regfootball

i tend to agree with that, but let me say this. i've driven the 09 forester, it's a piece of sh1t. The Vue is a far better drive. all the hype about the forester is that, hype. Its tinny and cheap and doesn't even have a v6 option. its tippy on the turns. its not only me either, go read user reviews on edmunds etc. that forester isn't even gonna get you real great mpg either. open your mind and go try a vue and forester yourself and get back to me. if that doesn't work then go drive an edge and escape. the 09 escape i have driven twice, the 4 cylinder and six are both smooth and powerful and they ride so much better than the forester its not even funny. if you want a vehicle that will last, get the ford.

glad to hear he is breathing better now. here a wish for a good recovery. threaten to put his but in a kids harness and car seat if he still decides to not wear a seat belt.....

AWD does hurt mpg. if i bought a vue hybrid 4 or 6 i think i would lean FWD. a lambda hybrid should indeed come with AWD since its bigger and people expect AWD on bigger SUV's. cute utes don't have as much of a take rate for AWD. AWD or FWD as a decision really is tied to gas prices. Literally 2 months ago when we bought the taurus x, gas was close to 4 bucks i think. I recall thinking giving up the AWD for a few more MPG would be nice. Now, with winter coming on and gas at 2.30 a gallon, i have no issues paying for more gallons to have better winter traction.

criticism of no AWD is legitimate. on the 6. i dont think 4 cylinder CUV's really benefit much this size from AWD. CTS hybrid? i dont think that's needed. show me where the Lexus of the world have received net positive benefit from having hybrids. The LS took a beating in the press for having poor mpg and performance with all sorts of weight penalty. saab, not even sure about that. saab has other product issues that require work prior to expanding them into hybrids. Lambdas? again, the dual mode was developed so one day it goes into the Lambdas. The Tahoe hybrid came first, the Vue got the 3.6 dual mode so a Lambda hybrid would not clash in the showroom with the similarly priced Tahoe. The Vue might be heavy, but drive one and you get it. It feels rock solid on the road. It doesn't feel flimsy as does the forester and rav4. No one with a 4 cylinder CUV is getting much benefit, as real world mpg with AWD and 4 seldom eclispses 23-25 mpg. 2004 86,957 2005 91,972 2006 88,581 2007 84,767 sales sumbers for each model year of the vue. in today's segmented market, that's not bad. its perfectly right to bring out the hybrid technologies in saturns signature model. You lambast GM for not putting the hybrid in the large lambda but you're probably also contradicting yourself by now saying that the full size trucks shouldn't have gotten hybrids. those who say 'its pointless to put them in an expensive full size truck' still applies because the lambdas are pretty much close to the tahoe in size and weight. Hmmm, maybe GM thought that here........it's ok for the critics to suggest it, but maybe GM was just saying, for now one large hybrid is enough. In order to amortize the cost of the hybrids that the japanese government didn't pay for, they needed to put it in higher priced models, that's why they don't have a prius. The latest Vue's failure in the market is threefold, one, all GM's MSRP's are too high, two the styling has been rejected, three is complete lack of any marketing for the saturn brand, and i'll throw in four....mass hysteria about the Vue's weight. If the Vue had come out when gas was 2.25, no one would have bitched about the curb weight. I'd challenge anyone with 28 thousand bucks to go shop a CRv and a Vue XR and i bet if they test drove them both 90% of the people would recognize the Vue is the superior machine in terms of driving dynamics.

although, ask anyone who owned a previous gen jetta, if it had electrical problems, or if it could even maintain combustion

faggish? how bout just dashing. i thoughts fags were smokes.

well there you go. build vehicles that break down, but that the metrosexuals like, and you are IN.

any nation that wants to remain strong against any adversary must be able to make their own war tools and also be able to provide people's basic needs within their own boundaries as well. Don't think for one second that there isn't some other country out there waiting for us to incapacitate ourselves in this way. Same thing goes for technology and medical. We need to have the ability to provide food and supplies, mobility, technology and communication, and medical, all ourselves, in case the sht comes down. And other countries are strategically trying over time to erode our ability to do this. Part of the way they do this is to weaken our economic capacity to do this ourselves. did it ever occur to anyone that part of the reason we buy oil overseas is so we don't use our own, so we have it in case we need it?

its not like we would be bailing out incompetents. On some aspects, yes. But look at how successful GM and Ford's products are elsewhere and how much of their sales occur globally. I would maintain even from a global trade balance scenario alone doing a bailout justifies this action. We have 2 major players in the world auto market, in terms of US presence in the global arena in a broad sense, and not just cars....we need to do this. You could even argue that its our own internals laws and policies that keep these companies from being successful here when they can be so successful abroad. That alone suggests our system here may be the problem. Doing a bailout may just be righting the ship here, so to speak. PCS can remind us how much of GM's total business is done outside the US. If we endorse GM going down, then you as a country are saying, 'I do not want a US company to represent us in the global economy'.

