Drew Dowdell

Will you marry me? I'm sure our respective partners won't mind.

Hybrid mule perhaps? Don't hybrids require different cooling?

Who said the car has to be smaller?.... this would be a great base engine for a Zeta.

I still think there is some water left in the glass, but after a few of this week's announcements, I think GM is going to squander them away. Up until this week, I had hope. Now I think GM is headed more toward Chrysler's direction than Ford's. The sales of the Lambda are going to hit the buffers. Traverse will get here just in time to make one of the biggest belly flops the market has seen in a long time. A great product at the worst possible time. GM shouldn't even bother unless the two-mode is available at launch and in substantial quantities. I take issue with GM's apparent inability to see past the end of their V6es. Killing a large car because current mentalities require it to be V6 powered is shortsighted, especially with things like the Turbo-Ecotec-BASII waiting in the wings. The Malibu is a great effort but at least from where I sit, much of the advertising has stopped. Delta II needed to be here in January, but now it seems GM doesn't have the funding to do a pull ahead stunt like they did with the GMT-900s. So yeah, there is still some water in the glass, but I guess we'll have to see what GM does with it.

No no! You're all wrong! This is CLEARLY the Blue Devil mule! GM, if this is what you're planning for a refresh of the G6, let me sum up every car reviewer's article right now:X

fixed

This has gone so far in circles it's become useless. Show me where I said I didn't want radical change at GM. I even posted my "manifesto" of some of the changes in hardware that GM needs to make. Now, right or wrong, I don't know. However it most certainly was not "more of the same". You have a beef with the board. Fine, fire them all. Personally, I think Wagoneer has been failing at his job for so long that he deserves to be fired. Look at all the changes Mulally has made over at Ford in such a short time. As I stated in another thread; GM has no excuse, none, zero. As far as my motivations for getting my CTS, you are right, those are my own. However, GM got a 24 year old who bought his first house a year prior, into it's newest Cadillac luxury sedan by giving him a loyalty rebate for his Cutlass and a conquest rebate for his Continental allowing him to afford the car he so desired. The same day I took delivery of my car, there was another guy around my age who took delivery of a silver CTS. What was your comment about "not even getting people into the showroom in the first place."? Before the CTS, when was the last time GM was pulling young guys into Cadillac showrooms? GM has a lot of work to do, I've never denied that. All I want is for you to give credit where it is due. You do nothing but $h! all over every good announcement to come from GM. Even in the announcement about the Volt premiering at Paris, you armed yourself with enough vagueness, "as long as it comes close to production with minimal changes", that you'll still be able to bash it once it's released. Just.. when a good announcement comes out... stop being an asshole. You can dance your "I told you so" dance in all the negative announcement threads. I'll leave it to you and PCS to figure out who leads and who follows. It's hard enough being a GM fan these days without you bashing everything that comes from the company.

If people like you are working at GM, then no wonder they are in the state they are in. I specifically said that I bought at that moment because of the deal because I would not have been able to afford the car at that moment otherwise. I also specifically said that the same deal offered to me by ANY of the other luxury manufacturers would NOT have sold the car. There is a huge difference between buying an entry lux car like the CTS and buying an appliance car like the Cobalt or Corolla. BEFORE YOU POST ANY OTHER RESPONSE, EXPLAIN WHY YOU CANNOT SEE THIS!

Interesting, the feds announce they are opening an investigation into speculative oil trading in both domestic and foreign <London> markets to look for price manipulation and oil suddenly drops $4 a barrel. Funny how that works.

Neato. You did exactly what I said and picked out one of the worst domestics to compare to one of the best imports. I mean really, the Venture was rivaled only by the Windstar/Freestar in domestic lameness. Aura, Malibu, Fusion, Sable, Taurus, Milan.... match the options up to their foreign rivals and the domestics will cost you less. Edge, Vue, Outlook, Acadia.... same thing

Why is it bad for me to try and get the best deal possible on the car I want? The difference is desire. I would have bought the car regardless but I found a way to save money in the process. If I had the opportunity to get the same deal on a C-Class or 3-series, I still would have picked the CTS because it was the car I wanted! Why is that so hard to understand? There were less expensive lease offers on the 3-series at the time and I passed them up to get the CTS. OMFG! I didn't say a Cobalt was better than the Corolla... or any other vehicle for that matter! I'm simply saying that feature for feature you pay less at any domestic dealer and that most times, over the life of the vehicle, you save money. Of course, your mileage may vary. "The deal" includes things like expected maintenance costs, expected gas costs, expected insurance costs. It costs more to insure a Civic or Corolla. Don't ask me why, I don't know. It's not just price + tax + tags. Hyundai/Kia

There it is! That's what I'm trying to say!

With your finger on the trigger I'm sure.....

I got an amazing deal on the CTS, however that was not my reasoning for buying it as you are trying to assume. I would have paid MSRP for the CTS if I had been able to afford it and if the dealer wasn't negotiating. I desired the CTS. No one desires a Cobalt or Corolla. I'm not sure where this part is coming from. I never said that people didn't look at safety or reliability or reputation before making a purchase. I specifically waited for the HF3.6 because I knew the 3.2 offered at launch was inadequate. GM did themselves a disservice by offering that engine at launch, but the 3.6 has been great enough that they've been forgiven for it. People buy Toyondas for two reasons: 1. Consumer Reports tells them to. 2. Their great aunt's, roomate's, lesbian lover had a used Chevy Vega that broke down two miles outside of the dealership in 1981. In nearly every case, feature v. feature, reliability v. reliability, price v. price, the domestics will offer a better deal than Toyondassan. However, most sheeple don't bother to do the research. Yes there are exceptions, but for the bulk of the lineups, this is true.

do you think we can get Enzl in here to say something nice about the Volt or GM?

