CARBIZ

And you guys are only comparing MSRPs, which as we know, is virtually irrelevant with respect to GM these days. In our market, a Sienna will lease out for $80-125 a month more than an comparably equipped SV6 or Uplander. There is no doubt in my mind that both the Sienna and Odyssey represent "state of the art" for minivans at this time, but they both have downsides (puny gas tanks, for example) and a hefty price tag. Gas mileage, as we have all debated here before, is subjective. Cold weather and driving habits will effect gas mileage severely, and the flat torque curve of the typical GM 6 cylinder will usually result in real world numbers closer to what the EPA represents than what an Asian engine will be.

My first new car was the '82 Rampage exactly like the one on the cover of the brochure depicted above. 4 spd (!!!), no a/c. I put an Alpine deck in it with speakers in huge boxes behind the seats. It was a bit of a POS, but it was cool. My buddies loved it. I wish I'd sprung for the 5 spd, though. I blew two head gaskets in 3 years! It rode and handled decently. Great on gas. When I lived up north, I saw a guy who had turned one into a Monster truck. It stood about 5 feet off the ground. It looked kinda wierd, but cool.

had our first dusting yesterday, only a cm or so. It is mostly melting today.

Nothing new here. After a record breaking summer, the Big Two had to have a hang over. I think the battle ground will be 2006 with boy GM and Ford having launched new key market vehicles (Impala, Fusion, etc.) and see how they swim against Asia Inc.

Every division of GM is suffering this fate, proving that once you've lost consumer confidence it is very tough to get back. There is an entire generation of car buyers who grew up in the '80s when Detroit suffered through numerous problems (many that were not their own fault, I might add!). These buyers will not consider an American car, plain and simple. Coaxing them back is going to be a Hurculean task. Winning over the media is the first task, IMO. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense, build cars that CR and MT will like, so at least GM can get their blessing. Even Hyundai is getting audacious, selling at $30,000 luxury car! GM is getting hit from above and below, with Kia and Hyundai chipping away at Chevrolet while Lexus and Infiniti chip away at Buick and Cadillac.

The Ridgeline is further proof of the blurring of conventional vehicle lines. A pick up, used for hauling and towing, is no longer used for hauling and towing. I will grant you that. However, if I wanted a car, I would buy a car. It strikes me that the Odyssey is a better choice than the Ridgeline - more space and can haul more people, too. Honda is just offering another choice, and that is just great. Those who are intent on shafting the Big Three have yet another choice to spend their money and ship it to Japan Inc. More power to them.

I won't get into the specifics of Silverado versuse Ridgeline because it just never comes up. I suspect, where ever you hail from SDB1, that things must be different in your market because residual values or not, the Ridgeline is 5.9% lease rate and the Silverado is 1.9% I just priced out a Ridgeline on Honda Canada's website, and I can tell you that at $691/mo for 48 months, a Silverado Crew Cab 4X4 would be less than that on a 36 month lease! Honda still wants $2k up front! Not that I think the Ridgeline and Silverado are in the same market! Your point about market choices is well taken, but remember SDB1: the $35,000 you just sent to Japan is going to put a lot of your neighbors out of work. Honda and Toyota, as has been bashed to death on this board elsewhere, only do enough in North America to get around NAFTA, other than that all their jobs are shipped to Japan. I respect your right to choose to buy whatever you want, but the 5 imported cars you bought would have otherwise put a lot of money into the jobs/tax base of America, also the country you CHOOSE to live in.

Canada has finally been dragged into the 21st century, no thanks to the CRTC. We will have XM Radio in GM vehicles starting in two weeks. In fact, although GM is offering 3 months free, the free months don't start until March 1, so technically you would be getting 7 months free is you signed up by December 1.

I am 29 and a few months....176 of them. Put another way, I will be celebrating the 15th anniversary of my 29th birthday in March.

