cmattson

That's interesting speculation -- and I do hope it's speculation; but you've got a point: by combining P-B-G into one dealer network, you couldn't make it any easier for GM to fade a brand out..

How I wish that GM would put those two words together.

Neither. The house is fairly new (built less than a year ago). I've got a protected-area behind my back yard -- so it's fairly wild. I see rabbits, deer, and a few gardener snakes -- so I wouldn't be surprised if my position changes somewhere down the road.

:blink:

I get along with almost all of my collegues -- but one really drives me nuts. I won't mention her name. In my mind, she's a "slinky": she's got no measureable worth, but I'm confident it would put a smile on my face if I could push her down the stairs.

There are *plenty* of models, GM and otherwise that have bested the Camry for initial quality and long-term durability for years. The Camry increasingly gets by on reputation. Even it's interior is a sea of gray plastic -- yet I dare you to find a review that even mentions it. The new model can't come soon enough. Just try and find a Camry mentioned in jdpa's initial quality or long-term durability in the last decade (good luck: I think it only shows up once on the initial quality study, and none on the long-term durability -- a pathetic showing for the supposed quality benchmark).

How funny it is that Consumer Reports is championed -- yet they typically have a statistically microscopic sampling rate.

GM's legacy costs are killing their profit; but that isn't something they are really doing wrong per se. The top two things that I believe they are doing wrong (in order), are: 1) Engineering cars for current competition. Look no further than the G6, the Malibu, and the Impala: they were engineered to compete against the competition -- the competition back in 2000 -- when these models were first beginning to take form. Look at the new Camry, the new Accord, and the new Civic -- all have digital dashes. GM luxury models don't even get that appointment. GM needs to accurately envision what the competition will be like in 5 years from today and then engineer & build a vehicle to compete against and beat it -- and then get that vehicle to market on time for it to compete (& succeed!). 2) Marketing. To be succint: stop advertising the deal & start advertising the product. You want your cars to sell on their own? Start advertising the virtues of your cars. Of course, it helps when your cars are generally competitive in all areas: power, mileage, quality (percieved and real), and most of all: style.

Best wishes kf -- a co-worker of mine had his gallblader removed just a couple of weeks ago. My wife had it done about 3 years ago. It's commonplace to be sore after the surgery (duh), but the gas they use to inflate your stomach cavety takes a couple of days to disipate & causes some discomfort as well. You'll be up and eating greasy food in no-time!

GM did show-off a 270hp 3-valve 3.9l at Sema (2003 I believe). Direct injection would add (guessing here) another 5-10%? That would put it in the neighborhood of 285-300hp.

If you decide to fix it, at a minimum you'll be looking to purchase a couple of tools: the first is a steering wheel compressor -- the second being a snap ring removal tool. Your steering wheel sits on a shaft, and a heavy spring is pushing the steerning wheel outwards (towards you). A C-ring (snap-ring) fits into a groove and is keeping the wheel from being pushed off of the column. Pull of the middle horn assembly from your steering wheel. Screw on the compressor and ratchet away on the compressor-bolt. It applies tension onto the steering wheel and pushes the steering wheel further down it's shaft. You can use a snap ring removal tool to pull off the snap ring. After the snap ring has been removed, you can now reverse your ratchet direction and loosen the wheel. Eventually you can pull the steering wheel off of the column completely. Just underneath the wheel is the cam and spring assembly. I'm guessing a shop would ding you an hour for the work -- it's fairly easy work if you have the tools & ambition. Cost of tools will probably be a push when measured against mechanic's labor cost. A snap-ring removal tool can be handy to have around; there are multiple places where snap-rings are used. The steering wheel compressor? It's a single-purpose device. I purchased mine about a dozen years ago, used it the one time I needed it & haven't touched it since then. Matter of fact, I think it's still at my old man's house -- I don't think I grabbed it when I moved out. Footnote: If you have these items, the next thing you'd want, steering-column wise is a "pivot-pin removal tool". If you've got one of these, you can take your steering column apart, all the way down to the dash. I needed to tighted the four bolts that hold your steering column in place -- I had a wiggle/looseness in my column. It's fairly typical of cars when they get their miles up on them. You usually have to take the whole damn column apart to take out the four bolts, spray them with loc-tite, and ratchet them back into place -- all to put the whole assembly back together. In a pinch, a dent-remover slide-hammer can work in place of the pivot-pin removal tool.

The original premise of Saturn was to "not be GM" -- Opel would give Saturn a presense unlike anything currently sold in GM NA.

