CARBIZ

Hey, guys, don't get your panties in a bunch. I can assure you that NONE of the vehicles I have taken in so far under the Car Heaven program will EVER be classics. Recent examples: '95 Neon '90 Civic coupe '88 Chrysler '90 Olds 88 - that was a tough one because it was mint I thought about buying it, but my partner hates big cars Cars age badly up here. We rarely see anything older than 10 years old that isn't a wreck.

I've never understood the mood the current American administration is in. Why does the U.S. spend billions of dollars every year protecting South Korea and Japan? In the Grand Scheme of Things, who cares? With all the billions spent, what is in it for America? If you talk to the students in South Korea, many of the protests are against the U.S., as if it is the Americans fault the Koreas are divided. I saw a quote in the "venerable" Toronto Star yesterday that had students saying they hope for reunification and would bomb America if she ever tried to invade. That's gratitude for ya! Let the Asians figure out there own problems. They have nothing that we need anyway, not like oil, for example. Or do we need cheap, imported cars that badly?

Which brings us right into the one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) problems with GM and their platform sharing. They used to be damned good at it. Ever see side by side shots of a '59 Electra, Impala, Catalina or 88 - they were the exact same vehicle underneath. The Pursuit (or whatever the hell it is called now) is EXACTLY the same as a Cobalt. Different rims and different crappy cloth interior, but otherwise the SAME. Ditto for the Uplander/SV6. The Torrent/Equinox - well, different roof rack, wheels but the SAME vehicle. At least with the G6/Malibu we don't have to worry about the Pontiac dealers - they are significantly different looking and don't compete in the same market. The Impala/Allure (or whatever it is called in the States) are also sufficiently different that they won't impact each other's sales very much. This rebadging is embarassing. It pisses off the dealers, confuses the customer and benefits no one. Okay, maybe it keeps some dealers out of GM Legal's face, but I don't see an upside.

Not that I want to rain on GM's parade, but a year ago we weren't selling ANY Impalas because we knew the new one was coming out. Even with $5,000 in discounts we just didn't want to risk having them around. Vue/Torrent/Equinox +68% Tahoe/Yukon +60% Colorado/Canyon +27% Silverado/Sierra crew +23.5% total truck sales -6.7% ??? How did that happen? What's left? The Traiblazer? Yeah, it tanked. I've only sold one this year. The extended cab Silverado has tanked, which is too bad because the GM extended cab actually has a lot of room in the back seat without having to go to the crew. There must be some significant losers in the truck department to drag the entire line down 6.7% against the volume leaders above being up so much!

So is the 3rd shift dead or not?

'69 Cutlass convertible. Our neighbors had a navy one with white interior. Gorgeous. Fun drive. I like the outside looks of the 1st and second generation Tornados; however, GM was going through a wierd fake wood phase in the late '60s which ruined the interiors on a lot of their higher end offerings. Brushed chrome looked great, but when mixed with the really cheesy fake wood, the results were not pleasant.

All I care is that they work! The driver's side wiper arm on my '67 Polara flew completely off while I was on the freeway in pouring rain (okay, the car was 12 years old at the time!) and I had to drive home while sitting most of the way onto the passenger side! Then my '87 Shadow had a "turbo bump" on the hood which caused the driver'side wiper (of course!) to lift slightly at speeds above 55 mph, which was a lot of fun in the winter when the roads were salty. I tried everything: double bladed blades, those little clip on fins - nothing worked. It was dangerous, really. And have you ever noticed that some vehicles (like a '90 Olds 88 I once had) use tons of washer fluid to clear the windshield, while other vehicles are quite efficient with it?

I almost bought that exact car. If you put yourself in the mindset of 1987, they were pretty decent cars. However, when I priced one out, it was out of my budget at the time. Instead, I bought a '87 Shadow ES, turbo, etc. GM had very competitive vehicles at that time. The then current Accords, Camrys and Nissans just didn't have the appeal yet. The Acura Legend had just come out. We still see a few of these Buicks on the road up here, which is a strong testimonial to how well built they were!

