SAmadei

Last real Buick was built in 1996, and nothing Opel is going to build is going to put one in my driveway. Ironically, the only Buick that is Buick-worthy is sold only in China. Americans have voted twice with their wallets that that Opels suck, and I think this is going to go over as well as the Opel experiment of the '70s, except it will further water done the Buick nameplate so GM can kill it as well. Opels are GM's new way of killing NA brands. And what happens when GM jettisons GME? Do they get Buick in the deal? Or does Buick become a niche manufacturer?

IMHO, Buick 2009 is the lamest lineup I have seen any car manufacturer ever show off. I _like_ Buick... I have a Buick... but in 2009, Saturn has a more compelling lineup. Buick China 2009 has a more compelling lineup.

There needs to be a name for this disorder, as I've suffered from being a map fiend, like you, all my life. Its scary the map knowledge I have of places I have not visited... so nonetheless, the idea that people can't pick the US on a map is not a surprise to me. Has anyone here heard Howard Stern's "Do you want to be a hundredaire?" He took people off the street and offered them a $100 to answer simple questions like... how many minutes in an hour? The duds he had couldn't answer them. Pathetic... but they can still vote!

Same here. In fact, considering there is a '98 Sunfire parked in front of my house (not actually mine), which I think it is a _very_ good looking little car. Granted, I prefer the pre-2002 look... but at the time, there was nothing else on the market like it. However, to several members here, its just another crappy rebadge. To them, so was the entire Firebird history, the LeMans/GTO, the Bonneville and the Grand Prix. They think every person to buy a Pontiac since WW2 is a fool... to paraphrase an old saying... Poor Old Nitwit Thinks Its A Cadillac. Well, if I was in the market for a small car, I'd buy that over the Sunfire over the Cavalier, Cobalt or Cruze... because they are all boring looking crap.

Funny, I've seen lots of these, and they didn't strike me as odd or tacked on. Now that I realize that the sedan treatment was Canadian exclusive, it makes sense... The Jersey Shore is very popular with Canadians on vacation.

I'm really not knocking the 3rd or 4th F-bodies. I love them, too. My point is only that it limits the sales potential... just as people who need to drive furniture around in their cars aren't lining up to buy Minis. I was willing to live with the drawbacks, as well... but not as my only car. Planning on having multiple cars is something that would limit sales. Of course, performance and price ratio isn't necessarily related to driving a super-low wedge. The new Camaro is reasonably aerodynamic and will be a performance monster without being as hard to live with. I'm convinced GM could make a car shaped like a brick into a performance monster with its LS3, LS9, LSA plants.

Control arm bushings? That's a job and a half. As WMJ mentioned, torch 'em and chisel them out. If you removed the control arm completely, you could get them pressed out. In a lot of cars, that means undoing a ball joint or tie rod end, which, if sufficiently worn would require replacement, as well. On my Caprice I have a bad upper control arm bushing. I found it easier to go to the junkyard and grab an arm with good bushings in it.

Soul commercial is great... but the one on TV is a bit too short. It's also played in some movie theaters, and its longer and better. BK commercials have also been on a roll for a while. Even before my TiVo broke, I had to stop for the good commercials. There was another good one recently I was going to write about, but it slipped my mind.

Exactly. I've always wanted to live my life on my terms. And while many times I've seen that I may be doing some things the hard way, I have to be me. I'm getting there. I see the light (or the train). I've had my doubts. I've screamed in frustration... "Why can't I have a normal life just like everybody else?!?". Then I quickly reminded myself that I have to live a life less ordinary. The sheeple can take their fads and bling and jump right off the cliff. "You have to buy this" "You have to buy that" "This is new, so its better" Consume consume consume, waste waste waste. Yeah, yeah... I really don't need your party line... I can think for myself, thank you very much. Anyway, many of your posts I read (and a few others here) almost sound like they are typed by me. Perhaps its time for you to build a nice artcar to drive around and sing "I just gotta be me". I'm pretty sure I will some day. ;-) After all, I considered building a house shaped (inside and out) like the starship Enterprise... and I'm not even a trekky.

"I don't want a large farva. I want a goddamn litre o' cola!" Personally, when I go to the movies, I ask for the Bladder-buster size... of Diet Coke.

I'm glad to see this. It shows that there is something of value to extract here. Honestly, if GM did the unthinkable and killed Pontiac, GMC and/or Buick, I would hope GM would give somebody the chance to buy those assets as well, perhaps with the option of cherry picking dealers (so the new BPG wasn't strattled with 3000-member saturated dealer network. 380 is a good network size, IMHO).

