turbo200

agreed. there really is no need for another roadster from GM. Make somthing like the Nomad for Chevy with a useable back seat instead. Talk to me when you figure out how to give Kappa a back seat.

Just nominations so far. I have a comment about bias coming to me, but I don't have any proof of it, and so far everyone seems to love it. I don't know why I was unaffected. Ocn, you spoke of them going to the mountain and the "transformation" happened. It was that transformation I had a problem with. Then it was all the decisions that followed. Then it was Jack's decision that made me question what this movie was trying to say about homosexuality in general. I think you know what I am talking about and you know why I'm being cryptic here. I'm sure it's piqued someone's interest. As for taking homophobic people to go see this movie, I wouldn't. Even though it's not graphic, it's pretty damn graphic without actually showing anything. The scenery is amazing, but so was An Unfinished Life, and I liked that movie better. Curiously there was also an Ennis in it, played by Robert Redford. Both were slow movies, one and alike. I didn't feel truly affected by either, though. Crash was much more affecting to me, a beautiful movie in my opinion.

that's what we all freaking out about in the first few pages. It seems GM chose to eliminate one supplier contract, but other suppliers have been retained, so the '08 Malibu isn't going anywhere, thankfully. GM needs that car NOW.

The Yukon would feel less redundant if it was actually more attractive than the Tahoe. Since this isn't the case, you nor I see a purpose for it. It should see some sales improvements the first year and should maintain momentum since it's such an improvement and hopefully GMC can get those styling improvements ah-ha just mentioned within two years, cause this is certainly the ugly duckling of an otherwise good looking lineup.

Enlightened sarcasm. This is no regular GM board. Good people here.

:) NG Malibu is still on. Will still have that wonderful styling everyone raved about, including ah-ha. There was some consideration that it had been delayed and consolidated onto EP II, but it has not and continues on the same schedule, as of now. The Evoke, next gen Ion, seems to be cancelled now, and will be consolidated likely onto the Astra's platform as all Delta cars switch to that platform. HHR will be the last Delta. NG G6 is up in the air, though it is most likely being consolidated to the global EP II platform. There is a push here, and seemingly within the walls of GM, for Pontiac to focus on RWD with the G6 and larger G8 possibly [notice I said seemingly]. Aura is on schedule and doing fine. That's pretty much all there is right now.

I wasn't all that affected by it :( There were things in the movie that made me unsympathetic to the main characters, and more sympathetic to one of the supporting characters. I got to see the premiere in LA, though Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams were not there because they just had a baby. It was an interesting crowd to say the least.

That black one looks pretty clean on the outside. For reference, I got mine with a 130k miles for free and drove it until it was totalled with 170k miles. The car was in incredible shape, the chassis was wonderful, and the engine purred. It had been well taken care of despite being in two major accidents where it could have been totalled. It finally was totalled with me, someone else's fault. Of course the drive should tell you a lot right away about the engine condition and such. I still miss that car. I had to do a few brake changes and caliper changed once and a radiator, all were pretty minor, and easily overlooked since the car was so much fun year round. It was even more fun in the snow. I'm the kind of person that takes things as they come, so I was never worried about driving it in the snow. I never even got around to putting salt bags in it. It used to slip and slide, but I learned to drive very carefully, and that really only happened in extreme icy conditions. Great car all around. Get one with the removable sunroof, you won't regret that.

check the weight on the S14s, I think that might be one pretty big difference in the S13s favor. I had an S13 and a friend had an S14, he claimed mine "felt" faster, though we never raced. Don't be afraid of high mileage with these, though being able to drive one is a plus. The 300 actually is less fun to drive. Yes it is more powerful [though for the price of one you could easily slap a turbo on an S13], but it felt a lot bigger when I drove it. I don't just mean its size either, the braking felt less intuitive, the engine felt winded [not turbo] and didn't sound so good, and it just felt and handled like a larger car. My favorite is the hatch too. You're just giving up so much utility if you go for the coupe, and the hatch has always been better looking in my eyes, especially with just a nice set of rims and maybe a bra on a red one. That was my car basically, and I always got complimented on it. Anyways, I hope you can get one soon, it'll come soon. Look at MR2s as well! Happy hunting!

The program to replace both these vehicles is replaced entirely? No refresh for the TB at least? Will the Envoy at least be refreshed, perhaps more mildly, with a better interior and some exterior changes? It seems a little early for GM to abandon this segment altogether when competitors have introduced newer, dramatically more competitive versions recently. Though Lambdas will eat a lot of sales.

