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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    I bet his other car is an Equinox LT with a Corvette LT1 engine.
  2. smk4565
    Sort of a boring car, the interior looks pretty nice though. The 3.8 V6 is underwhelming, but we may not get that engine here. Turbo V6 and V8 are good engine choices, but that V8 could use a power bump, especially for a heavy car. Overall I think it is nice, but not exciting, and why buy this over a more established luxury brand. Not enough wow factor to steal sales.
  3. smk4565
    Interesting as you have totally also described MB and BMW with all their crazy cross over of models and packages. So based on this, Cadillac has nailed the German Driving Machine of Luxury. BMW and Mercedes don't put 3 sedans in the same segment. There is overlap with the 6-series gran coupe and 7-series, but the closest Mercedes comes is E-class and CLS, but one is a sedan, one is coupe-look, and the CLS was V8 only until a couple years ago. BMW has too many 4-door coupe and SUV coupes that aren't really any different than the main product, but that is like having an ATS sedan, coupe, wagon, convertible. It is multiple body styles of one product which makes sense. The German way is take one platform and build several models on it. Cadillac has Alpha, Epsilon, and Omega sedans all in the $50-60k segment and 1 crossover on a different chassis. They are sedan heavy in a crossover market, and they don't have convertibles, or sports cars or the low volume halo models that most luxury brands have. Hard to build an imagine without the hottest body style or an attention grabber product. If not for the Escalade Cadillac would be dead right now, and luckily for them gas prices are the lowest since 2007 right now, so they can still sell those.
  4. smk4565
    But the XTS is still here like 3 more model years. So there is still an overlap problem for a while, and the XTS has a base V6, the other 2 do not. It is just weird how they planned their sedans. But at any rate, a challenge for Cadillac (and other luxury makers) is to get people to buy sedans. Cadillac makes a good handling, fun to drive sedan, yet no one buys it. And GM, Ford Toyota, etc are selling $40-50,000 crossovers and SUVs. The average new car price is like $34k. So people are out there spending money on vehicles, Cadillac has to convince more people to look at and ATS, or CTS. I don't think it is as simple as try to steal sales from the German sedan buyers, I think they have to get people to think why pay $45k on some Ford or Chevy crossover when they can get a Cadillac instead. Some how they need to make sedans cool again, because the crossover is killing the sedan.
  5. smk4565
    The CTS pricing is bizarre, and combine that with the overlap of CT6 plus overlap with XTS. XTS and CT6 have a lot of price overlap too. So Cadillac has 3 sedans all overlapping in some regard, in a crossover heavy market. Product planning is not a quick fix, they can't pull 2 more crossovers out of thin air for 2017 model year. However they can sort out options, trim packages and pricing on their sedans. I think if they want to be a performance brand they could make the 3.6 V6 base on the CTS and CT6, at least then a $47 CTS has a 335 hp V6 base so there is some performance value there. Make the turbo V6s mid-level, and you can change the content on trim levels to separate the cars more.
  6. smk4565
    Would make more sense if Equinox and Envision were small segment and Terrain was mid-size along with mid-size XT5. The Equinox is like a foot longer than an Ford Escape, and the small SUV segment is really hot and were a lot of female buyers are going. The Equinox and Envision should be the footprint of a Cruze, but at Malibu and Regal money. Then Terrain and a possible Blazer would be mid-size vs the Highlander, Edge, Sante Fe type crossovers, and Lambdas as full size. And if there was no Blazer at least the Terrain would be sized differently than the Equinox and Envision so there would be less overlap.
  7. smk4565
  8. smk4565
    I don't think the GX is too expensive, I just think it sucks. It is body on frame, has a 4.6 liter V8 making a whopping 301 hp, and gets 15/20 mpg. I didn't even realize how bad it was until I looked up some of the specs on it. 5,128 lbs, and it is only 192 inches long which is about the size of a GLE. The 3rd row looks like 2 fold away chairs you'd have kids sit in on the beach. And can I say again a 4.6 liter V8 making 301 horsepower!!! That is 1998 level stuff. I am not saying there is anything wrong with buying American. But from the Toyota/Lexus point of view, if you have a customer that wants something bigger (or more expensive or more luxurious) than the RX350, Lexus doesn't have it. The GX and LX are dinosaurs, the LS sedan is a dinosaur. Obviously a lot of RX buyers buy another RX, but the ones that don't are going to leave the Lexus brand most likely. Poor strategy on Lexus's part.
  9. smk4565
    Pontiac Aztek.
