ellives

I'm heading over to my local Toyota dealer tonight to check out Tacoma's.... no sense spending money on products from a company that will be gone in 10 years.

Florez is just another dirtbag politician and hopefully the voters call him out on it. DO YOU HEAR ME MR. FLOREZ? His job is to make laws. Not enforce them. Enforcement is managed by the attorney general.

I've never been a big Arnold fan but I've gained respect for the guy after watching his administration go through it's up and downs. He acknowledges and adjusts for his mistakes. Something that will never be said about Bush who is clueless and resorts to the "double-down" strategy when he makes a mistake.

$36k / year is a sweet deal as guaranteed retirement income. No wonder the UAW membership continues to line up with their hands out. Unfortunately for them, those days are over. I continue to be pessimisic about the outcome of the negotiations. I wonder if yet another contract term of Toyota drubbing won't be required to enlighten these buffoons.

Tough for me to see what there is to negotiate. GM says what they're willing to pay and the UAW says "OK." The US needs a universal health care plan and to kill the unions - they're going to sink the country. Always holding out their hands.

It's the way of the world. If we all want the big bonuses than we should all be Vice Presidents.

It's business. Supply and demand. I agree they should be sharing the wealth with the rank and file through bonuses too.

I dare them to strike.

Link to article GM posts surprise sales gain U.S. automaker bucks industry trend to post gain in U.S. sales in August; Ford sales plunge could drop it out of long-held No. 2 spot By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer September 4 2007: 2:10 PM EDT NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors posted a surprise sales gain in August, bucking an industry trend of weak auto sales in the period, and helping domestic brands to recapture a majority of U.S. sales. GM said its sales of cars and light trucks, such as SUVs and pickups, rose 6 percent in the month to 385,529 vehicles. Car models saw a nearly 8 percent drop in sales, but that was outweighed by the the 16.5 percent jump in light truck models. Video More video Fortune's Sue Callaway reviews and compares the Audi S4 and the BMW M5. Play video The GM sales results came as rival Ford (Charts, Fortune 500) reported Tuesday that its total U.S. sales fell about 14 percent to 218,332 in the month. That was a bit better than one forecast, but it dropped Ford out of its traditional place as the No. 2 U.S. automaker. Toyota Motor (Charts) posted a rare drop in U.S. sales to 233,471, which was weaker than forecasts. But its sales were still enough to put it ahead of Ford Motor in the month. It also saw its year-to-date sales top Ford's light vehicle total, which excludes sales of heavy-duty trucks. Toyota had been expected to overtake Ford at some point this year since Ford trimmed its capacity and closed plants in an effort to stem losses. U.S. rival Chrysler Group is also forecast to see sales decline, while other Asian automakers such as Honda Motor (Charts) and Nissan (Charts) are forecast to post sales gains. Those other automakers are due to report August results later Tuesday. The good results at GM and the weaker-than-expected sales at Toyota could give the traditional domestic brands slightly more than 50 percent of total U.S. sales in August, even if it's down from the 53.2 percent combined market share they had in the year-earlier period, according to another sales tracker, Autodata. In July the domestic brands captured only 48.1 percent of sales, marking the first time that import brands captured more than half of U.S. sales in a month. Part of the drop in sales at Ford was due to it backing away from some of its traditional sales to corporate fleet customers, particularly to rental car companies. Those sales are less profitable because they are at a lower price than retail sales. Ford said its sales to rental car companies dropped 44 percent from year-ago levels. But sales to retail customers by Ford still dropped 13 percent, an indication that the weakness in demand for its products is not limited to a deliberate strategy of cutting back sales to the rental car market. The F-series pickup, still the nation's best selling vehicle, saw its sales off nearly 10 percent, as the favorite of builders and contractors was hit by the slump in housing and new home construction during the period. In an increasingly global auto industry, the distinction between domestic and import brands is somewhat less useful than it once was. Auto parts and components can be sourced around the globe and among those automakers counted as import brands are those currently owned by Ford, such as Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar, as well as Saab, a unit of GM. The major Asian automakers also make a significant percentage of their vehicles for the U.S. market at North American plants. But Ford is exploring a sale of its luxury European brands, and during the month German automaker DaimlerChrysler (Charts) completed a sale of a majority stake in Chrysler to U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, separating the sales of the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands from those of European luxury brands Mercedes Benz and Maybach. So in some ways the distinction between the traditional Big Three and their import rivals is now more relevant than it was only a few months ago, when those U.S. automakers had closer ties to import brands.