Cars are getting heavier because of the government safety requirements and the consumer's desire for a 25% increase in torsional rigidity every time a new model comes out. The average vehicle in 1993 was 500 pounds heavier than in 1973... that's crazy and since 1993, we've started adding weight even faster. The Genesis coupe is 3400 lbs, but 182 inches. That is 18.7 pounds per inch. The V6 Camaro is 3750 @ 190... 19.7 pounds per inch, the G8 is 20.4 pounds per inch. Yeah, the Genesis is lighter... but not by much... and for how long before people demand more stuffing. Granted, Zeta is too heavy in the Camaro... just like the Challenger, GM had to go with what they had. But I fear the government and the public will not allow more than 100-200 pounds to come off before the complaints start. Or, they will have to start using exotic materials... which works against the affordability we expect. As FOG mentioned, have you lived with a 4th gen? I haven't... but I have driving a 3rd gen quite a bit... and I tried a 2002 Trans Am Coll Ed. The 3rd and 4th gen 'birds and Camaros lost touch with the consumer, becoming futuristic, swoopy and completely incompatible with real driving. The 3rd gen I drove, I hit my head on the roof regularly, and had to practically lie down to drive. Getting in and out was a nuts... getting out was a controlled roll out of the car with the hope of catching yourself before you face planted on the pavement. Every driveway and speed bump was a new gouge in the air dam or exhaust tips. Working on the thing was a PITA. The passenger lost valuable foot space to the catalytic. The 4th gen seemed worse. Yeah, I loved the 3rd and 4th gen F-bodies, but I can see why sales flagged. Of course, 11 and 10 year generation cycles hurt it as well. The new Camaro appears to not suffer from the bleeding edge of the 3rd and 4th gen Firebirds. It is liveable... like the first two generations. This is what future sports/muscle cars need... bad ass styling that doesn't require a contortionist to get money out of an ATM. Yeah, but sometimes its best to Keep It Simple, Stupid. Hence the long life of pushrods. If I wanted a featherweight with eight turbos, I have to expect a six figure price tag. But they couldn't put it in a RWD chassis like 1978 Sunbird technology, and add traction control... or add AWD? Ugh! GM rebadges every bad idea across the board for 25 years, and just as we get to a car or two worth rebadging (G8 and Camaro), suddenly its not rebadgable? If you have a killer platform that is flexible enough to give brand personality to more than one brand, its a good thing. It's like casting two or three nets into the river to catch fish instead of one. The '70s Bird was "just a rebadge", but it was a damn good one. And it sold like ice water in the desert. The fact that aftermarket companies are willing to put their own cash into developing conversion kits tells you there is a market, likely a huge one because only a SMALL percentage of people are willing to buy a brand new $35K Camaro just to take it apart and add $10K in Firebird parts. You don't see the aftermarket gearing up to make a new generation Skyhawk out of the Cobalt... because that speaks volumes about the future of a small Buick. It took GM forever to feed the tuner market for the Cavalier/Cobalt to fight the Neons, WRXs, Evos and Civics... to the point where its really too late. GM will miss this boat as well.

Like Opel? If GMC is good enough for the A-Team, it's good enough for me. ;-)

Find a nice rust hole, and patch it. Pound out some dents. Cut the roof off the parts car and drive it around the backyard Maybe replace some suspension parts... that requires a lot of bashing. IMHO, the car hobby is the best for getting out frustration... even better than boxing. If you're still having a hard time, repeat until you're too tired to think about it and go to bed. Tomorrow has to get better eventually. Seriously, you are preaching to the choir. From my experience, the best thing to do is something generally constructive. (Cutting the roof off the parts car _is_ constructive, since you need to part it out anyway). Fretting about GM, the economy or the general public lemmings that are jumping off a cliff is helping anything, as you can't be expected to change something so big. Getting things done gets the mind off things and helps you get where _you_ need to go. Its been two months since I've been out of work. I desperately need to find work to maintain my high flying exotic lifestyle... but I'm not ready. I still haven't gotten my head unscrewed from the old job (and other things). For now, I have other things to bang on... like fixing the van, fixing the wagon, cleaning the yard, fixing the houses and putting out just enough resumes to land a dream job if it falls into my lap. ;-)

