regfootball

durango and commander....ouch

funny their malibu got 16.3 when the half ton heavier acadias that have been tested have rubbed 20 mpg before. i suppose since chevy has a manumatic now, they just left it in 3rd gear all day at redline. MT as a publication is not even worthy for use as toilet paper in an Idaho outhouse these days. Whatever money toyota is saving by not paying Jim Press and that Debra chick and mr. Farley must be going back to Petersen publishing. hookers for Angus. I suppose the Japanese govt. owns Petersen publishing now. truth is, they only compared 4 cars and they should have compared about 12 and it all would have been very close. Maybe these 4 are the top contenders but it really is an insult to all the other good cars like the Fusion and Aura and Passat 2.0. And Legacy, Mazda6 etc. and so on. Car #1 is not at all much better than car #12. Its like being trapped in a snowstorm in a hotel room with VS models. Not a bad one of the bunch, unfair to compare. Even Tom Brady couldn't stop at one. MT is about as useless as it gets. Note that this comparo the camry magically gains a sport suspension that you likely won't find easy in the showroom and the other cars don't really have either.

you pretty much touched on everything. my prop tax has gone up 35% in two years....some of that due to a school referendum, but equally due to sheer 'the city needs the money and can find a way to do it'. since the last 18 months gas has gone up like what 70-80% electricity and natural gas gone up milk has gone up like 75 cents a gallon in a year. We prob use 4-6 gallons a week of the stuff. Meat, dairy, juice, all food has gone through the roof. my wages have gone up like 3-4%. this is the real truth here. they like to say mortgage defaults are the main problem but if people's expenses were level and they were actually getting raises, none of this mortgage mess would be happening. people's wages are not keeping up with the cost of everything else, plain and simple. they could afford the house when they got into it. So the real story is people are just not better off than when we started this mess in Jan '01. Jan '09 cannot come soon enough. -dave, a baby on the way forced us into an aztek back in 04. just sayin...LOL- there is a guy at our church who has an S class and a suburban. he is/was the CEO of a good sized company. I am pretty sure he doesn't blink at filling that suburban. even with 4 dollar gas, his suburban is like a pontiac vibe to some people. a hatchback to pick up grocery....and i know he tows with it though. our driving doesn't change much regardless of gas prices. most trips are to work. other trips are for shopping, visit relatives, etc. Trying to be conscious about saving gas only can net us maybe 5-10 savings in our usage. the socialist lefties want us to have stressed pocketbooks and be forced into changing our living patterns in the interest of keeping the man down. they want us less mobile, and more subsurvient to our jobs and their power structure. High gas prices is one way to limit our mobility and where we live, and where we drive to our jobs, and how much we travel and participate in recreation.

already had her. Not worth the wait, IMHO.....lol

from the awesome website www.melodicrock.com i have to admit, this guy seems pretty good.

i've seen two new BUs and maybe 2-3 new Saturn L....er, Accords. car sales are tight right now, so i really don't see a lot of new iron on the roads lately.

that too. to me, the focus is as small as a car should get to begin with, but i know some think ford needs an aveo fighter.

even if you take that focus at 33k with the current rate and say you are able to sell it for 23 grand, you still won't get a lot of sales. one, people (the image conscious hipsters) spending that much on a compact don't want a ford label on their car, no matter how good it is. paranoid hipsters preserving their hipness simply want a better name on their car. 2, it crosses too far over in fusion territory price wise. fusion is ford's volume seller and needs to sell in volume and at a decent price. this is pretty much ford's entire model, selling mid market vehicles in volume for accessible prices. as good as the focus SVT was they still couldn't sell any of them because the price was way too high. There is a price ceiling for a compact ford, no matter how good it is....just like there is a price ceiling for a car like the phaeton. Ford won't try to sell compact cars in price slots of the boutique compacts, like the A3 that can't even crack 10k units a year. Ford's business model requires volume and competitive pricing. They did the math and figured it was less cash (that they did not have to begin with) to reskin the US version and that they would have a better chance meeting price point and volume figures with the US model also. They also needed to save money to somewhat reskin a bunch of other models as well because they had no money for all new models. Considering Jac Nasser left the company with zero resources, you can understand it wasn't a bunch of fat old guys in a room saying, 'we're really gonna screw that Oldsmoboi guy, I think we'll teach him a lesson and keep the US version'. Also keep in mind that the diesel would have never been an option anyways. It wasn't until like this year we had clean diesel and Ford would not have invested in making any of their diesels salable here due to cost of that. Even VW had to take tdi of the market for a year.

