smk4565

What I don't like is the separate standards for cars and trucks. Why should someone that wants a V8 performance car get penalized while someone that wants a V8 pickup is not. Diesel is going to play a big role in this too, automakers will have to push it, especially in SUVs and trucks.

The DTS was up 80%, so either it was a good fleet sale month, or a lot of people in Florida got their tax return checks early. CTS down 26%, it has been struggling lately. The SRX and LaCrosse are selling better than I thought they would. With Saturn and Pontiac gone, Buick and Chevy should both see increases all year long. Then the question will be can they have increases again in 2011.

I was comparing sedans, but if you want to compare the ZR1 to another sports car, compare it to the 911 Turbo. The Vette gets 13/20 mpg, the 911 gets 15/25. The Vette's 6.2 liter engine gets it from 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, the 911's 3.8 liter engine does 0-60 in 2.9 seconds. The ZR1 is 97 dBa at full throttle and 80 dBa at 70 mph, the 911 is 83, dBa at full throttle, and 72 dBa at 70 mph. The flat six is just more refined, quieter, more fuel efficient and faster.

The M5's 4.4 liter V8 will make 578 hp, Cadillac's 6.2 liter V8 makes 556. DOHC can rev faster and more freely. Some countries tax displacement, even Washington State is considering taxing displacement. The CTS-V has a $2600 gas guzzler tax, Jaguar XFR has $0. A 6.2 liter engine is thirsty, a 4.4 liter that uses less gas and makes the same power is more sensible.

In JD Power customer satisfaction, Lexus is actually #1, Cadillac is #2, and Jaguar is #3. Buick scored well for mass market brands, but Chevy was one slot behind them. Hummer and Saturn actually placed higher than Buick, so I guess they had satisfied customers, just not enough of them. Chevy is the everything brand, they can't cut back on Chevy. The problem with cutting back on Cadillac is BMW and Mercedes rarely cut back, so Cadillac has to keep up or go down market. If Cadillac goes down market with FWD Chevy based products then Buick isn't needed.

A Mercedes or BMW isn't designed to be cheaper, it is made to be excellent. Doing what is "cheap" shouldn't be a primary concern for Cadillac. And the fuel efficiency argument isn't really valid, a CTS-V gets 12/18 mpg, an E63 AMG gets 13/20 and an XFR gets 15/21 mpg. The Corvette gets good mpg (for a V8) because of weight, aerodynamics and gearing.

I'll just say, that Chevy pays Buick's rent. Buick had a very full line up, Century, Regal, LeSabre, Park Ave, Riviera in the 90s. Then Century, Regal, Rendezvous, LeSabre, Park Ave, Rainier in the 2000s. And in 19 of the past 20 years Buick posted a sales decline, the only year they had a gain, is when Olds died, and they picked up some extra buyers. Buick has a full size vehicle, it is the LaCrosse. That car is over 197 inches long and over 4,000 pounds (with awd), that is bigger than a Hyundai Genesis, G8, or Cadillac STS. How much bigger do they need? Plus the Enclave is 200 inches long and near 5,000 pounds, which is a really big vehicle. To me, Buick-GMC doesn't contribute a lot to GM's cause, what GMC sells, Chevy can sell, and Buick to me is the new Saturn. They pump in new product hoping to revive a dead brand, but it is throwing good money after bad. Meanwhile Chevy and Cadillac had to make due with stop-gap products form 2006-2008 because GM had to spread the wealth 8 ways. The few dollars GM has are best spent on Chevy and Cadillac.

When I sit in a Lucerne I feel like I am in the 1990s. I wouldn't trade my old Aurora for a brand new Lucerne, because the Lucerne interior is worse, and even with the Northstar it isn't any quicker because it is so heavy, and the Aurora handles better. On the outside the Lucerne just looks boring and like an Impala for older people. I don't see why anyone would buy a new Lucerne, when an 08 DTS goes for $20-25k, and there are other good bargains on slightly used cars. Or if you want new for the warranty, a Hyundai Azera has 5 years bumper to bumper and 10 years on powertrain. Used Lucernes are pretty cheap, but there are just so many other cars out there that are better.

