regfootball

your hemi don't get over 20 in stop n go in town. NFW. 17 maybe. You likely get as much as 25 on long highway stretches. and its all moot, because the public perception is like it is with the g8, its a guzzler with the big pushrod v8.

considering when i sell mine here soon and get close to 50% of what i paid for it with over 95k on the odometer in four years and no repairs out of pocket, and about an 8 cent per mile cost to run, i could care less what the market thinks of my vehicle.....point being GM's health isn't dependent on my sale. Chrysler's VOLUME models are tanking so bad is the difference.

will you see a greater percentage of women behind the wheel of a soft toyota or a magnum? so while i think there is appeal in the vehicle and obviously you do......let's not forget, the massively declining sales (excluding all those lovely 2.7's spawned off into fleets), and amazing resale value (cough) that the magnum has. I think its over 50% fleet and last i checked the reason its a great deal for those of us who seek a good buy is its poor resale. typically if a vehicle is in demand and desired by core buying groups who drive the market, the vehicle will not need to be whored out so much to fleets, nor will it go at the auctions for less than half its MSRP after one year. the irony is real world mileage on a magnum 2.7 for example will be fairly above 20 mpg, and in fact a CRV which is a darling of the feminine (men and women) retail set is not going to net much better mileage. But this gets back to all the factors as to why its not a volume seller. For as many people who drive a plainly trimmed out magnum 3.5 and make the case of it being a great everyday vehicle, then one drives by with bling wheels, chrome tacked on all over, and hemi noises blaring from under the hood, and an owner who bemoans the fuel bill. The LX cars will never be able to get out from under this stigma until Chrysler remakes the image of these cars and its pretty simple how they need to do it, de-bling the exterior, bring the powertrains up to the minute spec with better average mpg, knockout interior, emphasize and proliferate the all weather capability, safety, more accessible styling. If chrysler's gonna hang their hat on the LX cars for a long time yet, they need to reinvent them without throwing everything away, and it may have to be a marketing effort as much as a redesgin effort. So its a public perception thing. Jill Buyer is 95% of the time gonna buy a Camry. LX cars are fighting that. A revised Intrepid may have been the way to go even if crysler made out like bandits the first year or two the LX's came out.

that new picture looks great.

dude, the general public associates the LX cars with v8 guzzlers and bling. If these cars had a green rep (and their interiors been popular) then sales would not be tanking. lest ye forget.....I had a Magnum loaner once. Nice car, actually . But it just doesn't have wide appeal, even though I liked it. It was to claustrophobic for me and the interior just too dreary. women buyers, for example, very very few will gravitate to a car like the LX cars. And women drive volume sales. No wonder stuff like the CRV sells and an obviously nicer ride like the Magnum doesnt. I like it, you like it, but then there is public perception and you are like GM fanboys in this regard. too far in deep to get what the rest of the public is thinking. v8, gas guzzling bling mobile, and chrylser has not done anything to change that perception. it is a good trip vehicle that is easy to see. But small commuters are the rage these days.

nice accord

wow. car got HUGE. what's the purpose of the RL now? interior looks starchy. exterior looks better in these pics, except for the food slicer in the front. and only a 12.5 cu ft trunk? WTF?

well PCS, i depends if those pushing the end of personal transport and all this walkable communities stuff, taking your cars away, etc....how is one supposed to get around and see it? MASS TRANSIT? lol

neighbor has an SX4 hatch and LOVES IT. the sx4 gets nav std for 09 i think at a 16k price point. ballsy move. wish GM had a clue like that.

VW is nice to offer a ballsy 5 as standard, but really this cars mission would be better served with a 2.0 160hp 4 cyl as standard with a 6 speed manual. Rabbit should have a wolfsburg option like the jettas get then, for a cheap turbo.

