regfootball

I've noticed that Ford has upped incentives on the Flex, and a lot more of them on lots now have lesser trim. One of our friends just picked one up, they finally got rid of their windstar. I'm surprised that there was still a Windstar on the road that hadn't blown up. Yet its a far better car than the Impala, which outsells the Taurus like 4:1. Of course the Impala is a fleet whore, and GM gives you like 15 grand to buy one.

LOL...i think you are right. The enterprise in town will rent a versa on certain days for like 10 bucks a day. everyone rents versas! the versa is miserable though! nice room but the interior is strange, and the whole car lacks a solid feel. And many other cars get better gas mileage. The only kudos I can give the versa is from a space efficiency standpoint.

Mazda really needs a PR buzz with something for the 6, maybe put in a powertrain that can get decent mpg for starters.

Cruze is doing well. SRX is almost the top selling Caddy. Lucerne may not want to go away. Regal sales are lower than I would like to see.

i think it's styling was dated out of the box. mazda did fix some interior bits for 2011. the seat cloth and door inserts are much nicer and i think some of the dash and switchgear was livened up. i think mazda's mpg figures hurt them. but it's a good car. but if it looks dumpy and they don't advertise it....no wonder it doesn't sell. Does mazda even advertise on TV much anymore? CX-7 increased because they added a standard non turbo model that helps keep the price down. CX-7 would be a neat crossover in about the sweet size but I hear its slow and myself i really hate the interior on it. yep!

I think a lot of people who may have looked at the Cube in the past now have another strange small crossover to pick from, the Juke, which is really a lot more compelling aside from a lack of space. Sentra and Versa are yucky vehicles yet look at those numbers.....yikes.

take away the town and country and the chrysler brand is out of business.

actually, honda's most important models are doing quite well, except the Accord is going in the toilet. I assume the Hyundai Sonata is partially to account for this. Glad the customers are figuring out the Accord ain't all that.

18 passat wagons? take out the jetta and VW is a dead brand that one would hardly expect to have 800k annual sales anytime soon.

yikes

taurus sales are rough. all lincoln sales are too. flex sales are rough.

hardly any big volume sellers.....

kill the borrego please

few models, expand on the strengths and improve to more of what people want. build it over time, keep your brand identity consistent. when that new impreza hits this summer it should be interesting.

I know, I'm crazy, but i like the Outlander Sport. In higher trim its overpriced and it has some flaws and it needs some refinement work but the concept of its packaging is appealing. I would love to see one with the Lancer Ralliart motor and a six speed. It's not a knockout vehicle. I just like that it its a simple tall light compact hatch that offers AWD if you want it. By compact, I mean similar to regular compact car. Not 'Equinox' sized compact. I would estimate they might sell about 50k of them a year once they become a known quantity.

GM should have been the defacto leader in the rollout of NAV in the automotive industry. to do that means it should have been extended to their best selling models and most accessible priced segments. Not just all the expensive models. in essence, their financial reasons for not putting them in the BU then lead me to classify the failure as a financial and management problem. and as we all know that is not at all rare to GM. GM simply never tried hard enough to make the numbers work. They did not invest enough into it and did not leverage their prior telematics superiority. EPIC FAIL.

mazda6 is a good car, they need to do something to boost sales.

ok, let me clarify. I agree with you. I am not absolving them of not doing it. I am merely telling you, that was the most prominent and widely referred to reason that was given that they did not. If you want me to demonstrate not drinking the Kool Aid then i will say what i actually feel on the matter. It was pathetic and pitiful that GM / OnStar were not leaders in NAV, here's why. With telematics already in place (OnStar), GM being the largest mfr should have been in the innovator position and been the very first manufacturer to integrate telematics with the visual screen. the fact that ford began the in car sound tech revolution is a double punch in the gut. So my opinion is this, I am less worried about GM lying or being cheesy about whether they offered the NAV screens across the board and why it took so long as I am abut the EPIC FAIL and complete loserness of it to not race to the lead and tying OnStar with Full NAV screen and complete integrations with traffic services and all of that. I would have also expected GM to offer in car wifi by now too, but again Ford beats them to the punch on that. GM also was late with bluetooth and USB. So like hyper says at like 2 grand or whatever, the NAVS are going to have a very small take rate. Ideally GM should have found a way to popularize the NAV and get the cost down fast so that they could offer it at say 300 bucks a pop where the guaranteed take would have been over 50%, and if it WERE tied to an OnStar service, would have increased the take rate on OnStar as well. I will even go a step further and say that GM should have brought lots of mobile funtionality to the market before the smartphone makers did. As far as the ROI not being the reason on the NAVs in the Malibu, yes, at the price they wanted to charge I can understand why they did it then. I just think they should have looked at it in a completely different and aggressive paradigm. But hey Red Ink Rick was in charge then...... I think another factor to consider. NAV is evolving so fast. GM maybe needed to make sure they had head units that would handle software and or hardware upgrades several years into the future. I know myself I probably would rather velcro an iPad to the dash anyways. For music and NAV.

the new ones are, that is only very recent. but that is exactly the point. to redo the auras and 08+ malibus right after they had just brought them out, they did not want to do. that's why i said they were hardly leading edge.

I've heard the Saab is so different that the car has virtually no commonality with the vectra / malibu. Saab changed so much stuff it basically became its own car.

for one, GM hung its whole hat on OnStar and has buttloads of money invested in it over years. They are not going to sacrifice putting it in their cars in lieu of another technology if its one or the other. GM has so much money and time building the OnStar brand. The other comment about the screen too low in the dash, also is completely the case. What I've read is that GM didn't feel the investment would pay off in terms of all the work that would be needed. That would include a center stack redo. That Malibu is a high volume, low margin car. Even though I thought it was entirely cheesy, I am believing that they chose not to do it because they did not feel there would be cost payback. I think the fact that they still have barely integrated OnStar old plus new NAV units also plays in. They sort of had the chance to be real innovators in that regard, to marry the OnStar with true NAV Screens. They kind of didn't become the leading edge on that. When the wagon circles back around it comes down to, it was too expensive, and too hard to do. For GM.

gotta protect the baby i guess. GMI is not the only site i have read that on. It does sound like typical GM, I'm just sayin that's apparently why they never put NAV on the car. I also saw it in motor trend before too. hell, it was probably on this site a couple hundred times too. again, it does sound like GM excuse making. but GM has built a long rep of making excuses. If there were another explanation out there would be a better way for you to debunk the credibility of that. Not just to say, 'that site is wrong'.

sometimes you have to go to the other sites if i could highlight anything with my computer for cut paste i would but instead i will just tell you to read the second paragraph which has been mentioned several times in many places regarding the Malibu, Aura,etc. Also supposedly the Malibu does not have rear armrest for some reason that is bizarre as well.

oh c'mon that is such a Croc. j/k congrats.

Maxx sold better than expected because the 04-07 Bu sedan was so ugly. the maxx was ugly too, at least you got more utility with the Maxx. I think an HHR2 would be a nice addition. Thing is, it needs to drive nice like the Cruze and it needs to have more volume inside. The current one has good volume, but lacks girth and probably with regards to future competition would need more cargo space. So if there is an HHR2 it has evolve and get larger and more useful.....despite the fact that the current one worked ok. ANy new HHR I would hope is not just a regurge of the current one. I'd like to see them emulate some different styling themes.....maybe the late sixties chevy trucks or something.