The 5.5 liter AMG engine makes 660 lb=ft of torque, that is substantially better than the CTS-V's 6.2 liter engine can put out. As far as packaging size, the Merc engine is going to fit under the hood of the E-class, so I don't see how the future GM 5.5 liter pushrod taking up less space matters. And remember this isn't even Mercedes top end engine, they still have the BiTurbo V12.

Because GM will always chase volume over profitability and will chase short term sales to appease dealers rather than worry about the long term. Cadillac could put the CTS on the Malibu platform and sell it for $28,000 and sell tons of cars, then where will Cadillac be in 5-10 years? So my worry is that GM will push Cadillac down market to Lincoln level or even below in order to stir up sales. The only positive in that is that it would signal the end of Buick.

Scary that with all that bad press, they were only down 10% and Lexus went up. 6 months from now people will forget about Toyota's troubles and they'll go right back to how they were.

It annoys me that the front drive SRX sells. But new GM products often sell well out of the gate while they are heavily advertised, then sales drop off a year or two later. CTS was a hot seller in 2008, now it struggles. CTS has been around 2600-2900 units a month for several months in a row. STS and DTS are about dead, might as well put them out of production now. I think the whole year sales of the 4 core brands will be up, since many would be Pontiac or Saturn buyers will probably go to a remaining GM brand, and 2009 was so miserable, it is hard to do worse.

15/22 mpg? The V8, rear drive SRX could manage that. 35% US/Canadian parts content? Since when did Cadillac become a V6, front drive foreign car?

Why doesn't the LS3 have direct injection, VVT, cylinder deactivation now? If it were so easy to add it, and so beneficial, it seems that they would have done it already. A big displacement pushrod won't match the Germans in refinement. Cadillac is already at a disadvantage in perception, they have to go above and beyond with the product.

Problem with the XTS being a showcase of hybrid technology, is this car already did that back in 2007, and no one cares or buys it. Big time luxury cars need V8s driving the rear wheels. Look at how Lincoln dealers are upset that they struggle since Ford has the same car, or how Acura sales have been dropping. Cadillac needs a DOHC V8, Chevrolet may not, but having it can only help them.

I don't see the point of bringing him back, if he was great, they wouldn't have gotten rid of him in the first place. And why pay him nearly $3,000 an hour?

Personally, I like to see GM double up on the 2.0 turbo and turn that into a 4.0 liter twin turbo V8. That could produce 400-450 hp and lb-ft and produce peak torque around 2,000 rpm where it is most usable. A larger 4.6-4.8 liter turbo V8 could be used for high performance cars. GM already acknowledged they are worried about Hyundai (Honda has as well), Hyundai has a DOHC V8 that is one of the world's 10 best engines. Really Honda is the one that should worry the most, at least GM has a V8, Honda has nothing to give Acura. Hyundai was a joke 10 years ago, now they are the brand everyone fears, where will they be in 10 years? What is Hyundai attacks the luxury segment with full force, what if they make a full size pickup? Hyundai is making profit on small cars and family sedans/crossovers, they aren't even in the luxury and truck business that most automakers rely on for profit. In time, Hyundai is going to move into the high profit margin segments. GM better be prepared.

The Ford 5.0 V8 gets 17/25 mpg in the Mustang.

You are right on economies of scale. So it makes sense that the 4, 6, and 8 cylinder engines are all of the same design and architecture. Hyundai obviously gets it, they have 4, 6, and 8 cylinders all sharing technology. The Tau V8 still cost over $200 million to develop, it isn't something they just threw together. It probably isn't an accident that BMW makes a 3.0 straight six and a 6.0 V12 either, or that they use the same double vanos, direct injection and turbo technology across the board. Economies of scale are used by others better than GM, the LS3 doesn't have the same features that the 3.0 or 3.6 V6 have.

