CARBIZ

Certain people seem so proud of the fact that Toyota has the #1 selling car in the Camry. BIG DEAL If you walk into a Toyota show room and happen NOT to like the Camry, you have no choice but to either buy it or leave. However, if you come into a Chevy showroom and don't like the Malibu, well you can look at the Impala, Epica OR scoot over to a P-B store and look at the G6, Grand Prix or Allure. Or perhaps we have forgotten the GENERAL in General Motors. In Toyota you have the (over)priced Avalon or the Camry -that's it. I know all about the argument that Toyota can sell SO many cars with one model - that somehow makes them smarter and more profitable. But the fact remains, if a customer hates one model, I would rather have another two or three to show them, rather than have them walk out.

Wow, that lot looks really bleak without the SSR out front! Doesn't anybody order red or blue in your neck of the woods?

Many more! I always look forward to your postings. Keep it up (if you can!)

Toyota and Hyundai are only going to do just enough to avoid a political backlash. For that, I will give them credit. The early '80s Buy AMerican backlash won't work now because Japan INc. shrewdly positioned themselves to where they can convince the sheeple that they are American, too. I hope the UAW and Delphi/GM both realize they have a golden opportunity here to turn a corner in worker relations. The very future of the North American auto industry depends on the outcome of this confrontation. I hope that Miller understands these people simply cannot take a 50% pay cut without losing their homes, and I hope the UAW understands that Delphi simply can't continue paying them $40 an hour, or whatever it is up to these days with benefits. Somewhere in the middle lays the foundation of a new day in the auto industry; one where GM and Ford can get back to the business of building great cars and trucks without WallStreet calling the shots.

I was an anal, holier-than-thou kid. I never drank or did anything until I was 20. My friends all did pot, but the one time I tried it, it had no effect. Then, my first boyfriend had a female friend from highschool and they used to drop acid once in a while (this was the early '80s). I was really pissed and would get on my soap box and preach about what I knew nothing about. Finally, a guy at the auto parts dealeship where I worked met a girl who convinced him to drop acid. THis guy had been very anal, just like me. For weeks he went on and on about what a great time he had had while high with her. Finally, curiousity got the better of me, so for our first anniversary I got two "hits", wrapped them up and gave them to my boyfriend. His present was to see me high for the first time. That was nearly 25 years ago, but I can still remember that night. What a blast. Suddenly, Nina Hagen and all the other music that I'd never understood made sense. LSD makes me laugh and dance all night. We used to have parties at my second boyfriend's parent's cottage and about 15 of us would stay up all night on acid. I went on to try mushrooms, but acid was my party favor of choice for about 3 or 4 years, once or so a month. Pot only makes me sleepy. I moved away from the city and focused on my career for a decade or so, but occasionally did acid or mushrooms (like once or so a year). Then when I returned to the city I discovered ecstasy - now there is a drug that is dangeorus, but not for the reasons you might imagine. I am by no means a drug advocate. My peers mostly dabble in coke. Drugs are certainly not for everyone. I don't like alcohol - it, too, just tires me out. Many of my professional friends can party on Saturday night and then leave it alone. Like anything, if done responsibly, certain party favors can be fun. YOu need to trust yourself and those you're with. It really expanded my thinking and made me open to more things. I was destined to be a stuffed shirt when I was in my early 20s. Both my sisters dabbled in their early 20s, but they have kids now and have become Stepford Wives. Being gay, I don't need to worry about kids or baby sitters so I can stay out all night if I want.

Well, I am tooling around in a 2006 Impala LT, black with graphite cloth interior, and I have to say that for $26k (Canadian) with XM, I am wholly impressed. So I went over to our sister store and grabbed a new Camry and took it for a spin. Both cars are nice. I like the Impala's graphite interior better, but for the $4,000 price difference, plus taxes, etc. , I would take the Impala and its monster trunk any day.

Evok & Enzl. I went back and read the entire thread and it wasn't Krinkle who hijacked this thread...he didn't jump in until both of you had commented on Tama's posting - infact, Tama had to jump in and defend the posting before Krinkle did. Those of us who are real GM supporters HAVE to defend GM because their is precious little in the media going on to do it. Enzl - do you not have any sense of delicious irony? You triumphantly post yet another recall of GM's, yet prove the point that I have been trying to make all along - THE RELENTLESS NEGATIVE SLANT OF EVERY PIECE OF NEWS, GOOD OR BAD, ABOUT GM. "Hmm. Maybe GM's turn signals are trying to tell the carmaker something." Edmunds just can't resist that jab, and every article they ever write is always full of subtle, or not so subtle, jabs at GM. You've just proved my point. I am fully aware of GM's failings. I drive GM products every day. Have for 15 years. I don't need you to remind me, I have Edmunds. My mission in life is to stockpile Toyota's and HOnda's failings to make sure that my customers, and everyone I talk to, are educated that when they buy a Toyota product they are not buying something built by God Hersef.