LTB51, I chose not to respond to you two weeks ago because you are so far out too lunch I didn't know where to start. I deal with people like you all the time in my line of work (those that think they know everything) and I usually just shrug and leave them to their own devices. It isn't worth it, I have learned. If you love Honda, then that is your perogative. It is a free world. I do not, however, believe that on the balance when you weigh what features you get, the venerable quality of the Ecotec engines, the superiority of GM's 4 spd auto, and the fact that apples to apples a Cobalt TODAY is $50-60 per month less than a Civic on a lease - when you add it all up, yes, the Cobalt is a BETTER car. Is the Cobalt perfect? No. I would like to see some improvement on the cloth interior, make the arm rest standard, etc., but those are my preferences. Your ignorance knows no bounds. How many cars did you say you have bought - was it 3 or 4? I sell 8-11 a month. I have sold more than a 1,000 vehicles in my career. Who do you think knows more about vehicles and vehicle purchases? I keep in touch with former colleagues at other dealers and we own two Toyota stores. NOBODY I have talked to waives the admin, registration or freight. The PPSA is a government charge, as is the air tax and gasoline taxes. Next you're going to tell me you never paid those either. You, sir, are delusional. Just to pick up on one of your BS points: every dealer in southern Ontario (probably the world, but I will stick to what I know, unlike you) charges freight. The factory charges the dealer, so you damned well did pay the freight, it was just put somewhere else. Secondly, the New Car Department, the Used Car Department and the Business Office are completely separate departments: they have their own managers, their own budgets and their own targets. If you "negotiated" away the administration or registration it is because the New Car Department chose to "eat" it. I can assure you, the business office got their $300 or $400 or whatever it is. In my much earlier illustration I chose the DX-G because it most closely matches the MSRP of the LT Cobalt coupe, I then went on to point out that for the same lease payment as a DX-G you COULD get a LT Cobalt with heated leather seats, sunroof, subwoofer, etc., OR you could save the $50. I do know that the Civic LX has more equipment and nicer equipment, but then that would cost even more money, wouldn't it? My conscience is clear. I sell GM because I believe in their product and I believe Japan Inc is raping us. China will do it next: they will steal our technology, then export the very cars we showed them how to build. If you studied history and Japanese trade policies, you wouldn't be so smug in driving your rice burner.

It's mostly about carbon credits, Kyoto and getting older, dirtier vehicles off the road. I would submit that a 2006 Kia has cleaner emissions than a '95 Mercedes. By the time most cars hit 10 years old, they are worth less than $1,000 on a trade. Most people don't have the time or patience to try and sell their '93 Crown Victoria on their own. With all the crazy people out there (you have to let them into your home and let them test drive your car) and the fact that half the respondants to your ad will be "curbsiders" and wholesalers anyway, trying to sell your own beater can be an exercise in futility. This is a big deal for us. I did 3 of these last month alone! If you are shopping GM, Toyota and Nissan with your 1990 Civic, it gives us an edge. Don't forget that up in the north, cars rust out much faster. Already, cars from the 1980s are getting rare up here on the roads, but I'll bet down in California and Arizona you still have a lot of 70s cars running just fine. The amount of salt we use in our damp cold/warm winters up here is obscene! Even Alberta and B.C. have more older vehicles around than we do.

We are selling lots of Impalas here. It has killed the Malibu for us. Isn't this article old news? I just read the other day that GM hasn't killed the 3rd shift yet. Are they talking out of both sides of their mouth?

Raising residual values only shifts the pain to 3 or 4 years down the road. GM has been more successful with "under the radar" programs up here in the Hinterland. They have been doing a lot of direct mail to customers, things like the $1,500 Oldsmobile Loyalty credit, $1,000 for the owners of a J-car to upgrade, Car Heaven ($1,000 guarantee for any old wreck - even if it doesn't start!) We were told sales are up 4% in the GTA - no mean feat, considering Hyundai and Kia are very strong in the GTA - even SmartCar does well here!

