regfootball

how many $$$ is toyota paying them under the table?

How spot dead on are you? "EXCEPT TO HIPPIES AND UNIVERSITY WEENIES" that is indeed the 'intelligentsia' that spawned the popularity of Consumer Reports and made them who they are. Now, the whole 'consumer reports' mentality has such a momentum, that its kind of become a gospel and everyone is looking to it as some authority. the press panders to them, and the intelligentsia. So even though GM is building its best cars ever, the press is locked into the intelligentsia take on everything. And they can't report the other side, that is folks who either don't read stuff on the internet, don't watch the firnge news channels, and certainly don't have consumer reports. But they make it seem like that is the only place you should make your judgements on. So if Car and Driver said their long term Acura RL was in the shop 8 times (in basically the first year) but Consumer Reports loves Honda....who do you believe? Doesn't JD power matter? popular Mechanics has great test / reliability data, but why do we never see them as being the authority? Is it just because PM readers buy a greater percentage of domestics? Consumer Reports can uck off fro all i am concerned. Until their data is geenrated from representative samples of EVERYONE....I find their data results to be limited, useful but NOT THE AUTHORITY. why do we never hear from the midwestern farmer who's Buick LeSabre is still trouble free after many years? BECAUSE HE DOESn'T READ CONSUMER REPORTS. Because he's not INTELLIGENT.

and the engines have a lot to do with it.

is Cr'S ONLY SAMPLE BASE THEIR OWN READERS? If its not a random sample of the US population, then its inherently biased.

the journalists are pandering to honda on the new civic. C/D was the only mag that didn't. I just got a new C/D today and there is an interesting letter from a reader exactly about that. He was thanking them for not pandering to the new Civic. I agree. I believe the Cobalt is a pretty darn nice small car, although I would consider the Mazda 3 probably the best. I still think the Civic gets attention to its arcade dashboard and available hybrid and the H on the grille more than anything else. In my family we had 2 vegas and 3 chevettes. I drove one of the vegas and two fo the chevettes. My senior year car was my sisters chevette scooter. I thought it was a fun car. I wish GM would build chevettes and Vegas again. My 'vette had no back seat! It was a 2 seater Vette! I took drivers ed in the Vega. I always felt the Beretta was the spiritual successor to the Vega. My sister had a Beretta. It was an ok car, it just was long in the tooth. Typical GM, leave a car out to dry for 10 years. I owned a Chevy Prizm which was essentially a Corolla. It had a higher feeling of refinement compared to the Cavalier at the time which is why I bought it. It started and ran, but it was DULL and there were a LOT of things about it that felt insubstantial and like they would become frail over time if I kept the car. to top it off, the engine was weak at freeway speeds. The body was thin and subject to dents to easily. The tires and wheels were small and diminutive and frail. BUT it was built with tiny seams, good looking BUT HARD plastic, and it felt solid for the most part. Doors and trunks closed with a hushed THUNK. But then the climate controls felt flimsy and like they may not work at any time. The new Corolla has improved a lot in packaging but I see they still have the crap motor and thin sheet metal. i wonder if the steering is still light, sloppy, and uncommunicative. GM's improved a lot in small cars. And it still has a jouney ahead, but i guess my point is that folks who are only buying on brand reputation from the past these days are simply followers and not open minded. what I always find funny is 'how many 5,6,7 year old corollas do you see around, and how many of them look in good condition'. not many. they stay good for awhile, but when subjected ot normal use, get quite hashed looking.

RuPaul and COJO from entertainment tonight

moderator please move to correct section of forum if i botched it

edmunds Fighting the Foreign Wars By editors at Edmunds.com Email Date posted: 02-27-2006 Chevrolet's mission is, as it has always been, to be GM's value leader in the mainstream of the American car market. So when foreign brands threatened to intrude, it was Chevrolet that was charged with going forth with products that would defeat the imports and defend GM's turf. When it comes to small cars, it has not been an easy or pretty fight. ***** I used to YEARN for a Monza, and of course, we had 2 Vegas and 3 chevettes in the family. There's your RWD car! LOL.....I loved our Vegas....too bad dad was always rebuiling the motors or repainting them. My dad had a Corvair, too and he still wants to get one again. enjoy the deja vu.....

too bad you couldn't foot the SS. The SS non S/C Cobalt can be had with four doors...4 doors, almost a neccessity with a little one. But i know that its often stretching just to go new. But you will enjoy the trouble free operation of the new car, and the peace fo mind that goes with it. And if you treat it good, nothing ought to need to be replaced or anything for about 4 years. And everything is nice and tight when you drive it. the first 50,000 miles of a car are the best miles of the car. A couple other thoughts....how about a lower priced Malibu or G6? I know the G6 coupe is only 6 cylinder and the 4 cylinder malibu is not racy. Maybe a lower priced Mal or G6 6 cylinder would be too far of a stretch, but you would like the extra room....right now it may not seem needed, but 2,3,4 years down the road you could be kicking yourself for not getting enough room. I know that neither the G6 or Mal have the manual tranny in cheaper form (which is why I don't have one either) and that goes to show you that GM is dropping the ball by not offering either with a stick. But they do each start at around high 15 to 16 grand, which isn't too far off from where you are now. (hehe, a MAXX SS or GTP G6 would be cool). Hey, this just goes to show you that a G5 coupe might be an option for you if it were here...REBADGE or not......... not to bust your bubble.....but if the woman ever steers ya around to any sort of kid wagon, you could get a very base HHR. And, if you do need to go to the dark side, base Chrylser minivans do sell around 15-16 grand which I know are never what one wants. You could always pimp one out. another thought.....GM certified used cars. Sometimes you can strike it lucky on a one year old GM car for a good price. i like the Cobalt, its a great car. good luck with your shopping. I wish I had an SS coupe in YELLOW for hauling ass around on weekends. I LOVED my Ion redline test drive and can only imagine the Cobalt being as fun or more. The base Cobalts I drove were great cars too. Good choice.

