smk4565

Digital Credit Union does 1.9% financing for up to 84 months on lease-buyout cars. Anyone can become a member for a $5 fee. A 7 year car loan?!?! And I thought the 6 year loans were sort of long. I can see the 6 year on a new car, as new cars cost a lot and people may keep it for 10 years. But 7 years on a used car seems insane, also at that rate.

Diesel cars should be fairly quiet too because the operate in a low rpm range for the most part. A lot of the BMW diesels are more quiet than the gas counterpart, maybe by only 1 dBA but still if you do a diesel right, it should be just as refined or quiet as a gas engine. And the fuel economy advantage is undeniable. Cadillac has low volume, but since the Germans have them, and the Germans set the tone in the luxury market, Cadillac should have them too. I think a diesel for the Impala is a no brainer, especially since it still has some fleet/commercial use. I'd also say Equinox and Terrain since the 4-cylinder models have no power anyway, the diesel would give it more torque and boost mpg. Really any SUV would benefit from a diesel option. The Malibu is a tough call, probably no one would buy a diesel Malibu, but the Malibu needs something to make it stand out, it gets clobbered by its competitors.

For $20k though you get the same engine in a Cadillac ATS that costs $35k! A Cruze is like 16-25k, I don't see a problem with a pickup being $20-30k, they have to offer bigger engines and it is a bigger vehicle. These are cheaper than an Equinox too, so I think the price is okay. I could agree with the argument that instead of the mid-size, they could have made the Colorado more like old school S10 size and sold it a cheaper price point for greater separation from the Silverado.

So SMK what you are saying is you want our life to be a socialist hell with forced inflation. Your thinking is just stupid like all the idiots who say we need $15 minimum wage as a living wage. Base minimum wages is to give young a chance to earn money and learn to work, not ever meant to be a living wage. This in it's own right forces inflation of increasing costs and no real gain long term. Education and performance to grow and get promoted is what it should always be about. Trucks and SUV's are the backbone of America work force. If you force your tax on them then everything else will be forced to go up and that pushes houses out of reach of more people. Even your apartments will cost more to rent due to increased cost. The Construction companies are not going to absorb these tax's and neither can America afford to adsorb these cost with stupid tax right off's. So more to your thinking, since most people cannot afford an E series MB, we need to add additional tax's to these expensive auto's to make this about sharing the wealth with everyone else. If you can afford to drive a luxury auto then you have to pay a luxury use tax. How do you like that thinking then? I never mentioned anything about minimum wage (although it should be $10 an hour) and I bought my car used, so it was no more expensive than a well optioned Focus or Cruze. But there is a sales tax in place, so the more expensive the car, the more tax the buyer pays. I don't see the Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes G63 AMG, Infiniti QX80, Escalade, Navigator, Yukon/Tahoe, Lexus LX570, Grand Cherokee SRT-8 and all the other gas hog SUVs as the backbone of the American workforce. Neither is the F150 Raptor, or a V8 King Ranch luxury truck or a Sierra Denali 6.2 liter. All I am saying is if you are going to put a gas guzzler tax on a CTS-V, then there should be a tax on an Escalade that gets worse mileage than the CTS-V. Likewise with BMW M5 that gets taxed, but the thirstier X5 M does not. The gas guzzler tax would not hurt the construction workers, because they could buy a Ram diesel or Pentastar for example that would not have a gas guzzler tax. The new Ford Transit with base V6 and the turbodiesel inline 5 probably will get high enough mileage to beat the car gas guzzler tax. That helps the businesses save money by not having a van that gets 13/18 mpg or whatever the Econoline got. Right now the gas guzzler tax threshold is 22.5 mpg, and the lower the mileage the higher the tax. If you put that on pickups, vans, and SUVs, every car maker would offer a pickup that beat 22.5 mpg. And using the equation a truck would have to get 17/24 mpg to avoid any tax, that isn't that hard to achieve. And I'd think if the F150 ecoboost and Ram Pentastar/diesel didn't have a tax and the Silverado did, then Chevy would have to price their truck lower to compensate, otherwise risk losing sales. So I don't think the end consumer would pay more, they would in the long run save on gas.

