regfootball

cadillac will combine 'near DTS' comfort with 3 series capabilities. its what will distinguish caddy and set it apart from 'just a 3 series' or 'just an audi' re: big ass moonroofs, i admire that they all think customers want them, and some do, but please also offer just the regular sized moonroof. On the edge, for example, I cannot get a plain SE or SEL with a regular sunroof. you gotta have the huge thing. I don't like the big ones because they let way too much sun in the car. the sunshades never are completely light blocking and are often flimsy. your interior will go toast fast and driving with sun rays in my face is not desired. i'd also rather prefer that the BAMR's get proven for awhile before I ante up for one. The SRX had one of my favorite interiors this year at the auto show. so i know the CTS's will be good too. i liked the last gen 3 series interior a lot but the new 3 series and other BMW's have interior deficiencies. i am sure the CTS will stand out in relation to the economy car interior in the new 3 series. interestingly enough, i saw a new c class on the road the other day. i had been warming up to them in pictures after initial 'no'. well, seeing them live re affirms my 'NO' big time. they look like econocars, a deliberate effort to dumb down the looks of the merc so the twentysomethings with their first paycheck will be attracted to them. they do not give off any sort of vibe about them that says 'expensive car' because they want to attract the image conscious young pups who might have money in the future, they just don't have any real wealth now. they look more like riced up lancers with merc badges on them for people who want to move up from japanese to german but don't really have anything on the personal balance sheet. they just now finally can get credit and still have enough money leftover for 4 different kinds of 'axe' in their shower. the CTS will NOT have to take a backseat to the new Merc in the style dept.

my folks 81 electra diesel had a blueish interior. and i miss it. i think the injection of color into auto interiors is a place where GM can lead the market in the near future.

http://autos.msn.com/advice/article.aspx?contentid=4024974 it's time we get a national standard for emissions etc. and fine and withhold federal highway money from states that enact their own standards.it's bad enough we are legislating diesels out of our country because of them, but now we care creating a whole legion of cars you can't buy or drive all across the usa. that is wrong and it costs everyone far too much money. we need to make a law saying cars can be sold and driven in all 50 states, to protect resale values and owner investments. this is bull$h!. no special emmissions laws for anyone. or, slap a 5,000 clean air tax per car on any car sold in states with special emmissions standards that go upon epa/federal or any car that is for sale in only those 8 states, and make those funds go to developing a national infrastructure of electricity recharge and hydrogen/alternate fuels refueling stations.

boyzilian. the flowbee might actually feel nice on the laddies.

that is the most telling of all. toyo humpers will argue, what is the user rating after 12 years and 326,000 miles? as if- to me, the car has 5 years to prove itself. anyone who expects a car to function as new without repair from year 5 or so on is being unrealistic. where camry fails is in year one! domestics typically get extremely high user ratings. the press seems to ignore that however, as if to suggest real people don't matter. edge 8.3/9.0 MKz 8.0/9.7