  10. smk4565
    Mercedes makes no bland crossovers. Ford and Honda do that.
  11. smk4565
    Probably a preview of the Cadillac XT3 once they can get a North American factory to start making these. They can swap out some sheet metal and the grille, throw in CUE. Then GM can get 4 crossovers on this platform.
  12. smk4565
    Maybe the i5 should be a bland looking crossover. They will sell 100,000 per year.
  13. smk4565
    2008 Mercedes E550, the dealer changes the oil with Mobil 1 0W-40. My car has a 13,000 mile oil change interval or once per year, I drive about 8,000 miles a year and change it once per year. I let them do it because the car take 9.5 quarts of oil. By the time I buy and 10 quarts of oil and filter I'd be in it for $100. They charge like $130 to change the oil.
  14. smk4565
    Well based on photos, I like the design and layout of the S90 interior more than what is in a lot of other luxury cars.
  15. smk4565
    Pricing will be interesting. If this thing is high 40s base and like $65k for the hybrid, do people really want to pay $65k for a Volvo sedan?
  16. smk4565
    Looks like an uglier version of the BMW i3. I don't get why if you have an electric car and don't have the styling limitations of arranging the shape of the car around the engine, do these designers still come up with ugly cars. The Model S is the only good looking electric car on the market, no wonder none of them sell.
  17. smk4565
    I think the S90 interior is better than any Acura or Lincoln or even the CTS. And the horsepower to fuel economy ratio if you want to call it that is pretty good from their new turbo and supercharged 4. But it is still a front drive car, hard to go head to head with the E-class and 5-series with that is all I am saying. I think they made good products with the XC90 and S90, but you have to sell them to recoup those investment dollars. I think the XC90 has a better chance because crossover buyers don't care about performance or drivetrain. And the XC90 has a 400 hp engine option, which is more than what Lexus, Cadillac, Acura, or Infiniti will put in a crossover, so they can actually win on performance for the few crossover buyers that do want that.
  18. smk4565
    But doesn't the Audi A6 come with FWD as standard (on the 2.0T in the U.S. and many more options in Europe)? It seems to be doing ok. A6 sells about 1,500 cars a month here. Not really setting the US market on fire. It sells huge in China though. So if Volvo hopes to take a bite out of Audi China sales maybe they can do that.
  19. smk4565
    Overall the outside looks pretty good, I really like the front end, but not a fan of the A7-like C pillar or the tail lights. I really like the interior though. That color combo is good, I like the metal trim, the bowers and wilkins speaker covers, the big nav screen. Excellent job on the inside. The new Volvo engines make good power for being small displacement, the fuel economy should be pretty good too. But I assume this is fwd, hard to compete with the E-class and 5-series with that.
  20. smk4565
    What is funny is when brands want to bring back old names, in this case Aviator, Continental, Bronco, and Ranger. But why did they dump all those products in the first place? If Continental was such a good name why did they kill the name for MKZ and MKS? Why did the Taurus name plate die for Five Hundred? Are we to get excited if Chevy brings back the Cavalier or Buick brings back the LeSabre? I personally don't like the MK-blank names or CT-number names that Lincoln and Cadillac have gone to, I think they should have stuck with the word names and the history. But it goes to show the inconsistent product planning and marketing that these brands have, and it is puts them in the position they are in. Consistent products like Accord and Camry build that reputation and sell well over time.
  21. smk4565
    I am surprised Lincoln sales were down. I was under the impression that they were the hottest and fastest growing luxury brand. The MKS topped 500 units, the friends and family pricing must have caused a surge of buyers.
  22. smk4565
    OK, seriously, Mini should make the 2 door and the Countryman, and that is it. They have 5 models that sold under 350 units! Those are like Bentley volumes.
  23. smk4565
    1 million body on frame trucks and tanking car sales can't be good for CAFE. CTS down 50%, that hurts. It is sad that cars are sort of dying. You can see the day coming some of these slow selling sedans are dropped. And you'll walk into a showroom and there will be 5 crossovers and 1 sedan.
  24. smk4565
    VW with all those diesels they can't sell is going to keep them down a while. Plus you probably had people buy it because it was diesel and not VW, so those buyers may just look elsewhere all together. This month shows how people want crossovers. That is bad news for brands like Dodge and Chrysler. You don't really need 2 sedan brands when a brand like Jeep is up 20%. Land Rover and Volvo up a ton because of new crossovers in their lineup.
  25. smk4565
    Should be a sedan. They already have a box electric car. Unless extended i3 is another term for crossover. Because people want those crossovers.
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