prob easy enough to find on search engines

http://thesuperficial.com/2007/12/amy_wine...rs_the_stre.php be sure you've digested your meal before clicking on this. I'm sorry if it causes you nightmares.

and you would take it over the mazda3 VW's and all the other compacts? at a higher price..... that is the question.

you mean like the same overreaction when GM would lose a couple tenths of market share (not be down 25%) and the press is completely and totally calling the end of GM. so that's my point. If we are going to call the domestics over and done for a downturn, then lets apply it to the stir fry brands too. Of course, they can always be propped up by 0.5% 'loans' from their govt........... ---- the TL is decent enough but now needs awd to be taken seriously. the tsx was cute and scrappy but now seriously needs turbo or some power and TORQUE infusion to be taken seriously. The RL fails on so many counts at its price level and posing as a luxury car, its not even worth picking on. When Honda acquieses (sp?) to reality and builds a real luxury car on a RWD biased chassis with a V8, and some style, then they will see cred. In the meantime they should consider going after the crowd they left at the altar and turned their back on, and get an RSX or Preludish type car out pronto. And let's hope the TL comes with available AWD and the TSX can add some real power in the stable. It would be helpful if the RDX didn't drink high priced premium fuel like a suburban, too. But i can forgive that if can play dvd-audio disks in the stereo. Another thing Acura should do is take on the S2000. The S2000 is not even relevant in a honda showroom but would be a nice product in the acura stable. Acura and Honda are in real danger of getting usurped in the Asian street cred department, with the Genesis and rear drive tibby coming out soon. Hyundai is so totally gonna waste the Honda bunch. My fast and furious honda buddy who recently got the Mazdaspeed6 said he always thought he was going to get a TL and then he drove one and was not impressed. That says a lot when temple of vtec type Honda guys who bleed Honda go out and buy something else.

LOL, the man has a point here......hehe.

well that's just it. the visual appeal of the euro focus is simply not there compared to the stars in the segment....the Mazda 3, and VW products. I wouldn't call the civic any kind of star but it does sell. Same with the corolla, but nonetheless, the tangible benefits of the euro focus vs. this revised one are things that are easily identifiable by 'enthusiasts' who spend lots of time surfing the net about cars, but I don't think that in the areas where many normal customers look when car shopping, that the euro focus has any great advantage. you could say, 'sales would be up 33 percent if they brought over the euro focus'. well, i don't agree, but even if you did agree with that, it would be at the cost of a lot more dollars involved arranging for the sale of that car here.......designing the car for US application, building it here, setting up parts distribution, training, new plant, retraining staff, etc. plop a plain euro focus on a new car lot next to the current class leaders and even the euro focus is still not gonna get a look, it just looks to asian / bland. and its monroney will be higher and that's pretty much it. no sale. there is not enough to the euro focus design, especially considering its similar evolution to the 00-07 focus, to make it be adequately differentiated in the US market. Ford decided to take a breather from being the limelight for 3 years, and instead is focusing (sorry) on continuing to establish focus' quality record, and positioning it as a practical sensible moderately fun car that you can afford and will integrate into your digital lifestyle. 20 something chicks don't care about sport sedans but if you show them something that enhances their cell phone lifestyle, now you are really tapping into something. in 12-18 months other competition will have caught up to ford on the sync bit, but about then we will start to see what the next focus will be like and the new mazda 3 will be out too, funneling more $$$$ to ford for more work on the next focus. by that point the reputation of the focus nameplate should be improved, and then ford can springboard off that in a positive way when the next model does come out. Another reason it doesn't make sense to overly inflate the focus asking prices is that the focus already nips at the heels of real world transaction prices of cars like the Fusion, Malibu, G6, Mazda6, Galant. Cars that start near the 20k mark or less in some cases......that are tempting for the people who are deciding between loaded compact and mildly equipped larger car. In fact, a SV edition G6 is one of the cheapest new cars you can get (well under 20k) and a G6 in any form is a nice upgrade over a compact.

