CARBIZ

Frankly, I was wondering the same thing. A year ago, Rick seemed to be a C&G darling; now, I see his postings raise the ire of many people on this board. Not knowing too much about his history, I have been puzzled by this. And I also agree that his rants seem to be very focused and uni-directional these days.

The trouble is getting passed people's prejudices and the media's biases. If a person actually drove a Cobalt and a Corolla back to back, the Cobalt wins on nearly all counts - especially in the power, ride and quiet department. The Civic, it could be argued, does have a few points over the Cobalt, but they are leasing for $50 a month MORE than the Cobalt in this market! The Civic doesn't even have a split folding rear seat until you go to the top of the line! How about a power trunk release on either of them? automatic headlights? How about the best sound system in the small car market (the Pioneer sub is amazing!) Anyway, I think the Cobalt will hold up well in the market. The 2.2 is one of the best engines GM has ever built and I believe resale will improve on them, too.

Well, excuse me for breathing! Both my sisters have no problems explaining about their uncle and his boyfriend. My one sister has 4 boys, ranging from 5 to 12 and she has no problems worrying about shielding them from anything. For the record, the problem with stereotypes of all types is the messages that they send to the young and the stupid. Of course, all mature adults understand that stereotypes don't represent all people of that certain group, but it is the signal that kids get at a young, impressionable age that can set them up as adults with the wrong ideas. Funky, your remarks about being fat are true, but that doesn't make them any less hurtful to those who are fat and can't do anything about it. I happen to be one of the fortunate gay men who is out to all my friends, family and co-workes, who can slip in and out of the gay/straight world unnoticed if I choose because I look and act "normal." But that is just me. I enjoy gay jokes as much as the next person, but then I've always had a thick skin. We all need to get a sense of humour to get through this life and we should all remember that BEING HETEROSEXUAL ISN'T NORMAL IT IS JUST COMMON.

"If we accepted too low a wage, it will effect workers everywhere." ?????????????????? That is the point: Delphi's wages aren't competitive. They are paying far more than most other parts makers. I feel the pain of these workers, but they have been living in a dream world for a very long time now. This battle is going to have very long term ramifications for North America. I am afraid we are watching history in the making.

I'm no big fan of these micro-cars, but when I woke up this morning, we are paying $1.01 a LITRE in this area today! That is $4.60 a GALLON for you boys down there (okay, a Canadian gallon, to be sure, but still a gallon!)

On a side bar here: when Texaco when bankrupt one of its conditions when it emerged was to sell off its Canadian subsidiary. Texaco is now forever gone from Canada. Just a thought.............................

I'm with Hudson on this one. The U.S. (and to a lesser extent, Canada) are anomolies on the world stage. Many European countries are just as affluent as us, yet they all make do with 1.3 litre engines and Smart cars, etc. We may laugh, but the U.S. imports 40% of its oil and we all know what Katrina did to oil prices. There is nothing wrong with freedom of choice, but with a nod to future generations maybe we should be looking at what we actually need to drive every day. An Impala is every bit as roomy and comfortable as a Tahoe and for 90% of the people who are driving Tahoes every day an Impala is all they really need. We have the freedom to choose to drive more fuel efficient vehicles today before some petty tyrant forces it on us tomorrow...........

...and how many hybrid cars will this bus replace?

Being as this bankruptcy took place, like six months ago - I certainly hope that Wagoner and the gang have a back up plan. They've had a long time to plan for the likelihood that this will happen. After all, this is just a dress rehearsal for what is going to happen in 2007.

I will grudgingly acknowledge that the new Civic has certain advantages over the Cobalt, but not enough to justify its extra cost and thr premium being charged in this market. I understand Chevrolet, like Toyota, is supposed to be a more conservative car company, but at least the Pursuit should have been a little more "out there" like the Civic is. As to Honda "buying" the award: I doubt they did it literally, but as with the CR Japanese sweep it is becoming increasingly apparent that Detroit has completely lost the ability to impress certain members of the automotive press. Where the true controversy begins is whether the fault lies with Detroit or the press. Despite what the press has been shouting lately, GM and Ford far outsell anything from Japan on this continent - so they must be doing something right some of the time.

Good choice. If you are used to driving a V-8, odds are the gas mileage would suck on the HHR because you'd be riding it hard all the time. In real world driving conditions the Maxx will get decent mileage. It's interesting when people "downsize" they often make the mistake of dropping too far down the line and then are very unhappy. Extreme case in point: I had a customer with a 2002 Monte Carlo want to get his payment down and save gas. He ended up leasing an Epica, which he hated after 3 months. He was a young guy and used to the power of the 3.8, but even after two test drives of the anemic Epica he insisted it didn't matter. Now he really regrets his decision.

