CARBIZ

Ford got lucky when the Mustang II came out right at the height of the gas crunch. Later, a lot of its sales were bled away by the Granada/Monarch sales which also became huge sales successes for the times. We armchair critics can judge Ford now, through the retro-eyeglasses of 30 years, but it was a car of its times. Drive a '76 Civic for comparison!

I think it is pretty catchy and Pontiac needs this vehicle to forget the overdone Grand Am coupes. Every time I see one drive by, it catches my eye. I'm jealous that Chevy doesn't have something to compete with it.

GM is singing happy songs up here in the Hinterland, but only Canada's national figures look pretty. As in AMerica, GM is getting its ass kicked in the major urban markets. I can't believe that in the U.S., the Trailblazer is the #1 selling SUV. UP here, we can't give them away, yet you will see Pilots, Xterra's and Sante Fe trucks everywhere! GM's employee pricing (started a month later here and Ford beat us to the punch by a week) gave me the best month I've had since 2000 in August. I"ve also made a lot more money this year than the last two, so I'd say that over all the plan was a success. I think one of the areas where GM may be having a future problem is that some companies are tightening their belts and cutting their pay plans to their sales staff. This is having an impact on their senior selling staff, who are already being squeezed because floor traffic is down dramatically. Just like cutting its engineering/design people, GM does not want to lose its best sales people, either. Some are being tempted to go over to the dark side and go to Toyota. As long as their have been cars for sale, stupid general managers flood their show rooms with rookie sales staff when times are tough, with the mistaken belief that somehow that will drum up extra sales. All it does is piss off the senior staff and create a lot of friction, which sometimes the customers are exposed to - and that is a big no, no. At least in this area, it is the antiquated, outmoded dealers that are part of the problem. Old school thinking and old school selling.

Fleet sales get such a bad rap in the market place. I concede that they wreak havoc with resale values, but sometimes fleet sales can lead to a sale. I sold an Uplander to a couple last week BECAUSE they rented one for two weeks when they were in B.C. last year. They loved it and were quite comfortable in it. The Sienna didn't get the same fair shake because it wasn't as available. I understand that GM wants to back off fleet sales to shore up its resale values, but they have their advantages, too. This thread seems to have been hijacked with the argument over whether a fleet sale is a true sale, but where would the market be without them? Since GM's cars are equal to or better than their competitors, what better way to get the message out than to have them rented first to potential buyers?

The Echo was fugly; the Yaris merely ugly. But the Yaris is bigger inside which makes it more competitive with the Aveo - the Echo had a woefully small back seat! Toyota wouldn't get away with this crap if Renault, Citreon, etc. sold some of their cute little cars here. North America is WAY behind the times with what is available overseas for fun to drive little cars. The Aveo with a stick is a fun little car to drive. The non-GM automatic, however, is a piece of crap: noticeable shifts and horrid gas mileage.

Singlestyle, if you're gonna drag the Acura and Lexus numbers into this, then you may as well add the 250k Impala sales and the 50k Classic sales, if you want to get really stupid. I never even mentioned the Accord - you did. SHEESH. Some import lovers are a little touchy!!

Yeah, and we all know what it did for the Intrigue.....The Grand Prix still way outsold the Intrigue, even though the INtrigue was a better car and had a better warranty.

Y'know, considering the Camry is the ONLY mid-size car Toyota has to foist upon the unsuspecting public, 400k sales isn't so sh*t hot. Just to show how fragmented the market is now, 30 years ago, vehicles like the Torino and Malibu would routinely sell a half million units - and they were one of many mid-sizers sold by Ford and GM, respectively. Sigh. But it does give Toyota bragging rights! On slightly off-topic note, the other day the rag, Toronto Star lamented the fact that the Civic almost unseated the F-150 as the top selling vehicle in Canada for 2005. I could almost see the tears falling as the writer typed the story. Again, all Honda has is the Civic. Even in its last full year, 2004, the J-bodies outsold the Civic and they were on a 10 year old platform!

I am with Oldsmoboi on this one. We need a recall rating system. Toyota can make hay on this one just on the pure numbers, but they don't tell the story. GM sells a lot more pick ups than Toyota sells SUVS. Plus, with all the new vehicle launches GM did in 2004 and 2005 I believe it is to GM's credits that recalls are headed down.