Totally different worlds, the car sales in the States and Canada. I find dealing with GM employees very difficult. They distrust the dealers more than the average customers do, plus they want everything for nothing. Up here, they basically pay dealer cost, then GM rebates the dealer 5%, which as you can imagine isn't very much on a Cobalt. Supplier pricing is 4% over invoice, the dealer gets back an additional 2%. In some cases, due to the non-stackable nature of some of the programs, the supplier program isn't worth it. Doom to the salesman who speaks the truth, however! One of the biggest problems is if you are the first salesperson the eligible customer has talked to, odds are you will end up educating them for the next guy. You could spend an hour, explaining their entitlements, what programs they can combine them with, which ones they can't, bring them down out of the ether because they think they will save $5,000 on a Cobalt, and then off to the next dealer they go. I find I deal with GM employees as quickly as possible and get rid of them. They are the most amount of work for the lowest commission and they have zero loyalty. We've even had them email the dealership (along with 20 others) and publicly declare that they know about the 5% and will buy from the dealer who will give THEM the most of the 5% back. WTF???? Those emails end up in the garbage.

My mother packed me off to a psychiatrist when I was 9. I was acting up with my sister (getting her in trouble for stuff she didn't do) and generally driving my mother over the deep end. The doctor was a quack. He specialized in children's drawings (I drew a lot of girls and cars) and was also a "trail blazer" in sexuality. Ha! He told my mother that, amongst other things, I was definitely heterosexual. How the hell do you tell that from a 9 year old kid's drawings? The fact that I drew women and not men probably meant that I was IDENTIFYING with them, not wanting to sleep with them - hell, they weren't naked or anything. Mostly just face drawings. I'd love to look that clown up, but it was 1970 and Vancouver, so he is probably dead by now. Then, when I was 16 and popped a lot of sleeping pills and ended up in the hospital for a few days, I was packed off to another doctor. This guy was worse. Get this: I had been living with my father for 4 years who was an alcoholic and who (when he found out I was gay) told me he was going to throw me out, etc. And my first ever "boyfriend" who was in two of my grade 10 classes suddenly got a massive case of the guilts and wouldn't talk to me any more. Yet this so-called doctor wanted to talk about my relationship with my mother and sisters. WTF? I hadn't lived with them for 4 years! I barely saw my sisters then! What the hell did that have to do with me ending up trying to off myself???? The real problem was that I was GAY, that my straight friends were sympathetic but didn't understand, that it was 1977 and Anitia Bryant was running around telling everyone that we were SICK, that my boyfriend (and we had done things at 16 that most married couples have never thought of!) wouldn't talk to me, and what I really needed was someone who understood, who felt the way I did, to TALK to. Can a doctor help? Possibly. My experiences were bad, but then that was nearly 30 years ago and homosexuality had just been DECRIMINALIZED. Doctors still knew nothing about it then. I think a sympathetic friend can for further, and that advice is free. Someone who has already been there.

Personal attacks aside, there are good salespeople out there and then there are bad salespeople - just like in all walks of life. As long as there are products to sell, there will be sales people to sell them. About 7 years ago, we were given a big presentation about the internet and how a big chunk of sales were going to be done that way and how sales people wouldn't be needed. The senior sales guys laughed. I was nervous. Well, I've seen a lot of those upstart internet companies go away. We embraced one of the early ones, AutoByTel. What a collosal waste of time. I remember I set up a template on my computer and in December 99 sent out 90 responses. Didn't sell a single car. When I followed up on one of them, I spoke to the mother of a highschool girl who wanted a price on a Vette. Nice. General Motors had nowhere else to go but down 25 years ago. No company has ever had the kind of near monopoly that GM enjoyed in North America. It isn't so much that GM is not building what people want today, it is that the competition has finally got with it. Look at the late '70s BMW products - a joke. Look at the Datsun 210 of its day and compare that to a mid-70s Malibu. Which better captured the market of the day? Even the revered Mercedes were oddities in the 70s. Sure, they may have been pretty bullet proof, but they were boring, unattractive cars bought by wierd people. Today, NIssan, Honda and others put out decent, even great products. The consumer has a dizzying array of vehicles (not just cars and pick ups, like 25 years ago, either!) to choose from. The consumer is confused. They have surveys and reader polls and the internet, all yanking them in different directions. There are more than 300 models to choose from today. It is no wonder GM is settling on 20% market share. I don't believe that is something to be ashamed of. I believe it is and was inevitable. The salesperson's job is to cut through the clutter and zero in on what is important to the client that is in front of them. Whether the client is weighing the Corolla versus the Cobalt, or the Cobalt versus the Aveo, what is important is what is important to the CLIENT. It is great if YOU are informed (or think you are anyway) enough to make your own decision and don't need the pesky salesman around, but most people aren't. I walked into a jewellry store to buy a diamond ring years ago, and I was both intimidated and dazed. I was terrified of being sold glass. How would I know the difference? I always remember that feeling when I approach a customer in the show room.

