CARBIZ

Interesting read. I hope people think about this when they buy their shiny new Toyota.

One point to note is that the Equinox/Torrent are quite a bit cheaper than the Rav4. I hate being on the defensive, but in this neck of the woods the Equinox leases out for the same amount as a Xterra or Tuscon, which I guess is GM's intention. The point to be made (and before I say it, I will add that, yes, I know GM is running out of money) but the Torrent should have competed with more upscale SUVs with a stronger engine, more refinement, etc. and leave the Equinox to battle the lower ground. The steering/ride argument is extremely subjective, as I am sure we all know. The electric steering is a joy to use in every day driving. I have it on my Malibu. Quite the opposite happens when I get out and drive a Silverado or Impala - I find the steering very heavy because I am used to electric steering. I find the "road feel" argument hilarious: what is the purpose of power steering if not to power your steering? If you want road feel, ditch your power steering altogether. For my part, when I am driving in my underground parking, fussing with my seatbelt, looking for my sunglasses, etc., I want power steering. We all know GM's Achilles heel continues to be its interiors. The dash layout and general look of the interior is okay, but the cloth seats are ugly beyond belief. And those headrests (at least they fixed the rear headrests for 2006) are horrid, too. I hope GM plans a major refresh for the Nox for 2007.

I know things are different in the States where many of the Pontiac and Buick dealers stand alone, but in Canada where P-B-GMC have been an entity for years, the situation is a little different. The Chevy stores up here used to have Oldsmobile, now we have lost a lot of our customer base (hopefully) to the P-B stores. The strongest stores in Canada are the P-B-GMC stores. Model for model, they have matched everything Chevy has (Wave, Torrent, Pursuit), have vehicles Chevy doesn't (Vibe) and then have the Buick line up to draw from, too! I'm all for more products at Saturn and other makes - as long as they are noticeably different than what Chevy has to offer and not just half-fast rebadges.

Wow, that was pretty viscious. Who is this guy? We don't get USA Today up here (obviously). I laugh at all the Chevy ads surrounding this guy's diatribe. I will agree that some of the Equinox/Torrents underpinnings may seem dated but, frankly, they all work together pretty well. Eveyone who has bought one has been very happy. And our dealer principles' father's Lexus AWD couldn't make it up the road to the cottage so he had to borrow his daughter-in-law's Equinox.

I can tell you that at both the Toyota Cambridge, ONtario plant and the Honda Aliston, ONtario plant there aren't a lot of racial minorities either, both being built on the edge of small cities. They are doing this for a reason: economics. Land is cheap and the labor force is used to low pay so that when the big auto plant opens, the idea of a high(er) paying, steady job is a godsend - who would want a union? I remember when the Aliston plant opened and people from all the surrounding communities (Collingwood, Barrie, Tottenham, etc.) were thrilled to get jobs there. Good luck the union ever organizing! I don't think anybody in Washington or Ottawa gives a damn about this issue. We are filled with so many happy stories of assembly plants being opened here by Toyota and Honda that nobody cares if a 25 year worker at a Ford or GM plant is given the boot.

I disagree. As long at the Big Two keep jamming "Americanized" versions of hot European vehicles down our throats, that will be true. Anybody who has been to Europe knows that almost anything that GM, Fiat and Citreon build over there are a lot of fun to drive, roomy inside and amazing on gas. I am 6'2" and had no trouble driving my friends' Chevy Astra in Brazil last year, or the Chevy Corsa I rented. The Corsa was a little rough and could have used power steering, but at $2.36 a LITRE for gasoline, the number of Grand Blazers (Tahoe) I saw down there were pretty limited. I know I am going to get shot down here, but it is criminal to be paying $2.50 a gallon gas when the rest of the world is paying double that. The U.S. should double the taxes on gasoline, pay off the national debt and buy back the treasury bills from Japan and China before they become the true masters over Washington. And Iraq may not be about oil, but I guarantee the next war will be.

This could be huge if proven. Just look at the mess that RIM is in because some obscure shell company decides to enforce a pseudo patent of something that was never even built! Millions has been spent by RIM in defending itself and a few hundred million dollar out of court settlement fell apart a while back. Personally, I think these patent suits are getting out of hand, but it still could cost Toyota dearly even if they win.