Dwindling? There are a LOT of people my age who remember fondly those millions of late '70s Firebirds, who are just reaching the point where they are making the coin to afford a toy like that. Make it look killer enough (like the Stingray in FOG's sig), and the big boys with the $$$ will fawn over it... because when testosterone sees something it wants, the sensible brain can't reassert control. The new Camaro can be retro '60s, and the Firebird could be retro '70s. Sure. So why can't Pontiac do the WRX/Mini thing _AND_ the nostalgia thing? Again, the Firebird is 95% developed... the WRX/Mini fighter isn't even on a sheet of paper yet. How is the Genesis a new idea? An affordable Mercedes wannabe for the masses? A Mustang wannabe that people can afford? This has been done over and over... since before cars... I'm sure chariot makers 2000 years ago did it... just this time Hyundai is doing it. The Genesis is impressive... but is hardly groundbreaking considering the technology and parts sourcing in 2009. The sedan is not that original, and the original parts of the coupe are very polarizing... just like the Tiburon was. Again, great, I'm all for that. Pontiac's next small car should outdo the WRX or the Mini. Small engine in a spry package. They would still be recycling the idea from Subaru or Mini. But for a relatively big car (Zeta based), the formula is big engine and bigger engine. Are you going to put a quad turbo 4 cylinder in the G8? That's not what people buying cars bigger than the Camaro/G8 want. Obama, Gore, California and the left are talking about everyone driving small cars. What I want to know, are these folks going to force everyone to diet? I think its absurd that the fattest people in the world would try to wedge themselves into small cars. I bet the WRX and Mini accelerate and handle great with 1400lbs of people squeezed into it. The automotive world, IMHO, is at a styling dead end. We had 85 years of unaerodynamic cars... then we had 20 years of aerodynamic wedges, aproaching the ultimate teardrop shape. Now the fad is to make things truck-like and blocky again... because we've discovered the limit to superlow, aerodynamic cars. Retro is one place to go, but where else can we go? Cars that turn into airplanes? Cars look like they are driving backwards? It might sound absurd, but look at the pimpin' donk style or the fin madness of the '50s, and you'll see that absurd only starts to describe where automotive styling could go. With the exception of the promises of future perfect drivetrains, everything old is new again, and GM needs to beat the world using old fashioned ideas. Everyone talks about how GM has to evolve beyond. I've thought alot about cars for years... and I'm drawing a blank. Can _anyone_ suggest a _truly_ new idea that hasn't been done or suggested to be coming in the immediate future? If not, I'll stick with the too much engine for the car technique.

They shouldn't. The remaining four car brands should all be differentiated as in a X-Y grid... Performance Standard Luxury Cadillac Buick Economony Pontiac Chevrolet The various brands need to understand that they can't all be all over the grid... GM corp needs to referee this without favorites because in order for GM to survive, ALL the brands need to be strong.

That's why I favor the Firebird (based on Camaro) instead of a GTO (G8 coupe) right now. The Firebird could be produced with a few pieces of plastic... whereas the GTO would require new body stampings. The Firebird is so easy to produce, that at least _FIVE_ companies are considering/making the parts to convert Camaros into Firebirds. I was considering getting into the biz, if no one else did.

Torrent vs. Cayenne? Add the LS3 to the Torrent, and I would've considered it.

Like this? I like.

While a lot of these dents and stuff do happen from adult idiots, what drives me nuts is when their spawn do it. I see that, and I know a bunch of unfit parents are raising undisciplined delinquents. It really sticks it in and breaks it off when your car grows new damage... parked in your driveway in suburbia. When I first moved to this town, the rental has a stone yard. No grass, just stones. I thought, "Great, no lawn to cut". That relief lasted about three days when I realised that the neighborhood was full of kids. Kids+rocks=broken windshields. I must've chased them or called the cops a hundred times, but it never stops. Thankfully, I moved before I started having to bury bodies. Now I live in a mostly kid-free neighborhood. Well, there is one... they moved in less than a year ago. Well, my car was disabled and parked in my driveway as I got around to fixing it. After it was fixed, I noticed there are a bunch of new scratches. WTF?!? I'm buying a security DVR and putting up cameras, because you just can't have anything nice without people screwing with it.

No, no... I mean the picture in the BendPak catalog with a giant Peterbuilt sitting on four little posts looked photoshopped. The picture in NYC with cars scattered about looks quite real.

I smell some BS here. Dextron VI is simply the replacement for Dextron III (It's supposedly twice as good, hence skipping the numbers 4 and 5), and I recently filled my transmission with it because there isn't any Dex III available to buy. The Dex VI was not noticeably more expensive than the Dex III. I personally stretch oil changes pretty far, but I don't have a warranty to worry about. I would be seriously concerned that unless you get something from GM in writing, they could use this to deny a warranty claim later on because you were negligent to change the fluid until 50K. I agree that they are just trying to squeeze you for some stimulus money.

Not all the beaches in Jersey require beach tags. And some that do are so lightly enforced, if a mute point. $50 for two season-long beach passes is a lot cheaper than the permit for the boat launch or permit for driving on the beach, at least. Every beach I've been to on Delmarva has been loaded with bugs. I'll gladly pay to avoid being lunch for a flock of greenheads.

Mindbending is that Bendpak also sells four post lifts for tractor trailers for about $10K. When I look at the picture, it looks photoshopped to me.

That's odd. I wonder what failed, and if it was related to operator error. Most of those parking widgets are pretty robust... at least as robust as four post lifts used for auto repair. And those are only three high. There are some six level ones down in Tribeca. Bendpak sells those for personal garage storage, for as low as $2K, as well. They even have a one post one! But its like $7K. Cheaper than building a bigger garage in some cases, but this kinda scares me now.