regfootball

the plastics are not top grade that's for sure, but at the same time they are all nice enough, they are not completely nasty like some of the mid 90's buicks and pontiacs. it's the layout of the dash that is appealing. The contrasts in colors and textures makes it stand out. the door panels are a lot more comfortable and lavish then typical for small inexpensive cars. it's a totally comfortable car. There is not a surface that was neglected to make it at least fit in with the design. The door panels are nicer than my 500, for example.

update. REALLY liking the interior layout and amenities.....nice armrests, perfect cupholders, center stack controls, wide seats, and the radio display and controls atop the dash is brilliant. Best feature of the car. CAr is fairly quiet, rides over the bumps nicely without thumps, very agreeable handling and stuff. Steering feel is a little dead. Wish i had wider / stiffer tires and more roll stiffness. Overall, as a commuter car, this does a lot of things well. The Astra is a better driving car, as I have tested it. Astra is definitely more fun, but does not have the nice center stack and cupholder / armrests that the Focus has. From what i understand the 09 gets rear headrests and stability control. As an aside, my neighbor who does work for Dodge promotions, and who also works for a place that is an auto supplier or engineer, his wife's vehicle (SX4) is also getting its damage fixed and he is stuck with a Cobalt rental. He said the Cobalt sucks big time, especially compared to the SX4, and this is a guy who gets to drive a lot of stuff.

you can't get lettuce wraps for appetizers for 40 bucks. grrrrrr..........

sorry, my math is a two car scenario. maybe your scenario does not apply. when i get fked at the gas pump....its by a factor of two so you can understand why i might be pissed about it. my tandem puts on around 33k per year actually. 2 years ago, we were on a 40k per year pace. so your scenario of a below average 12k a year for one car is not as dreadful, but its not that common either. i know tons of people who for various reasons were racking up a combined 40k miles a year. besides, your 600 a year, factor back in the taxes you paid to arrive at 600 net on the paycheck, its closer to 1000 bucks of your wage that went for extra. In my case, 2400 is somewhere between 3000-3500 bucks gross income that is lost. So when the bossman says, congrats son, here's your 3 percent raise....and your spouse loses work and has to take a 20 percent pay cut because the economy is in the crapper......gas is the insult to injury. actually my raise at work was 7 percent this year but my company average was 3.5% and many did not get a raise. but getting a raise is actually a slap in the face if all it does is go to offset the increased gas cost. really, it reduces life to one big freaking joke. it's easy to simplify the extra gas cost and say its incremental but truth is its hardly anything most working folks consider 'incremental' when the monthly assault snowballs to everything else in your budget.

no, silly. but they should build the wagon and send it over. i see no reason that police forces and taxis wouldnt be able to generate 50k a year sales if it were done through a direct marketing campaign. get cops in the cars and start taking orders when we find out how much they like it. sell the coppies as a chevy tho

