Northstar

They definitely come with the wheels too. 17s are standard. PDQ is the "Premium Luxury Collection" and PDR is the "Performance Collection." Apparently, Cadillac is willing to give a "discount" on the 18" wheel/trie package if you buy one of the other two as well. This is the seating package: Seating Package, includes leather seating surfaces, (AH8) 10-way power passenger seat, (AL2) 2-way power driver and front passenger lumbar control, (A45) Memory Package, (KA1) heated front seats and (XA7) heated windshield washer fluid I didn't look at the ordering guide, good catch. It's interesting that HID's are only available with 18s. I don't understand why and it's a really dumb idea on Cadillac's part, IMO. Perhaps the figure if someone wants to spend $500 extra on headlamps they don't want a "base" model anyways.

A loaded CTS with every option including extra cost pain and the engine block heater, compact spare, AWD and automatic transmission is $48780. A 535xi with comparable options is $63305! A 335xi with similar options is $52170. The 335 is close in price, but not the 535. I would say the CTS is priced fine. The main area of added expensive is the AWD, which the current CTS doesn't have.

I'd volunteer the '95 LSS that we rarely drive anymore for you, BV, but I think it'd cost a pretty penny or two to ship it.

I think you (and everyone) seem to be adding on options more than once somehow... $34545 + 8165 (premium luxury) + 395 (performance brakes) + 2430 (performance tires) - 1300 (manual) = $44325. This gets you every option except extra cost paint and an engine block heater. The current CTS Sport doesn't have NAV, 5.1 surround sounds with a 40GB hard drive, or the ~50 extra horsepower, not to mention the much improved interior and it costs around $41k. NAV alone on the current CTS is $2100... If you really want to build an '08 as close to your current CTS in options you'd do... $34545 + $2600 (luxury collection) + 2025 (luxury level 2) + $395 (brakes) + $2980 (wheels/tires) - $1300 = $41245. This is nearly identical to the current CTS Sport with ~50 more HP and a much better interior. I think the pricing is fine. My dealer has a CTS Sport currently thats $42300 MSRP but it has the $2200 Bose system incentive. Still, the MSRP on the current CTS Sport is more when similarly equipped.

A 535i starts at $51625 if you want leather and not leatherette. You're also saying that the price of the CTS is too high because the 535i is a couple grand more, but that's for a base 535i. All that stuff you listed is not standard. You want 20 way power seats? That's $1200 more. You want 13 speakers? That's $1200 more. A 535i with all those things you listed and everything you can get on the CTS is $60k! Hardly a few grand more!

I think it is, see the manual trans option for -$1300? It looks like a fully loaded model will be pretty expensive, but it's a damn good car and the base price is hardly more than the current one.

Should be soon, it starts production ~8 months before the Aura. SORP is ~Oct 2009.

I'm not sure why they tested the GTO either. They should have thrown in the Mustang for something to compare the GTO to. According to their dyno tests... K&N claims an 18RWHP gain on the GTO with only their CAI... yeah right. The tuner will certainly add HP, but what I'm talking about is that many GTOs are simply way out of tune... many run extremely rich and simply need to be tuned to how they're supposed to run. The Diablosport changes the PCM and gives you new shift points, fuel cut-off, etc. The GTO has that too, but again that's not what I meant. It's quite possible his stock 300 SRT8 went 12.56. However, what does stock mean? Is a tune still "stock"? What about DR's? etc. etc. There are tons of little things you can do to a car that really isn't changing anything and is still considered "stock" by most. However, if the SRT8 was tuned and got the extra 20HP over "stock" from that, that will cut down some time, and if it had DR's that cut 60ft times down .5s, well that's a huge difference, but they didn't actually do anything to modify their engine... no aftermarket parts other than tires. It's hard to say what car is faster. Certainly a "fast" (perfectly tuned) SRT8 would a "slow" (out of tune) GTO and vice versa. It's hard to say which is faster unless you have two very similarly tuned vehicles on the same track with the same tires and drivers that are totally equal in skill. One thing I will say is that I rode in a Magnum SRT8 at the auto show on the test track, and I didn't think it felt all that fast, so I asked the test driver if he floored it or not. He claimed he did, and I thought it was a bit weird that it didn't feel as fast as my '04 GTO. I guess considering the slowest cam-only LS1 GTO recorded is 12.75 may have something to do with that, however.

The PT is the feminine version, the HHR more masculine (smooth/round vs. boxier). As far as how good of vehicles they are, the HHR wins hands down, as it should being 4-5 years newer. I've driven both when I worked at the dealership, and there's really no comparison, IMO.

The GTO owns the SRT8's dollar-for-dollar. They are very similar stock-for-stock but the GTO costs $10k less. With that, you can throw on twin turbos, Pedders suspension, Brembos, and some better tires and be at 600RWHP (SRT8 is under 400RWHP) if you're interested in building the faster car. Stock GTO's are terribly out of tune from the factory, as well. The RWHP on GTOs is considerably less than that on C6s. With a tune, GTOs gain ~20RWHP on average. FWIW, the fastest totally stock LS2 GTO ran 12.88 @ 108.9MPH, and the fastest totally stock LS1 GTO ran 13.09 @ 105.0 MPH. My GTO is cammed and interestingly enough the slowest cam-only LS1 is 12.75 @ 108 MPH (this surprised me that it's faster than the fastest stock LS2). I've never ran mine on the track, though I'd like to someday. Today an M3 wanted to run, but I was busy talking on the phone (figures). Just based on what he sounded like he was giving it, I think I would have murdered it. I was giving it maybe 60% throttle and he sounded like he was at WOT. Sure, he put 10 lengths on me or so, but I wasn't racin'.

