smk4565

I have often said they need more product, that is the problem, but years later no new product. So what are the people i charge of the brand doing? Cadillac should have a small crossover, it could be on D2xx because at $33k with the Lexus NX, Lincoln MKC, Acura RDX, it is all front drive and those buyers don't care about drive wheels. I would add a mid-size alpha crossover and a full size Omega crossover. That gets them 4 crossovers, 2 front drive, 2 rear drive. If they want to do a crossover coupe or V-series or whatever off that they can. But at least they would have 4 model lines plus Escalade fora 5th SUV. They have to have at least 1 convertible somewhere. It is low volume, but they look good in commercials and you have to offer at least one, you can't just ignore an aspirational body style like that.

Mercedes doesn't compete in Buick territory. The cheapest Mercedes is more than the LaCrosse. The only Buick that cost more than the CLA the past 5 years was the full size SUV Enclave, and most full size SUVs are going to cost more than a compact sedan. That isn't cherry picking, that is a fact of what the prices are. If Buick wants to make the Verano base at $32k, the Regal at $40k, and the LaCrosse at $50k (yes above XTS) then they can say they compete in the Mercedes price tier. What is Buick's ATP? Like $33K? The median price for all new cars is $34k, Buick is just average.

BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, and Audi have all pulled off those numbers by moving down market into Buick territory... so if you want to include that market, merge the Buick and Cadillac numbers. If you don't want to include that market, drop the 1/2-Series, GLA/CLA/B-Class, A3 and low end lexuses. Edit: and possibly GMC Denali numbers... I have been telling him the same thing for weeks. If you are going compare all Mercedes models for sales purposes then you have include all that apply from GM, not just Cadillac. Of course, that would kill his weak argument and he wouldn't be able to continue his cherry picking campaign. GM covers these two markets with 3 brands, Mercedes covers it with one. There is a valid debate to be had over which strategy is superior, but comparing sales numbers without acknowledging these facts is dishonest. Then you have to give BMW all Mini sales, because the cheapest Mini costs the same as a Verano and the Clubman is the same price as an Encore. Mini sales aren't any good, but if you want to compare sales down to $21,000, BMW should get them too, Audi should get to add the Volkswagen CC, Tiguan and Toureg, because those are priced higher than similar Buicks. Bottom line is Cadillac is GM's luxury brand, it is the one with the task of targeting Lexus and the Germans.

BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, and Audi have all pulled off those numbers by moving down market into Buick territory... so if you want to include that market, merge the Buick and Cadillac numbers. If you don't want to include that market, drop the 1/2-Series, GLA/CLA/B-Class, A3 and low end lexuses. Edit: and possibly GMC Denali numbers... The CLA costs more than a Buick LaCrosse, and no BMW or Mercedes or Audi costs $21k like a Verano. The Germans have more up market products, say $75k and up, than the American and Japanese brands also. The Escalade and The LS460 and LX570 are it.

Tesla still has 400,000 orders for the Model 3. People are thirsty for a Tesla, the demand is off the charts high for them. The company however at some point has to turn those sales into a profit. They can't survive forever without making a profit.

If they could come up with a fully autonomous Pacifica that would be pretty sweet. You could set the computer to your destination and lay down in back and sleep overnight and arrive at your destination. That is better than first class airline travel with those bed/chair things.

Why does Cadillac only have 1 CUV? Horrible job by the product planners. Even Buick has 3 of them, and they share a showroom with a brand that only makes trucks and SUVs. Cadillac has gone from 4th place to 6th place in the past 5 years. They need crossovers fast.

