smk4565

Same platform, same engines, same transmissions, same price range. If the Malibu was 20-27k and the Buick Epsilon was 27-34k I wouldn't have a problem with it. That would make sense, because they wouldn't overlap. But the G6, Aura, Malibu, Lacrosse, Impala are all around the $22-25k range when similarly optioned. In the 80s GM had a lot of cars that shared body panels, the Celebrity, Pontiac 6000 and Buick Century wagons come to mind. All they have improved was from going from straight rebadge to mechanical twins with a few different body panels and different materials on the same basic interior shape. They still have overlap. Toyota doesn't price the Camry and Avalon and Lexus ES the same, why are the Malibu V6, Impala and LaCrosse are priced about the same.

If Buick-Pontiac-GMC was one brand, then they should all have the same logo. GMC Solstice, GMC Lucerne, GMC G8, GMC Acadia, etc. But that isn't the case, they have 3 badges, thus 3 brands. A Jaguar-Land Rover-BMW dealership doesn't mean all 3 are acting as one brand, with BMW covering performance, Jag covering luxury and Land Rover covering trucks. In the 1970s they had rebadged cars, in the 80s they had Chevy-Buick-Olds (celebrity/century/cierra) rebadges, Pontiac Bonneville, Olds 88, Buick Lesabre rebadges, in the 90s they did the same thing, and added Blazer/Jimmy/Bravada and Silloutte/Lumina APV/Transport rebadges to the rebadged sedans. In the 2000s, we have the G6/Malibu/Aura or Grand Prix/Impala/LaCrosse w-body platform share, and Trailblazer/Envoy/Bravada/Ascender/9-7x/Rainer 6-way rebadge, etc. They want to go into the 2010s with 4 Lambdas, Epsilon is about to be Malibu/G6/Aura/9-5/LaCrosse. They have used the same strategy for 4 decades in a row, each decade was worse than the one before it, and they are about to implement the same strategy for a 5th decade. It didn't work in the 70s or 80s, or 90s, or 2000s, it won't work in the 2010s.

My mom has an 07 A4, one of her complaints is how the engine vibrates and is noisy, but it gets good mileage. If you sit in the car at a traffic light, you can feel a slight vibration in the seats, and it idle or low speeds you can hear engine rattle. It isn't as good as the CTS 3.6 at idle or low speeds. Although the CTS engine when revved up sounds a little harsh and whiny; under acceleration the 2.0T and 3.6 are comparable. Neither can touch the Aurora V8 in refinement though. I drove a BMW 530i a month ago, and thought the inline six was smoother and more refined than my V8.

The Camry outsold the Malibu, G6 and Aura combined. 3 models off one platform with 3 marketing campaigns and 3 dealership channels, outsold by 1 car with 1 sales channel, with 1 marketing campaign. Hmmmm. GM has sold 5500 hybrids year to date, Toyota/Lexus 166,000. It is a good thing GM is ready to make smaller engines when customers are ready. They better to a 2-year market study, then 1 year of building a business case just to make sure before they try it. In the meantime, the H3 pickup, and 8 seater Traverse come out this fall. Quote: "Cadillac CTS dominated the mid-car luxury category with sales increasing 38 percent compared with the same month a year ago." The piece of crap Lexus ES350 outsold it 5,563 to 5,262. So it isn't dominating mid-size segment. The 3-series sold 11,303 units in July, 5-series sold 4,525, all Cadillac cars combined sold 8,600. The CTS is up 10,000 units this year, but the DTS, STS and XLR are down over 11,000. The brand hasn't grown any. They need 5 models that are more competitive than the CTS is. Cadillac's budget needs to double, if that comes at the expense of another brand, oh well.

The picture doesn't look that great, but they should bring back the Gullwing. And it should be on a car in the $50-80k range, not a $300,000 car that they will make 100 of each year. Maybe a 2+2 coupe above the CLK, but under the SL roadster.

That's more like it. They are ready to challenge the Civic.

Um, no. B-P-G all have division managers, marketing budgets, design budgets to figure out how to put a Pontiac grille on a Cobalt, etc. Honda and Acura don't overlap products: Saturn, Chevy, Buick and Pontiac all operate in the $20-30k range.