Do not confound these people with FACTS. That will only scare them. As this has quickly degenerated into yet another personal attack by a certain person who has also started personal attacks on other threads recently, I think we are all missing the point of this interesting thread. Frankly, being #1 sucks. You constantly have a target on your back. Look at Ford: since they quietly dropped to the 3rd largest car company in the world, everyone is ignoring them as they set their sights firmly on GM. Nobody can remain #1 forever.

Camry > Aura = YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS

I'm with Trina on this one. I like the new design better. I agree the last generation was a solid vehicle, but I never warmed up to the rear end or the dark grey rub strips. The new one looks better all around, but I will agree that the older one was more destinctive, for better or worse.

Canadian. Canadian. Canadian. I get really tired when people say,"no, really, what is your background?" Does it matter that my great-grandfather was born somewhere in Michigan, and that his father came from Wales? Or that my mother's mother's mother came from Scotland, and that her father was German? We need to have less hyphenated Americans and Canadians.

There has been a lot of programs on cable about Dubai because of all the massive engineering projects going on. The kingdom is pretty smart, re-inventing itself before the oil runs out. However, I do wonder how they will light the place once the oil is gone. These places are in the desert! The a/c alone would shame Las Vegas. The UN is going to face an uphill battle with many of these Arab countries, who have no rivers to speak of to tap for hydro power. How will they generate power once oil hits $100 a barrel and they have to import it? They will all want nuclear power generation, but that is going to make the West very nervous.

I feel your pain. I used to run my own company (2 video stores) and although I didn't lose my cool very often, when an irate/unreasonable customer wouldn't back down, I would just point to the very big store across the street and tell them to go rent there. It felt great. One time, an a-hole screamed at me in line for about 5 minutes while very patient people behind held their tongue. After the guy left, the woman behind him said to me that my boss should give me a raise and she wanted his/her name so she could commend me to them. I laughed and showed her my business card. I was only 25 at the time, so she could be forgiven for not thinking I was the boss.

Okay, while others rush to their dictionaries, I want to make one last point here about market rationalization. North America has been an anomoly on the world stage for about 60 years. While Europe was pretty much bombed into the Dark Ages 60 years ago and then endured years of rationing, Europe and Japan rebuilt their industrial foundations on being frugal and smart. America went another way: bigger is better. Why go for large when you can go for garish? Witness the excesses of the '50s and '60s. So, Toyopet learned to make small cars. VW learned to make small cars. The Big Three did not. The trouble is, GM and Ford do know how to make small cars. They make them over in Europe. GM and Ford enjoy a strong market position over there where Toyota is having a harder time making inroads. I wonder why that is? Could it be because GM knows how to make what Europeans want - small, fun to drive vehicles that are great on gas? While on this side of the pond, where it is written into the Constitution, or something like that, that Thou Shalt Drive Big Gas Swizzling Trucks, GM and Ford never figured out how to build small, fun to drive cars and trucks. They never had to. Now, in the new reality of emerging China and India, we are facing world wide gasoline shortages of a real nature. $5 a gallon gas will be a reality soon. GM needs to stop treating Americans as stupid and start bringing the real Opels and Vauxhalls here. I understand they propose to do that with Saturn. Good. Just don't "Americanize" them. The truck bubble of the last 10 years lulled the Big 2 into complacency once again. It isn't entirely their fault. If Wagoner etc. had spent a fortune on the Cavalier in 1995, Wall Street would have been all over it for blowing money on an unprofitable vehicle when truck sales were soaring. GM already has the vehicles it needs. They are in Germany and Brazil. Just get them over here. QUICK.

No doubt after re-reporting 2005's losses, Wagoner and Co. are going to be a little more cautious in their reportings this year. I understand why they did what they did, but it doesn't play well to the non-accountant crowd who only understand the headlines and not the meat behind it. This just furthers my opinion that all of this - the losses in 2005, the bankruptcy of Delphi, the posturing with the UAW, the smokescreens with the Camaro, etc., is just part of a plan that will play out in 2006. Unlike some of the hangers on this board, I still have a little faith in the General.

