regfootball

saturncollection.com may pick up some cheap travel mugs and a t shirt or two.

Kia Venga photos

i would have seriously expected a 30% or higher take rate on the manual. maybe with sales going down to sustainable levels, and now that the old ladies that hang out at the donut shops have bought them, maybe more of the serious Fit fans will push that manual take rate back up. but if you think of manual cars in general, 15% is actually a very good take rate compared to what i thought i heard, 6% in the open market. call me crazy, but pushing a steering wheel button is not a complete replacement for a shifter and clutch.

as much as it seems i am trashing the fit, i'm not. but i agree on the automatic. the gearbox is quite good on the Fit, why wouldn anyone want an automatic? it just seems to me that the Fit albeit a good car, is oversensationalized. kind of like the prius. it has one trick. in honda's case, two. the fit handles well. and it has a larger than you would expect cargo area that is flexible with magic seats. i don't think either of those two traits should make it such a starlet in the market. most of the cargo area is if you fold the rear seat bottom up. if you compare accessible height, width, and depth of the cargo area of the fit to other hatches or small wagons, with the rear seat up, the advantage is not really there. as far as the car handling well, yes it does, however, there are other compacts and cars in that price range that are almost or really close to as nimble, and offer more solidity and refinement. So that is my beef with the car. Not that the car is bad, its not. I just don't think its a completely well rounded package. I'd love the Fit if it were 2-3 grand cheaper. Once you start looking at horsepower, noise, interior, styling, solidity, build quality, space, you generally can find a more well rounded machine for the same money. That's why the Civic exists though. If they stuffed a Civic motor in the FIt, the mpg would prob not go down much. Give it a six speed, put some sound deadener in the car. Give it a decent dashboard (there's not much they can do about the styling at this point) and then I think it starts to be something that can be more than a narrowly focused vehicle. I am kind of waiting to see how Kia's Fit clone turns out, if they sell it here, and how cheap it is and how it performs.

was near your neck this past weekend. its wet up there! BISON sure are sucking ass this year, aren't they?

thats a skewed analysis. the mazda3 sales will include speed which skews the number. also i am comparing the 2.0 mazda3 to the fit. the 2.5 mazda3 will again have higher transaction prices, but will also have a lot of options that the fit doesnt, like leather. leather is prob a frequent option on the 2.5. also i am guessing the automatic is a much higher take rate on the 2.5 the take rate of the 2.0 manual on the mazda3 will more closely approximate the take rate on the fit. the 2.0's real world mpg will be closer to the fit and will not be skewed by the 2.5 automatics and speed turbos either. i don't always trust fuel economy.gov as their sample rate is never that large. even if the fit scores 33-35 mpg, the 2.0 mazda will score at least 30 mpg, and chances are the mazda3 will be cheaper to insure than an 'H' car, offsetting the marginal different in fuel economy. i think most folks if a gun was to their head would get the mazda3, even if it cost slightly more. mazda 3 25/33 mpg. fit 27/33 not much diff. only thing 2.0 not avail on the HB. at least you don't get the loud cabin with the 3. almost 18 grand for a car with only 117 hp? sounds like a rip off to me. can't even use the H excuse on that one. If honda gets 18k for a Fit routinely then they should be offering a 150hp version on one of its models. yes, i know, it still won't have torque even if they did that.

i've driven a couple of the recent vintage Vues. they are nice. the 4 cyl has more pep than you'd think, and the 6 has guts. they both handle well for a crossover. the dash is laid out intelligently and i love the simple radio and CC and big vents. the vue is kind of an odd tweener thing though. its heavy like a wider edge, but not quite as roomy inside or have as much cargo. its more luxurious than a rav4 but can't match the mpg. to me crossovers are still evolving. the new terrain makes so much more sense to me than the Vue, and the Vue was a big upgrade over the previous equinox. now that i have had time to accept GM's downsizing, i don't really mourn the loss of this Vue too much, since I would probably get a terrain over this or hold out for an Edge with 2011 upgrades including possible 4 cyl ecoboost. i realized too that even though saturns buying experience was above par, their pricing strategies had gotten way out of hand. even moderately equipped vues were priced highway robbery. overall, anyone looking at a Vue I think is better served by an Outback on one end and an Edge on the other. or equinox / terrain if they stay GM.

