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surreal1272

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Everything posted by surreal1272

  1. surreal1272
    Umm...what? Based off of what information? All we know is that Lincoln has struggled in the sedan market just as much as everyone else (and more so in most cases) yet you think more of the same will make it better? Sorry but changing the name from MKS to Continental does not a barometer of success make so I don't know how can make that assessment Suave (knowing all that).
  2. surreal1272
    Some people don't understand the difference between fleet sales and rental sales and that's okay. They also can't seem to acknowledge the fact that rental sales have increased for Ford while it has decreased for GM. The GM rental sales argument was pointed out (by many Ford fans and GM haters) for years as a weakness for GM but now that the roles have reversed, they are oddly silent on that SAME fact occurring for Ford. The rest of us understand perfectly though.
  3. surreal1272
    Exactly. There was a lot interest in the last CTS too but that has not translated to great sales.
  4. surreal1272
    Let me also state, for the record, that I know Cadillac is not totally ignoring an increase in volume sales. That is evidenced by the new lineup of CUVs coming soon. However, to act like that should be their singular focus in order to increase sales/profits, instead of making sure each product they have is top notch and more capable of pulling higher profit margins per individual sale, is simply short sighted and bordering on ignorance.
  5. surreal1272
    Let me say this one more time for you and others who keep making this stupid volume argument. Cadillac doesn't have to go high volume because GM doesn't need them to be. Thats what they have Chevy and (to a lesser extent) Buick for. It's not that hard to figure except to people like SMK who have to create a phantom argument that casts Cadillac in a bad light while all the other factors that got Cadillac here. By all means though, keep arguing about the one point while ignoring all other points. It's certainly got you all this far.
  6. surreal1272
    Wow Suave. Just wow.
  7. surreal1272
    Really because that is not what they have been saying. They are more focused on profit per unit than per sales volume and that is well known Suave.
  8. surreal1272
    Well, you're wrong again. 300K CTSs is not what Cadillac as a brand is going for. As a whole, Cadillac would sit very nicely at 200-250K units annually. 300K of one series is NOT what they're looking for. Cadillac just recently adjusted the CTS pricing/equipment level, and you think raising the price $3K and running the factory 24/7 is the answer. Wow. 320i is wretched. CT6 2.0T is not. Not the same car and choice appeals to luxury buyers. I have no issue with the XTS getting phased out & the CT6 occupying that (general) spot in the catalog. It's a great move forward on many fronts. Glad you responded before I did. This is getting just silly to the point of "why bother" when he just wants to make up new excuses to suit whatever ridiculous argument he is trying to make here.
  9. surreal1272
    That is nowhere even close to comparable to what Balthazaar is talking about and you know it. And your Escalade logic can be easily applied to the fools who continue to buy the fifty year old G-Wagon. I'm sure MB gets a good chuckle on their way to the bank each day, as a result. His original point is how AMG cars depreciate fast, and cost $50,000 or more in depreciation. So let's compare 2 cars using NADA projections. An S550 with a $97,400 MSRP depreciates $64,299, but an E63 with $101,700 depreciates $56,364. So the AMG brand car holds higher % of value and loses less total dollars. That debunks his theory that AMG badges hurt resale value, they help it. An Escalade Platinum 4WD with $91,950 MSRP loses $56,333 in 5 years of depreciation. Loses 61.2% of value over 5 years. Let's compare to the G550, $115,400 MSRP, depreciation of $62,981. Loses 54.6% of value over 5 years. So yes it loses more total dollars, but it costs $24,000 more when new. Throw in a 3rd vehicle, a 2016 GL550 with MSRP of $91,300, virtually the same as the Escalade Platinum. The GL550 loses $49,843 over 5 years, over $6,000 less than an Escalade will lose. Balthazar wanted to say how horrible of a purchase a Mercedes is because it looses a big dollar amount in money, the Escalade is even worse, why not criticize it? That is my counter to the argument, personally I don't think the people spending $100,000 on a vehicle could care at all how it depreciates. These are people that have money to burn, they'll spend 1 million on a house, $50,000 a year on property taxes and not really care. Personally, I also like to buy a used car, after that first 3 years of depreciation has hit. I don't care about when and how your "argument" started. You said, "The Escalade has a 5 year cost to own of $87,000 according to NADA guides. Yet it is Cadillac's number 2 seller and GM's #1 profitable car. Why are people buying Escalades? If depreciation is so bad and driving customers away, they should just stop making the Escalade by that logic. Which of course makes no sense, they will keep building Escalades as long as there are people willing to pay for them. And GM will take their money and laugh all the way to the bank." Which, again, can be applied to the G-Wagon yet you are oddly silent on that and still want to cherry depreciation values while ignoring the fact that the AMG risks further deprecation values because of dilution of the brand. Here's what you need to look at. What was the average depreciation of the AMG brands when there were far fewer choices compared to many choices that exist today and in the future. Look at that if you want to truly understand what is being talked about here. If you don't understand that simple concept, then maybe you just stop trying to argue that particular point. Now, let's see what you pick out next.