Rkm, that brings up another very interesting point: Does the perception of a car being a better car make the reality? I have seen people shop the Corolla and Civic, then come back and buy the Cavalier. Why? Because it was cheaper. Does this person then drive the crap out of it, never wash it, never do oil changes, etc. because - in his mind, it is a cheaper car? I have seen import buyers justify thousands of dollars in maintenance (the wonderful HOnda timing belt/water pump scam, for example) because it is a, well, a Honda! It is common knowledge that both Honda and Toyota are STRICT with their maintenance schedules; whereas GM has never insisted the vehicle is returned to the dealer for routine maintenace. Due to the nature of silent recalls and "service bulletins," I guarantee you that part of the reason Toyota's enjoy such a sterling reputation is because the dealer sees it more often! Another illustration of this point would be to look at older cars within the GM family itself. If you look at a late 80's Century versus a mid-80s Celebrity, I warrant that you will find more Centuries on the road than the Chevy. Were they better built? Did they have better sheet metal? No. They were treated better by their older and more affluent owners. How man '65 Impalas are on the road versus '65 Chevy wagons? Same car, but the wagons were used and abused. And long warranties are a double edged sword: I have had customers remark that the Hyundai long warranty is NEEDED, not a show of confidence.

I work in an all-male environment and their are too many alpha-type males strutting around. Managment is pretty weak and a lot of politics goes unchecked. And the Politically Correct Police would have a nightmare on their hands if they walked in here. Still, there are a couple people who make my day. Anyone who works in sales knows what I am talking about. There is a dichotomy of personalities at play here: you need an alpha type personality to work the customers, then a paperwork/computer geek who can steer the course of rules, regulations, etc. Getting harder and harder to find the type that can balance both. With both the government and GM dumping more and more paperwork on us every year, we are feeling more like CAs then salespeople.

It looks nasty from the back. Very disappointing from the earlier shots I'd seen. More trucky looking than car.

VenSeattle has covered most of the issues as I see them, but I think there are two points that have been missed. Firstly, as to longevity of vehicles, how can you compare the "typical" Toyota of circa 1990 to the "typical" GM Chevrolet, or Buick of the same period. If you look at the percentage of vehicles sold in that era from GM that were equipped with a high level of gadgets (digital dashboards, automatic temp controls, power seats, ABS, etc.) it is clear that the PROBABILITY of something going wrong with the typical GM product would have to be higher than the typical Toyota or Honda. A 1990 Accord would have typically been equipped with a 5 spd manual, a/c and a cassette. Period. Of course the damned thing is going to last a while!!! I just took in a 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis last night. Mechanically, the car is a pin. The body has almost no rust. However, the power seat is shot, 3 power windows don't work and it was $1,500 to fix the a/c. Would a typical 1991 Toyota even have all those features? Since GM pioneered many of the toys that were found in the early '90's, it would be safe to say that a lot of them failed. An ABS module on a 1993 Cavalier would be enough to scrap the car in today's market - the 1993 Corolla wouldn't even be found with such a contraption! Secondly, DesRosiers marketing in Canada did conduct a survey in 2000. They studied pre-1987 vehicles that were sold versus those that were still on the road, and did the same thing for post-1987 vehicles. (Their rationale at the time for doing this breakdown was that Acura came out in 1987 and they wanted to see what impact the Japanese luxury brands would have on the numbers.) To their surprise, there were more GM and Ford brands still on the road in both categories than their Asian counterparts. They could not explain that. Of course, the study wasn't definitive. Maybe import buyers are worse drivers and their vehicles are written off faster. Maybe they were all stolen and shipped over seas. But as a pure numbers game, the study was interesting. Perception versus reality. If people keep telling you that you are a loser, eventually you will believe that you are.

I don't see now anybody can mistake either Impala with the Accord. The one thing GM does do better than Honda is make a car that LOOKS bigger than it is. Buick also does this well. To some people that is important. The Impala LOOKs bigger partly because it is bigger (200.4" length to Honda's 191.1" length) and because it has a heavier looking stance. That is important to some people. Asian car fanatics will automatically say the Honda is "benchmark," yadda, yadda, yadda, as well GM fanatics say the Impala is better, etc.; however, I really don't see how anyone can mistake the two. Some people just don't like BIG cars and will always slam American cars because in their minds Americans don't know how to make small cars (which at one time was probably true.) The Impala is an impressive car to anyone who has actually been in one for any length of time, plus it is thousands of dollars less than an comparably equipped Accord. I am actually less impresssed with the SS, which I find to be over powered for what it is. The car is kind of scary to drive because the 300 hp has nowhere to go in the FWD configuration. The LTZ, however, handles nicely, is quiet and has a nice equipment list. In this neck of the woods, the Impala is doing very well, without all the usual cash rebates, etc. that the last one needed to move it in its latter days.