I pulled the luxury sales from 2010 and 2015 to compare how much everyone has grown. Everyone is up since 2010 since the market rebounded. I ranked it based on 2015 sales volume. Mercedes had the biggest volume gain, Audi is the fastest growing, nearly doubling sales in the past 5 years. Brand 2015 sales 2010 sales Change % Change BMW 346,023 220,113 +125,910 +57.2% Lexus 344,601 229,329 +115,272 +50.2% Mercedes 343,088 216,448 +126,640 +58.5% (Sprinter not included) Audi 202,202 101,629 +100,573 +98.9% Acura 177,165 133,606 +43,449 +32.5% Cadillac 175,267 146,925 +28,342 +19.3% Infiniti 133,498 103,411 +30,087 +29.1% Lincoln 101,227 85,828 +15,399 +17.9%

I pulled the luxury sales from 2010 and 2015 to compare how much everyone has grown. Everyone is up since 2010 since the market rebounded. I ranked it based on 2015 sales volume. Mercedes had the biggest volume gain, Audi is the fastest growing, nearly doubling sales in the past 5 years. Brand 2015 sales 2010 sales Change % Change BMW 346,023 220,113 +125,910 +57.2% Lexus 344,601 229,329 +115,272 +50.2% Mercedes 343,088 216,448 +126,640 +58.5% (Sprinter not included) Audi 202,202 101,629 +100,573 +98.9% Acura 177,165 133,606 +43,449 +32.5% Cadillac 175,267 146,925 +28,342 +19.3% Infiniti 133,498 103,411 +30,087 +29.1% Lincoln 101,227 85,828 +15,399 +17.9%

I think you have to buy what you want. If an Acura TL with the Honda V6 was said to be more reliable than the 2.0T, would that make you want an Acura instead? I am guessing not, so you have to buy the car you like driving, any used car can have repair costs, or maybe the brakes and tires are 4-5 months away from being replaced, etc. There could be cost in any used car. You have to pick the car you want and just go with it.

Mercedes invented the 4-door coupe, which Audi, VW and BMW were quick to copy. Now all the mainstream sedans want to look like a 4-door coupe since that is the trand. CLS started it all in 2004. The C230 was junk, lesson learned and they got out of that and changed course. The 1963 Mercedes 600 was overly engineered, and pioneered a lot of technology. That car paved the way for a lot of what the S-class got in the 70s and 80s.

The Cadillac product planners have often missed, and when they saw the 3-series take off they did a quick fix of Cimarron and did more damage. RWD was popular for luxury cars in the late 90s, they took another shortcut with Caters and did more damage. Their decision making since the 80s has been reactionary and short sighted. It was posted on another thread that Mercedes and BMW would be screwed if they didn't have SUVs, which is true of any brand. But Mercedes has 5 SUVs. They say the market shift coming and were ready for it. Cadillac never gets out in front or dictates where the market is going or creates a new niche.

Maybe you missed the part where I said I used to tow German cars. I towed plenty of them owned by people who kept all their service up to date. Most them ended up on the lots as CPOs after their warranties were up. As long as MB offers a good warranty and maintenance program, yes people will buy them. What they do not DO, is buy a used one outside of said warranty. FACT. They are horribly unreliable for the price point and have way overpriced maintenance costs, both of which are not even debatable unless you want to continue to remain blind to it just because own a damn Benz. Oh and your asinine sales argument holds, surprise surprise, no damn water. It has WELL DISCUSSED as to why their sales are soft. More CUVs just like Benz and BMW did. DUUUUH! I wonder how effective their CPO program is (Benz)? Sending all those letters to Caddy owners has surely got to be working right? I mean it worked for Casa didn't it? I see a lot of older Mercedes on the road. So either owners keep them or someone else is buying them, because I don't think once the warranty expires at 50k miles they go to a scrap yard to be recycled and turned into soda cans. I bought one out of warranty, I love the car, it is rock solid. Cadillac only introduced the Escalade because the Navigator was a smash hit in 1998. So they took the Yukon Denali, changed the badge on the grille and called it Escalade in a 6 month rush to production. Then they saw not only the Lexus RX sell well, but the ML320 and X5, so they came up with the CTS based SRX, about 5 years after the import SUVs. At that point, after twice being late to the SUV/crossover party and having to react, you'd think they would have launched several crossovers to get ahead of the curve. But nope, didn't do that either. the SRX went on salon 2004, it is 2016 and they still have one crossover plus Escalade (which they did get right, especially by the 3rd gen). 12 years, no expansion in the fastest growing segment!