Most excellent news, IMO. Saturn needs new, fresh product and Opel/Vauxhall products has a European look and feel to them that is unlike anything else in GM's stable (fits Saturns' original mission/premise too, doesn't it?). Compared with GM NA designers and engineers creating a vehicle themselves, leveraging existing product designs from overseas gives would incur cost savings + give GM NA some additional bandwith to spend on other products. Looks like a winning solution all-around. Makes you wonder why the heck it took them so long to come around to this decision in the first place.

V8 huh? Very interesting. Me thinks that if you can put a V8 in an H3, you could squeeze one into a Canyon/Colorado, too. Happy New Years to you AH-HA.

About a month ago I was asking myself the same question. For tuners, I think XM's got some better looking equipment. As for lineup, they are almost identical. Sirius has Stern and a Court TV-type channel and XM doesn't have. Sirius exclusively has the NFL network channel and NBA broadcast rights. XM exclusively has baseball's broadcast rights, a 24/7-baseball channel, and several college broadcast-rights (Big10, ACC, etc). Other than that, you can basically get the same thing from both of them. Cost is identical -- other than Sirius has a "lifetime" option that is ending soon; $500 and it covers you for the life of the receiver you tie it to -- so if the reciever dies, the contract is over -- it's non-transferable. I ended up buying the XM SkyFI2 (with car docking station and home docking station) . Mounting in the car took all of 3 minutes. Puting the home dock in at the office was even easier. You just set your car/home/office radio to the station you've set the satradio device to broadcast on -- it's that easy. *** I LOVE IT ***. I can't say enough good things about it. After 11+ years of a 1-hr commute (each way) and 8-10 hours at work everyday, it's fairly safe to say that I was completely and utter burnt out on the playlists, err, I mean "radio stations" that they have on the air in the Mpls-area. Besides my preference for the XM tuners (over what was available for the Sirius tuners), the biggest selling point for me on XM was that XM had MLB. I'm a huge NFL and NBA fan -- but all of those games are at night and on the weekends -- when I'm not in the car & not at the office -- which is when my sat. radio would get 99% of it's use. MLB on XM gives you access to all MLB games (even spring training!) & my AM reception in the office building is spotty -- so I can't tune in those afternoon Twins games. Lastly, the local broadcasters of the Twins (WCCO, 830AM) doesn't feel they need to broadcast anything more than a 2 spring training games. Obviously their lineup of old people and farm reports are considered vastly more entertaining than a Twins game could ever be (you can just taste the sarcasm, can't you?). A couple of other things to keep in mind: XM has a few "XM2GO" units that are brand new. One made by Delphi, one made by a company called Taos--who makes the Delphi unit for Delphi -- and yes, they look the same other than logo and color (oops, you're Canadian: colour). Pinoeer makes a unit as well. These 3 units are portable (imagine a walkman). They've got headphone jacks and rechargeable batteries (good for about 5 hrs). I came really close to purchasing one of these instead of my SkyFI2. Sirius also makes a portable, walkman-like device, but it's brand-stinking new and costs over $300 (compared to about $150 on the XM devices). The Sirius model looks really cool & has a built-in MP3 player to boot. The XM units all come std with a car-adapter and a home-adapter. If you shop around, you can find a considerable difference in price on the units. I ended up buying my SkyFI2 unit @ www.buy.com; the unit, car docking station and home docking station was about $152 (that includes shipping). There was a $50 rebate on the unit as well -- so I only spent about $100. I liked the SkyFI2 device because it was easy-to-operate -- a solid consideration when you are planning to use the device in the car. Best of luck!

I like the factory rally wheels myself. You guys are KILLING ME! I'm just dying to buy a '68 Camaro for a project car -- it's something I've always dreamed of.

