regfootball

"Buick is desperate to become hip." True dat... And THAT is why that OBJ commercial sucked big time... Not only is the "Not your father's Oldsmobile" shtick old and stale...from the Oldsmobile days...that angle for Buick has also come to an end....Buick should have ended that last year and for this Superbowl...number 50 might add, should have been something unique... Oh...because using an up and coming football star coining his own bloody name is pure marketing genius... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B359hCC3HQU Because Buick has not hired an athlete before in its recent past to pedal their cars... Because other car companies havent hired celebrities to pedal their cars before... At least Montalban was sexy, had a sexy voice and the cars he pedaled had fine Corinthian leather... The reason why Im giving you a hard time here is that you want to dismiss Tesla so bad, that you even want to dismiss their commercials yet obviously give a pass to a very mediocre effort by Buick for that stolen "This aint your father's Olds" campaign with a very very FORGETTABLE performance by the future NFL football star... At least withTiger, we could still picture him inside his SUV while his ex smashes it...too bad for Buick he was driving a Cadillac Escalade... You want hip...WHOOMP! THERE IT IS! The fastest growing hip sport Golf, and thegame'sbiggest star, ever, cheating on his wife...and then getting his SUV smashed with his own Golf clubs by his wife... Now THAT is hip! There is your commercial! All we ended up with is an ad campaign from the late1980s early 1990s with a couple of floozies at a "marriage" jumping for flowers and the guest speaker blurts out Adele... ooops...Odelled... Maybe they should have used Adele instead....look at that cleavage... I bet you that that cleavage could get guys in a Buick showroom faster than OBJ ever could... So...how about cutting Tesla some slack? That's a heavily photoshopped Adele. Tesla won't get any slack from me because if they want to be big boys they ought to learn how to play.

I thought the OBJ Buick commercial was top notch. The car even looked good in it. Buick is desperate to become hip. And that's ok. I really like those Ellie Kemper Buick commercials too. I know some think they are cheesy, and they are, but i do think they will connect with women and a younger demograhic. Too bad the product wasn't all there first.

Why, do they have a baby puppy monkey baby monkey puppy in them?

if the platforms are good and forward thinking, they can last a long time. I would expect 6-7 years min. out of an investment in a platform. And use in a big range of vehicles. I doubt there is that much more practical and cost effective they can do to improve ride, handling, and vehicle dynamics to the point where there is diminishing returns. Cars are so much more capable than their drivers so we don't need cutting edge platforms when the buyer base wants loafing CUV's. Plus, parts costs and ability to fix and stock them improve when commonality and long run come into play. Lets hope penny pinching GM doesn't come back. The best thing would be for regulations to back off. A moratorium on tightening the noose in mpg, safety, emissions. Let the manufs make some money and become more efficient by being able to spread out their investment for awhile. I am a state rights person but admit in this industry a voluntary global standards base would be a good idea. Tell CARB to go bite itself and go away. I am sure the world automakers don't want CARB dictating the way. This capital cost savings is probably due to needing to steer money into stuff enthusiasts don't like, like autonomous cars. Pilfer the mass market cars to generate money for the future plastic pods.