Do something to fix the value of the dollar. That's how this will get fixed. If the dollar was on par with the Euro, oil would be $80 a barrel right now.

He'd call his own mother a terrorist if she bought a taco from a mexican.

What pisses me off is GM has a fairly full stable of powerful yet fuel efficient powertrains that could have been used on Zeta. With enough "Quiet Tuning", the 260hp Turbo Eco-tech could have been quite the crowd pleaser. Have the same engine coupled to the Two-mode for uplevel models. The 2.9 litre diesel could have been offered. Benz used to run S-classes with 2.8 litre, 204hp V6es! BMW still has 7-series in Europe with 231hp diesels and gassers. GM has no excuse at all. None. Zero.

Apparently I wasn't clear. The only way I could afford the car was "the deal". As far as wanting one over the other cars I drove, there was no contest. The CTS "sold" itself. The only way I could have gotten the car was because of "the deal". I could not have afforded a CTS at MSRP at the time of the sale. However, I would have just waited till I had a bigger down payment and bought the car at a later date. If I had bought one of the other models I looked at, it only would have been because I was unable to afford the car I really wanted. No one buys a Cobalt <non-SS> or Corolla because they are pining for one, drooling over it ever since seeing it at the autoshow. People buy one of these cars because of "the deal". Given the ability to afford more car, few people are going to pick a Cobalt or Corolla over a Malibu or Camry. Whether it be at the dealership, the service desk, the gas pump, or all three the perception is that the Corolla as the better deal. What Carbiz is trying to show is that the Corolla isn't the deal it appears to be. edit: I still think I'm not being clear enough. Point is, even if the CTS were $50 cheaper on a lease price than a 3-series, I wasn't about to march over to the BMW dealership and sign on the dotted line. I didn't even bother to test drive the 3-series because it's looks don't appeal to me.

Untrue. I was going to get a CTS. I test drove everything else I was interested in and even a few I wasn't interested in just to make an informed decision. The end result was simple.... I was getting a CTS. I may have to wait for it, but I was getting it. It was "the deal" that got it for me. I got an amazing deal on my CTS about 13 months after it had been released. There was no "other" for me. I would have been perfectly content to drive my Cutlass convertible for another summer and just put money into any repairs it might need. The car "sold" itself to me. The "deal" made it possible. In the interest of full disclosure, the other cars I was considering at the time were: Aurora V8 Regal GS - Joseph Abboud eddition - this came close, it was the W-body familiarity that really made it comforting Chrysler 300m - the 300c wasn't out yet Subaru Legacy GT - loaded with manual transmission Hyundai XG350 - I liked the "baby Towncar" look, but the car was a complete pile and a host of used cars.

OK, so you get equal financing on both vehicles, but if you drive away from the Chevy dealer with an extra $1500 in your pocket <and only that little because you didn't negotiate a better price>, didn't you STILL end up with a better deal? Assumes 5.9% interest for all: Cobalt: $25,000 Total Repaid: $28929.60 Total Interest Paid: $3929.60 Interest as percentage of Principal: 15.718% Payment Amount: $482.16 Corolla: $26,390 Total Repaid: $30538.20 Total Interest Paid: $4148.20 Interest as percentage of Principal: 15.719% Payment Amount: $508.97 Now suppose the buyer isn't an idiot and was able to negotiate another grand off the purchase price of the Cobalt: Cobalt: $24,000 Total Repaid: $27772.20 Total Interest Paid: $3772.20 Interest as percentage of Principal: 15.718% Payment Amount:: $462.87 Oh look! There's bonus cash on the Cobalt Cobalt: $22,500 Total Repaid: $26036.40 Total Interest Paid: $3536.40 Interest as percentage of Principal: 15.717% Payment Amount: $433.94

Surely one more suited to his qualifications.

Then I'm simply not able to follow you as you dart around like an A.D.D. rabbit on speed running from an imaginary wolf. Are we talking NHV? Low end torque? Packaging? Torque per litre? If you're making an argument that torque per litre is better in a DOHC engine than a pushrod in engines of equal displacement, then fine, I concede to your stupidly shortsighted point. In the meantime, while you're capped out at 3.6 litres in your engine bay, happily spinning your four cams, I can fill that same engine bay with 6 litres of pushrod power. If you want to test this experiment, go out in your CTS and taunt the next CTS-V you encounter. Make sure you record it so we can all see the results. To make comparisons of engines based on displacement and valvetrain while ignoring all other factors is just plain dumb... and I know you know better.

If you're not going to qualify for 0% at Chevy, you're not going to qualify for 5.9% at Toyota.

The line is already there. Sure it needs some refurbishment, but it's there. You can find abandoned rail lines on Google earth. There is one that is pretty much a straight shot from NYC to Chicago. NYC to Chicago is about 960 miles, meaning about 3.5 hours by high speed rail, a perfectly reasonable time.