wow. ok, to catch up. there are a few reasons sky is outselling solstice. 1- sky is more chiseled and that is in vogue right now. when the solstice was conceived, it had a more curvaceous form that was in vogue. things changed between the concept and release of the production version. the solstice looked dated coming out of the gate. 2- many would consider the sky interior to be nicer. it has the tall center stack look that is envogue. the solstice has the curved wrapround look that again was cool awhile ago. 3-most of saturn's dealers are in metro areas. Metro areas have more money and folks with money are attracted to unique products like convertibles.....people with small pontiac dealers in the heartland have no money for frivolous things like convertibles. 4-pontiac dealers gouged with the solstice first coming out. look at how that destroyed the gto. 5-most of the reviews of kappa when new were the solstice. so most of the denegrating comments for kappa were towards the pontiac. sky received a media pass on the negatives 6-pontiac's image problem is very real. the g8 and alpha pontiac will fix it over time but GM is way too slow with changes. Vibe and torrent should go, but then chevy could not make up for those sales losses. GM simply does not invest enough resources in getting new product here continuously and they trip over themselves doing it. As good as their new products are, I would grade them as an F in terms of getting new product to market for all their new brands. Nissan turned their ship around in about 3 years with no resources. GM turned maybe 15% of their model lines around in the same period of time. Of course, GM has the union in the way, but by this point they need to decide to either bust the union or simply build all their cars overseas. pontiac's recent image in the public is still grand am and front drive grand prix, so that will take a long time to repair. if i were pontiac i would nix the vibe and torrent. build for heavy focus on g8, with many permutations, including AWD and wagon. an alpha G6 with similar skill set, and AWD would be nice. where folks might disagree with me is that pontiac should have a fwd car. i have read that in addition to the alpha, pontiac will get an epsilon 2 sedan. i think this is a good idea. i would make it the entry sedan, maybe call it grand am, not g6. make the alpha g6. make the eps 2 the value / volume pontiac so the dealers can keep the door open but not cheese on it. the G6 and G8 will have special names and be the specialized hardware. then, i would fix the solstice flaws. NVH. interior. add a retractable hardtop coupe maybe. fix the convertible top mechanism to leave real trunk space. GTO should be here at G8 launch. maybe we do need a firebird too, who knows. Beyond that, Pontiac might need a credible compact to go up against the Evo, etc. a crossover in the vein of the cx-7 would be nice. the torrent is not quite that. i would bet the new yorkers have a problem with CA claiming to be the center of the universe. everyone else outside of those two birthplaces of Jesus CHrist would argue that both NY/east coast and LA/west coast is pretty irrelevant in terms of anything else besides self-effacing behavior. CA/west coast has managed to create their own little microeconomics that allow them to function so that a BMW 3 series is a bread and butter car. that's all fine and good. there are lots of big jobs out there and they managed to create the environment to get those. but lots of stuff is far too expensive, so it really makes the benefit of having all those 'premier' jobs not worth much. I was able to visit orange county recently and really i can't say I got enough about the area other than too many fat and old women trying to look like they are 20 and fashionable and as a whole, the whole part i visited felt like a big never ending shopping mall parking lot / development. there really did not seem to be any downtown epicenter of culture that had vibrancy to it. CA may be the center of hipness and income but its also likely closer than anyone else to pending financial and social collpase, in addition to the fact that CA is a far more legislated state than anywhere else. I know i walked through the condos my co. was building out there for like 2 mill and I am thinking.....2 million with most of the scenery being bare mountains and naked rooftop on buildings below. certainly not a lavish interior. Not a lot for your money..haha, ok by me. funds the corporate coffers, folks overpaying. BUt you can see why a BMW 3 seems like a good value then. its an economy car by many's defintions out there.

try waxing, blu. LOL

to be announced wednesday per espn toyota is like the bar skank at closing that hangs on anyone in effort to have someone take them home.....

nah, drive it. then post your mpg and tell those prius drivers that get less mpg to GFT.

watchin the game right now.....damn, michigan is not playing that badly. this app st. team, though, the QB, he's a player. whoa. arm, speed, quickness. dude is throwing some frickin bullets. the plays they are running hit the line quick and do not give the michigan d line enough time to penetrate and mess up the plays even. app st. has their crap together and look very well coached for an opener.

BOF hardtop pillarless coupe

its kind of neat to see a fellow 1-AA team do this. my alma matter was ranked like 4th in 1AA last year but could not do the playoffs because of probationary period moving up from D2. But App st. is a great D1aa team, its fun to see them kick michigan. everyone hates michigan wolverines......except those that go there. same with the cornhuskers and notre dame.

lots of $h! flying around here but the bottom line is the turd isn't selling at all what they want, until toyota gashes the price. so it is only selling on price, which is exactly what domestic cars get lambasted for. its not the product that is driving desire to rush in and buy one, supposedly like all the other toyota products. toyota has the ability to cut prices to the bone, because they cannot screw up their investment in the plant and they want to buy market share. it is clear they have made the decision, customer be damned, resale will take a backseat to market share and keeping production going. SOund familiar? It is clear the Turd is not a desirable vehicle. C/D would have to give it a zero in the 'gotta have it category' judging by the price gashing. Makes sense, you're not gonna pony up top dollar for something that is not class leading, for something that is not as safe, gives hints to being flimsy in spots, has a history of self destructing motors, and has no design appeal. The economy ain't getting any hope till Jan 09 so this may be a long rocky road for GM and Ford because Toyota has all that interest free money from the BOJ and plenty of currency manipulation to do between now and then to entrench themselves to go as low as they want with pricing and they won't give a damn if you already bought one so far. Last I checked, any car or truck was a bad investment.....cars are an EXPENSE....althought the myth of toyota as an unbreakable investment may come back to bite them in the ass on this one if too many motors sludge up or if the camshafts keep separating internally and sending scrapnel through the firewall, or if we see extraordinarily high injury counts from people in accidents who could have had better crash protection in stead of a compromised unboxed frame that saved the toyota company a couple dollars. As for the FJ, with a little luck, the failing frames will be exposed and make people start to think twice about toyota being perfect. I think only MN bridges seem to fail more than FJ cruisers lately....... the other funny thing is how many used turds i see on online listings and in the paper. i think some are buying them and finding out quickly they made a crucial mistake.

BIG TEN network is replaying it tonight at midnight and tomorrow as well. i have a high school classmate who is a prof at app st. and she said she's been getting lot's of congrats on the email today.......

this is so cool!!!!!!!!!!! this pretty much F's Michigan's season from the get go!!!!!!!!! how the hell will any of those players be able to hold their head up now for the rest of the season? time to pack it in, i think. what a season opening B--CHSLAP!!!!!!!!!

