regfootball

yeah, I have still have the orignal card so there were no redemption limits.

09 SS turbo sedan. MSRP was 26,300 I think or close to it. I'll go back and look that up. I had i think 3000 cobalt rebate, 1000 GMAC rebate, and 1000 Pontiac rebate. they had a dealer discount of like 2000 I think. On top of that I had like 2800 GM card dollars. so i think i had it figured out that i would still be on the hook for like 16,500 or something like that. Which, for the SS cobalt, would be a great deal, especially considering the resale. But in my current situation, i couldn't justify the extra almost 7 grand i would have had to spend just for the turbo, and then have to strip the summer tires off it right away and put all seasons on or get snows. The extra sales tax and additional set of tires (unless i did a take off trade) would have been a net difference of like 8 grand. that started to put me up into some territory where something besides a cobalt would have made a lot more sense as a family car. And the SS lacks the armrest. My car has over 2k miles on it now. One thing i have going on right now that kinda bugs me is when decelerating in upper gears with no gas, i get a really bad gear whine. i know gears whine....but its just too audible. On aspect of the car that I am not sure is fixable, and is most definitely an NVH issue. It's odd because it cruises so quietly when the throttle is on. Especially when the cruise is set. When I trade or sell this thing to get a cruze, i am thinking i will get an automatic next time. Sticks are fun when you have a sports car or a car with power. The Cobalt has more power than most econocars. But more power and 6 gears with a better clutch and shifter would make it more fulfilling to drive. And the automatics now with six speeds and quicker shifting are lessening the gap of performance and mpg. Don't get me wrong, on say a Cobalt SS, you gotta get the stick.

IOW, an SS. 6-7 grand extra and i coulda had an SS.....FK

ah f-ck, i should have got the SS>......... i bet the SS is a hoot.........

most likely waterloo, cedar falls, or cedar rapids I am guessing.

bought it here from a dealer in Mpls but they got it via a dealer trade with one of their networked dealers in IA. I might have the info. I will go back through my email and find out.

wow. great story. i've had my onstar for a couple weeks and it does seem handy. hope i never need it 'like that'. this is the part where i gripe and say, the directions and connections are nice, but really would be fully realized with an integrated on screen nav display (which is missing in many models)

love it! HUGE CONGRATULATIONS!

awesome. i love that show. can't wait to see it.

i have the stick. i coulda got a new holdover 09 SS sedan as there was a couple available, but it woulda been 6-7 grand more. I was thinking though in order to really use the nice motor to the maximum, if it had a state of the art 6 speed it would be a good deal. Cruze gets the 6 speed, but doesn't even have the power output of the Cobalt.

29.40 culuative mpg in over 1100 miles so far. I'd say that 60% of it though with 4 people a loaded trunk....that's with about 600 pounds of stuff. it's breaking in. 600 miles this weekend loaded to the gills. lotsa power for an economy car. surprising guts on the roads. mpg drops off rapidly after 70. 55-65 mph is really the best for optimal FE. 75mpg+ they really should have had a 6th gear. A six speed auto would be perfect in this car, since high speed passing requires manual downshift, where the automatic would just kick down and gut it out. a 1.8 turbo with about 185 hp would be just about right in a car like this or the cruze mated to a six or 8 speed auto.

yeah, its more a dig at the hypocrisy of the GM engineer more than anything. I am like, 'aren't you responsible for putting out such an apparently sh1tty car'?

Blu, its a good car. I'm just pickin fun at a couple things. One, that GM's lead engineer just NOW is bringing up any self deprication on the car, conveniently when its successor (which they are promoting at a PR event) is on the horizon. Where was he 6 years ago to render that judgment? I am more picking fun at GM's dysfunction than the car itself. The Cruze is just another compact, it doesn't have much of a power advantage over the Cobalt, from what i can tell, the most quanitifiable improvements so far the Cruze has is 3 more inches of hip and shoulder room, a couple inches of rear legroom, wider wheelbase and track, and a couple more feet in the trunk. There is not much else it seems that they are doing that will make the Cruze light years beyond a Cobalt for daily driving. So in that regard i am sure it is just engineered PR theater for the top GM engineer guy to be that distraught at the cobalt when he should have known how it sized up years ago. Or maybe GM's head staff IS that clueless and doesn't even evaluate their own products before they release them?...... Two, Chevy's are nice but I still would have preferred something with a Pontiac badge. Poking fun at the notion that in order to make it a 'real Pontiac', that I would have to add some tack ons. Reality is it would be fun to have a unique car, a 'Cobalt' with the G5 grille. Reality is for me it's a bridge car, something to keep transportation cost down for awhile. If i were just driving it myself I might keep it longer term, but fairly often there will be 2,3,4 of us in the car. It's a bit small for us long term. In the meantime I am sure it will be a great car. I like a lot of things about it. It would just be fun to do some things like Pontiac it to make it unique since there are so many cobalts out there. But really so far, I am liking it. Aside from the ergonomic and comfort / covenience shortcomings..which all cars have to some degree....it really has good power for a small car.

