regfootball

yup!

the mini is a fashion accessory. something about the size of the 3, sure. but i wouldn't saddle it with any rwd need. in THEORY a car like the cruze should be big enough, but i can tell you the interior is nice, its not PREMIUM, and it still lacks some space. i doubt it has all the road noise kept out that you'd want to call it premium. and then if you make those parts of the car premium, then you gotta pump up the motor and the suspension, the brakes....... pretty soon you have a nice heavy expensive small car that costs too much, weighs too much, and doesn't have enough room. there's a deal breaker in there somewhere of all those good things that just makes it tough to do on a small car that can be sold for volume and profit.

Oh but toyota?

I parked next to a 2001 ish Jetta at TARGET yesterday. Those cars had NO room. Earlier in the day I had sat in a new 011 Jetta that had SPACE. VW upsized the Jetta about 2 classes in the US in less than a decade. That pretty much says it all right there in terms of how companies like VW see our market and what people desire. VW would never currently expect to get the volume increase they are looking for with the size Jetta it had back in 01/02 ish.....they even though the 08 was too small....

i think adding lots of sound deadener, quieter and larger tires, stiffer chassis, amenities, all those things that would refine small cars, also add the weight and cost that make a tough sell. there is a point of diminishing return on small vehicles in terms of the price you can charge, and the fuel economy that is expected out of them. mini sells well, but its like the prius, its the king of a niche, and its just fashionistas who are trying a cheap entry into the BMW brand. You'd probably be better off studying the sales charts of the A1's and Volvo C30's of the world to see exactly how much the public likes 'premium small cars'. You've got more buyers who want a bigger crossover or SUV for the same price in comparison to those feature laden small vehicles.

how does acura stay afloat? Honda still really only moves its core models. accord, crv, odysey, civic, pilot. not sure why the people get pilots. good thing honda does not have to depend on the new vehicles or the niche vehicles to help them stay afloat.

lots of cheap leases and huge discounts and financing on the altima.

rather have an Evo than a stupid mini. SX4 is a decent vehicle, aside from the bubble view out the weird front pillars. it's 98% as fun and capable as the honda Fit. Suzuki Swift would be a pretty nice rig if they bring it here. Eclipse is a pretty nice car. Like the interior a lot. Lancer Sportback is a nice looking rig. The new Outlander sport looks to be good and the current outlander is already pretty decent. i'm not apologizing for them like the GM bangers love to do around here about GM, pretending its all class leading when its not. I am just saying within the right price and right context, for some, they work out ok. Like my friend who likes her Galant, she has an uncle with an Endeavor he loves. Lots of Endeavor owners like them, and its even won comparos vs. the Pilot before. I know my friend who travels for work a lot has said he's liked the Galant rentals he has gotten when travelling for business. Big upgrade over the Sebrings and such. Chrysler should be so lucky to have some of the product mitsubishi and suzuki have. i'd rather see chrysler go balls up first.

benefit- at least Ford and GM will have GOOD small cars in the showroom now. Cruze, Aveo, Focus, Fiesta. A lot of domestic haters have formed their opinion on US brands because of not having good small cars HERE. So that will help fix that. Otherwise time and history have shown Amurchans love room and space. At some point to satisfy America we need fuel economy + room and space. It's just a natural pendulum. Big cars, small cars, the market cycles. The green bunch got mouthy and look at what's in office. The pendulum will go back as long as gas prices don't kill. The govt saw what happened to the auto sector when gas got too expensive. If cars don't sell and people don't drive your governments do not collect as much tax revenue. My own point of reference recent is taking a family trip with 4 in the cobalt this past weekend again. I had been back at the 'we can have one small car in the house' point but after another trip in the compact i am pretty much back to requiring space in the next car. Doesn't need to be a hulking Tahoe, but space is needed.

exactly. i don't think anyone really wants to buy a hyundai, but the thing is they are making a lot of the right moves.