Michigan loses 34-32 to APPALACHAIN ST>!!!!!!!! SAWEET!!!!!!!!!!

might as well get a boyzilian too?

huge discounts will ruin their resale. so they are sacrificing resale for market share. if this were GM folks would rip them. does toyota get a pass for this? reliability has already taken a major hit......exploding engines. from a company with a big history of poor engineering (engine sludge). why does it make sense to buy a tundra? resale-no reliability-no styling-no interior-gosh no unless you like the feel of trash cans and want bad dreams at night price-maybe with rebates, but it was clearly to high to begin with safety-no, they can't even make 5 star dealer network-no reputation-brand, maybe, pickups, no performance, the engine and tranny are documented to be decent performance wise. add all this up and you pretty much have to be foolish to plunk down the big bucks on a questionable product like this. at least with chevy and ford you are getting product and value that has been proven for many years. buy a new turd and you are taking a BIG chance. I would not risk using a turd for medium duty considering how weak suspensions are on toyotas passenger cars. it's your money. I'd suggest you read the broken FJ cruiser frame thread and then tell me you want to buy a toyota for a tough duty application.

can you say pwned? lol why ask for new car fever when you could have some dance fever, denny terrio style?

i got like 3 car mags today. they had a big time writeup in C/D on the accord. or MT? anyways, there is one angle the car looks alright from, kind of a kitty corner top side view where you see some interesting shaping from the cowl rear. kind of an x-type + bmw look that's not bad. but then look at the side profile and the car is not good. the hood is too low where it meets the windshield. the windshield rake is too upright. too much overhang. the front and rear of the car still look bad. bland, bad. interior is more swoopy and tried to copy the Germans but comes off as less mainstream and less upscale than the current one. too boy racerish almost. Not as expensive looking. no 6 speed auto? no manual shift mode? even with all that, it looks nicer than a camry but that's not saying much. the article i read said accord buyers average 50 years old. holy crap....fossils! no wonder honda is trying to rice up the car in styling and bring in younger buyers. yet, at the same time it is making the car have more room, more of a floater. still will sell i guess. as far as sttyling, honda just thought of imitating a BMW look and that would get the BMW wannabees who do not have money for the real thing. Honda has done this for years, the copy styling bit. Look at the original SHadow and stuff. Try to copy a hog.

sticker on a focus? they have been selling for 4500 off list here. 145 sticker for 10 grand.

'bi-xenons'. FU CK me. No one cares, especially on a mainstream car, and i would prefer they be be straight rather than bi anyways. Nav? you gotta be a dumbass to pay more than like 400 bucks for NAV. Fine by me if you wanna pump money into someone's pockets for a toy, but NAV's in stores now are like 300 bucks. You are getting no value out of factory NAV, if its offered. If you gotta have it, make sure you bring your bottle of lube. Why not save the finance guy's time and just tell them up front you are going to get 'paint sealant' and scotchguard too, while you are at it. Here IS what rocks. Autolamp. Remote Start (especially the new fob from GM where you can manage the vehicle's internal climate remotely). Heated Seats. I would imagine keyless / pushbutton start would rock. Memory seats. Autoclimate temp is nice and some folks its a must. Rainsense wipers are starting to catch on. I would like to see remote fob control of sunroof and convertible tops, or tops and windows that raise themselves if rain arrives. I still have found no one who can point me to a more useful in car system than Ford sync in mainstream cars for electronic devices and OnStar has real safety and security features no one else can touch in any segment for driver safety. How long is it gonna be before xenons or HID is outlawed anyways? On lux cars, I see the need. But not on cheap cars like this.

if i recall on some website that posts real world mpg from users, the aura hybrid got notably better mpg than the buff books did. imagine if the BU had an available 4 cyl turbo diesel with stick or dsg. now THAT, my friends, would be SAWEET.

i was in the honda dealer abut 6 weeks ago test driving an odyssey. the whole place smelled of estrogen though

my diamantes had auto headlights but i don't recall many other asian cars having them. all my fords have them. usually its an extra cost option in a package, point is i still get them. they are usually standard on GM. why you would get a car without is bizarre. one of the best features on a car and why i lean to Gm or ford most of the time. does accord have remote start for cold winters? E85? direct injection? can onstar unlock your accord's doors? where is the sync system like ford sync with voice activated music selection? the full size car bit is interesting. while it crosses the 100 cf barrier, i'm sure when i compare the interior of this thing to my 500, it will lack room and still feel like a claustrophobic midsize car. i suspect somewhere they are cheating to make that 100 ft. barrier. i don't envision it feeling that more spacious than the cramped 07 accord. where is the 5/100 powertrain warranty?