I think the prices are good, the base models are cheap, and the Colorado basically covers the same price range as the Malibu, which makes sense. I'd agree with dfelt though that most of these mid-size pickups are too close in size and price to the full size. They could have just made the new Colorado/Canyon a little bit smaller, which would probably help to keep the cost down a bit. A Crew Cab long box Colorado is longer than a Suburban, even the smallest Colorado is longer than a Tahoe, it isn't exactly mid-size, it is still a fairly big truck.

They should get ahead of the wave, rather than be at the back end of it. VW and Mercedes are having diesel success, Chevy could gain an advantage if they do it now, rather than wait til after Fiat puts diesels in Chryslers or for Ford to Ecoboost their whole lineup. A friend of mine has a diesel 5-series which is a fairly big and heavy car, and he is averaging 31-32 mpg in mixed driving. His old 535 with the gas engine he got about 19 mpg, so he loves the diesel, it is just as fast, it is quiet and way better mileage.

I would be okay with exempting heavy duty trucks from any tax, dual back tire trucks should be exempt, because those really are work vehicles, the moving vans, school buses dump trucks, etc.

The build quality may not have been great, but most Chryslers have lousy reliability and build quality also. The idea of the Pacifica, a sort of mid-size SUV that drove like a car with 2 rows of captains chairs and a folding 3rd row was good, the execution could have been better.

I like the SUV tax idea because it could fund road and bridge improvements that the government currently doesn't have, and it means they won't have to raise the gas tax to make up that shortfall. And it challenges automakers to build a better car. Toyota hasn't put a new engine in the Tundra in 8 years, and it isn't for lack of money or resources, Toyota just doesn't have to because all trucks get bad mileage and there is no penalty for it.

Audi makes RS models, they don't seem to sell many of them here, but I know even 5 years ago the RS6 had like 580 hp and that was the M5 and E63 still had only 500. Mercedes has had AMG trim packages for years, my car has AMG wheels, the sport body styling and the AMG engraved exhaust pipes, so that is nothing new. I don't think they need to call anything AMG Sport, that sounds lame, just offer cars with the AMG styling package as they already are. If they want to sell a C450 that is fine, but then why not just make all C400s have 367 hp, forget the lesser output engine so you don't have so many engine configurations. What is odd though is Mercedes is dropping the E550 and GL450 in favor of twin turbo V6 models. So on one hand they are dumping V8s (in the name of CAFE I'm sure) yet they want to do a sport line? I think just offer an AMG styling package option on all the models, because people might want a diesel E-class or the 2.0 turbo C-class with AMG wheels and the body kit. Audi has S-line trim packages, which is like shadow black window trim and a wheel upgrade or something. Sort of like the Lexus F-sport cars, it doesn't add any power, just trim and wheels.

I just picked Escalade as an example, the same could apply to the Infiniti QX-Armada, the Navigator, etc. There should be a gas guzzler tax on an vehicle that gets below 18 or 20 mpg EPA combined or whatever the number is now. I think they have tiers, where the worse the fuel economy the higher the tax which I am fine with. There is probably 2 million trucks a year sold that would then get taxed, at $2500 per truck that is $5 billion to go toward road funding so our roads aren't crap. For a Ferrari buyer, the $3,000 guzzler tax is nothing, they are going to buy the car anyway and it is only 1% of the sale price. But on a pick up, that $3,000 could be 10% of the sale price, which would force automakers to boost fuel economy to avoid it.

I think pick up truck buyers will buy pickups regardless of what gas prices are. I see a lot of trucks that are more for luxury than for construction, and I see lifted trucks modified for off road. Truck buyers will spend money on trucks and not seem to care if it gets bad mileage or if gas is expensive. Unless gas goes to $8-9 per gallon like in Europe, then sales will drop as people look for electric cars. Personally I think the gas guzzler tax should apply to trucks as well as cars. It is ridiculous that an XTS hearse has a gas guzzler tax, or an SRT Charger or a CTS-V, or any of the sports cars like Aston Martins and Ferraris that barely get driven, yet an Escalade is exempt. An Escalade isn't a work vehicle or a necessity, it is luxury/pleasure vehicle just like a sports car is. Pickups and big SUVs guzzle the most gas, put the same tax on the Tundra and watch how fast Toyota gets a new engine in there to avoid a $2500 tax on their truck. If every Silverado V8 had a $2500 tax on it, Chevy would have a 3.0 liter diesel V6 with an 8-speed in their as a no cost option within 6 months.