???????????????????? Has someone been smoking pot again? Let me get this straight - the United States of America EXPORTS its oil??? The United States of America is SELF SUFFICIENT in oil reserves??? I must have missed that show on Discovery Channel.

You, sir, are an a-hole. How dare you get off saying that I "mislead" my customers. You oughta spend 1 day on the sales floor and see what it is really like, instead of shooting your mouth off about stuff you clearly know nothing about.

Req, your wrong, DEAD WRONG. A good sales person can greatly influence the sale. Emphasis on GOOD SALESPERSON. Example, last week a man in the show room declares that his wife is looking for a new car, probably an SUV and she is looking at the imports because they are better. Naturally, I took exception to that and after going through my thick file of recalls for Toyota, problems over at Nissan with the Sentra Altima, etc. he was clearly puzzled. The next day he came back and bought an Equinox and said that other sales people he had talked to at Mazda and Hyundai were arrogant and didn't even know their own product, let alone the competitor's. True, there are certain customers or personality types that will walk into the show room with a chip on their shoulders. I've seen those, but an experienced salesperson can usually find some common ground or a way to disarm that person's hostility. To use your example, although I can't speak for the Terraza (don't sell them), I can say that the Uplander is $12,000 less than a Sienna and even if you go to a nicely loaded Uplander extended, it still is about $5k less than a Sienna. Is the Sienna better? Yes. Can everyone afford one? No. Is a Cartier watch better than a Timex? Of course. But can the price be justified? The trouble is that most of the items you have listed are things that are important to YOU. As I have tirelessly pointed out, horsepower is BS if not taken with a test drive. YOU may not like the Equinox's power train, but it works fine and is both reliable and fuel efficient. You've given a great list as to why YOU wouldn't buy a GM product, and that is valid, but the average consumer doesn't know, doesn't care. Salespeople make all the difference. A Canon digital camera may not be better than an Olympus, but it may have features that you need and could use that the Olympus doesn't. A knowledgeable salesperson is very important to point out how the product melds into your life. Not everybody needs or wants a 8 megapixel, $1,800 camera.

Although the entry of more players into an already crowded market is not good news for any OEMs, Hyundai is still seen as a cheap, entry level manufacturer, at least in this market. Nobody who is going to fork out $20,000+ is going to seriously consider a Hyundai. They may consider a 60 mo. Hyundai lease because the payment appears cheap, but who would pay cash for a vehicle that is nearly the same price as a Cobalt? After all, it has been more than 20 years since the Pony debacle and Hyundai still only has 4.2% market share (Canadian market, according to desrosiers) and I warrant that if you take the Toronto market out of their sales, they would have a lot less market share because it is mostly SouthAsians and Asians who are buying them here.

I have been saying this for a very long time: Civics and Mazdas do not get any where near their advertised gas mileage in real world driving conditions because their high horsepower/low torque engines have to be wound up to 5,500 rpm to get any kind of power, and at those rpms you are not going to get 30+ mpg! Vehicles like the Impala, Malibu and Cobalt do very sell in real world driving conditions because their torquier engines have more usable power at a broader torque range. But don't let that get in the way of the rice humpers who believe everything that Japan Inc. spews.