And in all fairness, we should only be talking about Cadillac versus Lexus, not dragging all 80 some odd models of GM into the fray while comparing only Lexus. Lexus SHOULD be better than, say, Chevrolet at TWICE THE PRICE! I have said this before, but it must be far easier to juggle 22 balls (the entire Toyota/Lexus line) than to juggle 80+ over at GM. Eventually, as Toyota/Lexus ad more models, they are bound to have more problems - it is a mathematical CERTAINTY. I don't think anybody is gloating over Lexus' misfortune, only at the media's lack of attention to it.

The trouble is, to the vast majority of the driving public and the uses they use their vehicles for, GM offers very competitive products at very competitive prices, but it is the blind media and CR humpers that tell these sheeple what they want to drive. I mean, does 90% of the driving public even know what "pulling 82 G" even means, unless some stupid magazine says it is important? Using all measures that are important, such as ride, value, fuel mileage, comfort - then something like the Impala is very competitive against the likes of the Avalon, etc. I mean, how would someone know or care that the W-body is the worst platform GM has, unless some engineering geek points it out?! If the car rides nice, is quiet, doesn't break down, and has a good a/c - that is what most people care about. I had a friend spend a fortune to lease an Acura 3.2 a few years back. His insurance was obscene, it ran on premium gas, it was breaking him. I could have leased him an Intrigue GLS for $130 a month less! He didn't even know how many cylinders the car had, let alone the horsepower. Why did he lease it? Because he read somewhere it was a good car! To 5% of the driving public, the G-force on a skid pad are important. This is where the car went off the rails - the media is dictating what is important because these features are important to THEM, not to buyers. I would warrant someone looking at a Corvette or CTS-V would be concerned about true performance; someone leasing a Grand Prix not so much. This is where the challenge for GM lays: seizing the agenda back from the media. Should anyone care if Honda is a half point ahead of Chevrolet on the JD Powers quality index? What about Toyota lying about its horsepower numbers? I could go on and on, but we have beaten to death the subject of media bias on other threads here..................

My mistake: you automatically assumed that it was a "problem" and not just normal chance that the item was defective. I was just making a general observation, don't get testy. Your aunt's honor is still intact.

Sell the same? Last stats I saw for the Silverado were something like 650k units sold and the Sierra was around 180k or 220k, something much lower like that. In Canada I know GMC is a stronger brand, but in the U.S. Chevy trucks far outsell GMC. The idea has merits, though. As has been discussed on other threads here, fleet sales are a double edged sword: dealers love them because the real money is in used vehicles anyway and it creates volume for dealers, but it kicks the crap out of resale value and fuels the myth that Japanese vehicles hold their value better.

Why is it with domestic vehicles that owners automatically assume that if they have any kind of problem with their new vehicle that is is probably part of a recall or "problem?" Parts break. If a manufacturer makes 100,000 of anything, something will fall off or not work, mathematics dictates that. A 2004 Impala should still be under warranty. Get the speedometer fixed under warranty, that's what it is for. And here's hoping she doesn't have any other issues with her car!

GM recently did that here, dropping MSRPs on the Cobalt by about $1,000 Canadian. This was largely ignored in the media here but I think this is a better strategy discounting. The MSRP has to have some level of credibility. If the customer expects a $2000 discount from a $17,000 car then there is a credibility gap. Although I am sure this is going to be painful in the short term, I believe GM is on the right track in reducing the MSRPs rather than increasing incentives. However, it is regrettable that the Cobalt wasn't such an incredible leap ahead that it could be overtaken (although just barely, IMO) by the Civic less than two years later. Again, typical of how GM has been building cars lately, they didn't aim far enough ahead with the Cobalt and now they have to reduce the price to increase its value against the Civic.