i would guess most Fits sell OTD for 17k. at that price, i am not buying. i would move up to a compact that is more solid in return i give maybe 3,4 mpg. or something used. conversely, the Fit interior is annoying despite its function. It drives nicely, but so does a basic VW Golf. I would guess most Versas sell OTD in the 14 range on average. So these are not directly comparable. A mazda3 2.0 starts looking good with my 17 grand instead of the Fit. Real world i don't see much difference mpg wise and the 3 will be as enjoyable for nearly all buyers. Even if the mazda3 ends up a grand higher its more of a substantial car. The real fools are the Yaris buyers. Most folks shopping appliances will move up to say, an Elantra. In fact, the Elantra touring is nice upgrade over the Fit. You lose some of the sprite character, but the Elantra touring would probably be a better car for most of the people who seem drawn to the Fit and Hondas in general (i.e. old ladies, retiring baby boomers, women who insist on shopping only based upon what consumer reports tells them). What i am saying, the majority of the public doesn't recognize or appreciate the handling differences the Fit has to offer, but will quickly notice things like the cabin noise, not comfortable ride, cheap fabric and plastic, video game dash, lack of power and torque, thin sheet metal and such. For those that like the Fit's virtues, thats fine. I am saying the Fit's virtue set is non as permeable with shoppers as people who are blinded by the H would think. If this car had anything besides a Honda badge on it, it wouldn't sell 1/2 or 1/3 what it does.

i don't think toyotas loyalty is rock solid. for example, i think lots of toyo fans would be fine buying hyundais, subarus or other japanese makes. honda fans are definitely more loyal. time to go read my 2010 VW brochures and off to bed. Golf, Jetta, CC, GTI!

every time i say how could one look at a mustang (because the camaro is so hot), then i do again what i did yesterday (sit in a loaded mustang) and think to myself, 'holy crap this mustang is nice inside and its not such a huge car'. gotta admit, i like the mustang too! i like the challenger too! this is like having to choose one passed out girl at a kegger. can't wait to see how the mustang v6 performs with the new engine next year. really like the new interior. perfect character for the mustang.

yeah but it has a big H (the original H) on the car somewhere which gives it lifetime gold cred.

better yet, lets add camaro and mustang sales and compare those to genesis coupe sales.

no the reference was to other posters long ago who suggested the genesis was a better car than the g8 and would sell like hotcakes. also a reference to all the gen coupe vs camaro threads not started or posted by you, but it was an opportunity to bring those comparisons up again

sonata fleet numbers have got to be even higher. i might even suggest 40-50%. camry and accord lock the retail sales. malibu and altima and mazda6 sell well also. fusion too. hyundai sells mostly elantras retail.

sienna is novacaine. odyseey drives well but is noisy inside and you feel too much pavement. which IMO are issues on a large road trip vehicle. routan actually is a good van. top end model, go driv eone. quest to me is a nice middle ground between the novacaine sienna and the echo chamber odyssey. plus its distinct. can't say the odyssey is a bad product, just for me, if i was trying to ride cross country comfortably, the comparative harshness and loudness inside would be unacceptable.

101 jeep compass!

was just checking

go transit connect

thought the fit was down 51%

it was ECO boost

47 Amantis! 653 Kia Rondos! those will all end up being sold at poquetauto.com once they serve their duty at hertz.

Sentra is indeed $h!ty but the Versa cannibalizes it. People are ok with $h!ty since the Versa sells well too. Look at those Quest sales numbers. How can they even justify production with it so small? Same thing applies with so many models out there. Thing is, I like the Quest as a van.

i was actually going to comment on that as well. for a brand 'that everyone wants', it seems like its only on track for what, 50k units? like the beetle, the fad dies off, what are you left with. hence the 'variations'. Clubman is a 'wtf' kind of car, the Crossman is a question nobody asked. The coupe i think is fine. What is next, a Mini'van'?

genesis is a better car than G8, gen coupe better than camaro? but then add g8 + camaro sales and even with pontiacs demise, who sold a LOT more

a used dealer broker i have bouht cars from in the past, typically holds an inventory of about 250 cars or so. Mostly they try to sell import luxury cars. Lately, you go on their website, every week under new arrivals, a whole new batch of Sonata rental returns. Unsold Rondos too. At least 15 or 20 a week, at super low dumping prices. That is indeed how Hyundai keeps their factories moving, fleet dumping.