Don't believe the hype, american_revolution, if your parents had bought last week, they would have paid cost (just like employee pricing) and gotten 0 for 48 or 2.9 for 60. Money costs more in Canada, which is why you are not seeing 0 for 60 any more. GM has a lot of "under the radar" deals right now, such as getting an extra $1,000 if anybody in your FAMILY has a Sunfire/Cavalier, $1,000 for any heap (doesn't even have to be driveable) that is '95 or older (thru Car Heaven). Any good salesperson is in touch with their customer base and keeps them abreast of the deals that are out there. I had the best month since last August (employee pricing). Price whores never create a relationship with a single dealer, however, and their hopping around means they often miss deals because their last dealer is glad to get rid of them and they don't have a contact who will call them up when the deals are good. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but we are people, too. Customers who treat us like crap, who would sell us up the river for $5 a month just aren't worth our time. That is just human nature. Historically, June/July is always the best time to buy. Inventory is high and the deals are geneally the best of the year. If you wait to August/September, inventory is much lower and although you MAY save a few hundred dollars, be prepared to pay much more for equipment you don't want and to get stuck with a color you don't like.

Member 55, if you can't see the difference then that is the problem. I don't see any where in the Consitution where it is written that it is a God given right to consume all of the planet's resources as fast as possible....do you? When countries like Denmark, Brazil and others are striving to become energy self-sufficient, what is the U.S. doing? I understand market realities and how many people deplore Big Government, etc., but the biggest threat to American national security now is her reliance on 60% of her energy to be imported. Or are you not paying attention to what is happening in Venezuela? If my Aveo gets 45 mpg on the highway and your Explorer gets 25 mpg, that just means I can drive nearly twice as much as you, so if we have rationing (as in 1974) I can still get to work while you won't be able to. It is more than just how much money we end up spending on energy. I know Katrina really made me sit up and pay attention. How can so much of one country's energy be so vulnerable? That is silly strategic planning - Oh, I'm sorry, that is market economics (supply close to refinery) with no strategic planning (Big Government). I wonder if Al Queda is listening.

The SS looks more like carbon fibre, but you can get the brushed metal on any of the models. I've seen some pretty odd combinations because managers didn't know they could order whatever they wanted, as with the 5 passenger versus 6 passenger configuaration. IMO, the fake wood is awful. The brushed metal is cleaner. And above all else, the graphite interior will age much better than either the tan or light grey. We've started selling a lot more Impalas once we realized this. Many people thought the lighter colors (especially on the base cars) looked cheap and wouldn't buy the Impala because of it. Even the Malibu suffers from this. The light interiors are FUGLY. The public reacts much better to the richer, darker interior.

I think the DTS is a good start. Cadillac cannot and should not forget its core audience - the old geezers. There is a good reason you see white haired old men driving 1966 Cadillacs still - they like big, heavy American cars. If I am going to pay $50K+ for a car, I want it to LOOK like I've paid that kind of money. For this reason, Lexus and Acura and others just don't do it for me. Somewhere, the rags convinced us that big is bad and that all cars should handle like a Porsche. This is BS. This is one of the reasons the Tahoes and Escalades sell - some people like big, heavy "floaty" vehicles. Of course, Cadilllac needs to battle BMW and Mercedes, but the DTS has room to grow. If anything, it should get bigger. There is no shame in looking like a Cadillac. Cadillac lost its way in the late '80s when it tried to look like a Buick.

I once had a very young co-worker ask me if I didn't miss the softness, the roudness of a woman. I patiently explained to him that that is exactly what I don't like: I don't like the jigglyness, the loosness of a woman's body, although I have to admit I have seen the odd, lean Asian woman who looks, well, boyish, I guess. I like hard, lean, muscular, whatever. Most women's bodies are out of shape, saggy and cellulite. Then again, a lot of men age badly, too! LOL For me, a woman dressed up for the Red Carpet or a night on the town can look very hot, but as soon as she takes it all off - yech. Forget Brad, he's yesterday's news. How about Tom Welling (Superman of Smallville?) Or Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor). Or Colin Farrell (Alexander the Great - Oh, finally they got the story right and admit he was gay!!!!!)