Turbo, my opinons are my opinions. They are no less valid than your own. I will not stoop to personal attacks about your flaws. In fact, if anything I was a Chrysler fan until I bought my '91 Caprice. I do not consider myself an expert, but rather a well-informed layperson. And unlike you, I suspect, I get to talk to real people every day. In fact, your beloved Civic is getting a lot of resistance from Civic buyers, particularly the older ones. I've already had several people complain of the looks and the price. And I would stack the Cobalt up against the Corolla any day of the week - mechanical trunk release and all! As to the market share issue, I would like to point out an obvious point that is being missed here: 40% of 11 million is about the same as 25% of 17 million. I would agree that there are fewer vehicles out there that hit the 400k mark, which Ford and GM routinely hit in the '60s and '70s with their successful models, but then Detroit was only battling itself then - not Japan Inc, the media, disgruntled shareholders and the UAW. Balthazar raises a very good point about market share. Again, the media is fanning the flames even when they are just embers. The average idiot on the street could care less about market share, but with the media spreading doom and gloom from every paper, what is an Average Joe to think? I believe more and more people are turning away from the mass media because it has nothing new to say on most topics, let alone the car business.

You will want to make sure you fill your tank before you come up here. We are paying basically $1 a litre, which is about $4.50 a gallon. Even with your 10% discount it doesn't add up to much!

I like it. Kudos to Chrysler, who once again seems to be at the forefront, rather than reacting to market trends. I guess all that money Lutz spent on the design center in the early 90s has paid off handsomely.

I realize this is supposed to be a GM fansite, although there are times when I wonder myself, but people are missing my point. Let me repeat: WITH 80+ MODELS, IT WOULD BE BOTH PHYSICALLY AND FINANCIALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR GM TO BE CLASS-LEADING IN ALL CATEGORIES. For Pete's sake, Toyota isn't class leading in all categories - or in any, arguably. With the competition out there today, it is no longer possible to be All things to All people. The market and consumer tastes are far too fragmented to do that. GM just needs to do MORE things right than anybody else. It could be argued that GM is spreading itself too thin with too many brands, but I'll leave that for another discussion.

I won't even start..............................

Do you seriously believe, that with the improvements in the competition's product in the past 15 years that there is any way GM could have held onto 40% or even 30% market share? When I went car shopping in 1990, Toyota, Nissan and Honda were a JOKE. There is nothing that they built that appealed to me at all. I looked at the Thunderbird SC, the new Grand Caravan and ended up with a Caprice wagon. (I even considered the Pontiac Transport for about 1/15 of a second!) Now, I have to admit, there is amazing product out there from even the likes of Hyundai. With 80+ models, it is a physical impossibility for GM to have class-leading products in all categories. The goal posts simply move too fast - I think we can all acknowledge that. But why is it that the media is leading the charge that GM isn't building "class-leading" cars and trucks? If the consumer keeps hearing the same old refrain, then eventually they will be led to believe that GM is, in fact, building crap and buy something else. GM can only build "good" cars and trucks, even "better" cars and trucks. There is simply too much choice and the consumer is overwhelmed. A truck used to be a truck and a car a car - now the lines have blurred and confusion is rampant. The media, with their cynicism and "we know better than you poor unwashed masses" attitude is not helping matters. If GM is on a "death spiral" it is largely due to past mistakes of GM and current badgering of the peanut gallery.

I read a book a long time ago - I wish I could remember the title or the author, but the premise was the far future in which everything had been written and all art had been drawn/sculpted, etc. Instead of creating anything new, the chattering classes (because, of course, robots did all the work) sat, locked up in their rooms, and critiqued the critiques. That is, they discussed and rated other people's analyses of art work and literature, sometimes several times removed - even to the point where most of the "critics" hadn't even seen the original art/writing at all. I was a kid when I read this book, and at the time it hit me as humorous, but as I move around in the world I start to see how profound. Politicians, business executives, critics of any kind - eventually they remove themselves from reality and become so self-important and puffed up on their own prose that they forget how they got to where they are. I fight becoming overly-jaded and burnt out every day. My livelihood depends on my being upbeat and relaxed. I can't afford to rant and rave because I had a bad experience with my 1984 Citation and I am never going to forgive GM - for example. I don't have a pulpit in which to grind my axe and shame the Big 2 for what they aren't building for me now. More and more, I find critics of any kind, whether it is in the real estate section of the newspaper, or the political commentary, to be puffed up and more interested in trying to be clever or funny amongst their peers than to actually be doing anything constructive. They just lose touch. I can't say I blame them. I guess I'd rather drive a BMW than a Yaris, but that isn't reality.... Anyway, that may be a little off topic, but I just wanted to build on FOG's comments. There is no conspiracy, just a general laziness amongst the general "official" media to say or do anything different. And even though this may raise the ire of those who know so much more than me, I am saying this as the observations of a layperson who has not sat in thousands of cars over the past 25 years. But I was a carjockey in a luxury hotel for a year. And I did work in two luxury condos and got to drive everything. And now I work at a GM dealership. And I just love cars, but not the Corvettes and Infinitis out there, but rather the Fusions and the Maximas and the Muranos - the every day/everyman's vehicles.

