regfootball

Automotive News / September 05, 2005

Pontiac's new Solstice is sure getting a lot of buzz. Mostly, it's good buzz, but not all.

After Solstice buyers openly complained on General Motors' FastLane Internet blog about slow shipments of their convertibles, GM responded.

In a posting titled "About the Solstice" last week on FastLane, Tom Kowaleski, GM's vice president of communications, apologized to Solstice buyers for delays in delivery.

"Sorry if we are frustrating you; believe me: We are just as eager to get these cars on the road as you are," Kowaleski wrote. He said GM is taking extra time "to make sure all is just right. We're paying special attention to fits and finishes, interior materials and trim, and all elements of the car's operation."

GM has been slowly increasing production at its plant in Wilmington, Del.

"The Pontiac marketing team … continues to communicate with owners, particularly the first 1,000," wrote Kowaleski. "But they can't get the cars out of Wilmington any faster."

One Solstice customer, who said his dealer just delayed delivery of his car by two additional weeks, had a reply for GM: "Something is a little fishy here."

[post="9593"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

if he can't wait two more weeks, then he can give up his place and let osmeone else have the car.

Fly, you didn't know?  :P
Reg.. thank you for sharing.  I'm at that point where being around him just takes my breath away.  I mean, I've been out with so many guys, and no one has ever really felt right for me.  I have been meeting crap, I must say... and when I met him, I just dropped my jaw... I mean, absolutely brilliant, hard-working, gorgeous, masculine--what more could I want?

I'm just trying to be "friends" for now, but I won't lie--I keep hoping that one day he'll just look at me differently.

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Don't let the friends bit go too long before you start to let them know how you really feel. If you wait too long, its much tougher.

FAR TOO MANY OF THOSE SITUATIONS FOR ME. ultimately, 'it' happens or it doesn't. I'm not sure if a relationship is missing a 'spark' early on, if it ever follows through. nothing sucks more in life when you are so desiring someone else, that its hard to breathe when that person is in your presence, but ultimately they cannot profess the same affection. its a shame we couldn't sit and have a few beers and discuss it. Sounds like you need some encouragement. if i started typing everything i'd love to share with you or cheer you up with, i think i'd have enough stories to last all week. I might just depress you all to heck too. i suppose i could be brief about it, and limit it to like 2 or 3. One gal I worked with one summer on an overnight retail job, we were good friends, 'buds' at work and then a funny thing happened at the end of that summer. She asked for my number and stuff when i went back to school for the fall (she went to a different school). I would start to visit her on trips back home, which subsequently led to spontaneous making out. Friends. HMMMMM. Well, the inevitable. The next summer she got an intership in a bigger city and me, the fool I am, decided I needed to drive down and see her like 5 times that summer, and go on legitimate dates. Well, it was a HOT summer, although it got to the point where on my 21st birthday no less, before she took me out to celebrate, i told her what i thought of her and got the 'i thought we were friends bit' in return. WHOA. whoa. After that, i blew her off for awhile, then got 'I need you in my life' letters like weeks after that. Finally, when i went to visit her again at her beck and call to see what the f was going to happen, here's Mr. motorcycle dude, she just had started dating with half the parts of his bike sprawled out all over the apartment floor. Well, all this, point being, sometimes the other person is either afraid to go and admit how much they like someone or they like and maybe love you, but have big doubts for some reason, or feel that its just not a burning, fireworks kind of thing. In this case, she could not allow herself the notion that I could be the one that was making her crazy. Was i not tall enough? Not smart enough? Different in some fundamental way? Man, the way i felt and the way I thought she felt, hearing the 'friends' bit was like a freight train, or a knife gouging deep into your stomach. Well that's just one of them. Enough for now. I was reflecting on all of this recently, how when you're young and single, you meet so many suitors, so many people that you are attracted to, and all the joy and yes, hassle and heartache that goes with trying to meet and find the right person to be with. I hold grudges, so all these chicks who screwed me in the past, even though I still hold lots of anger and hurt towards a few of them.....there is always those things about each one of them that i remember that makes me hurt from missing them. Odd, now that i am married and am totally in love with my wife, how sometimes you have those feelings for old 'loves', friends, whatever. But you do...always will. I guess my point is, it will work out somehow. I believe in destiny and things happening for a reason, out of our control. Fate. One night, unexpectedly, i met my wife, and things were forever changed for me. The thing was I KNEW she felt the same way from the get go. Sparks for sure. I would say that either the person you want may indeed want to be a friend, or perhaps they are shy and don't know how they feel and things may take patience and time. Enjoy the time, wear your heart on your sleeve, take your chances. At least let the person in somehow on how you might feel about them. You may not get the chance again, and if it doesn't work out, just remember that maybe it was just a step to a greater relationship in your life in the future. Make the most of it now and put yourself on the line, otherwise you'll never know for sure and that will kill you more forever than stewing about some bike parts on her (his) apartment floor. ps. the chick even had the nerve to send me a wedding photo from her wedding on a cruise ship. like i cared..... ok, so i did. I wish I hadn't destroyed all her letters and her photos. Yeah, and she wasn't the only one with the 'haha I'm getting married and not to YOU' letter......at least it wasn't in EMAIL form.

the 300 is the biggest poseur car in the history of the universe. Now all that all the Lexus wannabes bought their 300's and dubs (because they couldn't afford their Lexus and hocking their Pings they bought with their credit card) that market is tapped out for awhile. And all the RWD fans have been saving their money for Camaros anyways.