Recently passed the one year mark. One year into the three year lease. Or 'rental' as Chrysler financial likes to put it. Put about 16,000 miles on it. Not too far over the 15k lease miles. However, the trip computer is off slightly on mpg so it makes me wonder if the odometer might be off actually. In any case, it's been a good ride for the first year. Just the foibles with the CV boot and axle shaft, and the trunk lid has been completely behaving. MPG has been all over the map. Because the van is flex fuel, its been receiving in its tank a diverse mix of blends. Regular blend 87 octane here in the winter has additives and has 10% ethanol in it. So that's not going to give great mpg to start. But due to the different fluctuations in price relative to regular, I have been putting in E85, E30, E15, E12........Even if gas was 1.79, if E85 is 1.39, then sometimes i will put that in. If gas is 1.89 and E15 is 1.69, then i put that in. I put gas in friday at 1.39 so of course at that i will just put that in. My father in law paid for my refill today which amounted to eight dollars and fifty cents (for gas with no ethanol in it at all). So it truly is whatever i feed it, and the mileage does swing a lot. (Ethanol E85 was 87 cents a gallon at one of our stops today) A big problem is the computer reading for MPG is consistently off compared to manually calculated mpg. The computer is always 5-10% optimistic. My GM and Ford cars have always been spot on. I don't know if this is a Chrysler thing or what. It makes me wonder if the odometer is off rather than the mpg meter. In any case, if my fuel is heavy in the ethanol blend, and its cold out, I can get around 14-16 mpg for in town driving. If i were using E10 straight all winter, i would be around 18-20 city. With our 200+ mile trip today, low ethanol blend, and with the wind at our backs for a nice chunk of the trip, the computer read 27.2 mpg. Not bad for a 5,000+ pound rolling barn door (vehicle and cargo). I imagine that would calc out real math on a fill to about 26 mpg. How it does this is the tranny upshifts and gets to 6th as fast as it can. Sometimes if you have to come to a dead stop and get it going again, you actually get better mpg and better acceleration using the manual shift mode from the stop sign. If you leave the tranny itself to do it, you will actually end up taking lots more time and then once you exceed 2,000 rpm on this thing, the gas mileage tanks badly. Holding the gears and gradual acceleration to get to your speed seems to work better than the letting the vehicle short shift itself into oblivion. This is really because the engine is not a torque monster. Its a sweet mill, revs great and has a lot of top end power, but if it had some torque down low also, that would help. Not much else to ring in on other than family loves the vehicle. I like it too. It just does what it is supposed to do. Provide a lot of space and comfortable travel. I like the steering for a van, but the vehicle isn't sporty (of course). The size is sometimes a liability for parking and that's about the only thing my wife occasionally does not like. The large 3 rows and the storage and utility is why we have it and she loves it for that. The interior is great for this type of vehicle. I love the center stack HVAC controls. Easy to use. The HVAC itself works great, front and back. The gauges are great. I love the large mirrors. You get spoiled with power doors. Don't know if I want power hatch again. I hunted for a T&C in this trim with the superconsole, which i consider a necessity. I sometimes think the cupholder setup for the back half of the console could be improved. I really hate armrests right on the seats because they are so thin and oddly placed. Someday I hope a van gets regular armrests on the console. The heated seats (first and second row) are great. Heated steering wheel is something you think is silly and not needed until you have it. The type of leather is perfect for a van. It cleans up easy with a damp cloth. It's thick and has a durable texture. I don't mind the shifter on the dash, but the next van has the rotary knob. I don't really want something to grasp and twist. A smaller, well placed shifter lever i am fine with. Nissan's new Maxima has a good small size shifter. Some of the newer cars including GM have shifters more like a joystick. I think the rotary shift knob while interesting is hard for some people to operate, and its an important piece in controlling a car. In buildings you have lever door knobs because accessibility rules don't allow plain knobs anymore. Same thing for required accessible lockers, you cannot have the opening mechanism be tight grasping (they need to be pushbutton or otherwise similar). With the population graying, I think its unwise to have a shift knob be something you grasp and twist. I have used the stow and go only a couple times but its been handy when i needed it. Will i want a vehicle this large forever? No, but at this point in time, it works well. ALways knowing you can take something home from a home store is a nice deal. We have had 6 in our van quite often, and everyone fits in any row. So the size is a big asset to us right now, but it also makes the vehicle feel large sometimes for daily driving. You weigh the tradeoffs and in the end its a good experience. We benefit quite a bit more from the size and utility than we would from a slightly smaller footprint. The new van is not downsized, and i think that is good. In order to have a downsize be noticeable, you'd have to lose about 6 inches of wheelbase, and about 300-500 pounds of weight. The new van does shed some weight but not the size. It should be improved and so that will be worthy. There will always be the likes of the new CX-9 available if we move to something smaller and more athletic down the road. Or an Edge when we don't need the third row. But even vehicles like that don't offer much if any fuel economy savings over the van. The electronics interfaces could be improved. The digital clock doesn't come on unless you turn the radio on. Fail. The touchsreen menus are kind of sucky to operate all the audio and video controls. Bluetooth works pretty decent though, and the DVD and blu ray drives both work great. The two screens are VGA and should be upgraded to higher resolution. Would love to have an OnStar option, and wifi option. Gets around decently in bad weather. Nice to see AWD will become available down the road on the new one though. The fog lights came in very handy the other night. We were in very dense fog and they made a huge difference. Fogs ought to be standard equipment, IMO. Auto high beams I have come to enjoy a lot. Didn't think i would need them but once you get used to them you wonder how you didn't have them before. Every now and then they miss dimming when they should but otherwise i am quite impressed with how well they work. BLIS and cross traffic alert are great features too. Overall i recommend it. Just be sure a van is what you want. I see many of them in my area, so I am convinced the van market is still quite healthy.

i think updated Trax is being shown at one of the upcoming auto shows. Hope they did update it.

Here you are wrong, the west coast has a massive charging infrastructure now especially with the electric highway initiative. You can now drive all over British Columbia and down to Baha California and charge all the way. http://westcoastgreenhighway.com/ I also wrote about this back in April 2015 http://www.cheersandgears.com/topic/84688-electric-highway-west-coast-style/ The electrification of the US will happen faster than you think and not 20 years from now. Tesla sells a butt load of auto's in Washington state and we are northern state so you fail in your assessment that this is a Southern state car only. US vehicle market was 17 million plus last year. about 4 tenths of one percent of the US market. that is niche. California is not the US. elec infrastructure will cost trillions and it ain't happenin in 5 years. Buyers who buy new cars this year, those cars will be on the road for 10-15 years yet. Stuff will still be petroleum driven for quite some time, the world doesn't change that quickly. Tesla did outsell Fiat though. Let's send Musk a medal for that.