so, in Jan i had to bring in my car to get some body damage fixed from an accident. had an 08 focus loaner. fast forward to today. i dropped my car off for a couple weeks to get hail damage fixed. so again, i get an 08 Focus loaner. Cheeky little car. I am sure blu is jealous. Driving the small car is an adjustment all the time but this Focus is a nice little commuter. I had test drove an Astra XR recently and that car was a blast. It is indeed a better driving car than the Focus. HOWEVER. I TOTALLY am liking the focus from an interior amenities and convenience standpoint. Enough that it tips the scales in its favor for me.....I think. Everything is laid out nicely. The best part is the center stack. The radio display is at the top of the dash, it's pure genius. The new climate controls and radio controls are brilliant. Logical, fun to look at, and very inventive. The folder / track 4 sided button is awesome. The location of it is high and easily reachable. Mine doesnt have sync but to imagine that is amazing. This also lacks SWAC which i was missing terribly. Everything else is perfection......the window swtiches, vent locations, armrests (including a PERFECT center one.....take that ASTRA), 2 count em 2 perfectly located CUPHOLDERS (astra are you listening) and a deep storage bin under the armrest. Even the little nook at the base of the center stack is PERFECT. The seats are nice and wide and supportive, if lacking a bit in shape in the backrest. The cloth is perfect. I got a tan interior this time and its very attractive and all the textures are neat, the black was dreadful. Trunk, spacious. Back seat supportive and spacious. Lots of interior amenities that are as well done on many other small cars. No weirdness. Just extremely user friendly and a bit luxurious for a small commuter car. Although i was missing badly a second wiper stalk on the right side. The car itself drives average, of course. The engine is pretty smooth at low revs...booms a bit at full throttle. Its not a buzzer, though. Cabin noise is not much for a small car on the right pavement. Mine is undertired. SOme beefy wheels and wider tires would work. Steering has been toned down from previous focus, buts its still ok. The steering wheel is nice. The suspension is decent on bumps but rolls a bit in turns. The tranny needs to kick down better sometimes but overall its rather smart. A six speed auto would be nice. I would take a 5/6 speed manual myself. I could use 40 more hp but the car actually does move out nicely for a small car once you get on the gas. It's actually faster off the line than my 500. Mostly, it drives quite well and feels capable and comfortable and composed. It drives well enough so that you say, hey nice car. So its a little crapbox but has lots of nice touches now for the everyday driver it did not have before. So much my wife suggested she would possibly be fine drivng one to work some days. For me what it is is an appreciation of all thought put into the cabin amenities. Perfect layout, thoughtful touches, unique design, clever controls. A nice inexpensive cheeky little commuter. I think its why its sales have been on the uptick. Computer showed an average mpg over 31 mpg. Its not the Euro focus but i think it makes commuting interesting and useful. I know somehting like a rabbit drives much better, but may not be as inexpensive nor have as good as gas mileage. I'm gonna have to try a 5 speed now and see if i like it, just for kicks.

funniest thing i've seen in like FOREVER! LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!

i'd simply settle for this......upgrade the 3.6 with DI and a real transmission ( an actual refined 6 speed automatic) or I would even prefer a 3.6DI/manual 6 speed combo. having driven it, the base powertrain is not refined enough.......and i don't want the v8 if the v6 is fine. bottom line, this car is a standout visually and performance wise and GM is doing nothing with it. GM should offer police and cab versions of this car. i bet demand would explode and then chevy could get a version to sell that to.

i know, how does one choose?

so many things wrong with this bull$h! its not even funny but look where its coming from. no need to explain it, after you take that into account.

even though some folks may only be spending another 100 bucks per car per month for gas, its a disproportionate increase vs. other expenses and especially vs. everyone's stagnant wages. that is why folks get their shorts in a bind. also, 100/mo/car = 2400 bucks that is better spent on luxury items or debt reduction, etc. 2400 pissed away with nothing to show. flipside, to get obsessed with small cars for a little savings in gas? If you lose 10k on your SUV to save 1 grand a year in case, that's reactionary but typical of the mindset of clueless f-k Americans these days. Same folks who only look at toyotas because that's what CR said. I look at it this way, if my fleet goes from 20mpg to 30mpg.....at 30,000 miles, I am going from using 1500 gallons down to 1000 gallons, saving 500 gallons. but more importantly, I save 500x4 dollars = 2,000 dollars in that equation. Do I care? Well, for one, I don't stroke my ego by overspending in my car payments by several thousand a year, to drive a snobby import rig vs my basic domestics. And my insurance on my larger 'fuel suckers' is less than it would be in say, a civic or a jetta. Possibly to the tune between my two cars as much as 500-1000 bucks a year. And I am not paying 80 bucks for a dumb oil change like the VW owners do. By now you've grasped that i don't really give a FF if I am putting out more CO2 or burning more gas and that I am only concerned mostly with my pocketbook. I am like most Americans in that regard. I am not buying a Prius with its high envirnmental impact and deadly electric almost unrecyclable battery, either. Remember the H3 has less envirnmental impact than a Prius. Also keep in mind a 25,000 dollar Prius is a nice gesture, but a 15,000 Versa will save you lots more money. It's pretty irresponsible to spend 10 grand more for a car that is functionally about the same. You could spend that 10 grand on education for your kid or donate it to cancer or autism research for example. And you'd be doing society a far greater service than just to merely say 'oh, i hump the green environment because i put out 23% less CO2" when that money could go to CHANGE SOMEONE'S LIVES (and you'd still get a helluva tax break). So why then do I bitch at 4 dollar gas? Well, the 2k a year in gas is equal to 3k (pretax) a year in increased wages after tax. And since that is the amount of raise most folks in the US are happy to get these days, we don't want to see our raises wiped out entirely for freaking gas. Especially when your variable rate loans shot up and your property taxes shot up and food and electric and gas bills do also. All those expenses have gone up 25-50% in the last 4 years of BUSH so to add a 200% gas price increase on top of that is salt on the wound. No one wants their 4% wage increase to be offset by yearly 10-25% increases in all their expenses. No wonder our economy is in the crapper. So what is your threshold of pain? Are you willing to give up your large car to drive a $h!box which repeatedly time and time again we have proved Americans will drive as large as their pocketbook allows? No one drives a small car out of want...(almost no one). There are some darn good small cars out there for commuting, but all too often we ask our cars to do more for the big bucks we spend on payment and insurance. People are simply reactionary right now because of the uncertainty and this desire to have to show off being green but the cycle will come around again and at some point the population will say 'fk this green bull$h!, i just want to drive comfortable and for a reasonable amount of $$$$$$'. They don't even care if their car is efficient. It's just that we work all day and don't want to see what little financial progress WE try to make for OURSELVES get pissed away into the hands of oil barons, exxon, cheney's inner circle, or wall street and futures speculators. I would suggest to all the ego driven snobs that maybe a better solution would have been to not buy the outrageously expensive SUV's and imports they have been. Just like you can say no one needs an SUV, no one needs to spend 50,000 on a car when they can have a pretty sweet car for 25,000-30,000. So if 4 dollar gas has you crying because you can't drive your LEXUS or AUDI anymore, than i have zero sympathy for you in the first place. That nice lexus ES camry you NEEDED could have easily been replaced with something more responsible.