BTW, GM ford etc are worth so little partially because of wall street conspiracy to short sell and drive down stock prices, to eliminate the wealth of the middle class, and to extort payoff money from the taxpayer. GM and Ford etc. they see as future profit potential, that once the market turns around, they can make a killing by being able to buy it rock bottom. If GM's stock were worth 20 bucks a share, their market cap would be much more. Right now their market cap is artifically low vs. what they really bring to the table.

everyone else is already doing it, Japan is the best at it already. Maybe the US needs to do it, just to keep pace. y'all realize our agriculture is heavily subsidized here......with part of the express purpose of strategy, to ensure we have the basic ability to make our own food and not become dependent on another society to do so. If we went to war, but got all our food from elsewhere, and then had to suffer a complete cut off of food supply, we would be in a weakened position and could be taken over. Now cars, it can viewed as a luxury, but people, part of what makes us a strong nation is our mobility. Since we all need to be mobile, we need cars. I would maintain its in our national interest to have the capacity to design and manufacture vehicles ourselves. We let GM and Chrysler go down, you might as well call us strategically weakened on that standpoint as well.

yeah, but so many Americans seem to be fine with. I hope they enjoy flipping burgers and cleaning toilets cause that's all we'll be doing here in the not too distant future. At least 99% of us.

what's NAV?

i get a kick out of you saying I'm racist. I'm just reporting the daily driving report. All those liberal architecture student's thoughts must be bleeding into your head now............I'll laugh every time daily I see an LX car with bling wheels or dubs, tinted windows, gawdawful striping, 'billet grilles' and chrome pillars, or hues so bright it would burn the sun itself. and that is even after i drive by denny hecker dodge every day which is by where i drop off my kid. all the rich guys feeling inadequate about their penis size (and who use to work in the financial industry) already turned in or traded in their 300's. The status seekers are avoiding the LX cars like the plague, just as women always have. When the fashion conscious and status seekers and women abandon a car manufacturer and they haven't chased it down with anything new.......looks like chickens are coming home to roost. CRV's are cute and safe and tidy and unfortunately that is what rules the market these days. Polarizing will get you a splash in the press, for a bit. Chrysler as a brand may be damaged for a decade or more because of their move to gangsta car design. Calibre, Avenger, etc. We're almost a decade removed from the 300M, latter intrepids, etc. that the public embraced so much.

hey, that riviera had a TOUCH SCREEN DASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the market in terms of volume when the 300's etc came out was large enough to support the segment of the market that liked this polarizing design. a polarizing desgin with limited appeal will capture the lovers right away. and then, die just as fast. after the 'fad' wears away, what are you left with? You do make great points about the quality of the interior and ergonomics issues drving people away. in the case of these cars, its absolutely correct. so if your point is ultimately that people will buy great design, yes, that's true. but, does chrysler want to be niche? they put all their eggs in one design basket. The rapper / bling crowd and redneck crowd seems to like them still, but as i said, that's exactly why it turns off the mainstream. there are what, 20,000% more buyers of mainstream looking vehicles? CRV's, accords, camrys. Women love them. Men with little testosterone like em. But ya know, that's who buys cars and who has money in this country. Like disco, the 300 aesthetic died hard and fast, but it was great while it lasted. Any company that must sell products in a fashion arena must conform to some level of fad, but if you even use your saturn example, they sell half a million astras over the pond, so design clearly is not at fault there. And yet that is perfectly mainstream. You are correct about Ford badly needing a design injection. I hope it does not compromise their recent quality rep.

factor in rebates and discounts and there is a definite price advantage. however, all of GM's MSRP's are way too high. altima is not 50 state BTW. you cannot find a base optioned escape hybrid and other escape hybrids on the market have dealer markups. expect to pay 33-35k. two years ago you could find an escape hybrid with discounts. personally i think its ok GM limits the output of the first gen BAS cars since they are working on BAS2.

chevy seriously should certify these things for import ASAP, at least get a first year run of them over on the boat as a show of commitment to new fuel efficient and stylish models here.

ok by me. we gave wall street how many billion and it doesn't benefit the average mortgage holder. this is a pittance in comparison. this seems like a good faith act to me from GM and Chrysler. Folks, this may be the only option. Both GM and Chrylser are subject to failure and absorption by foreign companies if this or something like it does not occur. Not only this, but Ford and GM are strong in the global arena. We need to have this presence in the global automotive arena. We're a player, if we don't do this, it severely weakens GME and I think it will weaken ford as well. this isn't about product. GM is getting the product out. maybe not totally fast enough, but honestly, now you understand why we have been seeing so many press releases about killing old models, and the new Cruzes and Volts and such in the pipeline. If your average toyota owner protests, then that's their own problem. I want to find out who they work for, so I can lobby their leaders to send their corporate offices overseas. I want to find out which products they create, so i can buy something else. Folks, if we don't retain ownership of the cars we buy and service here, you might as well kiss this thing goodbye. If GM and Chrysler go down, then you can bet its not far off until those workers at the import plants here get job cuts and wage cuts and over time, plants shuttered. All your cars will be built in Asia and India and shipped over. There is no incentive for Import brands to keep as large a presence as they do here, once our own US owned companies fall.

