regfootball

'but hondas and toyotas never break down, carbiz'

coworker spent 600 bucks to replace a mirror on their volvo last week. ouch

my dad had an interesting point he made on the phone tonight. even though US car products have gotten way more reliable, he says Americans in general are punishing all US companies in general, cumulatively for long standing 'wrongdoings' these companies have foisted upon us over our lifetimes and they are subconsciously or coonsciously taking it out on US companies as a vendetta. i.e. my GM car in the 80's broke down and i am tired of this bad American $h! combined with the better than Jesus legacy of Toyota and add to that the rape of the US checkbooks of the oil companies and such and its a whole big recipe for Americans going out of their way to disdain US companies......and the alternative is supporting non US companies. seems illogical yet strangely possible at the same time. we're more than happy to send our $$ to china and japan, as long as we don't feel any guilt over it, and as long as we can get back at the Amurchan companies that have personally screwed each one of us over for so long. it's like telling your parents to piss off yet finding out the next day they died or something. i dunno. i don't understand why in this country we seek to destroy all that we love for a cheap thrill for ourselves.

update. anyone have new info on this? i was just looking at the jetta sportwagen on the vw website and it says the jetta wagon is available spring 08. is the diesel available then? 67 cubic feet of cargo and an optional fold flat front seat in the jetta sportwagen. add the diesel and it could make road trips REALLY inexpensive.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/bm/09journey.htm they should sell like hot cakes in Canada for that price. despite the interior

not so sure the interior plastics look all that great in these photos.

sure. if an extra 20-25 grand for an interior that still doesn't match up to the germans.

compared to the RL, the mazdaspeed 6 my buddy gave me a ride in a few weeks ago, for less than half the price, pretty much spanks the RL all over.

BMW knows they can stick it to the people shopping for these. fine by me. you wanna pour money down the drain, ok with me.

sweet.

i like the front end. saw one recently and thought it was nice.

provacative image!

as far as the audi guys talking smack about cadillac, that's all fine and dandy, but they didn't have an A4 that wasn't anything besides a fwd warmed over passat until just now. maybe those audi punks need to be reminded how low on the totem pole they are.

geez, i was merely being sarcastic and inviting panther comments. LOL

similarly bland to the 05 focus, if ford of europe brought the kuga here it would require an all new dash

the euro ford interiors kind of have a dated look to them. on other cars its not so bad....on this one the big silver splotch in the center looks tacky and overall there's not much to make you interested. very generic, almost bordering on typical asian.

i thought that we were getting the 3 door here. verve, much better than fiesta. fiesta conjures up images of chi chis buffet, to me.

you gotta wonder if these smart types cars will become prevalent.

kugas nice. i would do well here if the price was right.

http://www.km77.com/00/toyota/iq/t01.asp

i guess they shouldn't. it would be better spent giving big tax breaks to korean and japanese companies to build plants instead to hire temps for 23 months and 28 days before firing them.

read that too. makes a great case for the outlook.

my point exactly. if it gets into a lease rate pissing match we will lose.

a friend called today and we were BSing cars and he mentioned how some neighbors gave in to the toyota tide. normally, he said, they buy a lightly used domestic, on payments and keep it a few and trade it. now, this time, they were enticed by toyota nation and a 179/mo lease on the camry. basic 4 cylinder automatic. who knows what the down payment was, and its very few miles....but i wonder how much of this cheap lease dumping is keeping toyota's numbers up. that and fleets. and then the cars hit auction after a couple years. in any case, toyota must be able to prop up those lease deals with good residuals that are no doubt a factor of their reputation. why buy a compact on a loan when a large camry can be had for so much less? but at what point is it more a factor of toyota buying market share with cheap leases? if this is their game, its game over for the US manufacturers. Toyota and such will just keep cutting costs out of their product but as long as its good enough for the segment and the 179 lease is there, that's how they will get the sale. I do not see GM having the ability to go toe to toe in this area of car sales. this is how the asian brands will take over the mass market. I've seen GM start to be aggressive with Malibu, G6, and Aura lease deals now but they still don't match this stuff toyota has going on. I don't think GM can compete in these offers.

and most people don't seem to think it matters.