Miller did not make this mess. He inherited it. If Delphi is to get out of this mess, it needs experts to help them through it and they will have to pay them. Like rats off a sinking ship, executives will jump if something better comes along. Although it may be argued that some of these executives may have contributed to Delphi's current problems, would changing the guard in the middle of the reorganization help or hinder a favorable outcome? It always amazes me when executive's pay becomes the flashpoint for the media, but even if 300 executives made a lot of money, it would still be a drop in the bucket compared to what the effect of tens of thousands of overpaid workers would have on the company! What would happen if all the executives walked out? Who would replace them? Maybe a guy on the line can figure out the accounting mess and answer to Wall Street. I suspect part or all of this was planned a long time ago. Somebody had to know Delphi wouldn't make it on its own. GM spun it off because of that.

A week ago, the Toronto Star ran two commentaries on the Solstice in their Wheels section. Once again, they reconfirmed why (after 20 years) I cancelled my subscription 2 years ago. Laurence Yap, who hates everything American, surprisingly gave a fairly balanced and generally favorable review of the Solstice. Directly beside his article, Mark Richardson, the editor of the Wheels section, listed ten reasons he doesn't like the Solstice. He bitched and complained about everything. Again, unbalanced and yellow journalism. It is fine to have an opinion that in general you like or dislike something, but when you are in a position of "authority" like they are, it at least has to appear to be balanced to a certain degree. I may dislike Toyota, but even I can find things about the Camry and Corolla that are good.

After running my own business for 11 years, I managed two Rogers Video stores for about 13 months. Hated every minute. They have more money than brains, and yes, Blockbuster was worse - we had a few former Blockbuster managers that defected. The pay, even for managers was crap. For my skill level, I should have been Zone Manager, but then one ZM had a nervous breakdown, another's wife demanded he accept a demotion because the stress was killing him - at that point, I decided ZM wasn't for me and I decided on a career change. The biggest problem with working in a video store is that everyone thinks you stand around watching movies all day. There is a lot of work to be done and you haven't lived until you have argued with a customer over a $1 late charge!!!

Oh, the damned thing will sell..... I see lots of young women driving the old one. And critics slam GM for platform sharing. Toyota and Honda are far worse! At least the G6 and Maxx look completely different? And who but the most knowledgeable would know the Impala, LaCross and Grand Prix are the same underneath?

If I could afford the bullet, I'd shoot myself! Ford has also jumped on the bandwagon, giving away a car a day and offering prizes of up to $10,000. Why don't we just do hot dogs and balloons, too? This is just embarassing. Last year, it was a joke. All the usual coupon clippers show up, waste everyone's time to see what they can win, then off they go. The entire OnStar process took too long, and by the end of the promotion, as the wait times got longer, even the OnStar people were rushing the customer through it. Another case of marketing run amok. "Oh," they say," it is our job to get the prospect in and YOUR job to sell the vehicle." Yeah, well it is OUR job to supply the oxygen mask and defibilator when the customer discovers the truth in the inane advertising. (Like the current Cobalt lease of $179 that requires $3,500 due on signing!) After an amaging July and August, I was hoping they would come up with something new and different for the Boxing Month promotions. I guess I was mistaken. How about something we can sink our teeth into, like: Zero financing for 60 months (even 72 like Suzuki has been doing?) Hold the payments for 90 days - a great program at Xmas when people are worried about their bills. But contests and give aways? This isn't the'60s.

I'm with VenSeattle: I can't believe it is an Edmunds article! It seems that maybe, just maybe, GM has its first big hit with the media and (hopefully) we are seeing the tide beginning to turn.

Incredible movie. These are the stories that need to be told to convince America (and the rest of the world) that gay people are not sick or depraved, and that they have been around FOREVER as mostly normal people. Gay porn has dealt with this subject (for obvious reasons), but I always wondered what would have happened to these bored, lonely cowpokes, stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no women for a hundred miles. I am glad their stories are now being told. Gay history has been buried and hushed for two thousand years. Perhaps if it hadn't, things would be much different today for a lot of people.