Its also helpful for Buick to be selling the Lacrosse with an employee discount whereas the 300 does not have any rebates.  That's probably a big reason why more Lacrosses are sold.

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remember the LaCrosse likely as absurd sticker prices that are likely higher the 300 and need market adjustment.

I do think the Intrepid/Concorde/LHS/300 outsold the latest LX cars, but I would need to look that up again.

For the press Toyota gets praising the phony virues of it's hybrid system the TRUTH is more fuel will be saved by DOD, E85 and VVT technology.

That is not to say that hybrid tech will never surpass the current sad state it is in now but to consider it the magic solution is a farce.

If there is one benefit to the recent spike in fuel prices it will encourage and create demand for alternative energy utiliaztion.

In other words, ethanol is now cost competitve. In my opininion I would always take an ethanol powered vehicle over any current hybrid. The tech works and it not a maintenance disaster like the Prius down the road.

[post="8517"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

ethanol is a tax dump and is enormously subsidized. Its nice to have it as an alternative fuel, but it costs our taxpayers way too much to subsidize its production.

its a good looking rig, inside and out, i've seen it. I thought it would be FWD based, but its not apparently. So the 2wd version is rwd, and I think the 5 speed manual is only available on the RWD only.

but who cares, its a nice piece!

pictures and press release

here

it apparently has more of a truck like chassis with more durable 4wd parts.

http://www.media.suzuki.com/auto/06/grand_vitara/index.php

photos and press release

sure as hell wasn't me. I'm occasionally funny, but I can't come up with ROTFLMAO &#036;h&#33; like that!

No you wont.  You always find something to bitch about, you test drive more cars than Edmunds and go on about just as many trivial matters.  I'm sure your local car salespeople want to kill you.

[post="8261"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

nope, they just throw you the keys and say 'tell me if you like it'.........

That picture was taken at Athens a few years back here in Detroit on Woodward.

As far as the rest of your comments go. Learn a thing or three about the business then go ahead and talk.

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GM's badly needed upcoming crossovers (still too far away, should have been here by now) will mean much more the success of GM than some RWD coupes and sedans.

Hey, I'll be giddy as long as they don't have to move the gas tank into the trunk like on the GTO.

As far as what i need to learn about the business, that's easy enough to absorbing about 2-3 minutes from the dwindling sales reports each successive month, unless the corporate five finger discount is being revived again for the 4th month in a row.

Hey, the Torana is a nice looking car. It looks like it might be a bit small in size for the US market. I think its great that GM will offer Zeta product here. But no one should count on Zeta to save the company, just that it will round out some product lines. It will not be bread and butter product that will buoy GM against the rice invaders that see near double digit increases all the time. Do I know about the business? That's enough to know to say, nice car, I hope it does well. Hope you got something else in the hopper in the big volume segments to save your corporate balance sheet.

Nice car, thanks for posting it.

Whats amazing about the Impy is that they seem to be flying off lots.  Part of the reasons dealers dont have them is ramp up, the other part is that they seem to be sold within a couple of days.  Has anyone else noticed this?  The dealers will get 4-5 in one day, park them up front and the'll all be sold in a couple of days.  Same with the HHR.  I cant say that about Ford, the bumbling idiot of the car industry.

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Ford's holding its own, considering how badly Jacques Nasser starved the car side of Ford for any new models for like 5 years. The Focus came out in 2000, the Taurus was 96/2000. Aside from that was the Crown Vic. Ford is not putting out sizzling product.......they are trying to Toyotafy themselves. Five years was too long without Ford getting any new cars.

I suppose all the hollywood stars will latch on to it then..... a hybrid smart would make great pub right now. They could (if they wanted to) sell the Smart as a motorcycle in the US right now. That would be how I would do it.

No, go read the GM press release if you don't believe me, 14.5k 06 Impalas were sold (plus some 05s which made the total number more than 14.5k).

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yeah that's good, but it needs to do about 20,000 + a month to match what the 05 sold.

what made ME sick was that like 47,000 accords sold last month or some ridiculous figure. Damn, we need to blow up Honda.

Hell, dont even do that, just cover it up with some garbage bags, maybe use cardboard underneath to change the shape up, snap a few pics and sell them, but be sure to tell whoever you sell them to that it was RWD and sounded like it had a V8 and the interior was top notch.