I have owned two GM cars, I had the air conditioner condenser go out on both of them around 100k mile, I had 3 different power windows break on my Aurora, I had to replace 3 engine mounts on the Aurora, and the GM dealer admitted they break all the time, because the mounts GM used were not strong enough for the torque the V8 made when the engine would lift. Under-engineered, designed with save a buck parts. If GM cars were so bullet proof in reliability they wouldn't have lost all their market share, when people left for Toyota and Honda for better reliability. Lexus went from not existing to outselling Cadillac and Lincoln in about 10 years time, that is a pretty big accomplishment, and they did it because of reliability. My car has the same engine, transmission and air suspension of the 07 S550, and between the previous owner (via the carafe report) and me, the engine powertrain repairs have been a small oil leak that was about $200 to fix and a cam shaft sensor went bad, that was about $200 as well. That is it in 90,000 miles on the engine. That engine has incredible reliability. The negative to Mercedes is it costs $425 to change the transmission fluid. To change the spark plugs and wires is about $400 for a V8. Some routine maintenance is expensive. Are U comparing a $700 Air Condenser issue with a $3000 cost of changing of the Timing Chain in the FLAGSHIP Benz? I'll add that his Benz didn't even remotely have 60K on the odo.. even worse is that when he went to trade that German PIECE OF $h! in it was worth $26K. Let me say that again.. $26K on a car that cost him almost $95K seven years prior. To your POS Benz.. my previous GM vehicles have all been 60K+ with the SUVs (previous 00 Yukon, '07 Tahoe) having upwards of 120-150K.. never an issue that cost more than $50 outside of tires. The funniest part of his post is claiming that, after a "small" oil leak and a cam shaft sensor replacement at only 90k miles on a $90K flagship Benz, he still hs the balls to call it "reliable". Sorry but my lowly 3.5L in my Magnum never needed any of that and I rolled up 127K miles on it before I had to sell it. Your excuses are becoming just outright pathetic SMK. Anything else you want to get busted on today? The oil never dripped to the ground on my car, the dealer found it inside the engine somewhere, and said it wasn't even necessary to fix, but I like everything working in proper order. My Aurora easily drank an extra 1-2 quarts of oil between oil changes since it was burning so much once it crossed 100k miles. I think that was standard operating procedure for the Northstar and Aurora 4.0 engines, I still loved both those engines, great sound and smooth, but they did burn oil, and the Aurora leaked a little bit I am sure as it got older. I really liked my Aurora, but reliability wasn't it's best strong suit, I had a lot of costly repairs, but I also had it from 26,000 miles to 151,000 miles and for 10 years. And not that I want to spend money on repairs, but since I really liked that car, I always felt like it was worth it to keep the Aurora running as I did enjoy driving it.

Every car is going to be different. Two people can buy the same car (doesn't matter which brand) and have different experiences with it. I am sure there are people that bought a Ford Fusion and put 200,000 miles on it trouble free, others that had problem after problem. It is luck of the draw to some extent. Mercedes has the best owner loyalty of any luxury brand. If they made such a terrible, unreliable car more people would leave. Mercedes posted their best annual sales in 2015, they just had their best ever April in 2016. Even if the cars are unreliable (which JD power says they are top 8 for 3 years in a row, #2 in 2014) the customers keep buying them. Yes, Mercedes has high scheduled maintenance costs, yet customers keep buying them. Cadillac was 14th, 3rd and 4th in reliability the past 3 years. One not so good year, followed up by 2 very good ones. But they aren't stealing any sales off the Germans, and Audi is a house of horrors when it comes to reliability, BMW is average. The same argument of "German cars are expensive to maintain" has been made since the 80s, but more and more people keep buying German cars. Audi is on like 50 consecutive months of sales gains. The CLA and 1-series were supposed to dilute the brand image, or repair costs would drive people away, but none of that happened. Why isn't Cadillac doing better if the Germans are so flawed? Why did Cadillac let Lexus go from zero to #1 selling luxury car in the USA in 10 years? Think of that, Cadillac was #1 selling luxury car in the USA for 55 years in a row, Lexus knocked them out from scratch in just 10, and Cadillac never recovered. I used to be a big Cadillac fan, but it is just pathetic how they let the brand deteriorate, 55 years at #1 to now being a 5 or 6th place brand and shrinking, down 28% last month.