  10. surreal1272
    That is nowhere even close to comparable to what Balthazaar is talking about and you know it. And your Escalade logic can be easily applied to the fools who continue to buy the fifty year old G-Wagon. I'm sure MB gets a good chuckle on their way to the bank each day, as a result.
  11. surreal1272
    Not to mention he is constantly trying to compare MBs overall sales numbers with ONE GM company that has a mere fraction of models that MB has on top of the fact that the ONE company is not looking for volume sales (which he has been told at least million times up to this point). More cherry picking by SMK does not change that fact (go ahead and down vote that children).
  12. surreal1272
    Fact. Ford has more models than Chevrolet. They should be outselling them for the same reason that GM beats Ford MoCo. overall. More models.
  13. surreal1272
    Then you haven't been paying attention over the last few years. For years, on two different forum sites, I have read countless posts form Ford fans who dogged on GMs fleet habit and rental sales. All we heard about was "retail profit margins vs. rental and fleet margins" and now that the shoe is on the other foot, they are nowhere to be found (well, one of them with good reason lol). Where were you during all of that (seeing as you were also at both sites)? Seems someone else (not you Suave) glossed over the fact that Ford's rental sales have increased over last year (V6 Mustang anyone?) but that's none of my business. Where is this proof that GM is "practically" surrendering the Fleet market?
  14. surreal1272
    It is a lot no matter how you try to sugarcoat it and it just dilutes the AMG branding.
  15. surreal1272
    Then why is their growth in ATPs double the industry average? Seems like to me they are getting favourable volume in their mix. They're doing record commercial deliveries. Conceivably they could be selling more higher trim F150s to businesses. Who knows. A mystery though how their transactions prices are increasing. Also, a lot of Ford models are older now. The Focus and Fiesta are old, so getting more volume outta them makes sense. But then again, why do we continue to compare Ford's financial performance to GM? It's because for the longest time even as a smaller firm Ford outperformed GM. The General finally getting its act together - I would expect, I WOULD DEMAND GM as a shareholder to beat Ford in retail sales. No $h!. . Because of their upper end trucks. It's right there on the Ford link. Sorry but Bong has a point about the fleet sales and this is well known information at this point.
  16. surreal1272
    What about everything else? C Class? CLK? S? SL? ML? GL? GLK? CLS? And all of the wagon and coupe variations that go with all of those.. have those all only grown 4 inches in 25 years? I would wager good money that isn't the case.. ML/GLE(whatever you want to refer to it as): 1997: 180.6 inches long 2016: 189.1 inches long GLK/GLC 2009(first year it was made): 178.2 inches long 2016: 183.3 inches long Exactly. As I told him, MB has been doing the same thing. They just do it a little differently by creating all these offshoot variations to disguise that very fact. GM is not going to any of the things SMK has brought up and with good reason. Because they know better than him.
  17. surreal1272
    This is just making my head hurt. Is cherry picking the "in" thing these days?
  18. surreal1272
    But how big do these cars get? Does a CTS or CT5 become the size of a Chrysler 300? Does the ATS become the size of Infiniti Q50 or Acura TLX? BMW is just as guilty, they have had some bad size creep on the 3 and 5-series as of late. I don't get the notion of forcing low end cars up market such as was done with CTS. Making the car bigger could hurt sales, not help. Even Chevy and Ford are doing it. The Cruze is way bigger than a Cobalt was, the Malibu has grown, pretty soon the Impala will be pushed out. Ford is making the Focus larger, the Fusion longer, killing the Taurus. These brands are killing the nameplates of their larger, more profitable vehicles to push low end models up. In Chevy's example, they shoudl drop the Spark name plate, make the subcompact the Sonic, what is currently the Sonic becomes the Cruze, the Cruze becomes Malibu and the current Malibu/Impala merge into one car that is an Accord/Camry fighter. This lets Chevy sella $17,000 Malibu which seems like incredible value, but really it is the same car a $16,000 Cruze would be, yet GM pockets $1,000. It's like you didn't actually read what he actually wrote and are still asking the same questions as before (that have been answered ten fold).
  19. surreal1272
    And I am so glad SMK is not charge of marketing for any of there companies he mentioned.