a dark gray g8 drove by me today and it was so good i just about wept. man that is a good looking car. WOW.

exit 69, big beaver road?

saturn has a solid lineup and a great dealer experience and NOBODY KNOWS. finally inspected a FLEX today. kind of makes the lambdas seem ancient in styling. lambdas are still the best package as far as 3 rows for people and cargo. but man, i was skeptical on the Flex and i gotta tell ya, it really is a game changer and is polarizing. It's probably gonna kill any serious intention i had of pricing the lambda for myself.

i just test drove an outlook today. i'm not sure how it hurts saturn. or gm. i don't want the buick. i might like the acadia but its usually higher priced and i love the saturn dealership experience (i prefer the aura to the malibu btw). the chevy would be nice but i like the saturn dealers. most chevy dealers i shop at suck and none of them are gonna give up their $h!ty franchises. and where will the folks in the rural areas who only have chevy dealers get their lambdas? The traverse will absolutely boom in those areas. leaving chevy out of the mix means no lambdas for a lot of the less populated areas. saturn only has like 500 dealers, they prob sell a lot of outlooks per dealer. someone compare outlooks sold at each saturn place vs. acadias. bottom line, if the segment and while the segment is doing well, its ok to multibrand a chassis. and the outlook is likely a bridge product as i mentioned before. you all have to remember that when chevy introduced the tahoe and short wb yukon the suv segment boomed and gm benefitted big time from the multibrand multimodel model. likewise with when the trailblazer/envoy debuted. we never give GM credit for that, do we? when they redid the gmt900's it was a natural to continue all those successful products. and they did continue to sell well. an unpredicted gas price swing and total assbang of the economy meant that makers with smaller cheaper vehicles benfitted. This was GM's fault. they did not anticipate that swing. this is what they should be criticized for. and that's purely management. it has nothing to do with brands. if GM's management had more small cars spread across more of the brands it would actually benefit them. personally my favorite is for them to sell all GM brands in a brand superstore under one roof (then maybe you could eliminate one brand) but until the dealer group is willing to give without getting blown to give up their union like franchise bit, then i still maintain that shuttering brands is likely too spendy. maybe GM needs to do bankruptcy or get a huge investor infusion to buy off all the bloodsuckers. like the union, when this is done, that will be the only road to progress. by the way the outlook drives beautifully. i also scoped out a new pilot today. man is that thing crap. but they will lineup with their magazines in hand. because someone told them so. if the rick came to me and said 'get rid of 2 lambdas' i would keep the GMC and chevy. i would get a new sportier slightly smaller outlook in the vein of the CX9 and the enclave would be reformed into something more akin to the veracruz/rx/rendezxous. i think if GM gets rid of brands, what you might see is more the merging of BPG into the chevy channel. that might be doable if that's what you wanted to do. then chevy doesnt have to only sell low priced trailer park junk. that way you could get rid of GMC even but you'd have to upgrade chevy products. then buick and pontiac could have fewer models and there would be less crossover (i.e you wouldnt need a g5). might not be a bad plan. then cadillac is separate, so is saturn. Saturn could absorb opel and saab models in that scenario and there are so few saturn dealers to begin with in limited regions only already. saturns existing dealer netowrk is not the old time old school bloodsuckers like the ones that have held on for decades.