Toyota invented the entry level cute utes????????????????? Where was the Suzuki Samurai for, what 10 years before the Rav4? Hell, the Chev Tracker/Pontiac Sunrunner was around LONG before the Rav4. More Toyota doublespeak.

Disco was originally just danceable rock, then it splintered and became "electrobeat" and other offshoots in the early '80's to the myriad of dance music we have today. Like most music, when it becomes overly commercialized it becomes annoying. The crap that younger people today will remember as disco wasn't the good stuff. The good stuff was already underground by 1977 or so (for a sample of the "good stuff" listen to anything by Giorgio Moroder, especially when he paired with Donna Summer). I still have 12" studio remixes of some great dance music that still plays well today, 25 years later.

It isn't from lack of money or opportunities, it is from too many choices of things to spend that money on. 50 years ago - grandparents bought their first home - no driveway, no cupboards, no appliances, one 4 piece bathroom, no sod....house had one B&W TV, one radio, no stereo, no microwave, no central air, no central vac, no triple pane argon gas windows, they had one single door refrigerator, no icemaker, no flatscreen TV built in, there was no Playstation or MP3 players...grandfather had one Studebaker - no a/c, no power windows, probably didn't even have power steering! vacations consisted of camping in a tent (no motorhome, no power generator, no satellite TV!) nobody went to Europe for Spring break, nobody flew to New York for the weekend, kids didn't need $120 pair of Nikes...... I could go on, but I think you get the point. I look around at the toys I have - the electronics, the gadgets, the labor saving devices, and the trips I have taken, and the 200 channels of cable I must have and this computer I am typing on and I realize that if I got rid of all this unnecessary stuff I would have an awful lot of money in the bank.

I used to be pro-capital punishment until too many high profile cases turned out to be false convictions - ten or 12 years later. Too often authorities are under pressure to get a conviction at any cost. YOu can't dig up a body and apologise 10 years after the fact.

Some people appreciate proven technology and don't jump on technology just for technology's sake. GM's 4 spd still shifts smoother and more reliably than anything from Toyota. I have driven Camrys and IMpalas back to back and the diffrence is obvious. The NorthStar may be 12 years old, but it obviously has been updated since then and has been proven. The oil life monitor system, limp home modes, etc. were all pionoeered by GM. Toyota and the rest of the vultures have just caught up. If you want all things new, then go ahead. But if you want reliable and a decent value, then stick with the Camry.

All of this debate is academic: the press will make sure Toyota succeeds this time around. Today's Toronto Star declared so. They gush over the new truck plant in Texas and cheer the frontal assault Toyota is making in the heart of America's truck market. The Star stands up on its chair and cheers about Toyota's foray into NASCAR. Frankly, I was nauseous by the time I finished reading the paper. Ten years and Toyota still hasn't got it right, but the media keeps on trumpeting Toyota's every press release. A bit of an aside here: Mark Richardson is the editor of the Wheels section of the Toronto Star. One would assume him to be a car/truck guy, right? Now, I know many, many car and truck freaks and most of them (including me!) can be pretty snobby about smaller vehicles, etc. Yet this guy, head chief honcho of the entire Wheels section, gets packed off to the Klondike for a week to write a (front page) gushing editorial about the new - get ready for this - Rav4. Not just one front page article, but a 4 week running article on the Rav4. In Canada's biggest newspaper in their busiest daily print: over 1.1 million circulated on Saturday. What car freak would want to spend 8 days in that tin can voluntarily? Wouldn't the editor of the section pass it off on a junior? Or say, okay, Toyota, you're kidding, right? Give me a 4Runner! That is like Rick Wagoner doing road tests at the local Pontiac dealer. Who would want to spend a week in the Kondike in a Rav4? Sequoia, I can understand. 4Runner, sure, but 8 days in a Rav4? Frankly, it stinks. The Star has always been biased and always been a rag, but this is over the top. This is one long, press release for Toyota and I can't believe for one moment that someone somewhere isn't being bought off. This is my opinion, but if you ever read the Star, it nitpicks over everything GM does and just gushes over Toyota. Mark Richardson even got the keys to a Prius a couple years back to drive for a year. This is my morning rant, but every time I dare pick up the Star, it makes my blood boil.