You have this weird fixation on the 'mainstream'....F the mainstream, Tesla will be going after the entry lux market with the 3, like the 3 series, C-class, ATS, IS, etc...which are all RWD w/ available AWD... model 3 is tesla's mass market car.

RWD cars won't conquer the mainstream in snow states because of their poor weather performance. Even if tesla cars have better weight dist you won't convince the mass casual car buyers. So it will be a southern state car.

One noteworthy bit is the renegade and 500x can be had with AWD + stick.

Fiats have not done well reliability wise but hey, just lease. Renegade (which I've driven) isn't bad but some may be put off by jeep styling. So I actually do like the idea to sell it as a dodge. It would sell very well. Sergio's ego doesn't want dodge to succeed though.

This new Mokka dash is the same basically as the new Astra line. Ok, very similar. Next verano probably gets it as well.

I had thought Buick should sell the new Astra hatch here but the new model's styling is not what the last gen was. The opc Astra 3 door in particular was HOT. the all new Astra doesn't have the sizzle or style appeal the new Cruze hatch does. The new Cruze sedan is good looking but in lesser trims as you see pictures come out you see it's not quite as dynamic as the current gen Cruze. Having the stylish hatch in the showroom now should help offset the Asiany quality of the new one. The Sonic probably had to be planned to be built and sold for a decade to pay for its development and to be built in US. at the prices it sells at, it won't be getting a remake any time soon unless a new design comes out and it's assembly is shipped to China or Korea. New spark is nice but the low power engine will keep it from big sales. It really needs a engine option of 130-140hp, or at least something that can keep up with the lowly Versa. I'll be honest I really like the new spark. I hope this gen offers the electric version also. Chrysler will regain inroads with the new Pacifica in the van segment. I am shocked by the commitment to the product and the stylish new execution. I never thought I would ever be in a position to be a REPEAT Chrysler customer. The van segment is still viable. I'll be cautious and say Cruze hatch should get 15% of sales. More would be no surprise. All the newer Elantras I see on the road now are the GT hatches. Funny how the new Elantra sedan went dead in the market around here. Probably where all the new sonata leasers are going to move up in size. Cruze wagon is a nice idea but THAT wouldn't sell and it would ruin cruzes style. Astra wagon would be a good verano lineup choice and then they could even offer the diesel there too.

Model 3 if it's RWD means it won't take mass appeal. I can see where an electric may work well that way. But the FWD configuration is a mass market mainstay and RWD cars are outside of that. Bolt is a FWD small crossover hatch the combo platter which is hot. All Volt needs to do is up its battery range to 150-200 miles and it would define the everyday car situation for those that periodically take trips etc. Chevy's next car should be a Malibu sized volt. Malibu hybrid doesn't have the plug in. Charging infrastructure won't be set up for twenty years min so full electrics won't be practical for most of the population for quite some time. Model 3 is vapor ware like the elio anyways.

It's not up to the president to set taxes. That is congress' job. Opportunistic to pine for the tax increase when gas is low but it will go up soon and then it's close to 5 bucks because no tax ever goes away. What should occur is a programmed gas tax increase that mildly steps over time. A penny this year, then next year etc. sharp increases at once jar the economy and cause inflation. It could be argued that cheap gas right now is what has helped makes the economy somewhat stable again. Any gas tax increase should be for roads and bridges for cars. If they want money for mass transit projects that should be separate funding. If they hadn't forced cafe and the lower gas consumption, the tax collection wouldn't be less. In that regard, CAFE is a debilitating law in addition to stifling the market choices. Regarding tesla, the piece really just states what is obvious. They don't have the chops to be an automaker, even if they display some innovation in technology and marketing. They don't have the discipline or the smarts of an automaker that would need to survive or at a minimum be responsive in a timely fashion to a realistic customer base. So then, an upstart Silicon Valley tech company on wheels. Gm etc would be dead meat if they kept delaying vital products and couldn't get them to market, or serve emerging segments. Model X only needed to be a taller model s. Model 3 needed to be here 2 years ago at 40 grand. Tesla is on the borderline of fail.

fantastic.

that company dodge journey i used a lot was capable of 28-30 mpg on long trips at times. that was more at 65mph and below, but 25 mpg quite doable. We have exceeded 25 mpg in our town and country with the right conditions and 10% ethanol or less.