They should fire LaNeve along with Wagoner. Buick, Pontiac, GMC is not like one brand, if you have to advertise for all 3. Plus you have the Enclave and Acadia overlap. What they save from cutting brands is design and development costs and marketing costs. If they put Pontiac's whole budget into Chevy (better products, more advertising), they could sell 400,000 Malibus and 400,000 Cobalt/Cruzes per year. And a Malibu 4 cylinder is $2300 a year (EPA number on 15k miles) to fuel vs $3700 a year for a Silverado 5.3 liter. $1400 a year is a lot to someone making $40k a year or so.

Based on daily sales rate, Buick was down 44.5%. Saab was down 42.4%, GMC down 42.5 %, Hummer was down 65%. Why does GM see all 8 brands as so sacred when all of them are posting pathetic sales, and month after month post big losses. Chevrolet and Cadillac were down over 30%, that should be a red flag that they need better products.

I am surprised that $15 billion is only the 3rd worst quarterly loss. How could they have 2 worse than that? Losing $51 billion since 2005 is a staggering number, even if some is accounting and one time charges, that is a ridiculous amount to lose. They may not make it until 2010 when the labor deal kicks in, even when it does, I doubt it will be enough to solve the problem. GM said, wait til the GMT900s arrived, then wait til gotta have products like the Solstice/Sky, and new Saturn lineup, then the Lambdas, then it was just wait til the CTS and Malibu come out. For 3 years it has been "wait til net year." Well all that new product came out and they are worse off than they were in 2004. They have to address brand overlap and product mix. Which means less brands and less rebadging, more top of the class cars.

Weight is the real problem with many GM vehicles, if they had smaller or lighter vehicles, they could use a smaller engine, then you are saving gas from less weight, plus less engine. A turbo 4 in a heavy car isn't the answer, the Acura RDX and Mazda CX-7 have turbo-4s they don't post any great mileage numbers. The Saab 9-3 2.8 turbo gets 15/24 mpg, there are V8s that get better than that.

I hate when GM "studies the market" or says "we could do it now, if consumers are ready." They are mostly talk and no action. Have they looked at Honda's sales this year, or noticed that VW is now #3 in the world after passing up Ford. Smaller cars are doing well. I don't like the turbo-4 in the CTS because the CTS is overweight. If Cadillac had a 3-series size car, the turbo-4 would be a good base engine. The Sky redline gets 19/26 mpg, and is just under 3000 pounds. In the CTS that engine won't be as efficient, even if it only loses 1 mpg, 18/25 is no better than the 17/26 the CTS DI gets now. Edit: The 09 ratings for the Sky redline changed, it is 19/27 mpg now, but the annual fuel cost is $2935, same as the base engine automatic in the CTS.

There is no point in Pontiac if it is all rebadges. Either Pontiac or Saturn has to go, they both overlap with Chevy, and they can't do enough to make a G6, Malibu, and Aura different enough to justify making all 3. They would be better off putting every dollar spent on the 3 into just the Malibu. I do like the idea of using dated Pontiacs (like Epsilon 1 G6 when Epsilon 2 Malibu is out) as rental cars, and making the Malibu 0% fleet sales.

I never drove a Sonota, but I've had an Impala rental and it was horrible. Only the old Taurus was worse. I've sat in the 09 Sonota, I agree that the center stack is nice, and better than the Impalas.

The Impala is dated now. I won't believe any of GM's press releases that claim they are doing things differently, or being faster or developing "gotta have products" until they stop letting models linger on forever, especially when it is a high volume model. GM of the 2000s is no different than they were in the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, etc. It is the same old blueprint for managing the downward spiral.

I was being sarcastic when I said the 90s were the glory days of Chrysler. I thought that would be obvious, as the Vision, New Yorker, and Stratus were total garbage, the Mitsubishi rebadge was over priced and not that great, and the Prowler (sales bust) had 250 hp and was nearly as expensive as a corvette. My daily driver isn't as fast as a 300 SRT8, but my car's interior is better and I have a DOHC V8, which I will take any day over an enlarged pushrod from a Dodge Ram.

The regular 9-3 Aero has 255 hp. Thus less than the 268 in the Camry. Turbo X and Aeros with XWD have 280. But a Turbo X is more expensive than a 335i or G35 or CTS DI and those all have over 300 hp, and they get better mileage. The CTS and BMW get 2 mpg more city and highway than a 9-3 Aero.