i understand the pressure of your management, however, its the customer that rules (becuase they have the $$$$$ to spend). If the customer just wants to look and grab a brochure.....then that's what the DEALER (be it the saleman, or manager or owner or whatever) should be happy with. Maybe the dealers need to adjust their own business models and get with the CUSTOMER program.

i hate sony and i hate civics. the civic of all gen's is one of the most overrated cars.

to expand on that, i guess it seems to me that Dodge has kind of assumed the image that all the old cladded pontiacs used to have.

there's more like 8 saturn dealers in the twin cities.

again, my continuous point is the GTO body was designed for the aero age and when it was conceived up til about 3-4 years ago was quite en vogue. I realize some like the looks of the charger. I think its chunky and unsophisticated yet not terribly objectionable. I do not think its styling is the right kind of style for a car in the mid forties price range.

are we leaving styling out of the equation? not much of that to go on here.......

i guess if you're buying by the pound, then you get a LOT for your money with the dodge. a lOT as in like 4200+ pounds......or more..... 10 bucks a pound roughly. Although good steak in many cases is cheaper than that even.......although cars do cost more per pound.

so it is true then, chryslers have cheap interiors?

INVEST is the key word here. make it better and more efficiently. not just cheaper.

LMAOx2

ROTFLMAO!!!

i saw a news story on that very sort of thing. but someday, they will figure it out, then it will suck the same.

"Can GM and Ford catch up and eventually keep pace with Toyota? History shows that the two will probably be left behind over the short-term at least, causing greater losses until wholesale changes are made, brought on by complete reevaluations of core business strategies. Ford, at least, seems to be on the right track regarding the number of V6 car engines it currently produces, while GM has seen improvements over the last five years by nearly halving the number of man-hours needed to produce its V6 engines. Such advancements will not be enough, however, to match the production efficiency and resultant lower costs and improved reliability of Toyota's Simple Slim processes. "

fire away

Putting this into context, Toyota has not only managed to halve the cost of its most popular six-cylinder engine, but the very fact this same engine is used in so many vehicles will, through economies of scale, increase Toyota's profitability overall. Compare this to rival General Motors, the world's largest automaker and one that looks as if it will soon be passed by the Japanese giant for overall global sales, which makes so many engines V6 engines that it's difficult to keep track of them all. A lesson could be learned, with the General producing a variety of antiquated overhead-valve engines with only 2-valves per cylinder, measuring 3.4-, 3.5-, 3.8- and 3.9-liters in displacement, plus a supercharged 3.8-liter version in its Pontiac Grand Prix. Only Cadillac's 3.6-liter V6 boasts four-valve per cylinder and dual overhead cam technology, an engine also found in Buick's top-line LaCrosse. To complicate things even further, it could be argued that GM's most sophisticated V6 is the 3.5-liter mill found in the top-line Saturn VUE, but the fact that it's nothing less than Honda's superb Accord V6 is no doubt embarrassing to the Detroit-based automaker's execs. The question that General Motors should be asking itself is, why make a total of six V6 engines and borrow another from Honda, adding complexity and resultant cost to the automaker's bottom line, when the only truly competitive GM V6 to Toyota's 3.5, or for that matter Honda's 3.5-, Nissan's 3.5-, Hyundai's 3.3- and 3.8-, or Ford's all-new 3.5-liter V6, is the 3.6-liter unit only available in the Cadillac CTS, SRX and STS, plus the LaCrosse? Wouldn't it be simpler, more efficient and therefore potentially cheaper to make one extremely good V6 engine, rather than five that don't really measure up to the competition?"

"Toyota's money crunchers must have done back flips when The real beginnings to the 3.5-liter engine available in many Toyota products. (Photo: Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.) production costs for the new engine were halved to about $1,000 per 3.5-liter V6, what will soon become one of its most popular engines. The new V6, currently residing in the recently redone Avalon and completely revised top-level 2006 RAV4, replaces both 3.0- and 3.3-liter V6 engines for the all-new 2007 Camry when it goes on sale in March, the best-selling car in the U.S. The engine will also be the motivating force behind the new 2007 Highlander and should soon find its way into the Sienna minivan and replacement for the Camry Solara coupe and convertible models, plus a number of Lexus models including the new 2007 ES 350 sedan and RX 350 crossover SUV."