Good thing they don't sell a GL anymore then. This was Mercedes best April ever, and they have been selling cars since 1886 when they invented cars. In 130 Aprils of selling cars, this past month surpassed them all. Quite an achievement to have a 130 year history and be at the top of your game.

Still the 5 is the oldest BMW in the line and it outsells CTS, CT6 and XTS combined. It outsells the A6 and Lexus GS350 and Infiniti Q70 combined. I don't think BMW is worried too much about the 5-series. All those other brands can only dream of hitting 4,000 sales in a month with a mid-size luxury sedan.

I think 7,000 Camaros is pretty good. Coupes are a hard sell. Granted there are only a small handful of coupes left, but you aren't ever going to see big numbers out of a coupe. Plus they did raise the price, the Camaro is in the Impala prince range. Impala sold 9,000 units as a practical sedan, 7,000 out of a coupe is decent. Young people tend not to buy sports cars like they used too, a lot go toward crossovers. So the market fir a Camaro or Mustang isn't as big as it was 20 years ago.

Alfa needs to get that 2nd model on sale, they could sell 160 cars a month if they had a sedan also.

I have owned two GM cars, I had the air conditioner condenser go out on both of them around 100k mile, I had 3 different power windows break on my Aurora, I had to replace 3 engine mounts on the Aurora, and the GM dealer admitted they break all the time, because the mounts GM used were not strong enough for the torque the V8 made when the engine would lift. Under-engineered, designed with save a buck parts. If GM cars were so bullet proof in reliability they wouldn't have lost all their market share, when people left for Toyota and Honda for better reliability. Lexus went from not existing to outselling Cadillac and Lincoln in about 10 years time, that is a pretty big accomplishment, and they did it because of reliability. My car has the same engine, transmission and air suspension of the 07 S550, and between the previous owner (via the carafe report) and me, the engine powertrain repairs have been a small oil leak that was about $200 to fix and a cam shaft sensor went bad, that was about $200 as well. That is it in 90,000 miles on the engine. That engine has incredible reliability. The negative to Mercedes is it costs $425 to change the transmission fluid. To change the spark plugs and wires is about $400 for a V8. Some routine maintenance is expensive.

To the bolded.. Who is able to spend $46K on a CTS and not spend a measly $7K on a new E350? Who are those people? U??? Are U one of those people who have a hard time figuring out if $7K is gonna fit in your budget? LOL... f@#k outta here. Its so comical its downright stupid that U try those underhanded put downs. For some people a Mercedes is too much car, or they worry what if it is expensive to maintain. When the past 3 years Mercedes has been 5th, 2nd and 8th in reliability. My mom had a client of hers looking for an SUV, she could have afforded a GLK, I suggested a certified used diesel GLK at the time since they put over 20,000 miles a year on it, and with the 4-cylinder diesel it got like 33 mpg. They bought a Nissan Rogue new instead, because they were worried a Mercedes was too nice or would have higher maintenance costs than a Nissan or Subaru. There are people who want average, and do not want the Best. I bet a lot of Lexus GS350 buyers buy the car because of Lexus's reliability, fit into the crowd styling and low ownership cost. They aren't buying it because it is better than a Mercedes, they are buying it because they never owned a German car, heard some old wives tale, and the GS350 has the same V6 their Camry had 10 years ago and it seems safe to them.

CAFE.

5th place in 2013, pretty consistently near the top. They aren't Lexus, but they are definitely better than most.

The "Mercedes have horrible reliability" is a total myth and something those that don't like foreign cars use. Foreign cars cost more to maintain is an old wives tale. There are plenty of high mileage Mercedes out there, million mile Mercedes, etc. But if Mercedes is bad, what are the 37 companies below them? They did slide in 2015, but still 8th overall, and the E-class was ranked #1 among mid-size premium sedans.

No rhyme or reason to A-class is A segment, C-class is C segment and E-class is D/E segment? Pretty straight forward. Sedan sales are down at every brand, the E-class might save their sedan sales with the new model, the growth is in the crossover line.