Sarcasm... tsk tsk. You've come to the absolute wrong place if you expect to win THAT battle. Bottom line is that posting is spam - pure and simple. It don't see ANYTHING identifying GM on that post. Do you? I see someone who signed up TODAY and has made ONE post so far and it was done TODAY. Kinda smells like spam doesn't it? Let's poke it and see.

Normally these kinds of sites frown on this kind of posting. To answer your question, newspapers and monster.com are commercial ventures and charge money to advertise and this site does not. I honestly don't know if C&G has an rules, written or unwritten, about this kind of thing. If nothing else net etiquette should dissuade people from doing it.

Here we go again. When you say "much higher sales" you'll need to clarify what you mean. If you mean "unit sales" there's no argument. Even if you mean $$$$ you'll be correct. From here it's much more complicated. On a "per unit" basis, the profit on entry level cars is much lower than it is on flagship products. (This is actually one of the reasons GM continues to make and sell the DeVille/DTS product. It's a big money maker.) Having an entry level product fail from a design standpoint isn't a huge risk. Look at the Corolla. It does not inspire excitement in any way but it continues to sell. Contrast this to the '08 CTS (which is not really entry level other than its place in the brand lineup) which can't help but cause excitement.

Who would want to work at a place that would pull something like this?

I don't agree with this at all and is one of the reasons the Company is where it is - WAY too conservative. The flagship product should be bold and exciting. How else are you going to get people to plunk down the big coin on it? I don't even agree with your examples of "failed" introductions: Oldsmobile - Aurora BMW - Bangled 7-Series Chrysler - 300 Volvo - C70/S80 Saturn - Aura The Aurora failed not because of poor product and design - but because of poor marketing strategy. It died with the whole division. The product was great. The 7 was already a discussed on this thread elsewhere. I've never heard the 300 (C?) held up as an example of a a failed product. They sold a ton of them. What am I missing? Volvo - I have no comment - don't follow their stuff. The Aura? Read my comments about the Aurora - same argument. Great car - piss poor marketing. See a theme?

I'm sure this decision was made with a lot of analysis. The market for the CTS is much more trendy and responds positively to product redesign. It also responds rapidly and negatively to product stagnation whereas (at least currently) the DTS market is much more forgiving. Keep in mind, prior to the current generation CTS, there was nothing, (I won't even mention the Catera) so they also probably decided to "keep a good thing going." Let's face it: they need to shorten their product refresh cycle. They need a new DTS but it needs the RWD platform to have any chance of being competitive (and as a result justify the engineering expense.) This will take serious time.

The trick to "staying relevent" and NOT being "out there" is subtle but substantial changes with each model year. Let's not lose the "16" look while adding the quality features and design touches that scream "Cadillac."

We'll probably see every dealer trying to get sticker on these for a while. Hopefully GM gets more of the pie when the dealer gets sticker. I really dislike dealers (sorry if I offend any of the C&G'ers. Just being honest.)

Gotta love the reader comments on that link. There's always some turd pointing to Audi as interior king. Can you say closed mind?

We have a WINNA!

... and give the base model two tail lights.....

Well when you buy YOURS, don't get it that way. Simple.

On the one hand people complain about the weight of the car and in the next breath they want metal instead of light weight plastic. Sigh. No way. This is a big problem Detroit created for themselves. In their effort to become "hip" and "new" they've abandoned all the model names people recognize. Note the return to the Taurus name. Most people have no idea what a CTS, STS or DTS are, nevermind what they "USED" to be. Once the model has some following, they should stick with it, and nurture it and not muck around with success. Just run with it. No one says a CTS has to compete with the 3-series. If it competes with a 5-series then great.

Don't get the sunroof and you're 1/2 way there

That's one sweet automobile. I'm convinced they have another hit. Now they need to use the same approach to bring the DTS to a competitive position.

Read the rest of the thread.....