Dodgefan, part of the problem here is that when Detroit built crap, EVERYBODY was building crap but because Detroit sold a lot more vehicles than Japan or Europe, all anyone remembers is the crap that Detroit built in the '80s. I am mentioning this because I owned an '87 Shadow ES and from brand new I had nothing but trouble: two head gaskets (one at 3 months, the next one at 84,000 km and out of warranty, naturally), rack and pinion, two water pumps, ignition linkage inside the steering column....etc. and I could go on). However, I am in the business now, and being in the business we hear a lot of stories about where everybody's bodies are buried. I know that Chryslers of today are much better than they were 20 years ago, but then so are everybody else's vehicles, too. There are many people (and a lot of them are writers for CR now, I am sure!) who had a Pontiac 6000 or Ford Fairmont or Plymouth Horizon 20 years ago and who had bad experiences and now go around bashing Detroit because of what their experience then. And as to what sixty eight was saying, I have seen that happen, too. The import owner will justify a $600 timing belt change as "maintenance" and carp about what a great vehicle it has been, even though they've spent thousands at the dealer in "routine" service visits.

I don't understand the point of this thread. How could Lutz be responsible for GM and what it did pre-2002? Hold him responsible for the products of NOW, not then. And, yeah, he is a lot like Iaccoca, who also shot from the hip and I admire that. GM dropped the ball on new cars, plain and simple. Look at the one year lag between the cancelled Cutlass and the 1998 Intrigue as but one example of the looming crisis that everyone ignored back then; however, at least someone somewhere had the foresight to hire someone like Lutz to put the designers back in charge. I, personally, am very encouraged by what I see GM bringing out lately. I just hope it isn't too little too late.

In this neck of the woods the Cobalt has very little in the way of incentives. No zero percents, no cash rebates. Even the lease rate is 2.7%, which is a lot higher than it has been in a long time. The incentives are in line with the Mazda 3 and Corolla, yet the Cobalt is holding its own. There are currently no cash incentives and only a few vehicles (Equinox, Trailblazer) have things like free sunroofs or the free DVD in the Maxx. These are more like frills rather than incentives - an easier way to upsell a vehicle that will hold its value better for resale.

But wait a minute.....if CR was truly unbiased (which we all know they are not!) then it wouldn't matter if GM pissed them off or not. Facts are facts, right? NOT! Seems to me that with the crap CR already publishes things couldn't get any worse for GM, so you go, girl!

When I was in highschool I was very uptight. I never drank. I never did drugs. I looked down on those who did. When I left home (at age 17) and finished the last two years of highschool on my own while working part time, I only got worse. While everyone was bitching about their prom dress and dates, I was worrying about rent. I was also living with my first boyfriend (who was a much older 19). He and a female friend of his from school (he was out of school and working full time) used to hang out once in a while and drop acid. (This WAS the laste '70s!) That made me pretty mad at him. HOwever, a couple years went by and when a co-worker tried drugs for the first time and raved (no pun intended!) about them for weeks, I started to re-evaluate my own values. I realized I was judgemental and closed minded, which was pretty hard to fathom in a young gay person at that time. So I lightened up and realized that I should only make claims if I have truly experienced what I am ranting for or against. It was a watershed moment in my life. I loosened up a lot. I partied in moderation and it really opened my eyes to a lot of new things in my life. I am not promoting partying or drug taking, but I think that good or bad habits formed in our youth will haunt or help us throughout our lives. Experiencing new things is one of those good habits. I have a lot of flaws, to be sure, but most of my peers and friends who respect me do so because they know I don't throw stones when I live in a glass house!

OC, very good points. Split loyalties don't benefit anyone. To add to this, I would like to point out that the world is very different than it was 75 years ago when the UAW rose to power. It is no longer reasonable to expect to make $30k+ a year with a grade 10 education. We as individuals must constantly upgrade and retrain ourselves if we want to stay on top of our game. I am seeing an end to the socialist ways of the past. We may be entering a darker, more selfish age but I don't believe that society as a whole can afford to carry the burdens that we undertook int the '60s and '70s. I don't think anybody anticipated the lengthening of our life expectancy and the explosion of drugs and treatments of the past 25 years. At some point, society is going to have to start putting a dollar value on a human life or we will all end up in the poor farm.

I've already had one customer speculate about the accuracy of CR because of the Japanese sweep. Perhaps this is a good thing. Of course the sheeple will just nod and continue buying Japanese, but the larger majority and the cynics may start to scratch their heads and begin to wonder about biases and inconsistencies BECAUSE everybody else was shut out of these latest results. For my part, I am not the least surprised or bothered by this. It merely confirms what I've believed all along - many automotive "journalists" can't see beyond their own prejudices.

My heart goes out to your father. As a Canadian, I had thought UAW workers received full medical and dental, just like their Canadian brothers and sisters. Why is there such a gap with American coverage? Wouldn't the point of medical benefits have been to provide for people like your father even in retirement?