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regfootball

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Everything posted by regfootball

  1. regfootball
    not a shocker. was at the auto show last weekend here, almost no concept cars. I can't remember one really. The fact that Buick did this one is amazing. Two really old dudes with hanging guts and suspenders off the farm were standing near me by the Envision and new LaCrosse on platforms. They were commenting on how they liked the new LaCrosse. The new one is not as sporty as the current one. I surmise the oldsters liking the new LaCrosse means they are ok with somewhat sedate looking Buicks. So, it might be amazing if any of Avista's lines ever make it to any Buick's models.
  2. regfootball
    yup both rear rows fold flat. you could get a couch or a twin bed in there. EPA ratings are 18/28/22 combined. This is for FWD. A FWD 2016 v6 Equinox is rated at 17/25/20. Whether the engine is really 'new' would be interesting to find out. As in, does it have the same block, etc.
  3. regfootball
    Well, its just evident the entire industry is forced into making cracker cans. So what is large is not what it used to be. I just in this case went off the DTS as a reference point. I would have thought the CT6 would feel equal in size to that. But regardless of numbers, it feels narrower and the front seems more tight. All Cadillac really needs to do is a few simple things. Raise up the dashboards a couple inches. Make the vehicle doors a little wider (especially at the base in the rears) and bring the window heads up a bit. Get the mounting hardware up high enough off the floor in the back so you can get your feet under the front seat (for example on a Buick Encore you can get your feet under the seat quite nicely....on a 2016 Malibu Limited, you cannot). Other things, like on the ATS, the rear seat, the front edge of the rear seat actually sits quite a bit back then the floor platform below it, getting rid of a bunch of space for your leg to get in there. Then, the floor pan is shaped at an angle as it approaches the vehicle side and it doesn't place a large enough area for one to get their foot on the floor pan and under the seat before you duck your head and wedge yourself into the back (because you can't get any part of your foot under the front seats, see above). There's a sense of mockery in your post there but when ones go to these auto shows its absolutely evident about why people are flocking to crossovers etc. in no way am I the only one. Easier to get into and out of. Higher seats / fewer dashboard obstacles to move around. etc. You hear enough of the graying population making jokes about needing a newer vehicle because their hips going out and they have a hard time getting down into their sedan. This global influence and useless mandate system and such constantly pushing these higher mpgs and such is basically forcing the market to keep squeezing a mpg here and there. Perhaps if the sedan market wasn't constantly creating cars no one wants due to their lack of size and usability, they would sell better. The new Malibu was getting quite a bit of good comments at the show. People were noticing the roominess, etc. Cars can still be made in various sizes, but the effort has to be made to not do stupid stuff in the engineering and packaging. And this gets back to things like why GM is so inconsistent in this regard. They really don't give a crap it seems sometimes. I think a base 2.0 RWD CT6 will be a nice discounted buy off the showroom floor in about 15-18 months, at 15k off sticker. Might be a nice idea for someone looking at a LacRosse or Regal but wanting still a RWD large car to just tool around in.
  4. regfootball
    Hawt model let me into her van at the auto show this weekend, Chrysler had at least a half a dozen of these things on display, but just the one was open on the platform. They let a few into it in the AM and then not after that. Inside and out, looks in person as well as it does in pictures. I didn't have anything i took issue with on it at all. 100 percent execution. Looks great, the interior feels so much more airy, and the current brick of a van which i drive looks like 15 years old already, when parked close by. It's that refreshing. I think with the pricing staying put, the good mpg, the name change, and winner styling inside and out, should pump some life into the van segment and charge it up a bit for a few years to come. Change nothing that was good, and improve everything else. Model said the chassis was engineered for AWD but presently won't get it .....maybe in a couple years.....they will have to redesign the stow n go for AWD application is what was said. The v6 here is newly revised, enough to be a new engine. The output is more or less the same as before.
  5. regfootball
    The Acadia was shown at the same show as the Pacifica, at Detroit in January, and will hit dealers by May. How much longer till the Giulia comes out? The truth is, they're all all-over the map on release timelines. The only company I can think of who is good at consistently releasing at a show to showing up at dealers 4 months later is Honda. 16 Cruze (it's really just vaporware at this point), the 14 Impala, tons of GM product takes forever to hit the showroom
  6. regfootball
    My condolences, very sorry for your loss. Events like this can sometimes bring certain closures and i wish the best for you and family, gathering this week.
