I hope GMRULES again

"The UAW has also worked for its members to ensure a somewhat comfortable lifestyle making roughly $40k - $60k a year for the average assembly line worker. Day in, day out. 8, 9 or 10 hours on your feet. Tightening bolts, mounting tires. You get the idea." $60k a year? Unfortunatley the world is changing too quickily and the UAW leaders are living in the past. Too much foreign competition to contend with that don't have all these legacy costs to deal with. The worst may be to come in the next few years when China's auto industry really gets rolling.Wait until they're sending over cars that are comparable to a Cobalt for half the price. I realize the union is fighting for their best interests but in the end it will be themselves and GM who will be the biggest losers. GM's hourly labour costs (including health care, etc) for a worker who builds a Cobalt is $60 an hour, in China a worker makes just under $3 U.S. an hour. How are you going to compete with that. Let's suppose for fun GM didn't have the UAW to contend with , and they built a brand new plant somewhere in the U.S. to make a small car like the Aveo. They annouce they will hire 2000 new employees and the Salaries will be around $25k-30K a year, excellent working conditions in a brand new state of the art factory, SOME healthcare benefits, a basis pension plan. I'm betting they would get about 250 thousand applications because millions of people work for a lot less.

Wow! what a great site.

The NAV screen is a $2000 option in Canada so only about a dozen will be sold with it. Would like to see what the dash looks like without it. The dash is very strange. I come from a family of Honda lovers who deserted the General a long time ago so I'm curious as to what their reaction to this new Civic will be. I'm betting even with the strange new dash and Prius looks it will be a success cause its a Honda.

Nice catch! Looks like somewhere between Oshawa and Bowmanville eh?

I know its a cost thing an all but if they wanted to play it smart they sould make them standard. When the Cobalt was first released it was tested and received the highest score possible in crash testing, WITH side air bags like this article says. Then some other insurance institute group (can't remember who it was) tested the Cobalt WITHOUT side air bags and gave it a poor rating and then GM had to go into damage control mode. I expect them to be standard in all cars in a few years but in order to avoid confusing customers, please make them standard.

I'm not in love with the HHR but I want it to do well. One thing it does have going for it is price. At least GM has come up with something interesting that doesn't cost 30 or 40 grand like the SSR and GTO. I've checked out a few at my dealer recently and they were around 20 grand CDN which is pretty good. Although like CARBIZ mentioned, Chrysler is practically giving the PT cruiser away, in my neck of the woods they're offering a 24 month lease for 159 a month. I have not seen any HHR's yet but my son told me earlier today he saw two on the road today.

I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a HHR.

So why not add the safety features and absorb the costs, that way you won't scare people off when they see these inflated options on the MSRP. Let's face it, it doesn't cost $1000 bucks to add side air bags to a G6. It might be good marketing for people who are not informed but next year when I'm in the market for a new car I'm going to have some tough questions for the salesman such as, why do I have to pay an extra $2000 CDN for OnStar and side air bags on a G6 GT when they come standard on an Impala? I know they're targeted at different people but it still doesn't make sense. The G6 doesn't even offer child locks, what kind of safety thinking went into that decision? This makes me feel like I have to choose between the sporty car I really want, the G6 GT,or maybe going for an Impala LT cause its a bigger car and I can get 3 safety features for $2000 less.

Not gonna happen.

[quote name='CARBIZ' date='Sep 12 2005, 10:08 PM'] The truth is, people won't pay for saftey. GM tried this when ABS was standard on everything, then 2 years ago they yanked it out of most entry level and mid-sized cars. The customers didn't care! On a $15,000 car, people won't pay $400 for side air bags or $600 for ABS. They'd rather have power windows and keyless! Kudos to GM for trying, but as with OnStar, the public doesn't understand and (for the most part) give a damn. Your right that people won't pay more for safety but as the competition adds things like side air bags as standard equipment GM no choice but to jump in and stay competitive even if it means absorbing the costs. Their doing it with Impala for 06 but they need to do it with all their cars. I'm interested in a G6 GT but the side air bags are nearly a $1000 option, Are they nuts? Why would I pay an extra grand for them on a G6 when they cost 0 on an Impala? They gotta get their act together with things like this.

Not that bad. A lot better than the Fridgeline.

Great but the side air bags need to be standard now like the competition is doing.

I've been to the Canadian automotive museum in Oshawa Ontario and the Ransom Olds museum in Lansing Michigan, went there in 1997 when I was in Lansing for 100 birthday of Olds.Both very cool museums.

#1 thing keeping them behind is reputation. #2 is that when they make a mistake they don't own up.#3 is their boring interiors.

My parents had a cutlass Salon like that. That car was so smooth but it was kinda funny looking. People alwaysthought it was a Citation. It had a 110 HP 260 V-8. Very slow off the start but a very smooth car.

Where do they build it?

"We’ve been around way too long, and people have heard all our lies," he says in a strikingly candid admission. "We just have to deliver." That's an impressive statement coming from the chairman and something most of us have known for 20 years. Now Rick, how much longer is it gonna take for you to deliver?

I read this too somewhere. Funny that the media didn't report on this because now all of Daewoo's sales can be added in with GM's totals right?

Ever since Katrina I've been watching NBC nightly news and I see the commercial for the new Sonota over and over again. Wake GM, more people than ever are tuning in to watch the news and the only thing their seeing about the new Impala is the logo. You would think they would of flooding the airwaves with ads like Hyundai is doing.???? :angry:

Glad to see there won't be a Cobalt clone in the U.S. Pontiac dealers in Canada needed the Pursuit to be competitive in that category and I think U.S. dealers could benefit from a sporty compact other than the Vibe. Sunfire did sell 40k last year so those sales are pretty much gone now.

BODYWORK. That has to be the most thankless job there is. I don't know what's worse, rust or looking at my patch jobs.

Instead of loaning them GM should just give the Red Cross the 200 vehicles. They could call it the GM Red Cross discount for everyone.

The G6 should of been the new Grand Prix.

No surprises there for me. I went to a dealer last November and they didn't have the Pursuit brochures yet. They probably wait until the very last minute before sending them to print in case of last minute changes. Trust me, I work in the printing business.

Nice job. Now how about interior pics of an 05 and 06.