as someone who has had to deal with a large percentage of my working 'career' in a construction related field, without work because of recessions and horse$h! economy, I guess I would offer up the notion that building a nice large wall across the entire southern border of the United States would not only be a nice obstruction to illegal immigrant entry, but it would employ lots of folks doing so in the process. We could even build sniper stations on top, in case anyone thinks they can scale the wall. Just a thought.

which leads me to Adam Sandler's quote in the Wedding Singer....."that information would have been useful to me YESTERDAY"........

NOW you are ON to something. Are you sure there isn't a Chinese model of the Cobalt that was badged a Buick? What would I call it? Skylark? Century? If i want to do the Pontiac thing though, I am going to need to seriously tack on some ribbed cladding on the sides, too. If I turned it into a Buick I would need to put baby blue leather in it.

gosh, all that work for a little EXCITEMENT?

my furnace kicking in

more random observations. still loving the steering wheel. thumbs fit nicely on the 9 and 3 spokes. the leather feels great. actually now wishing the wheel was a bit larger but really its no big deal and perfect size for a small car. ergonomics and confort convenience are the cars achilles. window switches and mirror switches are in the right spot and I love the big readable gauges (Focus can you hear me). Stalks are good too. But even with the seat up all the way, I can't get in a sweet spot on this car. Maybe that is the issue, but I have the seat up to max high and its still lower than i want. Set the way i like, the dash is too low, the armrest is too low. Most certainly the radio is in a tolerable spot but the climate control and cupholders are the backbreakers. Climate controls are too low and can be blocked by travel mugs and bottles in the cupholders. Fan switch is too small. Cupholders won't securely hold much more than a 12 oz. can reliably. No door cupholders. Parking brake is obscured by the armrest. me understanding the cobalt was inexpensive and is an older design......so its all stuff i can live with. Knowing the Cruze fixes a lot of this helps. Love the steering wheel cruise and audio controls. Cruise control in particular so much easier than the Ford units with the rocker switches. Car is definitely a good cruiser, but does indeed seem happier when the mph is closer to 60 than 70. Instant mpg confirms better at the lower speed too. Engine seems to be breaking in and getting more spunky. The ecotec is happy at any rpm range and just goes about its business. It's not thrashy. Likes rpm. Unfortunate the Cobalt never got a 6 speed auto or 6 speed manual. I would guess a refined 6 speed auto kicking down in traffic or in freeway passing when gas is applied would really make great use of the very flexible engine. Love driving a stick but admit the automatics kick down much faster when doing high speed freeway passing. The car 69'ed me .....'instant average' of 69 mpg a couple times. lotsa 99's too. Car feels much more responsive with just me in the car vs. 4 of us. No surprise, just that it is entirely noticeable and appreciated. Steering even gets some occasional life and feel / feedback once in a while. Me wonders how some 17's or 18's with some wider tires would feel on this car. The 16's still feel a bit squishy. I know, they are just Hankooks. Haven't fully tested the brakes yet. Hate seeing drums back there. I know, they are cheap. Wife likes the car. She's foiled my plan; part of the plan was to buy a car she wouldn't like to drive so i could drive it more. Bugs me that she's taken it to work all week. I guess its payback for her not driving it at all the first week. 200 miles and gas gauge is right at half. I overstuffed the tank last fill so its probably through a bit more than half a tank. Wife loves how it sips gas. Too bad part of that is offset by a little higher insurance costs. Glad I didn't get the HHR even though it would have been more useful. We have crossover fatigue. I like being in a 'car' and not another vehicle that feels taller than it does wide. A little remorse since it seems HHR rebates are more this month but still the Cobalt feels like a good purchase.

are the cobalt sedan taillights the same as the G5's? As for the front clip, is it just a grille insert or the whole bumper? The satin nickel trim and seat cloth aren't really a big deal. Getting the arrowhead on the steering wheel might be fun. Obviously the trunk badging needs to be different. Primarily I'd be interested in getting rid of the dorky front grille of the cobalt for some twin kidneys.