Is the hood/engine bay in a Corvette or Silverado small? Packaging shouldn't really matter. They can fit a V12 in an SL roadster, they could fit a DOHC V8 in a Corvette, especially since they already did it back in 1991. E-class and 5-series fit DOHC V8s just fine, the CTS is the same size. The only reason GM sticks with the pushrods is because they don't have the money to make something new. All the arguments for the pushrod V8 were made for the pushrod V6 5-10 years ago, yet the high feature V6 replaced them because that is what the market demands. In time, the market will demand a switch of V8s as well.

A pushrod is not superior on performance, given equal displacement, the DOHC engine will make more power. For example, 426 hp from an 6.2 liter LS3 and 518 hp from the AMG 6.2 liter. Or 315 hp from the 5.3 V8 and 412 hp from the Ford 5.0 V8. Then you have the 7.0 liter Z06 with 500 hp, but he 4.5 liter Ferrari 458 makes 562 hp. Even take the LS9, the most powerful pushrod with 638 hp and 604 lb-ft. The Koenigsegg 4.7 liter V8 makes 806 hp and 678 lb-ft (on E100 it makes 1,018 hp). The Jag XFR gets getter mileage than the CTS-V.

The Italians, Swedish, Japanese, South Koreans, and British use DOHC also. Ford, the best performing American auto maker only uses OHC, and is phasing out SOHC for DOHC. Chances are, that massive group is right, and GM and Chrysler (the only 2 to go bankrupt) are doing it wrong.

If the pushrod was better, everyone else would be copying it. Automakers love to copy and jump on bandwagons. However, no one else, but bankrupt Chrysler has a pushrod. Mercedes has enough money to build any kind of engine they want, yet what do they make. The power similar power/efficiency argument of the LS3 and BMW 4.0 or 4.4Turbo is valid, but all your examples were performance applications. A Luxury car engine has to be refined and whisper quiet in everyday driving and on the highway, that is what the pushrod can't do. About the cost argument, on a Cadillac, cost cutting should not be an issue. Plastic fake wood costs less than real wood, epsilon would be cheaper than sigma, solid rear axle costs less than independent suspension and magnetic shocks. If GM had $30 billion sitting in the bank they would have a DOHC V8, the only reason they don't is because they are broke. So they have to justify why it is just as good as what the Germans and Japanese have. GM has lagged behind the imports in engineering for 30+ years, and it shows when they had 40% market share in the 1980s and about 17-18% market share now. They had cheap pushrods for all that time and half of their customers left, mostly going to DOHC imports. (and it goes beyond V8s, to all the 3100, 3400 and 3800 V6 cars that people traded in for Accords and Camrys)

Cobalt was up 170%, I guess Avis had a big order this month. Good performance from the new models. And it looks like Chevy/Buick/GMC have retained the would be buyers of the dead brands. With 4 brands they are doing better than they did with 8. Toyota falling apart also helps. I hope Toyota's misery lasts a few more months.

I wouldn't exactly call the 550i vanilla, it is a 400 hp car that will do 0-60 in 4.7 seconds. Plus the 2011 model is bursting with techno-gadgets. The M5 will have 578 hp, so a little extra pop over the X6/X5 M. But the M5 isn't just about the engine, it is about the aluminum body panels and carbon fiber roof as well. The BMW V8 shares a lot with the BMW/RR Ghost V12, plus double vanos, valvetronic, direct injection, etc are shared on every engine they make. Hyundai spent $300 million on a V8 to put in the Genesis and Equus, I know they didn't spend that much to just make 20,000 engines a year. That technology is going to spread to 4 and 6 cylinders. You can't just have high tech on one engine line, you need it on the 4, 6, and 8 cylinder engines.