  7. regfootball
    yes, actually that is right regarding the ATS. The ATS is packaged poorly. No rear seat room. Tiny trunk. And its needs a new interior. Regarding the XT5, I like the new XT5. There aren't the styling or packaging issues like Cadillac has on the sedans. Cadillac has a one track mind. You can have performance, or styling, or packaging, or luxury. Can't rarely pick more than two. That is just it the packaging is the problem not the size. I expect that will be fixed with the refresh or at least improved. A lot of the short comings of Cadillac are due to the design by committee and the GM interference. Compromises were made to make those who were still the problem inside GM happy. Mark has been fighting them till he was able to pull off the money and arrival of JDN. I was taken aback when i sat in the new CT6 at the auto show the other day. The front seems cramped and restricted, and not easy ingress / egress. It's no DTS up there. The car itself is still narrow. The back seat did have leg room, but not as much as I expected, and lacked girth also. The back trim of the front seats was a deplorable deal, cheap cheap unsculpted plastic that would have seemed out of place even in a Grand Am. Again, this is no DTS...the front felt as tight as in the CTS. The windshield is in your lap and the doors and center console really narrow up your available seating space. The interior itself seemed cheap as far as the plastics and the assembly......but i will give it a temporary pass, it was the base CT6, so that's not gonna be top of the line. Cadillac wants you to spend 15-40 grand more to have something nice. But seriously a Mazda6 had a nicer interior...... It's very evident to me now why it's no flagship. 6 is about in the middle. It's a CTS with some extra rear seat legroom but a duller dash. There is plenty of room and need for Cadillac to do a better job with the potential flagships. Meanwhile, the sedan lineup is a complete alphabet soup mess. They all sit on top of each other and there's not the unique selling proposition in any of them, really. Like usual they will say they are going to fix it but years will go buy and nothing gets fixed. I think the V series are the new age Pontiacs, the GXp's or whatever. Lots of body additions, dechroming, no ribbing though. The V's do look good and do bring the attention but really the rest of the lineup should have some of that pizazz as well. Maybe the Continental will win out against the CT6, gotta wait to see a loaded CT6 before putting the knife in its back. Continentals interior looked like it had good materials in there (of course, though I am sure it was the loaded one). Friend who was with me at the auto show this weekend commented firmly about how he thought the CTS was really small inside when we were sitting in it. First thing he said, he blurted it out, and I never even egged him on to it. I told him, we ain't even tried to get in the ATS yet....... part of luxury in the car market is space and room, and Cadillac really hasn't delivered on that very well with sedans since the death of the DTS. Well, the XTS is somewhat roomy but I doubt many Cadillac and GM faithful even know the XTS exists..... It's really strange that way because the SRX is compact outside and actually very roomy and comfortable inside. I remember my selling days a few years back and we had some Merc C classes of the late 00's and early 10's and I recall them being very well packaged from an interior space standpoint.
  8. regfootball
    i think the loss of bling from the grill makes the front seem a little more pedestrian but really its not a big deal. Some will prefer the toned down look too. The big deal here is the new motor and most importantly, the new dash, the old dash is looking terribly dated. This is one of GM's very good products and it should continue to be a great seller for Buick.
  9. regfootball
    yes, actually that is right regarding the ATS. The ATS is packaged poorly. No rear seat room. Tiny trunk. And its needs a new interior. Regarding the XT5, I like the new XT5. There aren't the styling or packaging issues like Cadillac has on the sedans. Cadillac has a one track mind. You can have performance, or styling, or packaging, or luxury. Can't rarely pick more than two.