I drove a Pacifica a couple times, when they got the 4.0 V6 and 6-speed it was better than the earlier models, but with the Pentastar V6 and a 9 speed automatic then it would be even better. The outside look was good, the formula of 2 rows of bucket seats and a 3rd row bench for 2 made it comfortable to seat 6, I always liked that adults could sit in the second row and it wasn't like a cramped bench seat.

The Scion xD is dead for the 2015 model year, so that can be ruled out. I would say buy the Soul, car loan rates are low, she could stretch the payment over 5 years 6 if she had to, and at the end of the lease that Soul should only have like $12-13k owed on it. I think the Mazda 3 hatchback looks good, but the price is probably too high, those can run into the $20-25k range in a hurry. Maybe she could get one of those Mitsubishi i- miev cars, I have seen 2012 used ones for $12-13k and there would be no fuel cost, no oil changes to pay for, etc. You can lease a new one for about $189 a month. The range is only about 62 miles, but it sounds like she doesn't drive a lot of miles.

Sounds like the return of the Pacifica.

The current tC is dated because it is basically the same car they had in 2005-2008. Toyota lets cars sit on the market too long and doesn't update engines or transmissions often enough. If they would keep their product fresh then it wouldn't be a problem. If you kill the Scion brand and put that money into keeping the Yaris, Corolla and Celica (which would be like a Corolla coupe to replace tC) then you could keep those models updated and relevant.

The masses love rounded off crossovers.

Plus the FR-S is already sold a Toyota GT86 in every other country, it would be cheaper not to market the Scion brand and to not have to rebadge a Toyota to Scion. I agree with Drew that the GT86 is going to appeal to more hard core sports car drivers and people that want a track car. The tC/Celica is going to appeal to people that want sporty looking, but easy to drive, good gas mileage, can drive in snow, etc. Having 2 sporty cars with a Toyota badge would make Toyota seem a bit less like a geriatric brand, they save the costs of marketing and running 2 brands also. A win-win for Toyota.

I think people would care, Mercedes just set a July sales record. C-class sales are down because it is a soon to be replaced model, the 2014 model isn't even in production anymore, as production of the 2015 model started in late June. C-class sales are going to soar this fall when the 2015 hits dealers. Road & Track said the best materials in the 3-series can't even compare to the worst materials in the C-class.

On second thought, after looking at how Scion brand sales are, Toyota should drop the whole brand and bring back the Celica. Scion only sold 5,500 cars last month, I bet they could sell 5,000 Celicas a month, if they made it look good and gave it a pair of 4-cylinder engines to pick from. Single people in their 20s that can't afford an expensive car would drop $20k on a Celica if it looked fast and sporty, even if it is slow and crap to drive.

Well the A8 and 7-series aren't, they only sold about 500 each.

But you can't get a 2-door Dart, Cruze, Focus, Jetta, Mazda3 or Corolla. Only the Civic and Elantra are available in coupe form; the small coupe market is pretty slim pickings. Toyota would be foolish to kill the tC, it hardly has any competitors.

Prius is a joke of a car and terrible in crashes. I would not waste money on this product line and I would especially not waste my family or friends life by putting them into such a lousy car. I think they suck too and the batteries will sit in a landfill somewhere and contaminate the environment anyway. But the Prius has a loyal customer base, and you can't really compare it to other small cars because there are people that would buy a Prius for the "green image" alone and never think about getting a Cruze or Focus or Jetta. Toyota not only gets a lot of sales off the Prius, the Prius builds this myth that Toyota is the most fuel efficient car maker when they aren't.

They still make the Avenger? I would assume the new 200 has a higher transaction price and fewer fleet sales than the old one, but to see no sales gain over that awful car it replaced is somewhat alarming. I think people like Jeeps and Chrysler minivans, but don't trust them on sedans yet, because the 300 is a pretty slow seller and the Dart only sells about 1/3 of what the Cruze, Focus, Elentra sell.

S-class outsold the 7-series, A8, LS460 and XJ combined! Owning the segment.