As an experienced salesperson, I never try to presume to know what the General is doing. I have had many loyal Astro customers complain that GM is stupid for dumping their favorite vehicle, yet I am sure (dwindling market) GM has its reasons. After all, the Astro lasted 9 model years longer than the Aerostar. I agree that most salespeople I have met don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. What is worse, they don't even like vehicles. Many don't even believe in the product they are selling. Sadly, I have come to realize that a good salesman doesn't need to know their product or even care about it. Yes, the internet geeks and clipboard customers with nothing else to do will try to trip up the salesman with their "superior knowledge" (but it is my job to know hundreds of important facts about 30 or 40 models, not just the trick question the customer found on the internet!), but these aren't the majority of customers. None of the top salespeople I have met know anything about their product lines or give a damn. They could just as easily pack up and start selling Toyotas tomorrow and still sell 10-15 cars a month easily. Some of us, however, do study and take our jobs seriously. It is getting more and more difficult every year, especially when GM decontents and changes models every year and does stupid things (like dropping the spare tire lock on the Silverado one year then bringing it back!) There are still a lot of (young) salespeople out there that think this is easy and they can make a quick buck. It isn't and it takes years to build up a clientelle. There are also a lot of dealers out there living in the '60s still and grind out new salespeople. The practice of hiring 3 new guys (because it costs almost nothing to do so) and then seeing who sinks or swims, is still commonplace. I got ground of my first dealership that way. Personally, I think the entire car sales business is done wrong. We should be more like advisors, especially with the convuleted discounts/financing plans from GMAC, etc. As far as not having the right product, what would you rather have: a salesman who lies to you and says "no problem, we can get it," or tells you the truth that the vehicle is hard to get and you may not get it?

We have to understand that the North American market is very different than the rest of the world. We have enjoyed gasoline that is half the price of everyone else for the past 50 years, plus Europe was nearly bombed into the Dark Ages 55 years ago and parts of it never recovered. So, forgive them their different point of view. They are more densely populated than America, and they have 1,500 years experience of wanting to erradicate each other, so their perspectives about nearly everything is different. Although I get a kick out of watching European auto shows on TV where they test drive all these lame ass tin cans, some of these vehicles will be sold here in a few years. With gasoline prices only set to rise, we may be learning from them soon enough.

Remember that Mercruiser has used the 4.3 as their six cylinder inboard/outboard for a very long time. When you are in the middle of Georgian Bay, you don't want some newfangled dual overhead cam, 15 valve per cylinder engine to crap out!

We had a '67 Caprice (Impala with more toys), so I am a little biased. '65 (which was the Impala's best year ever for sales) would be a very close second. We have a customer who pulls in here with a white on white '65 convertible in great shape. It is strange to see these cars today because they are so spartan inside, compared to today's cars. She has power windows, no radio, no a/c. The dash is nice, but pretty devoid of gadgets.

I wouldn't get too excited about all this. EVERY year, since as far back as I can remember, GM has had some kind of "clearance" sale around the Christmas market, which was traditionally a slower time of year. However, they used to start the (in Canada, at least) Boxing Week specials in mid-December. I have to admit they have been getting earlier and earlier every year. We joke that it is now Boxing Month, but it general it has been a measured response to a slow time of year.

I liken this to the problem McDonalds has faced. Once upon a time, McDonalds had only burgers, fries, shakes, etc.. Their food was hot, fast and cheap. NOw, they have pizza, chicken, tacos, desserts, breakfast. Their service is slow, prices are just as cheap at other burger places and their food is either not ready or cold. Parallels? GM has been juggling more than 80 models for decades. It ain't easy with that many balls in the air. Toyota had, for the most part, 5 or 6 models to keep an eye on. Now, as they invade more and more market niches, they are finding it ain't easy trying to be all things to all people. What goes around comes around, I say.

Yeah, the Alero had a lot of potential. However, the fit and finish was sloppy. I used to use the Alero as an example of how not to build a car when I showed people how much better put together the Impala was. Again, GM let the car rot with few or no changes for 5 model years. They were decent looking, nice riding cars and a convertible would have sold well. Many of us had talked about that where I work. Ah, well...water under the bridge.

That isn't going to impress this market. People in this area are fleeing to the Xterra, Pilot, Sante Fe, etc. in droves. Putting bows and frills on the Trailblazer isn't going to fool anyone. It hasn't changed in 5 years!

This may sound like good news for Chevrolet, but I can't help but wonder that while GM and Ford duke it out, Toyota is just circling for the kill. GM needs to forget about Ford and focus on Toyota for a change. Although Chevy and Ford have enjoyed "friendly" rivalry for more than 75 years, Toyota's intensions are pretty clear - and they aren't playing by the same rules as Detoit!