  10. regfootball
    Caddy has some styling issues to fix. ATS is a nice looking rig but its just too damned small to sell well. CTS beak is not attractive and the rest of the car lacks presence, proportioning is sort of old school too. CT6 is a larger CTS in looks, with an odd beak also. There is some awkwardness elsewhere as well. XTS is a nice looking FWD egg, but is it a real luxury car, or an appliance with a luxury grille? ATS coupe sorta has that aura of 'this is what the SECOND EVER Pontiac G6 coupe would have looked like'. The whole sweeping back headlight and vertical LED pipes on the front with the bombastic in your face grille and sculpting is not fully finessed yet and to be honest maybe it should be redone. And with these outrageous fronts we get the same bland ass lines on every Cadillac. The rear brake light spoiler thingies on the sports models are even more unluxury. I like the Caddys but cmon if they were as sexy as a Tesla Model S (yes i think they look good despite not banging Tesla) maybe they would sell. A line full of cars that only sell 20,000 a year each makes it really tough to justify each model, and the brand, doesn't it? And then this new XT5 will come out and will outsell the sedans combined. Caddy may sell 80-100k of the XT5 by itself. redoing all the sedans may not move the sales meter much, but to even fill out the showroom and remain a relevant luxury maker they desperately need to find a new design language that buyers will seek out. Either revert to Art and Science, or Elmiraj it, or farm out the styling. Buick has already sold out some of the choices going Chinese Hyundai
  11. regfootball
    The trim level pricing and content is almost exact to when we got our 15 T&C. Our equates to the Touring L plus, but the blind spot etc was an option, i see they make it standard in the Touring L. Our MSRP was 38,8 or something. So about the same. Point is I don't think they jacked up the sticker. The Caravan had lower priced trim levels, but those didn't have things like tinted rear glass, or a console in the front, or even a height adjustable drivers seat. I like that the LX has a power seat standard, that to me means it will be a base level vehicle that at least has that feature in a class where the vehicle may see drivers trading seats a lot. Value buyers don't always like the power doors. I think the Touring will be probably sell the most because of the power doors. I'm actually kind of excited to check this out when it hits the showroom. With GM they introduce a car and it comes out 15 months later. This got introduced at Christmas and it should be out soon.
  12. regfootball
    "The study revealed many Americans consider vehicle ownership to be more convenient, reliable, safer than car- and ride-sharing services." ​the lingering effects of recession dried up the well of car business for a few years, and people lost income, and new drivers probably still didn't have steady income of any kind. Why would anyone not either family or a domestic relationship share a car. Who pays for repairs, who gets to drive it, what happens if one crashes, who cleans it, etc. The highway system liberated America from having others dictate when you come and go. And where you go. Convenience. Your car is your own pod. You don't HAVE to ride with others and deal with what MIGHT happen, like getting shot etc. Reliable, as long as your car is in working order, you can go when you need. Waiting for someone else to come get you may never happen. Car sales is and always will be about people's cash flow, and the credit faucet. There are times when it is more convenient to use a public transit, that is true. But people as a whole still would prefer to have the car available to them as much as possible.
  13. regfootball
    Imagine what Mazda could do here, and it would help keep them viable. Still, it's Sergio, Tony, and Fiat, its like asking for a death wish.
  14. regfootball
    those are nice numbers. I know our current T/C can often hit 25 highway and has gotten close to 30 at times. All conditions and weather being good, getting over 20 combined will be quite nice. 22-23 for a rolling vault not bad. There's a lot of crossovers that aren't huge that can't get great mpg. Something like the 08 Saturn Vues which are not big, AWD or not, those have a rep of not getting much over 15-17. People think a smaller crossover with AWD can get better mpg than vans but that is seldom true. Just about any crossover with a v6 and especially AWD has a real tough time cracking 20 combined, real world.
  15. regfootball
    I've noticed the advertised lease payments for these lately has appeared to be low. I suppose then that is due to some good lease cash.
  16. regfootball
    Woot. Where do you get the beeg money t rent SUV's and not the 29.99 per day intermediates
  17. regfootball
    yet, when you include the sales of the chrysler vans and even the Kia Sedona, the segment is half a million strong. It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest the segment as irrelevant or niche. It's sort of irrelevant to compare the segment in 2016 vs. 1986 because crossovers didn't even exist. The primary draw for the crossovers is all wheel drive + faux truck look. Sedans like Impala used to sell a half a million a year also, now its a success if they crack say, 80,000. But we don't put the sedan segment out to pasture. As a matter of fact, the number of sedan choices out there is still mind boggling because there are so many. How about we call the whole of Cadillac irrelevant, they can barely muster to sell 1/3 of the minivan segment with their entire US line. And often their cars sit and rot on lots for one or two model years and end up as loaners to be sold at 15 grand off. Do they really deserve the resources to be kept alive? The lambda vehicles accused of being minivans are an additional 250,000 vehicles a year that sell primarily due to their large size similar to a minivan. The Chrysler products are designed to add all wheel drive in a couple years. The small and mid size crossover market is cannibalizing sedans more than anything. The lambda vehicles drew from the minivan segment when they were introduced because of their size. The splintering and proliferation of makes and models in the low to mid priced crossover segments is not coming from the minivan market. It's people moving from sedans to crossovers moreso. A lot of the younger set that finally have money to spend and buy a newer car since the recession, i've seen them buying hatchbacks exactly like the Cruze hatch.