  20. surreal1272
    But how big do these cars get? Does a CTS or CT5 become the size of a Chrysler 300? Does the ATS become the size of Infiniti Q50 or Acura TLX? BMW is just as guilty, they have had some bad size creep on the 3 and 5-series as of late. I don't get the notion of forcing low end cars up market such as was done with CTS. Making the car bigger could hurt sales, not help. Even Chevy and Ford are doing it. The Cruze is way bigger than a Cobalt was, the Malibu has grown, pretty soon the Impala will be pushed out. Ford is making the Focus larger, the Fusion longer, killing the Taurus. These brands are killing the nameplates of their larger, more profitable vehicles to push low end models up. In Chevy's example, they shoudl drop the Spark name plate, make the subcompact the Sonic, what is currently the Sonic becomes the Cruze, the Cruze becomes Malibu and the current Malibu/Impala merge into one car that is an Accord/Camry fighter. This lets Chevy sella $17,000 Malibu which seems like incredible value, but really it is the same car a $16,000 Cruze would be, yet GM pockets $1,000. Mercedes does the exact same thing. They pushed up the C Class to be able put out the sub $30k CLA for example. As a matter of fact, all companies do this.
  21. surreal1272
    The S Class does very well in China well also being made there.The S-class does well everywhere, and it has to be made there to sell there because of the import tax laws in China. If you buy an S-class or E-class in the USA it is made in Sindelfigen, Germany. . That's not what I'm talking about but thanks for playing. We already know that if you had to live in China that you would not buy one that was made there. We've talked about this. If I had to live in China, I would still buy a Mercedes, which in most cases would be made in China. Just like people that live in the USA and buy a GLC or C-class or GLE are buying a Mercedes made in the USA. They are often built in the region of the world where the car is sold. Certain cars with lower volume are only tooled up at one factory though, such as the SL. High volume like a C-class is built in 3 or 4 different factories. Every car maker does this. Funny because that's not what you said a few weeks ago. Back then you said you'd never drive a Chinese made Mercedes (on the CT6 made in China thread). Interesting. And you are proving Balthazaars point.
  22. surreal1272
    Not referring to you. There are some who don't even post here anymore that just pop in to see what they can down vote and then they are gone. No comments, no posts, no contributions to this site whatsoever other than to troll posts of people they don't like. They use that one down vote for the day and POOF, they are gone again. That is what I am talking about.Seriously..? See that would grab one of my "you're a douche" votes. lol I don't understand how you could have that much anger/hatred towards somebody via the internet ALONE. Never met, Never heard each other's voices, don't even know what they look like, yet there is that much hatred. Blows my mind. Good lord man. Stop overdramatizing what I am talking about. It's a simple observation of what the trolls around here were doing. You and I both know that is what has been going on in some of these cases. I am not being a douche at all and if you think that is "you're being a douche" vote then the problem is with you and your perceptions. In this case, your perception about me is wrong here. Again, there is no anger, no hatred. It is an observation that can actually be backed up with facts (this has been discussed before). I'm just tired of the children. If you confusing that with hatred or anger, then I don't know what else to tell you. Don't vote all you want if you continue to feel something about me that isn't there. That's all I'm going to say about it because it's taking away from the topic.Hey man, I sent you a pm. I really didn't clarify what I meant by that. Sorry about that. It's all good in the hood.
  23. surreal1272
    The S Class does very well in China well also being made there. The S-class does well everywhere, and it has to be made there to sell there because of the import tax laws in China. If you buy an S-class or E-class in the USA it is made in Sindelfigen, Germany. . That's not what I'm talking about but thanks for playing. We already know that if you had to live in China that you would not buy one that was made there. We've talked about this.
  24. surreal1272
    The S Class does very well in China well also being made there.
  25. surreal1272
    Not referring to you. There are some who don't even post here anymore that just pop in to see what they can down vote and then they are gone. No comments, no posts, no contributions to this site whatsoever other than to troll posts of people they don't like. They use that one down vote for the day and POOF, they are gone again. That is what I am talking about. Seriously..? See that would grab one of my "you're a douche" votes. lol I don't understand how you could have that much anger/hatred towards somebody via the internet ALONE. Never met, Never heard each other's voices, don't even know what they look like, yet there is that much hatred. Blows my mind. Good lord man. Stop overdramatizing what I am talking about. It's a simple observation of what the trolls around here were doing. You and I both know that is what has been going on in some of these cases. I am not being a douche at all and if you think that is "you're being a douche" vote then the problem is with you and your perceptions. In this case, your perception about me is wrong here. Again, there is no anger, no hatred. It is an observation that can actually be backed up with facts (this has been discussed before). I'm just tired of the children. If you confusing that with hatred or anger, then I don't know what else to tell you. Don't vote all you want if you continue to feel something about me that isn't there. That's all I'm going to say about it because it's taking away from the topic.
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