the CTS is a pig in terms of weight and size for the 3 series class. it also is space inefficient, length and size and weight and not much room inside. that's why it was supposed to be gaining size to go more against the 5 series. the STS was undersized, look where that got them, they lengthened it for China to compensate. Never did that here. Cadillac is confused and is trying to outthink itself. What they need to do is identify which car is competing in which segment, and identify the segments that can bring the most sales. As you even admit the smaller cars are not selling here. The A3, the 1 series. Therefore if US sales are a priority, it they want the model to be a success, then the 3 series class needs to be addressed. The current CTS is a tweener and only competes with the 3 series price wise. That might be exactly why the current version of CTS is having fits and stops of sputtering in the market. It'd be one thing if you were saying the ATS is dead aimed to succeed in Europe but the flaw there is Caddy needs to make a foothold of any kind there. This version of ATS will do nothing more than re-introduce Caddy there and hope it doesn't embarass itself. Which only outlines even more why Caddy's entries should not vary from the current winning formulas in the classes they are in. No 'tweeners'. A4 is a usable car now that its decent sized. It brings more value. No one could say they want LESS room in a 3 series. If you do, you pay the same for a just as heavy 1 series. Even Car and Driver said, the one series is a nice car, but there is no point to it when the 3 is better all around for pretty much the same money. Caddy is not going to make waves by trying to be outside the box. They have no cred to try that. The 3 series size class sells far better than the 1 series size class. It is imperative that Cadillac have a marketable car in the showroom or the expenditure on the platform is a waste. If the engineers are incompetent and can't meet the performance and weight targets for a car of the given size with the budget given then maybe there should be no engineering. Caddy's principal market is still the US and consumers are size sensitive and sales data suggests the smallest lux cars struggle here. Really the best course of action is the ATS is the 3 series / C class / A4 clone and it follows the formula. The CTS evolves and builds on its name recognition to in a few years pick up the 5 series / e class segment where the STS really should have been. THe XTS becomes caddy's barge. Same way it could work just resizing the CTS, and bringing in a right sized STS. If one thought Caddy could actually attract large sales in Europe vs the 1 series then i would say the ATS could go that route but then you are pretty much designing a car to sell 5-10,000 units a year in the US and no exec is going to want to hear that. The ATS in 3 series size can reach the sales level success of the last CTS. The CTS can move up a bit and grow the mid size market that the STS lost by taking on the 'now its a pig too' 5 series. The XTS is merely the all you can eat buffet cadillac. If a non tweener / 5 series sized CTS is great, it could even grow some volume by enticing XTS intenders to bite as well. Someday Caddy should have a true S class competitor but its hard to justify a business case for it instead of the higher volume the XTS will claim, mostly from cadillacs traditional barge loving buyers. Caddy will always have blue haired folks that will buy the largest Cadillac. If Caddy was really tyring to become a bigger force in Europe than the US, then i would say making the car a tweener size may hold merit if they could pull it off and live with low sales volume. But Caddy will not get cred for 2-3 more generations of the car/platforms no matter what they do. So in the meantime its prudent to make the car most marketable vs the main competition in the largest market they can. i think some of the confusion and discussion relates to you may be thinking coupes more. I tend to think sedans more, mainly because they sell way better. I actually liked the C230 a lot. It was a nice coupe but sedan wise 2-3 more inches of length would be nice. I am not suggesting these cars need to get too much wider, its usually back seat leg room where cars like the 3 series have suffered in the past. The 1 series is pretty snug all around. I even think the current C class is snug. The Lexus IS is pretty much unusable in the back seat.

what is involved to debadge the cobalt and turn it into a pontiac? steering wheel cover, front clip obviously. I wouldnt mess with the gauges. I really love the G5 taillights.

CTS already gets ripped for being a tweener car. the CTS is supposed to grow in size. AMericans don't like small cars, the 3 series is as small passenger wise a luxury car should go in this country and be considered marketable. If a Hyundai Elantra and Chevy Cruze can achieve midsize status in interior space, there is no reason an ATS can't at least match a current 3 in passenger accomodations. Note how badly the 1 series sells, and how it really doesn't offer any other market advantages to the 3. You don't want to handicap the ATS with those some sellability problems. Even the Lexus IS gets and takes digs for having a small interior. If the ATS has a smaller interior than the IS, then Cadillac is in real trouble. Your exec dad whose wife 'lets' him get the ATS as the second family car will still poo poo the decision if they can't get the kids in the back in a pinch. The press who needs to be your biggest advocate for this car won't be comparing it to the 1 series because the 1 series is a non factor in the market. The 1 series is sold here to add some global 1 series sales. They will be comparing it to the 3 series, which is the meat of the market. 'DeFacto differentiation' = messing with the formula. I sure hope Cadillac is not trying to outthink itself here. Also the ATS platform is to serve for other cars as well, none of which can afford to be too small either. I think the turbo 4 is the best standard mill. It's better than the 328's mill. It brings more value to the customer than the 3.0v6, while beating its principal competition. So it has the base 3 series mill beat. Then the 3.6v6 would compare favorably to the 335 mill. Then whatever ends up being the ATS-v motor, when its prudent to bring that into the equation, it probably could either be the v8 or TTv6. The turbo may have more plumbing and stuff than the 3.0, but it also has a smaller and less complex block. It only has one set of cyl heads. It has 2 less cylinders. Overall, the turbo 4 vs v6 is a wash in terms of complexity. Caddy's concern should be warranting the turbo in the even a car is sold CPO. In that case, the new SRX already has a turbo so it looks like GM is perfectly fine rolling out the turbo where they see fit.

