regfootball

should i be glad i didn't get one? love the handling and engine for a van, but the rest of it......

the arcade dashbaord is not appropriate to a 'luxury line' of cars.

that rear quarter looks a bit STSish oops! i see the poster b4 me thinks so too!

the Aura show car interior design was a 'has been' to begin with. the only thing that made it glitzy for the auto shows was the baseball glove color leather seating, the metal trim accents (which appear to have been costed out as expected) and the ghetto interior lighting package. take away those show car bits, the large wheel arches and such and we are left with another sub-ordinary, pushrod equipped (in the base engine) GM sedan. One that happens to look on the outside a lot like an 'I can buy it now' Dodge Stratus. We've all seen the spy shots and its fairly obvious the production car will not have the stance, and 'aura' if you will...of the show car. that said, if the interior upgrades in the Aura are as nice as some of the revisions on the Vue interior, than, with leather, reasonable plastic, and the 3.6vvt and 6 speed auto..the Aura should be a very good sedan. Just not very distinctive. I agree, it should have more of an Opel Astra/Vectra interior.

rebadging is totally fine with me, if done right. this is clearly done wrong. if GM gets grilled for this, honda should be too. people need to accept that rebadging is a fact of life and move on with it. Dealers need product. Development costs must be small. Thus, rebadging is needed. I go against pop. opinion here, but Pontiac needs a Pursuit here too (albeit with a different or highly modified dash). I think the 9-2x rebadge is actually a decent job, considering what little they had to work with. But this 'Acura' rebadge is pitiful. The Sega dashboard alone sucks.

ponder this though. toyota is seemingly spitting out a new 3rd cycle hyrbrid powertrain much faster and quicker than either Ford or GM can seemingly develop any sort of regualr engine, MUCH LESS OHC, these days. They finally updated their pushrod v6's and likely won't touch those for 5 more years now but we'll see 2 more generations of Toyotas full hybrid system by then.

06 Impalas are selling well here. i see lots of 06 Jettas and Passats too.

NOT!

boy they've come a long way in 20 years.

i just think the press would have a huge field day with it and never let them up from the mat.

folks would think GM could go out of business at any time afterwards, which would hurt their chances of selling cars long term.

i also think it would damage their resale values as well as it would harm their ability to even get the prices they are now out of them.

let me add that although it may be their only tool to rid themselves of long term 'expenses', I think bankruptcy tact is very short term thinking and may do more harm to their image and product sales over the long term, than it would do good. As much as i can see why they'd do it, it might cause me to lose ll respect for them doing something so crappy and demeaning, even if the opportunity is there for the taking. Its too easy. If they declare, I do think I would support them less and maybe not even at all.

I only ask this question, if GM declares, only for the sole purposes of erasing their pensions debts and labor liabilities, will you ever buy a GM again? what do you think the general public will think? Will it hurt GM's long term sales to declare bankruptcy?

you're right about ghosn trying for folks quitting. he'll be able to rehire all the GM employees when they lose their jobs due to bankruptcy and cost cutting.......

LOL.......

Kerry was a complete rube. bush, not an improvement.

[b] Jesus, I thought the structural engineer I was working with would be the only person ever I knew to throw out the word COPASETIC......

GM should be complemented for continually upgrading the miscues on this car. the new dash/console and door panels are nice. The new steering wheel rocks. The front redo is good. They do still need to fix the seats. They ought to fix the sloppy handling of the 4 cylinder, upgrade the base 4 cylinder engine to 180 hp or so and give the thing a whole NVH overdo to get rid of cabin noise and buzziness. They need to work on the shifter (manual) and steering and body lean. I would hope future Vues offer about 3-4 inches more rear leg room and a higher rear seat. About 2 extra inches in width would ne good too. But yeah, the Vue is still nice.

"Nissan plans a late spring revamp of the quirky Quest minivan,a dud since its late-2003 launch" Well, i had agreed to buy one just recently, until they told me they couldn't deliver one off the lot because of a seat recall, and then i got to thinking, 'could i drive one of those things with the freakish dahsboard'? no, i couldn't but if they fix that interior, and the QC issues and fix the interiors on the Maxima etc. and get the next Altima and Sentra launches right, they'll be ok.

wrongo, i've read many owner reports of altimas. maximas, quest etc. that praise its excellent fuel economy, especially for so much power.

there is no image. none of them came up.

well, it looks damn fine in my garage. not enough scoops and ribbed cladding for ya?

most mag tests i've read of hemi equipped cars have been in the 13-17 mpg range....

every year Lexus has a year end event too. Seriously. Improve the cars all the way through to match the worth of their MSRP or drop the MSRP's. Impala SS's should not have sticker prices of 32,000 bucks. G6's should not be priced near 30 grand. GXP's should not be 33 grand. Maxx's should not approaching 29 grand. If the Maxx were attractive, didn't have a pushrod engine and 4 speed, and had an interior that wasn't cheesy....than ask 28-29 grand. Otherwise don't put a 29 grand sticker on it. Price it at 24-25 grand out of the gate and maybe folks would respect you more. Improve the cars so there are no competitive disadvantages or drop the price to reflect their shortcomings. GXP, it needs better styling, a much better interior with a bigger backseat, and a 5 or 6 speed automatic. otherwise, its a darned good car. But don't ask 33 grand for one. 26 or 27 grand is about what's worth. the sticker should say that.