well, perhaps there was some hyperbole there on my part, but not much. but i still stick by this. the cruze plastic is average, baseline. the Jetta's plastic as long as its new and not scratched, and you're not touching it, or a big raft of sunlight is not washing the cabin, may look ----passable-----. it's pretty close to borderline whether its a deal breaker, it depends on the individual. If i were a previous VW owner I would feel very shortchanged by this decontenting. If i were new to the brand it definitely is one thing that conveys 'cheap' instead of quality. When you are thinking things more like 'the quality of this interior plastic reminds me of a Kia'......there is something amiss. Seriously the plastic panel above the armrest in the door is like the one in the new Kia sportage, a 50 cent swatch of thin cheap lifeless plastic filler that might be a home nicely on a kids 3 ring binder. Someone from Chrysler once said if the brass had given them 200 bucks more per car on the interior, it would have made the difference between what was a 'not bad' interior and a 'knockout' interior impression. VW clearly has a new mission, volume at the cost of some of the value set that got it where it did in the last ten years. It really makes ME wonder what another 200 dollars a car would have done for this interior. At least with Chevy, reaching a mid level standard on the interior is an improvement, and exceeds what most expect of chevy in the market. In that aspect, you won't disappoint many. I think the jury is out on whether VW is stabbing any of its cult in the back here. Dan Neil probably was too far over the edge with what he said about the interior of the car but it is a problem. VW should be careful they are not blowing expectations here. Or rather that the number of blown expectations won't exceed the new incoming 'ok with it' level of expectations. You shut the door on the new Jetta, and its got this satisfying hefty GERMAN THUNK to it. You look in the trunk and its trimmed fairly nicely. The seats cradle you and fit you pretty nice (something the Cruze doesn't really feel like it would do yet). And then you look at the dash..........you just wanna spray high gloss armor all all over it so it doesn't look like its about to dry out and crack and fall apart...... In the brochure the S model is never mentioned, its only referred to on the spec sheet. Talk about shame...... It's really a shame VW got rid of the adjustable armrest too...

sort of like what Hyundai is starting to do? any coincidence Ford has put the Focus pricing out now? no power mirrors on the LS either. Apparently GM does not feel power mirrors are important to you or benefit your safety, Mr. Customer. Perhaps Mr. Reuss can explain why.

suzuki is not leaving the states. Japan Inc. will guarantee it stays, especially now that it is linked to VW. the thing in comparing compacts to midsize when looking at mpg you should really be looking at combined epa numbers.....which is what you will get most times. if you have a midsize like the sonata that gets i think 26 combined and you compare it to a cruze which is probably 28 that difference is sometimes offset by cheaper insurance on the larger car in terms of money. unless you really want the small car for the fun factor (the kicker is the small car you pick HAS to be fun...i.e. engine and handling) then you can't really justify a small car purchase on economic factors unless the price or car payment is significantly less. the only way to reason it then is to say you just want a smaller car. in the suzuki's case at least from what i have read on owner reviews, they love the car, great road dynamics, and if you compare physical dimensions cruze vs kizashi your wheelbase and other dimensions are pretty close. but the kizashi has a nicer interior with more space and the powertrain has more power. it then depends on level of trim. no doubt there will be trim comparisons where the Cruze will have a good advantage in MSRP at least but in some instances the spread is not so much. COuple in the fact that Chevy pretty much never has attractive leases on the compacts unlike a lot of the other competition, the first year of the Cruze is more of a motivator to push people up into the outgoing Malibus than anything while they work out the defects building them here, since the extra 2-3 years it took for them to get it to the states they still probably won't have the line issues figured out.

honda website says alloys are standard on EX and EXL and hate to tell ya, but the honda will have better resale but new 010 Optimas can be had for under 15 grand right now if you are lookin for a deal new altimas, 16 grand.... slamming mother theresa.....nice

precisely and the cruze is not the car that will change it from the gate. it doesn't have enough wow factor in person or on the spec sheet.