Santa was good. Xmas at Ground Zero (my sister's place with her four boys!) was interesting, as always. Had a XMas Eve soire at my place, with 3 friends that work at GM. Sobering conversation. One works security at the Oshawa plant. Lotsa stories about people smuggling out parts, copper wire, almost anything. The other two work at the locomotive plant in London. At least these people are aware that making $100k a year to work in a plant is a righteous piece of luck!

Well, at least the gloves are off and Toyota is no longer pretending to be the bashful bride any more. Internationally, I think GM is stronger in places like South America and Europe than they are here - largely because they have accepted that competition is good and those markets are very fragmented. GM has gotten soft in North America because it has owned the market for so very long. I believe 2006 will be a very interesting year.

The reason the HHR is selling so well is because it is reasonably priced, rides nicely and is practical as hell. There are lots of vehicles in this niche: PT Cruiser (Neon heritage! smaller), Element (fugly and pricey) Vibe/Matrix (gutless, less useful space). You could even include wagons, like the Focus and Optra which are of similar size. It is a well thought out, well executed vehicle. My only real beef (like most GM products these days) is the crappy materials on the seats. They stain easily and I am skeptical how they will wear with age. Take the bloody seats out of the Optra 5!!!

And who is going to decide when you've done something wrong? You are taking the assumption that all governments now (and in the future) are benign. Sure, maybe you don't mind today, but what about 5 years from now when they start putting them in the workplace, too? The government never backs off once they've gotten a new power; they will always demand more. Speeding laws are a relatively innocuous example. Mostly everyone agrees that 60 mph (100 km/hr up here) is silly for many of the roads they are posted on; however, as long as it is nothing more than a thinly disguised tax most of us don't care enough to protest. Who on this Board can claim they have never EVER broken a law? Speeding? Ever smoked a joint? Did you drink before you were of age? Did you drop acid a few times in college? Ever had sex in a public space? Did you ever once screw up and thank God (or whomever) that you got away with it and vowed never to do it again? Sigh. I believe Big Brother (or at least a version like in the movie Minority Report) is inevitable. Although I can see a lot of good coming of it, I have been on the s**tty end of the stick just enough times (being gay and up against regressive laws all my life!) with the police to know that I don't like the idea of ANY government knowing where my car is going to be at all times. YOU SHOULD BE WARY TOO.

Still, it's good news that at least the Detroit Free Press can have Detroit bias. The Toronto Star loves to rag on GM, even though Oshawa is right next door.

What drives me crazy about GM is that they know they are losing the PR war, and even though in most cases GM is on the right side (pushrod, versus DOHC), it doesn't matter if they can't win over the critics! The critics are going to continue taking potshots at GM because of its stubborn adherance to 4 spd automatics (even though they are the best in the world) and to push rod engines (even though they are cheaper, more reliable and afford less maintenance). GM is going to have to beat them at their own game because the critics are going to continue beating GM until GM is bankrupt. From the opening statements of this clown, his biases are plain and we know he is going to nit pick. I am not saying some of his negative comments aren't justified, but when you open by saying that you expected this vehicle to be crap, you are setting the reader up to turn the page.

Canadians and Americans are more alike than either will admit. Our governments will always try and make political hay out of our differences - that is the nature of politics. There are so many Americans in Canada and vice versa. We are irrevocably linked by culture, language and business. It is interesting to note that Canadian politics is always dominated by Quebec, while American politics is always dominated by the South. We haven't had a non-Quebecois Prime Minister in decades (unless you count the short lived Turner, or even shorter lived Kim Campbell - neither of whom were elected to head the country), just as American Presidents always seem to be from the South.

We never ordered any....everyone knew the new and improved was on its way.

Well, things aren't that bad around here - yet. However, the Toronto Star has taken to referring to Toyota as the "largest auto manufacturer by market valuation." I sometimes despair of the media. It doesn't seem to be just in connection with the auto industry. Even in other industries or events, it seems like a total contempt and hatred of #1. In another thread the point was made about how the media attacks McDonalds all the time while ignoring Burger King's mistakes. Personally, I distrust the media as much as politicians.

The Book can never live up to one's expectations. Look at Jurassic Park. The book was better, but I give them credit for doing a decent job of adapting the book. I agree that Lord of the Rings was a complicated book to adapt and a decent job was done. The two earlier versions of King Kong were on TV last night. I actually prefer the 1933. Jessica Lange (who is an amazing actor)sucked in the second one! Horrible and drawn out. I can't wait to see the new one. I just pray it is better than Bewitched.

Well, does Turbos' sister's Aurora have anything to do with this?????????????????????