is it a car or a truck? Decide. If you like em trucky you maybe won't mind this. But why does trucky have to equal road noise and general lack of refinement? New interior is improved but really still behind the curve mainly due to material quality. If the seats didn't feel ass cheap maybe it would be livable. I guess too it depends on your frame of reference. If you are one that typically is not used to this size of vehicle or one with this amount of space, then perhaps you find this worthwhile to deal with the bad points. Patriot pricing has never really been an issue. The styling depends on how you feel Jeep meshes onto a crossover platform. MPG is less than what it should be. The engine and transmission do not let the driver down. It's everything else in the tactile and sensory feel of the vehicle. Maybe this is why Jeep is different. This could also be why Jeep shouldn't be in this segment unless they can get it right. A Mitsubishi outlander despite an inferior CVT is a better all around choice. I shudder to think how much better an Equinox or (gasp) even a CRV would feel in comparison to this. I feel no remorse. Due to an advertising bit, I got 25 bucks for the test drive. So, to be fair, I will give it a C.....ok, C+ and move on. Some folks may like this sort of thing. If only one thing Jeep did to this vehicle was to eliminate the horrible road noise, and the NVH in general, then perhaps we can talk. I wouldn't drive this vehicle for free. The only vehicle I disliked more on a test drive was the Suzuki XL7. I would so drive a Toyota Matrix several times over before this. I can't think of a redeeming quality about this vehicle....or at least a compelling one that I would say, 'if you like this, buy this'. Peace out. Now I know why the Equinox sells so well........

one thought, perhaps manufacturers should only put manuals in select models, BUT make sure the clutch and shifters are sublime, make sure the engine is a willing partner, and make sure the gearing is well done. at a time when manuals are bound for extinction, I think it means they should raise the bar and make each one a performing instrument. Let me give you an example. Honda Fit. Decent car for what it is. The shifter is good, clutch was ok, but in order to really make it FUN it needs 20-30 more horsies.

buick don't need an alpha. all it does is confuse the buick / cadillac issue and confuses within buick as well.

GM (and Ford) rarely even spend the bucks to put the high strength steel in their cars, part of the reason they both have all the pork. Imagine all the good will it would get in the market to bring a 280-300hp, 2.0t ATS w/ 6 sp manual to market that weighed in at 3250 pounds. That would bring so much more cred instantly letting the buff books drive it and rave about it rather than paying all the idiot marketers to concoct some expensive and useless social networking marketing campaign. If getting that booming press means spending money on some high strength steel and some aluminum.....then stop being cheap about it. If you're gonna retain weight in the car, you can talk about the offset of whether you are ok with a heavier engine and tranny and the complexity but benefit that can come with it. More mass in the body can make a car more solid but you can also make the car just as solid with lighter materials. You can't market a heavy car just on the basis that it's built with a lot of heavy cheap steel. But complex motors with turbos and valves and vvt and vtec will sell and is a marketing point even if it makes the car heavier.

my recent CVT experiences this year. 1000 mile +/- rental on the Altima cylinder 2010. Very impressed, outpulls my fatherin laws 3800v6 grand prix and a lot better to drive. Good performance all around. Wanted better mpg but it was picked up with 200 miles on it so it wasn't broken in. Most buyers will have no issue with the tranny. It's very 'grippy'. Didn't have that slippy feel some CVT's had. A few test drives now in the new Subarus with the CVT. Very good as well, and it really drops the revs at highway speed. Manual mode is pretty good too. Not as aggressive as the Altima / Nissan. Decently responsive in traffic and hardly too much slippy feeling. I could live with one, and its a better option for those cars than a stepped automatic IMO. It's smoother. People with Legacys report being able to get high 30's on the highway with mpg. The Altima i had only got 27 mpg on flat interstate. Mitsubishi Outlander 4 cyl. THis one needs work, at higher speeds and rpm its a lot snappier. From stoplight to stoplight and at lower speeds its rubber bandy and has delay, plus an engine that needs more power down low to begin with. Jeep Patriot, today, 2.4 front drive CVT. I expected it to suck ass, but the engine had grunt and the CVT was grippy. It's good enough for in town and freeway use but does feel a bit slippy and less responsive than the Subaru and Nissan. But the difference is not too bad. The groan and vibration of the powertrain is the larger issue that and the rest of the vehicle sucking in general. If Chrysler can fix the NVH issues (because they can't fix the really bad packaging flaws) then it might be a nice driving vehicle. But the CVT on the Patriot is 'serviceable".