The new Hyundai's are nice upon first look, but after a few times riding in them their cheapness comes out. When I first rode in the new Santa Fe I was very surprised at how nice it was, but after riding in one a few more times I've realized it's really pretty cheap. It has soft materials, but they're stilll cheap. Soft cheap is better than hard cheap though, IMO. As for the Veracruz, I have not sat in one, but the design does look pretty nice (though it is an RX rip-off).

The only cheap-feeling part of the Lambdas is the door pulls. Everything else feels solid and substantial. If the Lambdas aren't much better than the Cobalt (which is a ridiculous statement) then what does that make the Edge? Worse than the Cobalt? You get used to the window switches on the center console; I actually like them there in the GTO and have tried many-a-time to use the window switches in one of our other vehicles by reaching in the area they are on the GTO only to remember they have them on the door panels. In the case of the GTO there are only 2 so it doesn't take up any room and they keep the door panels free of clutter. I certainly don't think that's a deal breaker, at all. Based on reviews, pictures, and personal experience (sitting in the Edge and looking at the VUE) I would say the VUE's interior is better in terms of design and material quality.

You're giving it so much praise it's sounds like it's better than the Lambdas, and the Lambdas own it, and they don't have discounts. The Edge interior flat out sucks in my opinion. Nothing nice about it other than as you said the seats, but the seats don't seem as nice to me because I'm used to GTO seats. Why does it matter how many Equinox Sports there are? Who cares if the others have the 3.4? Theta is not ancient, I bet it's similar in age to the Edge's platform. The Equinox and Edge interiors are both cheap; I sat in the Edge at the auto show, and while the seats were nice, there was nothing else I liked about any of it. Not a nice material anywhere that I could find. Next I went over the the Equinox and while it was just as cheap, at least the door panels had a padded fake leather material rather than hard plastic.

Congrats! The HHR was one of the more popular cars when I worked at the Chevy dealership in terms of sales.

Why would they not design them for the US market? That's a rather dumb idea unless it's much harder.

Why does the Edge need a $4k price reduction if it is such a great vehicle, then? I do not think the Edge is too great. As I said before, the interior leaves much to be desired, it's not exactly light, and it's really rather expensive for only having 5 seats. You can get a Lambda for not a whole lot more (comparing MSRP, not a $4k discount).

Overhangs look bad when they are disproportionate with the rest of of the car. Little cars with huge overhangs look like ass, but on bigger cars it doesn't look as bad. Also notice most of the cars posted are either FWD or mid-engined, which is one reason they have longer overhangs.

The Edge is substantially more than the VUE. The VUE XR AWD with all options other than accessories such as a cargo tray is $32735. An Edge with the same options (but not loaded because the Edge has rear DVD that the VUE doesn't) is $36140. That's nearly a $4k difference, and over a 10% price increase.

I don't see what's so great about the Edge. It's good-looking but not jaw-dropping, is heavy for it's size, and the interior leaves a lot to be desired. On top of that, it's thousands more than a comparable model of any of the vehicles sciguy listed other than the Murano (which has much better deals on it than the Edge).

I would go for the Vue of CX-7, I think. What was the financing rate? You may be able to do better than what the dealer is offering from the bank or credit union. A 6% loan on $25000 for 60 months is $440 a month. Were you going to trade in the xB? That would bring the price down somewhat, as well. Even if it is only worth $5k (I have no idea what it is worth), that would bring the payments down to $353/month.

I'd say the pre-requisites for most engineering majors are similar. I think aerospace would be cool, but I think they probably hire MEs to make the engines and such, too. If you wanted to work with planes, you could probably do it with an ME degree, and if you didn't get the job you'd have plenty of other options. If you were an AE and didn't get the job, you might have trouble getting one that wasn't in the aerospace industry.

Looks okay, I'll have to see it in person. The seats look nice, though.

It's not a very practical idea at this point, I don't think. You should focus on school and not worry about restoring an old car. When you get out of school you ought to have plenty of money to buy one anyways.

Yes, of course. Kids and their stupid cars do that all the time. Coming home on the fourth at about 11:30, this 16-17 year old in his old Infiniti J30t starts revving his engine at me and blew by me. I just sort of ignored it and sat at the stoplight (we were both the first cars in our lanes) and then I decide to give it a slight bit more gas than usual at the green light. He of course is going all out thinking it's some type of race, and I keep up to him pretty well at about half throttle until I decide that I was going fast enough. Of course he kept on going with his terrible exhaust note, I wish he would have gotten a ticket. I just sort of laugh when kids do that because they think they actually have a chance against a GTO. Normally, I may have smoked him, but there were tons of cops around since it was the 4th.

Wow, that's a pretty cool story. The car looks HUGE. Those wheels look like 20+ and they don't exactly look big on it.