I just got done sitting in a new Jetta. Can prb elaborate more later. Cabin is nice, except.....the plastic. Hard, cheap. Really on the fence whether it's a deal breaker. I think my cobalts plastic is nicer. The plastic reminds me of the cheap stuff in the new Kia sportage as far as cheapness. The door panels in particular are bad. Shame, everything else about the interior is nice. It might be a bit big for some jetta fans now. The rear legroom is still not midsiZe but it is more than the cruze. I would say while the cruzes plastic is nicer it's still average. The jetta is simple inside. The cruze is more upbeat and interesting. SE at 22900 w moonroof and vinyl, 177hp and automatic is not bad on the jetta. You'll have to live with the almost Chrysler plastic though. trunk is trimmed out nicely on the Jetta which is an odd paradox that the interior is not close to the same level. much nicer BOOT than the korean fuzz in the cruze.

because its a chevy (chevy still don't have brand cred for pie in the sky pricing) and because the cruze doesn't have the powertrain worthy for a 27k pricetag. Civic EXl with Nav is under 25k, not sure why you are misleading on the price of the civic. It you are thinking Si model, that is a performance version with more power which the cruze does not have. Not sure why you would mislead people like that. A Kizashi top of the line with NAV and memory seats is a tad pittance more than the fully loaded cruze.

everything is relative. the galant is not competitive with the best midsizers. but in the right context for some, a galant rental return with lots of warranty left and a really good price it certainly is a decent car. i had a galant v6 loaner once and it steered and handled well and had balls under the hood. an excoworker of mine has had her galant for about 5 years now, she even bought custom wheels for it and she likes the car. lots of room and space. they have an SE package now I believe that is well equipped and decently priced. for those that want an appliance and some warranty and are not caught up in badges its a decent car. It's probably a better car than an Impala for a lot of people.

at those wheel of fortune prices, chevy will need 4 grand off the higher buck versions of the cruze.

If you buy any theory that says 'don't put all your eggs in one basket', you'll probably want a future vehicle that can run on gas and electric, plug in or be hybrid, even ethanol too. If the $h! comes down and your car is gas only, you're a slave to gas. If your car is EV only, the utilities co is coming after you. At least if your vehicle has energy DIVERSITY, then you at least have some options. Hybrids and EV's are bunk to a point, but you have to admit, it gives oil some competition (until all the oil companies own utilities at least).

it's what i like to call 'crossing the line'. and hey "Europe is gonna do it so it's gotta be what we should do, right"? I thought we formed our own country to get away from Europe but so oddly so many people today seem to want us to go back in that direction. well whoever controls our energy and our money will ultimately be in charge anyways. they just want to up our tax rate now so we are up and running to the borg's rate of taxation when we are assumed......

outlander sport should help em out. ancient galant does no favors.....

we've seen what happens to the economy when the automotive sector goes in the tank, 4 dollar gas ushered in the crash. the auto sector paid for it and look at the bedlam an even worse auto sector would have cause. and perhaps it kept the green bleeders in check to see the fail.......'saving the world' also means less money in the tax coffers when people do not buy gas, and do not buy CARS. remember, that 30,000 dollar car purchase pumps a LOT of money into the government. People bitch about sales tax on clothing and stuff but they don't even consider that they probably spend almost as much on vehicle taxes as they do on general sales taxes. and that tit is one the government wants you to keep sucking. so they have to create an environment where you still buy cars of any kind. so they promote the 30,000 dollar four cylinder cars now instead of the 30,000 SUV's. I am literally shocked that there is no national sales tax on automobiles. the feds would desperately love to tax you on that.

the energy independence is the single biggest issue. But now we are under the hold of the oil cartel, and our subjugation and being held hostage in this way really is fine with our politicos, it really helps with the next step that is weakening American political independence and our money so in one fell swoop sooner than we all think we are forced to relinquish ourselves into the new world order, without even taking us to war. I am surprised that they have not started pushing for us to lose our food independence at this point. clearly any government like ours that wants us to be held hostage by other nations on energy and money has to have already signed off on selling America off for whatever gain is going to whoever gets it. cap and trade, value added tax, overfunded ponzi style national healthcare, mandatory government retirement contributions, in the UK they even want to garnish your paychecks first.... UK Proposes All Paychecks Go to the State First

that does seem to happen........and you are left to wonder why