a guy i work with just bought a pathfinder. yuck. a relative has one too. jesuus, the grand cherokee is a much nicer ride than that crap pathfinder. yet, its imported so people line up. the xterra at least has no luxury pretensions and is a great off roady concept. the pathfinder is garbage. IMO.

x2, blu.

pops is right. the quality of the press is so bad. read all the car reviews and its painfully obvious. they are all trying for their unique angle to attack something, but they all say the same thing. they dont research anything and often they only drive it a few miles. in the end the article has little to no substance. which is what angers me. the public needs to stop asking 'what's the best car' and simply ask 'what's the best car for ME'? get your fat asses off the couch and go test drive and price these things! instead, we rely on $h! houses like The Truth About Cars to inform the masses. Thank You. Motor Trend and Edmunds are supposed industry leaders and they display some of the worst writing I've seen yet. Our local paper, the venomous liberal editorialist had spewed some diatribe the other day. Bus ridership is up here now with high gas and stuff. Cool. But the metro transit said it has to raise fares to help pay for the fuel cost increases. Keep in mind the buses are pretty well subsidized and not in any way self sufficient. But this liberal ass had the gall to say we need to keep fares the same! mainly because the bus is so important to the poor and all that. Tax the cars more but not let people drive like they want........So let's just subsizidize it even more! Fock! People make the press out to be experts and truth is they are not even close. One pubic hairs width above the mendoza line is all they are.

every day i find more and more of those people and i wonder how the hell i am going to work around all those asses.

apparently it was the inspiration for those holden utes lol love it tho!!!!!!

real world numbers i have investigated are all over the map with the lambdas. sometimes not great in town, often very high numbers on the highway. one person i work with gets great mpg......better than the pilot owners i know.

wow this better not become prevalent.

i still think the outlook was or is a bridge product. stuff a large crossover in saturn's showroom to makeover their model line, while the Ion and old Vue were in demise. I don't think they expected it to be a central point of the lineup or more than 15% of their needed volume, but they needed it to fill in with aura, sky, and the lower volume astra. then, when the chevy comes out, which turns out to be 2 years later, replace the outlook with a new one that is different, maybe smaller, etc. At the time the lambdas came out chevy still had their hat in the 7 passenger trailblazer and likely did not foresee large 3 row CUV volumes. Now they do. My own feeling is Lambdas could be GMC and chevy and optional saturn redone as a euro (give it a fastback like the CX-9 and opelize the interior). I think the buick should be packaged more like the RX or veracruz....or old rendezvoux. The escalade now i can see moving to lambda for mileage reasons, as long as they can really differentiate it. I am most curious as to how the new SRX turns out, actually. I doubt it will drive as well as the current one, but the package will look much better and be more female friendly. outlook = think odyssey in reverse. honda brought over a small odyssey to fit the placeholder in their lineup and then the next generation got it ideal (although they upsized it). i think the outlook is the same thing, the current one is just a placeholder, but something more appropriately sized and flavored will arrive just as the traverse ramps up. that will end up being 3-4 years. which if you think about it is at least 100k sales they took in. i dont have a problem with that. the current astra is a just a placeholder too.

agree 100%. as an aside, read auto extremists rant for this week (similar sentiment and spot on).

just ot let you know, Chrysler has the most rippable product line of ANYONE out there today. At least GM has award winning products and some very top tier entries as well (ZR1, CTSv, lambdas, g8, malibu). You really cannot point to any one product in chrysler's portfolio at all and not want to go drink in deep deep sorrow. The journey is about the best and it came in last in C/D's recent comparo. I like the LX's myself, just so you know. GM is like gold compared to chrysler right now.