yeah a lot of the econocars, even with a 6 speed auto or manual, the 6th gear still is making for a buzzy motor because there is a lack of power to keep it in its prime. an 8 speed manual would be comical, an 8 speed auto could help a torqueless car, but really once it reaches that point where the tranny is working so hard with so many gears perhaps its best to pour R&D into CVT's for a lot of the driving population. it should be interesting to see cars like the Cruze and the public response. The Cruze has a flatter torque band and i think if the 6 speed is tuned well with it maybe we don't need more than 6 speeds other than an extra one or two tall top gears exclusively for mindless interstate runs at 80 mph.

pretty much nail on the head. multigear autos in smaller cars with quicker shifting will keep mpg and performance up. die hards still like the sticks, and that's fine, but unless the engine's torque curve is tuned so an average shifter can bolt from a dead stop up to traffic speed in order to avoid oncoming traffic, there is no reason really to have a stick other than just to say you enjoy it. my new cobalt is a stick, its ok, it would be a lot more fun if it had a decent clutch, and a decent shifter. i would not call it bad, but it certainly is not good. to get the most out of driving a stick, the engine needs to be a willing partner, because the days of buying a stick for the mpg reason are over. my taurus x and 500 both had 6 speed autos. the 500 absolutely needed it, the taurus x it allows better highway mpg. i got done testing the subaru legacy again today with CVT. i used to want that car with a stick, but after a couple test drives each way, the cvt is a far better choice for 90% of my driving. That doesn't mean I still wouldn't consider the stick for the 10% fun part, its just that the engine kicks down better with the cvt than i can get it to with the stick and it can run at a lot less rpm at highway than with the stick. i think CVT's in ten years will probably have a market penetration of 50%...when you consider all the research invenstment that has been put into step gear trannies and the comparatively little in CVT's i think CVT responsiveness will advance rapidly and be the perfect mate for a lot of non turbo 4 cylinders on smaller cars because they will allow really wide ratios. Once a tranny gets past 6 or 8 speeds you should consider variable ratio trannies for pedestrian vehicles. Japan and Nissan in particular really seems to have a leg up on the CVT. The Nissan Altimas CVT is good now and the Subaru one is decent also. Too bad the subies is mated to a boxer engine. Even the Jeep Patriot i test drove today, the CVT was better than i expected.

transmissions are nothing to mess with. from the point mine starting feeling like something was amiss til the time i decided to cut bait because i figured it would go out on me soon was a period of about 9-10 months. well, closer to a year. I wasn't going to be the one stuck with the 3,000 dollar bill. i drove my tek 115,000 without paying for a repair of any kind. its one thing to consider if the vehicle is paid for. but if you are shopping used cars, and it looks like too good of a deal, there is usually an asterisk after the price. a great deal plus money you didn't intend to spend to fix it all of a sudden can equal 'crap we spent too much for what we got'. If you buy the car with cash, now you've sunk a ton of money into a car that is now not near worth what you gave up in money. If you took out a loan, now you are pretty much permanently upside down and are stuck with the car. All I know is I have heard if from multiple parties (friends who owned chryslers, a relative to buys and sells used cars for a living and has done so for like 20 years) just have all said on a lot of the chryslers you have to do your due diligence on the transmission. lots of em went out at 60k miles and under is what i heard. By the way tell the sellers its not tranny 'oil', its tranny 'fluid'.

the powertrains look good, except the curb weights are quite porky. where's the all wheel drive? 22/32 mpg for the 'common model' is promising. ATS is distant, they should really bring out 8 speeds for them. If GM does indeed do something like a nice 4.8l 72 degree v8 DOHC i'd much rather see that in the ATS than a pushrod.

farrrrrrr too many "fly over state" votes to lose by doing that. that's no different then appeasing 'the other groups' however. at least the folks in the flyover states make a tangible product people need. instead of other countries doing it and holding us hostage by doing so. iowa for example, first primary state. pretty important to appease them.

exactly

i try to avoid anything with too much sugar these days and i drink all diet pop (not that that is good for you either). i've actually read articles about HFCS and things like cane sugar are really not much different chemically or in terms of how the body processes them. sugar is sugar. so i can see why they want to change the name. to be honest, they should be allowed to if they can prove that it is no more harmful than regular sugar. regarding the throwback pop, i haven't tried any but my father in law actually says he doesn't like the throwback mountain dew compared to the HFCS stuff. i put creamed honey and regular honey on my peanut butter sandwiches now when i use the trader joe's unsweetened / unsalted peanut butter. MMMMMMM. honey and PB go together like whamma lamma lamma ding dong. there isn't much point in avoiding sugar for you unless you are also going to make efforts to reduce your starch intake. IMO. avoiding salt is more important or as important is not overconsuming sugar. I need to follow my own advice more lately!