The octane rating of gasoline tells you how much the fuel can be compressed before it spontaneously ignites. When gas ignites by compression rather than because of the spark from the spark plug, it causes knocking in the engine. Knocking can damage an engine, so it is not something you want to have happening. Lower-octane gas (like "regular" 87-octane gasoline) can handle the least amount of compression before igniting. Octane is commonly (and a bit misguidedly) intertwined with horsepower because high-compression motors require that higher-octane gasoline (to avoid detonation due to compression). High compression motors commonly produce more horsepower. Now, this isn't to say that higher octane doesn't give you marginally better performance. If you go and put 110-115 octane racing fuel in your car, you might feel a difference. I've used ethynol in my truck (flex fuel = cheap gas) and that stuff is 100 octane -- a 13 octane difference than the normal 87 stuff -- and I couldn't feel a difference. So you can't tell me that Toyota's 210hp 3.0l dropped to 190hp from testing with 91 octane as opposed to 87--that's complete and utter bull. The simple fact is that both Toyota and Honda were using archaic "standards" when measuring horsepower; standards that allowed them to disconnect various vehicle equipment that you and I simply could not due and still be able to drive the vehicle (i.e. disconnect the waterpump, alternator and power steering pump). Lastly, I wouldn't exactly call the Corvette "extremely light weight". It weighs a shade under 3200 lbs -- about the same as a traditional mid-sized sedan. In comparsion, a Honda Accord sedan weighs around 3150lbs, A Camry sedan weighs between 3200-3450lbs (4cyl & 6cyl). A Dodge Viper weighs just over 3400lbs. The common rule of thumb is that every 200 pounds of extra weight shaves one mile per gallon off your fuel mileage. Weight isn't as big a factor as you thought (gas mileage-wise), huh? A bigger factor in the vette's gas mileage numbers is probably the gearing of the vehicle. A large SUV, built for towing will have the low gearing necessary to pull a boat/travel trailer, etc. A Corvette doesn't need to have that. More octane info: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question90.htm

Short (15s) video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2512249746173560379

600bhp per ton; the video is just plain ridiculous.. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6514168251893889573

Would either of those engines see north-american use?

I'm really hoping that this is another example of a new/refreshened GM vehicle where the powertrain improvements are coming a year later. Frankly, for the weight of the vehicle, the size of the engine, and the paulty hp numbers, this vehicle should be pushing 40mpg -- not anything less. I get 36+mpg out of my 145hp 2.2l Malibu -- which weighs around 3200lbs. The Aveo really needs a mpg bump. The rest of the car looks fantastic -- arguably "best in class" material.

I've probably posted this before (so I apologize, ok?), but if it can help anybody: I graduated high school 6th in my class. I was a year ahead in Physics and Calculus. Everything was effortless. I got accepted into the Univ. Of Minn's Inst. of Technology -- which had a sub-2% acceptance rate. It had (I'm not sure if it still does now) an excellent reputation in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Being a CSCI major, I was stoked. I quickly found out that they don't take attendence in college and expecting everything to be nearly as effortless as high school, I started partying more and missing classes. Long story short: I was placed on academic probation and was expelled after my first year. Depressed, I went to a community college. After the 1st quarter at the community college, I earned the same crappy grades - and then I figured out that it wasn't the school that needed to change - it was me. Afterwards, I dedicated myself towards my studies - I showed up everyday for every class and I faithfully did my homework (even if it wasn't required to turn in) and my grades picked right back up. After of a couple years at the c.c., I transferred into the Univ. Of St. Thomas (private school), and graduated a couple of years after that. Things I learned along the way: 1) A community college is an excellent transition from h.s. It's near-h.s. like setting, combined with a reduced cost is superb for getting a bunch of your first-years non-major-specific-required-coarses out of the way. Nearly everything transfered over (except for my Golf class -> it was springtime & was a nice break) 2) When you transfer, no matter what, your grades follow you. When I left the U of M, my grades went with me -- and when I left the c.c., my grades went to St. Thomas. My final quarter at St. Thomas, my grades reached 3.0 -- I had to bust my *** to get it back up there (when I left the UM it was 1.11) 3) Screwing around costs you big time: It took me 5 1/2 years to get my 4 year degree. 4) Most importantly: LIFE IS A DO-IT-YOURSELF JOB. Best of luck to all of those in school!

My most common mistake is "teh" instead of "the". Luckily, most MS products auto-correct this common typo. Back in high school, I used to be around 113-117 wpm with about 5-7 errors. I just took the test at: www.typingtest.com (2 min test, "Strategic Alliances and Competitors" topic) and got an 84 wpm with 0 errors. I must be slipping.. I'm gonna hafta try that again.

Please tell me you aren't being serious. You can't have missed this quote: Driving a car hard can *easily* account for the difference in gas mileage - let alone letting the vehicle idle excessively. My Ecotec-powered Malibu has delivered anywhere from 28mpg-36mpg depending on how agressively I drive it. Even if GM did inflate the gas mileage figures (and I HIGHLY doubt that they did, GM has historically trended towards conservative ratings on everything from gas mileage to horsepower), it wouldn't excuse the numerous and ridiculous Toyota exaggerations: horsepower rating w/o engine accerories, measuring ground clearance from the ground-to-door sill (as opposed to ground-to-frame), or removing rear seats when measuring interior volume.

Kudo's to carman for putting everything into perspective! I'll get on board with that: Merry Christmas everyone!