the vans are chryslers bread and butter product. they seriously screwed the pooch on bad styling and horrible interiors. they need to fix that last month already or their top product is forever forgotten. The LX's do not have even mid class interiors, even with the new halfway updates. Look at the 300's leather quality for example, or the terrible dishwater gray and dismal black plastics. Improved, yes, but not yet 'desirable'. When a car like the 300 whose styling has fallen off the trendy map, the way to still sell the car is too give it a whizbang interior. So compared to the domestic competition, the LX interiors might be credible, but in importville, none of these cars will get a second look in that regard. All the LX's i see on lots are 2.7's (why?) and hemis still. Worse, Chryslers v6 the torqueless one has not had updates for several years now. While Nissan puts 270+ and now even Mazda 270+ in their volume v6's, and look at GM with their direct injection v6's....close to 300hp or more. Not to mention there is no 6 speed auto for the LX cars either with the v6. So its safe to say they are behind the curve now, and its not like you get an mpg benefit out of it. AWD? Shop the lots, where are they? ALMOST NEVER on the v6's. Worse yet, you gotta bundle unwanted options to get em. In order to get an AWD 300, i believe you need leather. That's bull$h!. A simple 3.5 tan cloth 300 with a sunroof and AWD? Not possible. Much less to be able to find one even if you could. Had Chrysler made AWD a standalone it would have made the most sense, and they should ditch the 2.7, redo the 3.5 to get real hp out of it, and attach it to a modern tranny (6 speed). Diesel would be nice but Chrysler would be far better off to get the gas powertrains they have competitive first. One of the main reasons people avoid the 300 like the plague now is because of the rep it got when introduced. That thing got a hemi? Yeah, still does, a big fuel sucking hemi. Doesn't matter if the v6 sells more now, nobody knows that. Public perception is that the 300 is a big v8 hood car that drinks fuel. Chrysler has done nothing to remake the image of that car, nor take advantage of the ability to sell its wet weather AWD advantage in snow climates. Everyone still thinks the 300 is a v8 RWD burnout machine to cruise the hood with in your jewry.

trip this wkd., 3 people and FULL trunk in the 500. running on a fresh oil change and some fuel system cleaner and tires properly inflated (but prob not to 36 psi like i like) there= 231 miles @ 9.0 gallons = 25.66 mpg (with leadfoot wife driving, most often exceeding posted speeds by 10-25 mph). return= 225.7 @ 8.8 gallons (yet to verify) = 25.64 mpg (a large portion of this trip was stop and go and gridlock on the interstate from wefest and brainerd international raceway traffic). I figured I was on pace for 28 or so with me driving, but it all went out the window when this slowed up everyone..... I would say the owner of this vehicle got had it been just me with high psi and no stop and go, I would have gotten 28+ i think.

i like the g6 coupe. the GXP version i even like a lot.

the aveo5 has some surprising upgrades. I hope GM doesn't try to price it out of the market. I think its cargo bay is small too.

oh no! that sucks! hope you get your ride back soon!

there is a couple things chrysler could do right now to help. immediate interior gut and redo on the vans, as well as an exterior revision. update the 300/charger interiors, and update the v6 and make it the primary powerplant (85-90% production) in those models, and drop the price, and get the fuel economy up. make AWD availabel in a greater percentage. get a small car in the showroom now. rebadge another makers vehicle if that is the quickest path.

well, they just needed to make better platforms and keep them fresher

if a lot of folks would be willing to get off their high horse and accept all of GM cars being on a front bias platform (except caddies and camaros and vettes) GM could build most of their stable of cars and stuff off very few platforms. GM needs to commit to versatile front bias/all wheel optional platforms, maybe in 4 sizes. the difference in quality of the vehicles made on these could be made up for with suspension specs. i.e. cheap shocks vs. expensive shocks plus magnaride or whatever. As I was test driving the Aura last weekend it occured to me, 'this would be a killer platform for a right sized crossover'. But, we have lambdas (which are perfect size in their own regard) and theta, which is the equinox which makes for a good sized vehicle but GM has never got the equinox totally right. then for example if the next gen impala and next gen 9-5 are built on say a larger epsilon platform, the impala obviously is not tricked out like the Saab would be. but you see what i mean. Toyota is gonna sell assloads of those freaky venzas and you think 'its a tall camry wagon'. So, why doesn't chevy have a 'tall malibu wagon'? we get the traverse, sure, but not everyone needs that much car. A 'tall malibu wagon' would compete with the edge and journey nicely i think. even look at the compact segment. the cobalt is a small compact. a sentra is a large compact. Gm should have a platform where they can build larger and smaller compacts to compete across those classes. i just hope GM continues to work on consolidating platforms where it makes sense and investing a lot in making each platform really good. I still don't think they are there yet.

interiors and dated pushrod v6/4sp autos the interiors i was reminded of after riding in someone's blazer over lunch today.

zeta's weight is its downfall.

a slide out cupholder that happens to get in the way of your working the stickshift to the manual tranny. to be honest, the cupholder behind the brake lever does not bother me. having to have an armrest added, does. the lack of audio input is unforgivable in the 7-8 years since the ipod was introduced, but as i mentioned before, the real deal breaker is the high engine rpm and drone at freeway speeds. the lack of attention on the armrest and cupholder is a prime example of GM not caring enough about detail though. Another example of how they will not go the distance, only part way.

Journey has lots of positives. Incredibly functional cabin, nice exterior. But if the Edge and Taurus X exist and they both have sync, then a journey will always be below them to me. From what i am seeing the higher level Journeys are maintaining their prices pretty well.

suburbanz hav B PILLURZ

saturday i was car shopping and went to a saturn dealer. it was very busy. i went to the chevy store across the street right after that and the salespeople were all sitting on their ass, there was no one there.

bing!