There is a gulf of distance between what enthusiasts on this board would consider "gotta have" and what the average consumer feels are priorities. I think this is the point between OC and Camino. Toyota's vehicles, like many of GM's, are plain and boring. That isn't a bad thing, just what it takes to dominate the market. If you look at the vehicles that have hit the 400k sales in a single year mark over the past 20 years, I warrant very few (if any) would make it to any of our "gotta have" lists. Why do "gotta have" vehicles have to be sporty? Chrysler has survived the past 15 years on creating great looking vehicles that average people gotta have. Even though enjoying a more spotty quality history than GM, they have maintained their market share. This is where GM is getting hammered: other than the Corvette, GM doesn't have much that is no the media's "gotta have" list, which them leads the media to dismiss GM before it even gets out of the gate. Other than glowing reviews for quality, I can't see why anyone would buy a Toyota. There are models from Nissan and Mazda, even Honda, that I would find "gotta have," but not Toyota. But if I may add this: over the past couple years, based on consumer reactions, GM may finally be going in the right direction. People have actually come into the show room to see the HHR, the Cobalt SS and the Equinox and bought on emotion - something I haven't seen in a long, long while. This is the direction GM needs to go if she is to survive.

Why does this have to be a "death spiral?" Many American companies enjoyed virtual monopolies at one time, then were forced to reinvent themselves with new products/ways of doing things. Look at Kodak. It was nearly wiped out a few years ago. Sears is another company. The department store market changed vastly in the past 25 years. Many venerable chains (in Canada it has been a killing field: Eatons, Woodwords and others). There is no way GM could hold onto 50% market share. As far as I recall, GM was quite profitable until last year. There is no denying Toyota's emergence as a formidable competitor, just as Wal-Mart has shaken up the retail world. Like Wal-Mart, Toyota has come out of virtually nowhere in the past 25 years. I think Americans are at their best when their backs are against the wall. Call me crazy, but I don't think it is such a bad thing if GM settles at 20% market share in North America, with Toyota and Ford maybe tied at 15-18%, then Chrysler, Honda, Nissan and Mazda pulling up the rear. It could be a healthy, thriving market for all. But can someone please tell me why nobody else on this board even wonders why Japan is the only market in the world where there is NO foreign compeition? Am I the only person here who thinks this is a concern?

I am sorry for you both if you are that bitter and angry. Neither of you has even bothered to acknowledge my argument that the media doesn't have anything new to say. You don't find it amusing that they were carping about Detroit's comeback even when a comeback wasn't necessary? A sale, even to fleet, is still a sale. SOMEONE is still driving the 25-27% market share GM is currently hovering at. If it makes you feel better to go and buy a Toyota because someone in the RenCen has screwed up, then fine. I, on the other hand, would never buy a Japanese car. I think Toyota and Honda build great cars, but they don't play fair. They hide behind the MITI in Japan and enjoy a closed market at home. The media has an axe to grind, plain and simple. I could bring up a hundred examples (most recently I mentioned the lawsuit against GM for their alleged 3.1/3.4 gasket problems was put on the FRONT page of the Toronto Star). GM has screwed up, to be sure. I think we could all list a hundred things they've done wrong, but they've also done a hundred things right. As far as resolving the issues from the last 18 years, that would be easy if the market/economy/consumer tastes didn't change, too. And perhaps there is a disconnect between those on this board who work at GM (or Toyota!) and can only see the negative because they've "heard it all before," and those of us in the trenches who deal with real customers every day. If given a chance, it can be easily demonstrated that GM builds competitive products. The consumer will listen and observe patiently. And there can even be small victories. I have personally driven people in a Cobalt and a Corolla to SHOW that the ride, handling, power and value is far superior to the Corolla. The trick is convincing the consumer, who has to wade through the hyperbole and outright lies in the media, to actually drive the vehicle and judge for themselves. I prefer to be a glass half full kind of guy. Sure, my livelihood depends on it, but if GM did go bankrupt and sell off its assets in Canada (as Texaco had to do), then I would get out of the business because I would never work for the Japanese.