The v6 as the only mill has no chance of giving Caddy all the FE it needs for this car and the CAFE so right there alone you've blown the 'v6 only' argument out of the water. The ATS would get no better FE than the CTS so what would even be the point of the ATS then? That, and Europe will demand a four pot gas mill anyways....for that reason alone if any the four enters the discussion. Also, principal competitors do well in the segment with a turbo 4. The turbo 4 outperforms the 3.0 in this car and gets better gas mileage. So you'd actually prefer to offer the customer who is scrutinizing every spec sheet detail vs an 800 dollar a month car payment, that a weak v6 with poor gas mileage and is outperformed by principal competition is justified? You have to immediately strike the 3.0, at least from the US market because there will be those US buyers who no matter what will want a six because of Cadillac's American history and all of that. Cadillac has a traditional customer base that will not want a four, so you will have at least one six cylinder mill on the spec sheet too. So in this case the 3.6 automatically wins because it brings more to the aforementioned customer, and to the mainstream enhanced performance customer who feels that 300+ hp is the minimum expectation in a luxury car (note the MKs has 365 hp). More power, no loss of FE, same weight, same cost to build, same reliability all that. The engineers should be able to figure out how to deal with the refinement and vibration aspects adequately in a luxury vehicle. We know the diesel is there because they want to sell this in Europe and Europe requires it. diesel would need a business case here in the US. I don't feel they have that. You must be insinuating with your 12 years comment that GM doesn't have the engineering capability to make a trustworthy turbo. I'll just say the current climate of the auto biz is requiring them to and leave it at that. I know turbos go bad a lot, so I assume its not GM's problem or failure only. SInce there will be half a million Cruzes around at some point with turbos on them, i hope for GM's sake they didn't cheap out on them. You say GM could save 200 bucks to put leather on the dash if they remove another attribute. Well, when GM typically decontents like that, or doesn't provide the market requirements in these cases, its usually been to line their own pockets more, not to return that value to the customer. You know GM still won't have the best interior because they haven't proven in the past that they will do that. If anything they take that 200 bucks saved to give the marketers more slush to play with incentives and such. The proper thing to do is address the expectation of the buyer, in this case 200 bucks on a nicer interior should not be at the cost of something else, and they can get the extra 200 bucks on the showfloor for it if they make the investment, instead of having to add another 1000 bucks of incentives to move the car because it has a cheap interior. For the record, the SRX interior is pretty good, its not top in class for details and material quality but it actually is rather competitive so we know Cadillac is moving in that direction. I realize you have knowledge that says 300hp out of a 3.0 is not possible, however I would say, yes but by 2015 will it be the expectation and will other auto companies have done it? Nissan is at what 340hp with their 3.7 v6....... lots of new technologies keep evolving at breakneck speed........ Summary, the 3.0 is suicide for the US market. Your v6 needs to be the 3.6. You have the 4 by default already due to Europe and FE reasons. In 2013 a loss leader 24k ford taurus will have a 3.6 v6, and a 40k Cadillac won't? SRX v6 should be the 3.6 too. Caddy can't deliver product attributes it needs to with only 3 litres of v6. Caddy needs to bring the goods. It has to look better than the 3 series. It has to have the best interior in the segment. It has to be lighter than its competition. Its weight distribution on the spec sheet has to be 50-51% on the RWD version (remember AWD as an option is required). The interior has to be larger and more commodious and more comfortable than the 3 and others in the segment. The engines across the board have to out spec and out muscle the Audis and Mercs and BMW's. It has to outdrive, outhandle the best. It has to exceed them all in tactile feel in steering and braking and all the touch points. It has to be quieter and feel more refined. Every attribute must be able to be proven on the spec sheet to get people to even think of breaking rank with the establishment to consider the new one. Take the lesson from Hyundai like they use on the Sonata, cheaper price, less bulk, more hp, better FE, more warranty, more styling, more interior room, more trunk space. They addressed each metric that the customer can quantify quickly vs a competitor and they determined themselves to be at or near the top with virtually everything. ATS has no rep to rely on so they must use a similar approach. Boils down to, how do you sell a car vs the 3 series, C class, G, and A4? After the BLS, Caddy will receive no mercy from the press or consumers in their attempt at this segment next time. Here is a relevant question I think. When the ATS arrives, do you offer a stick and if you do, do you remove that option from the CTS? I think you do.

the lacrosse 4 pot should have more hp/displacement or it should be the turbo.