Parents that grew up in a different time are very difficult to deal with on these subjects. My mother is now only 63. I came out to my parents when I was 15, so that was 1977. It took my mother (who would have only been 35 at that time) a couple years to come around. Later, when she had loosened up considerably and felt free to talk about my boyfriends, etc., she made the observation that most of her peers weren't comfortable dealing with their own repressed sexuality, let alone gay people's. Until our world loosens up and stops viewing sex as dirty in general, we'll never see any real progress. She was a real trailblazer for her time - took the Pill in the '60s, bought it for my sister when she was 16, even packed off my youngest sister to New York for an abortion in 1984 because doctors here wouldn't do it. However, when it came to dealing with a gay son, she hit a brick wall. I persevered, and it didn't hurt that she liked my first long term boyfriend. I was 17 and he was 19. We were together 5 years. He even stayed with my mother for a while when he was taking a college course in her area. It is easy for me to say now, but progress will only come by setting an example. So many of us have traditionally found it easy to hide amongst the "normals," rather than standing up and saying,"hey, I'm gay and you didn't even know that, did you?" But, hey - that's me. I'm the first to admit that when confronted by religious bigotry I usually shut up because I just don't want the confrontaton.

Well, photo radar is alive and well in many jurisdictions. Even countries like Brazil love those revenue generating cameras! Sadly, I think all forms of surveilance are inevitable. Our world is becoming too unstable and too dangerous. Street cameras are becoming standard around the world. Credit cards have been routinely used by police for decades to track people's movements. If this technology is used to augment safety and track real criminals, then I am for it. Unfortunately, speeding is an easy offense to prove, even though no study has directly linked speeding to traffic incidents - many have tried but failed.

I'm with Trina on this one. Somebody having a really bad day. I've seen customers freak out in the various lines of work I've had, and I've even seen them phone or come back in and apologize at a later time when they were out of line. We are all over stressed in our work and personal lives these days. I am guilty as charged. I"ve over reacted when someone cut me off, didn't signal or whatever and regretted it later. Once I worked myself up into a raving state, then realized it wasn't the current situation at all - it was something that had happened earlier in the day. Of course, thousands of people across North AMerica will hear about this guy and shave their heads as they think how underhanded and sneaky car dealers are.....

More than anything it is the price. Around here, you can get a better equipped Silverado, F-150 or Dakota than the Ridgeline. Honda has too many ugly niche offerings already: nothing is uglier than the Element (it makes the Aztec took good!) If one must buy an import, Nissan and Toyota have much better offerings than Honda.

Well, at least it looks less like a glorified Camry than the last generation. I've driven the previous generation, and I was never sure why anyone would pay the extra $5,000 and not just stick with the loaded Camry!

This is becoming GM's most serious threat. Five years ago, Hyundai and Kia were a joke -horrible quality and ugly vehicles. Now, in many areas their vehicles have caught up or surpassed the competition in terms of appearance and finish. Although I am a little suspect about the long term quality of these vehicles, they certainly have come along way in the past few years there, too. This could be another hurricane coming GM's way.

Great read. Many, many times I am ashamed to be in the car business when I hear the horror stories that are still out there. I am glad the Saturn experience was a good one. Chock one up for GM!

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Well, if the sun is going to go through a cooling cycle, we had better hurry up and burn more fossil fuels! We need to trap what little heat from the sun we get! BUY A HUMMER AND SAVE THE PLANET!

There now, I feel much better. WTF? Businessweek should know better than this! This reads more like a press release put out by Toyota and Honda than a proper, researched article. There are a couple ways to read this: 1) F**k Detroit, Michigan and the rustbelt. Thank God I won't have to lose my job or my house because I don't live there! 2) Any job is a job, even if it means working for the KKK or Hitler (dramatic license taken for effect - chill!) Any analysis that I have seen clearly shows that the job replacement is hardly 1:1. Furthermore, it isn't the assembly jobs that are important, it is the highly skilled jobs (metallurgists, chemists, designers, etc.) that are the backbone of America's industrial might. If that goes, so to does America.

You are probably right. North America will become like the rest of the world: GM will probably level out at 20-25% market share, Toyota at 15-20%. Ford, Chrysler and the rest will all sit around 10-15% GM's market domination was unsupportable in a truly global economy.

1) Way more than the 1956 Lexus 2) About as much as my ex-wife.