no, all the ads on tv peddling the cheap interest on all acuras were enough to suggest that acura is taking it in the shorts right now. as if 25% down doesn't explain it well enough. so called awesome MDX even, can't move it without the cheap interest. its gotta be getting killed by the CX-9. If GM were 25% down they would be shutting the doors. I wonder if Acura is close to bankruptcy.

when you have about 20 browsers open and are doing a bunch of IM, sometimes a post goes astray. oops. there's been some global warming in the house tonight. the kid tampered with the thermostat and jacked the heat up to 84 degrees, and i just found out. no wonder it was so FREAKING hot in here. and to think, i was about to switch over to the dark side and believe all the crap!!!!!!!!!!!

basically now we've established that people are willing to buy plain cheap hondas but no one is interested in the pricier ones anymore. CRV sales finally slowing a bit. good. it only deserves to sell about 1/2 as much as it does. i thought the RL was gonna take off this month.....j/k. down again. hardly news. SHAWD. basically any honda 'luxury' car or SUV is getting its ass handed to it in the market now. must explain all the cheap honda and acura promos now. like cheap leases and 2.9 on acuras. i think the real signs of the economy are starting to show up. the good 'commodity cars' are still selling. in any other segment you better be near the top of the list in terms of total package, or you will simply get frozen out of the mix because there is not much business to go around and times are not good. clearly the pilot is getting its ass handed to it, like it should be. and it don't think it will neccessarily recover when the new model comes out. Honda needs a true luxury flagship for Acura and also right about now could stand to have an RSX in the showroom. The TL and TSX are getting spanked. The RL is less relevant than the 9-5 even.

I like the HHR. wouldn't buy one, but its really a cobalt wagon, and in that vein is just fine.

i was just reading the new C/D. they had a piece in there. Lexus average buyer is SIXTY ONE years old.

that cheap plastic junk on the accord shifter area is the same stuff that was on the dash of my 95 tbird. Hey, it looked cool, oh like 15 years ago.

you mean those people who have never touched the hood of the Euro Focus, much less driven one or wrote the check for one? Or looked at how bland / asian looking the mass market version of one is? Or had to build the business case for it or identify the resources to set it up and design it for manufacture here amidst huge product development and resource cuts. and union contracts. Jaguar, barely breathing. Lincoln and Mercury? Not dead yet.

taurus = no ads, but i've heard that in some places the taurus x has increased sales a lot and is outselling the taurus. yes, chrysler has myGig now and their electronics are good also. and Chrysler has had bluetooth on many models for awhile. I think Ford is the first one to kind of market it as an all in one deal, which is why the success. To me, voice commanding an Ipod and phone is the biggest deal. GM is way behind (except for CTS) in bluetooth and USB and hard drives. Although I think you can add Ipod control to GM stuff. I don't know why Ford isn't advertising the Taurus. Maybe they will never promote it. They are running about 4 grand off list right now. Or more. You can stumble into a leather equipped AWD Taurus for well under 30k. I guess the styling is really killing it. IF they can get people into it for a drive, i think they could sell more. Oh well. Edge is eating into Taurus and Explorer sales too.

wow, and some people without foresight thought sync wouldn't make a difference. ..............WRONGO those that think that the technology and gadget aspect factoring into a car purchase wasn't a big deal are mistaken. It's not all about hardware (like engines and handling) anymore. The convenience of the electronic lifestyle and gadget integration is coming to the forefront of important things for more and more people. So much, that they may settle for a Ford instead of something else. Or, it gains the exposure for the Ford they have been missing and people get to genuinely like the vehicle too. lesson. Horsepower, handling, style, safety, etc....all still important and must not have weak effort. But electronics is quickly becoming a leading factor in closing the deal and can get buyers to put the other attributes down the list.

if i hear 'best ever' ever again, i will puke.