regfootball

exactly. (don't forget its ugly cousin aztek, sans third row). maybe Buickman was on to something. the RDV may be ugly but it was well packaged. if you want to sit in a spiritual successor to the RDV's packaging, go check out a hyundai veracruz. Its almost the same thing in some ways.

great post

the virtues of a minivan are unbelievable. the issue here is the automakers have not figured out how to make them sexy. if they ever do (which is entirely possible if they just TRY) then i think the segment will rebound.

local off lease dealer i've bought from before has been getting batches of 06 and 07 sedona / entourage....most of them under 10k miles and the most recent batch of 07's they have been pricing around 15k. it kills me to consider korean pop cans but the sedona has good basic competence. At least you can manually shift the tranny and its kind of got a floor shifter. To me alone, that might be alright to be seen in one of those things. Maybe i should go test drive one again. Its been a couple years.

Is GM taking too much ill will from the markets and press and too much criticism? GM's every move is bloodied and they can't seem to do anything right in many's eyes. Yet Ford and Chrysler seem to be doing things and FOrd in particular seems to be sliding under the radar lately. Is GM taking too much of a hit? Are GM's issues WAYYYYY overblown?

minivans get better mileage than most crossovers, and they are cheaper, yet mommy isn't sexy at 36 if she drives one and no one has learned how to style one yet. to me also, vans do not have driver oriented interiors. they are like driving buses. lambdas are the best compromise so far. that said. no wonder GM has four of them. really though, reason number one. mommy can't play cougar on the side if she's driving around in a van. women are so obsessed with their sexiness even 15-20 years into marraige. they want to come off as divas and the vans don't work. don't worry, crossovers are headed to that place too. At some point, mom isn't gonna wanna be seen in that dodge journey either.

wolfsburg jettas out now are an amazing buy. sedans, but 2.0 and DSG + sunroof and nice vinyl for 22-23k. i think its even the turbo. how can one beat that?

try to squeeze another year or so out of your car now and keep it as a winter driver and then splurge on the new 010 mustang, by then i think it should have the 3.7 duratec instead of that whiny 4.0....unless you want a v8

update- VW's look good lately. A GTI, GLI, passat/wagon or jetta wolfsburg might be darkhorses or jetta wagon. Diesels may be too spendy. No Tiguan (too small a cargo area). Any Ford still is in the hunt with the Flex and Edge having the.....Edge. FUsion is off the list, but Focus might still be on. Taurus and Taurus X still on too. Only GM's at this point are HHR SS or Cobalt SS, used Saabs, and G8. Vibe maybe too. The LX chryslers might be a dark horse too, used. Not sure why but the HHR SS is standing out as a nice GM option lately. G8 would be a no brainer if AWD was optional. Forgot the Lambdas. Outlook and Traverse are big options. Can't wait to see Traverse pricing.

Bush and his bandits. 8 years of hell and destroying the lives of so many people in this country. Can't we just have the election tomorrow? Doesn't matter, the choices this time suck too. This country is so f-ked. Last 20 years of bush and clinton and reagan before that. No wonder its all a shthole now.

i've heard GTO's go through tires. not because of burnouts, just the way the suspension is set up.

and everyone wonders why farming is subsidized? if it weren't we'd outsource all our ag, too. then we'd be screwed.

in my thunderbird experience (last rwd car) buying separate snow tires and rims meant i also was able to use my OEM all seasons well beyond the 75k mark. Your gonna buy a second set of tires eventually, so why not get snows? Snows are cheaper than good all seasons anyways.

i'm sure they are only working on it if they compensated obscenely for it and it puts more notches on their resume.

again, there is just a certain group of people in this country that do not care. As long as they can get what they want and feed their mojo. If war time did break out, they'd want to grab mochas and sit in a conference room and 'brainstorm' their solutions for success in the 'global war arena'.

aura is a great car. vue is good too but they really have priced it out of the market for many who liked the old one.

ive seen a few 08 sts on the road lately and the front end changes really add presence to the car. the DI v6 makes for a hot rod. Problem is, same old dumpy interior. Where is the chinese STS interior? one example of GM's piss poor decision making. I'd enjoy an sts as my car but would be longing for something with a nicer interior.

you are not getting what i am saying. having the choice is valid. its the attitude of people, the arrogance, not even considering to give businesses of their own country a chance, especially considering they are probably making like bandits doing something that has till now not been been subject to the same level of consumer scrutiny, choice, and snobbishness. everyone here has a car and it creates a great marketplace that outisde countries can come in and set up shop and suck the money out. that's great. Cars are a very visible industry. There's a lot of other industries in this country that this could happen to but it hasn't yet because their industries are not about manufacturing where it is easy for the outsiders to use their inherent advantages to exploit our money flow. I can't wait for the day when for example, some high level marketing manager for a healthcare company has to stress out because half of what their company does is being farmed out to say, India, and the entire management team gets to pack their box and go home....because the customers decided for some reason the brochures were prettier from the other company. Even if it costs more. Or how bout a whole entire senior management for one of the nations top banks, lets say our people decided to do all their loans through first bank of Mexico. Now these are people that are adept at golden parachutes and such so they may not get screwed as they should, but my point is cars are an industry everyone is this country seems ok to dump on in the name of defending their choice but if other more lucrative jobs were getting dumped due to the same phenomenon, the uproar and bailouts would be off the charts.......

Journey - rerecorded Be Good To Yourself (w/ new singer)

because you know of endless examples of a nation of people who actually give a hoot about the health of their nations companies and industries- besides themselves?

doesn't matter to the discerning individual as long as they have a lexus in their garage.

i'm not using 100k as a factual benchmark and i don't mean FAMILY income. If two wage earners can pool 100k, that's doing good considering how effed the middle class is and how hard the two have to work to make it work. Nah, i am referring to those fortunate enough to have the dual wage earners who both make sick amounts of money and it allows them to lead the life of choice.....both work and you have money up the arse, and hence can afford to be very selfish in every aspect of your life, or the one wage earner makes enough to still allow princess mom to spend lavishly and feed her child rearing habit and still be upset because she didn't get to buy the 3k leather couch from restoration hardware. my basic beef is the wage spread in this country is WAYYYYYYYY too far apart, and as much as the upper CRUST likes to think they are immune to anything that would provoke inconvenience in their life, i think at some point that spread has to be reduced. One of two ways. The people in the toilet making more to pay 4 dollar gas, or the people who make way too much to just travel and sit in meetings and pretend importance will need their wages reduced so everyone else can stay employed and fuel the economy. there is no way anyone can logically justify why the low end folks in this country get screwed like they do in comparison. Such a shame we all can't parlay daddy's money into a private school mba just so we can drive that lexus and obsess about whether active torque split on the drive system meets our personal specs.

holy crap, the moral majority does post on here. are you gonna spank me now and take away my toys too, Jesus? I'd board the plane to Sudan to check it out now and see the po folk there, but the airlines closed down due to lack of business. It all got outsourced overseas because the execs thought they could get cheaper labor.

there are. just not all of them, much less most of them. It goes on every day. Just as the po judge the well to do, many of the well to do make tremendous sport out of judging every aspect out of those that are po. In every facet, intellect, looks, social graces, you name it. If you're not well to do, you might as well slit your wrists in some people's eyes. They don't say it outright from the mountaintops but its in the undertones of everything that goes on in this country on a day to day basis.

as an aside, i do believe people should have the choice to buy what they want, just that blind discounting of things produced by own people and not understanding how we should at least give some thought to that is my beef. If some of the overpaid folks in this country were even half mindful of how to be stewards with what they earn, then i would have no reason to bitch.