I have an Aurora 4.0, so I've had 5 years of listening to Bose and enjoying heated seats, rain sensing wipers, air leveling suspension, and the Northstar derived 4 liter V8. I've found that the Aurora handles better than the Seville or DTS, it isn't as floaty and weighs less. It shouldn't have much problem in beating a Buick in handling. For $40,000, people that want a floaty ride, sound deadening and free AARP membership with purchase, can get a Lexus. They make a better Buick than Buick does.

I doubt the Super does 0-60 in 6.2 seconds, the 275 hp version was barely under 7 seconds, 16 hp isn't going to speed it up that much. The 1998 STS had the same engine and a little less weight and took 6.7 seconds 0-60. I'd bet on an Altima, Accord, Camry or Malibu V6 in a drag race over a Lucerne Super.

They reduced the warranty on Saabs today in order to save money. Saabs inherently break down; the warranty claims must be very high per vehicle since they only sell 30,000 cars a year. Otherwise how much money could they be saving. The dumped the Aero driving academy also. Which is probably a good idea, since the 9-3 and 9-5 Aero have less power than a Camry V6.

Ah the glory days of the 90s when Chrysler had the New Yorker, Plymouth Prowler, Dodge Stratus and Eagle Vision. The Dodge Stealth was pretty sweet too, I don't know why it and the Ford Probe went away, those are the types of products that could save the American auto industry.

The Sebring is one of their latest vehicles, the interior is terrible. A 300C can cost up to $45,000, compare that interior to a CTS. The Journey interior is nothing good either, better than the Avenger maybe, but put it next to a Ford Edge or Toyota Highlander and it looks horrible. The Journey's navigation screen is at the very bottom of the console too, who puts a nav screen by the floor. I think Chrysler used to have a slogan "inspiration comes standard" they should use "body roll and understeer comes standard" as their new slogan.

They'll be gone in 10 years. They don't have overseas sales to count on, the American market is down. Plus they don't do anything particularly well, they are always bottom half in quality/reliability, they are worst of the major auto makers in fuel economy, their interiors are bad, their exterior styling looks dated quickly, etc. The market is too competitive now to get by with lackluster product.

The 3-series sedan and coupe do not share any body panels, so they are unique bumper to bumper, not A-pillar to bumper like the CTS and G35. BMW not only changed the styling from the previous generation to the current, but they gave it a new platform also. The CTS still has Sigma 1 from the 2003 model (which came out early 2002). The 3-series coupe/convertible came out 1 year after the sedan/wagon, and the M3 was 1 year after the coupe. The CTS coupe has the same interior, same front end look, same (less than a BMW or Infiniti) performance, and a different C-pillar and trunk. Whoppee. It is not more different than the G6 coupe is to the G6 sedan or Cobalt sedan/sedan. At the end of the day, it is basically the same car, so I can't get excited or call this a "new" Cadillac. If Cadillac were cutting edge and had such great products they wouldn't be in 4th place in their own country, and a non-factor in the rest of the world. I was a lifelong Cadillac fan, I had hopes in 2004-2005 that they would be able to challenge the Germans, but the products just aren't good enough, and I have about given up on them.

The G6 being totally outdated by 2010 (it is now) is exactly my point why GM has too many brands/models. If they can't afford to update all these models they need to cut back on the number they have, so that every car gets the effort put into the Malibu. If the LaCrosse is going to steal import buyers it has to be better than the imports. Lexus owners are pretty satisfied with what they have (as are the Toyota buyers that will trade up to Lexus). The only way to get those people is to build a car that is so good they can't refuse it. Only about 1% of trade-ins on the Malibu are Camrys, it is a challenge to get import drivers back. About the 3.6 V6, it lacks refinement. I've driven the Aura XR, SRX and CTS and the engine is loud and whiny, only in the CTS (it had DI) did it seem okay, but I could tell the car had a lot of sound deadening. Tuning the engine isn't what will get better mileage, they need to cut weight. Make the car lighter, the engine will burn less gas, and a 3.0 DI could replace the current 3.6 and save gas. Aside from the Corvette, every GM product needs about a 5% drop in weight.