Korea and US companies. Makes sense with global manufacture, GMDAT, and US locations.

Holy crap you are a crab ass. THE BAS 4 cylinder was developed concurrently with the epsilon sedans. it was added to the vue to help amortize the cost of the BAS. The Lambadas will eventually get the dual mode tech to amortize that as well. You can't limit that tech to ONE model. The Vue is Saturn's feature product. If you go back the last few years, its their best selling model most likely. When these products were developed, it was with the premise that CUV's would be a booming segment, and Saturn would be the image brand to do that. BAS1 is the first step. BAS2 is the second step which will arrive soon. If you compare the purchase price and mpg of the Vue BAS to the Escape hybrid, you see it has tangible advantages and disadvantages. One thing it does do, it allows hybrid tech at a cheaper price. For 09 with the revisions made recently, this farily good sized CUV should get a person 30 mpg in normal driving. unheard of for a solid, good handling vehicle with cargo space. As far as the dual mode, its a two pronged approach. introduce the dual mode in a lesser price vehicle so sticker shock (see Tahoe) does not factor in with the lambadas. Sell the Vue dual mode for the same price as the escape hybrid. It should get near the equal mileage and have big functional advantages and performance advantages. Note: the escape hybrid is a pretty damn nice piece itself. PERHAPS the part you are coming up sniffing fumes on is that to develop the 3.6/dual mode sysmte, they need to amortize its use over several vehicles and MAYBE the Vue was chosen first because its probably one of the largest volume vehicles they were considering it in. ALSO, if you note the TOWING CAPACITY (something they maybe felt would be a marketing advantage in this segment) for the Vue will be quite good and part of the dual mode's sell is that its superior for towing because of its DUAL MODE 30 mpg and hot rod performance from a CUV that can tow the snot better than some larger vehicles and is priced less than the SLOWER RDX (which uses twice as much fuel). HMMMMMMMMMMMMM the reason the accord v6 hybrid was a waste, its performance was no better than competitions non hybird v6, and it was not a desirable vehicle for much else other than as an appliance. its price did not justify its advantages. in other words, a typical honda. go beyond the LCD and you move on from the big ugly H. a 4 cylinder vue as escape hybrid prices would not sell. a BAS 4 popper at 5-10 grand less with 93% the mpg will. the 6 cylinder is introed on the vue and then other vehicles to spread it across the line. the vue was the best chance for them to kick off this powertrain and showcase the TOWING ABILITY. by the way, the reg vue 4 cylinders after break in are seeing close to the same mpg real world as the slow as sh-t CRV.

people, the 4 cyl vue hybrid is a value offering, BAS+ and low price = 30 mpg = great buy the dual mode was developed with the 3.6 and 6 cylinder, don't you recall, this may go into other cars with the same powertrain (i.e. lambdas) where they need to utilize its touring prowess.

a buddy of mine come to think of it had a bitchin 442, i think 75 vintage, but maybe 76. i have to check that out. it had the real fast back roof and sculpted rear fender and triangular window. my century coupe had the opera windows i think, vinyl roof, and 6 slot grille. i think his 442 had swivel buckets. swivel and go! GM had it first! who doesn't have the dash design of the 77 cutlass embedded in their brain?

silly boy. GM isn't financing anyone right now. Now, get in your Aveo and go like mad!!!!!!!!

v6, odd firing 3.8 litre v6! actually, the f-er was smooth on the highway and had great mpg and to me, it was a very tractable usable engine, even if it lacked balls. the car was very good in snow because the front end was so light. regarding the amount of room under the hood. no lie. the family cat used to sleep in the engine bay. one day, unbeknownst to me, i embarked on a trip and said pussy was under the hood. about a half mile from home i heard a loud noise and felt an aweful bump, much as if hitting a massive tree branch. I quickly glanced in the rear view mirror as the car shuddered a bit, and all i saw was Sylvester 'bouncing' across the pavement behind the car. i went back to try to find pussy in the ditch, but to no avail. best part of the story, we though pussy was dead. a few weeks later, sly returned to the farmstead. a bit of his tail and head fur was chopped off. His movement was not at all graceful.....and my God cats can give mean glances but i never got an evil staredown like i did when he sauntered past me on his homecoming. I am surprised he didn't jump me in the middle of the night. I might have a pic of the car somewhere