[post="8122"][/post]

hey guys, the new aztek has RWD and a v8!

Probably because the just-launched '06 Impala (14500 units) is already selling better than the 500, and is doing so without employee pricing.

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those impala sales were still mostly 05's dude. and fleets. i know my friend would give away his left and right nut TODAY if his company would offer him a 500 as his company car. Instead I have to listen to him moan about how they took away his Taurus and gave him a current style MALIBU. If Ford did dump 500's into fleets, they could easily double their figures.

The 06 Impala does deserve to sell well though, it will likely push 300k a year. I hope those come more at the expense of Camrys though.

how about a simple GOOD LOOKING mid-large sedan with a manual transmission option and 5/6 speed automatic std, front wheel drive, 240 horsepower overhead cam engine, decent sport tuned handling, four wheels ABS discs with trac control and stabilitrak standard, and multiple airbags standard with a better warranty. For under 25k. I heard nothing in Lutz' riff to address mainstream cars. Every G6 GTP manual I've researched at gmbuypower has been about 29 grand which is a big time rip off, espeically with a pushrod motor. The LaCrosse underwhelms vs other like priced products. The new Impala still has the old W body shortcomings. We haven't seen an all new competitive true midsize platform in far too many years (epsilon is not true midsize). The new 5.3v8 option is great but its tied to packages and is therefore too spendy. Hyundai has standard everything and huge warranty for less. GM needs some huge scores in the sedan market and nothing Lutz hints at makes me think anything else besides typical mediocre GM. Aura isn't going to do it. It lost its aggressive show car design and gained a pushrod motor. Yup, the honda and Toyo fans of the world will love that. I like the Lucerne, but look at how lame the base motor is. I hope GM doesn't get cuaght up into building so many image cars and leaving all their volume sellers to be dogmeat as usual, on 10 year product cycles.

So basically the only way Ford can sell a car is if someone else does all of the engineering.

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Considering the bang up press the Fusion is getting this month in the buff books, I'd say its not at all a bad idea. Ford put a nice front end on their car and made it an equal to the Accord. GM puts a killer fish face on their car (Malibu) and other foibles and it takes almost 2 years for it to ramp up to popularity.

Besides, it sounds like Opel and Daewoo are doing most of GM's engineering now these days.....so I'm not sure what your point is there. I'd rather have Volvo and Mazda engineering my cars than Hyundai, or Daewoo, or Chery or whoever GM has doing for them now. Thankfully GM is finally going global now, its a good thing we're not shipping all those pushrod v6's, bench seats, and rear drum brakes off to Europe. If we did, there'd be a revolt.

Yeah, the 500 and Fusion will make up the sales numbers, but since they're pretty different vehicles, the costs wont be spread out as much so they wont be as profitable.  And good luck getting rid of the CamCordimas, they're like herpes.

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the 500 and Freestyle and fusion were cheap to design and build since its mostly the Volvo S80 and Mazda6 already. Those cars cost less to design and build than you think.

BTW, Mazda 6 is up 60% and Mazda 3 continues to sell well. I am amazed at how the Mazda6 is increasing. The car had been out on the rest of the planet for like 2 years before it got HERE, and is already a tired desgin, but it has lots of rebate support now from Ford and its a great value now.

Lesson, value still sells.

While it is a little better than the Charger/300/Magnum did, it is still a far cry what what the Taurus alone was doing for them for a couple of years.

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Planned capacity for the Fusion is like 300,000 units.

The Five Hundred plus Fusion sales will more than make up for lost taurus sales.

No car will be a huge volume leader anymore, at least until we rid the planet of those ghastly Camrys and Accords that the boomer loser crowd loves so much.

Freestyle + 500 + Montego = 22156

Add Taurus and Sable to that and that's not at all shabby chic.

And GM does well with the Impala/Malibu combo, although it takes lots of cash on the hood to move em.

the 500 and Freestyle + Montego sold over 22,000 units!!!!!!!! HOW IS THAT A FAILURE??????? like some auto journalists say? 22,000 UNITS! Freestar and Monterey sold over 9,000 units!

Altima badly needs a redo.

Magnum and 300 are both DOWN, but Magnum + Charger + 300 = better than last year's 300 + Magnum, so I'm not sure what to make of it other than these cars to me are 'large niche' products....and in my own mind its proof enough that killing the FWD Intrepid variant for Dodge was a huge mistake. Well, it was a good 18 months or so.

ONE per household.

disagree. Because of the upcoming gas crisis debacle, Pontiac needs the Pursuit, and fast. But, they should differentiate what they can versus the Cobalt as much as possible and go for sport tuned suspensions, larger wheels, and different interior colors, fabrics, and accents. Example, how about a 'G4' GXP sedan with a supercharged stage 1 or 2 ecotec and 6 speed manual, with charcoal interior (can't get that color interior on the Cobalt sedan) and other niceties............ HELL the G6 should get a stage 2 ecotec option on the base model with a sport package.