Odd but now we have a Chrysler van with pentastar. Nice motor, but we leased. . Part of the reason I became enthusiastic about it despite early teething problems was that a company car, Dodge Journey, had the engine. I put many miles on it. It had great power and very good mpg. GM's 3.6 v6 has had its share of reliability issues too.

did some lot trolling today, new 16's are still tough to come by, and in particular, 2.0's. Most dealers have probably 5 or less of all, some have 1 or 2. place i looked today, the new Malibu was side by side with current get Impalas. Its interesting how the two cars are physically close to the same size but the Impala does assume the role of looking larger, more stylish, and more badass. The Malibu looks lean and trim and uncluttered. They coexist nicely in their own space together. There's not really any confusing of the two. It's probably why the new Malibu has such a sparse dash and center stack, and the Impala's is quite bombastic by comparison. The impala has tons more buttons and stuff, and lots of busy-ness going on. The dash on the Impala is a dashgasm in comparison to the Malibu. The Impala has the huge honking steering wheel and the new Malibus is quite tiny actually. The seats in the Impala have extra shaping and cushioning and the Malibus are pretty basic. The Malibu is more of a mono form shape, with the upper greenhouse being fairly wide still above the shoulders. The Impala is a bit more rakish and has more 'hips'. The Malibu is fairly devoid of solidly defined character lines that the Impala has. The ones on the Malibu are quite subtle. Many have said the Malibu looks better in dark colors but I saw one in Summit white today and I really like the simplicity of the white color and simple shape. The Malibu / GM is really pushing the styling limits of sedan with the new Malibu (and Insignia by the spy shots). The tiny bit of trunk lid left brings them dangerously close to hatchbacks in look. At least they are packaging the car to benefit the interior, which is a great thing. The Impala and Malibu each have good interior space, and yet the cars have different and distinct interiors and feel. Some of the wheel choices on the new Impala are flat out sexy. The wheel choices on the upper trim of the new Malibu are interesting but overall the Impala has some great choices if you like stylish wheels.

the 2.7 was a terrible motor. when i was doing my selling gig, those cars with that motor were either traded in when they were about to blow up, or they blew up right after they got sold. the book value of the sebring and stratus in particular were abysmal. if you had to get someone approved for a sale who had bad credit, a lot of times one of the few choices you had were to find a sebring or stratus that was newer and low miles because the loan to value was always a problem. It was mostly due to the 2.7 being a steaming pile of turd. The used Intrepids were boomerangs too if they had the 2.7.

Not so much in these parts, its scarcity and the market here keeps it up pretty high. I've noticed the market being flooded just within the last few months with a lot of 2013's. Probably lease returns from about the time there were signs of life and loosened up credit in the car market back then.

Azera is alright but its lost in the mix. The newest Sonata is a huge dud. Wait a couple more years and the Azera will be a nice used car buy.

car might be a dud, but Ellie Kemper is a freakin delight, sometimes its more about the marketing, http://www.carscoops.com/2016/01/actress-ellie-kemper-stars-in-cascada.html

the sebring and stratus were tweeners. at least as far as markets, the intrepid still tried to cover the mainstream price segment. actually, the strategy chrysler had was to cover it with the two cars. Nowadays, you pretty much have to nail the size of the car right on to be in the mainstream volume sedan segment. That is what chevy finally figured out with the new malibu. Note how Nissan (is a good example). You can cover the volume segment with the Altima but be damn sure its the right size. The new Maxima is actually quite small, but then it becomes the luxury model. I think the 200 sort of tries to catch some folks that may be looking at a Regal, a CC, or a Maxima. Since Chrysler and Dodge don't have any other cars in the mainstream segment, then, the 200 sort of is Chryslers defacto, even if by covering it its more of a tweener......its good for the Chrysler brand. But if this were a Dodge branded car it would need to match Accord / Altima / Passat size. Passat is a great example of how size matters. A better price plus a better size and it sold way more than it did when it was small back in 2009-2010 whatever.

don't put words in my mouth, i like the 200. the v6 AWD is a great option in the class. I think of the 200 more as a personal sedan rather than a family sedan, and the 200 / Sebring was never a big car either. The Intrepid was always Chryslers room and space car. Uh, the Intrepid has been gone for over decade...the 300 and Charger have been their big cars since the mid 00s... oh i know that, but the 300 and Charger are not mid size segment cars. The Intrepid and Concorde set the bar with the cab forward styling and packaging that wrote the book on how sedans should be packaged for mass market. The 300 and Charger were a step into the RWD foray, and their packaging, while large, is inefficient, regressive and not of the mainstream FWD chassis ilk. Aside from being a Chrysler, the Intrepid had the chance to set the benchmark for family sedans. Dubious Chrysler engineering and quality was their setback. The styling and packaging made all the sense. The GM cars of the same time period were embarrassing from a packaging standpoint in comparison.