  18. regfootball
    if Chrysler is the only company that can pull off a minivan why did Toyota sell 137,497 Siennas in 2015, and Honda sold 127,736 Odysseys.
  19. regfootball
    a sort of pointless car from the USA perspective. And who can guess how reliable it will be.
  20. regfootball
    usually there is enough of a pattern with the cloth that breaks up the death black.....Malibu didn't get that though. When i am talking tan interior, i am not talking the peanut butter brown crap that Chevy likes to for some reason peddle. I am talking the light tan seats and dash that is available on lots of other cars. Why Chevy never does tan is a complete head scratcher. Tan interiors feel less like death and more spacious and open inside. The prolonging of the current Acadia won't be for rentals or fleet. The Acadia has had virtually zero rentals, they have been selling like hot cakes still, they will just be prolonging production through the 2016 mode year to serve what the customer wants. I can't recall ever seeing a rental GMC.
  21. regfootball
    does GM listen? On another site, it shows the EOP (end of production) for the current Acadia changing from summer 2016 to December 2016......... Well, then if they do this, at least they are keeping the pipeline open for the returning lessees to get into a new one.
  22. regfootball
    when i was paying the dealer to replace my freaking headlights the other day on my cobalt, i perused the showroom and sat in a premier malibu with the gray interior. it looked as it would wear and show dirt super easily, and it turned me off on the gray. Why though can i not get a tan interior LT cloth is my question. speaking to a thread talking about the Malibu and Impala's respective territory in the Chevy showroom (on another forum site) and them being too close, i disagree. There is plenty of meat and size difference between the new Malibu and Impala now. The Impala is still noticeably larger and more comfortable, its interior has more comfort, size and detail, and the Impala has the boss looks. I already saw a ghettoed up 16 Malibu on the road the other day (wow that was fast and must prove its a good design if someone ruined one that quickly) and believe me the Malibu is a great design but the Impala still wins with the real road presence. As it should be in the size and price pecking order. chevy must have clinicked the new Malibu to death to figure out what lines to cross with size, level of luxury, and features and style vs the Impala. Because it really really come to the line, and doesn't cross. The interior is 'nice enough' but not blowing you away. Same thing with style, or size, or whatever. But its just proof how this time, they finally got it right. Really they did the opposite here with the Acadia. I'll be curious to see the interior in person next week if i can (auto show) but in pictures is looks cheap.
  23. regfootball
    now that is boss. Perfect, congrats! that's likely be the color I'd go for, too......
  24. regfootball
    ocnblu and ccap hit it on the head here. Myself i like it enough, but admit the rear is too much. Why i think its a good job for Honda, so much of all their other stuff the last x decades has been so crappy, that this to me is moving in some sort of decent direction. For Honda to do so, is significant.
  25. regfootball
    I would hope so, considering the XL7 has been out of production for over 6 years.... right, they gain one or two mpg on the curve every ten years.......WOW Now impressive to me is something like Chevy and the new Cruze. 5 mpg better combined mpg. That's an achievement. More power, less weight, more room, etc. Mazda6, the last one got crap mpg, and the new one is significantly better. Now if GM simply built a Flex like wagon thing on the new Malibu platform and got 25-27 mpg combined out of it, we'd be making progress in this world (not an unreasonable theory) (edit) on the topic of crossover mpg......cx-9 kills it http://blog.caranddriver.com/per-the-epa-2016-mazda-cx-9-three-row-is-most-efficient-non-hybrid-in-its-class/
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