Exactly, I see no need to muddy the X5s image with the introduction of a "sporty" SUV. The X5 is perfect as is. Sporty looks and drive, elegance and classy design as well, and great fun. It's damn good looking and should just be redesigned with fresher cues, but not like the horrid X3.

Why would we do that? There are perfectly good government certified figures available on the last page. :AH-HA_wink: In all seriousness, the 3900 and the 3.6L have mileage that isn't near exceptional for V6 engines. The 5300 in the Impala almost gets as good mileage. What gives GM? DI and 6 spd trannies should improve economy significantly, but as Northie said, GM refuses to put its best engine tech in its highest volume and most important cars.

It will be an incredible performance car. For the money, is the specualation like 25k? That is a lot of enhancements for such a small increase. The cosmetic enhancements i could do without though. There always is aftermarket for that.

Hmmm...two seater is probably not the best idea, what about a 4 place coupe on Epsilon?

Those are damn good mileage figures for those engines. Can someone compare these to the G6 and Malibu for hoots and hollars? :)

OC is right. If some or many of those customers were turned off by the unrefined nature of GM's older engines, and we are assuming these people are educated enough to know the engine type and name, why continue to offer the same engines? For too long GM delivered the same cars with the same platforms and the same engines. They were not competing in different segments, nobody was fooled into thinking Buick was actually a competitor for Lincoln and especially not Lexus. These cars competed with themselves. And not distinguishing them enough through different engine types really hurt GM. Not updating the technology enough has also hurt GM. Just cruise through Edmunds, that's about a billion times more negative that what you will hear here, and you'll see what several million people think of the engines and other technology found in GMs. A big problem with the Lacrosse is too many dealers like to stock the lower models. GM also charges extra for chrome that does wonders to the exterior, and wheels that give elegance to the design. And engines that propel this car into the right class. Buick is undeserving of such low class feel.

I never noticed those bulges before. They are a great design touch.

ah-ha is an insider who has seen all the trucks. He knows what he's talking about here. I'm pretty sure the avalanche will have the same headlight design as the tahoe and sub, or slightly more aggressive I think. While the Silverado should look different from them all.

One can only hope. I have yet to see the beast in person, but from pictures the Yukon is very goofy and feminine looking. Travesty to have changed the old Denali so much, when it was a very good looking truck. This piece is modern and classy, but weak and indistinct.

It is not our fault that most in the marketplace have continued to view GM's newest products as undesirable and not totally groundbreaking. If GM caves in the next few years it will have nothing to do with a website that has 1500 members and maybe a couple thousand visitors per month; it will be because they didn't understand the consumers' needs and desires. A lot of things have gotten out of thier hands, and the perception that people have of the company, and its competitors has reached a very dire point. This perception has now been extended to the Midwest, GM's core market, and many more there are purchasing the "superior" imports. This perception exists not because of me and a couple other members here, we are just helping to identify it. The perception exists because GM hasn't learned to fix it. One way would be to introduce longer warranties, perhaps. An entirely different, earth-shattering way, would be to put all the dollars they can into the development of these cars and produce cars that exceed the benchmarks of the segment. So far they have not done this. GM has had plenty of time to learn from its mistakes, and yet they continually have produced cars that barely met the standards of the current competition, when the current competition was long on its way out. I can think of the Malibu and Camry as the latest example of this. I said "have produced"; I have hope for the future. Though with each, exciting and sophisticated new product Toyota introduces I am becoming more and more worried. The Lacrosse, we don't have to beat on it. I understand where you are coming from. It is what it is. A dowdy and inefficient design, to me. I would never buy it; it's antiquated-looking and lacks any sort of passion or excitement, as someone up above stated. The Regal "looked" better, imo. I would also not buy a car that I felt didn't meet up to the standards out there, and I feel the Lacrosse does not. My opinion. Yours can be different, and the Lacrosse owners here should be very happy with thier cars, they're very good cars. I understand why you would think we are harping on things by consistently bringing up the bad stuff; maybe that's something I have to work on, but there are some things you say there in my mind are a distorted vision of the truth, and so internet debate works. Why not just live with it, or ignore it? The Lacrosse is a competent car that is quite derivative and unspectacular in nature, but I am one person and you are another, perhaps it fits your needs perfectly. I know it could fit the needs of many people perfectly, but what needs are those, and could they be better filled by another car. There's just too much competition out there to not build the best car you can build. Read my post, and move on. As I said some people will never change thier opinion because they feel thier experience has led them to the point and idea they have.

It seems you need a lesson in opinions. Yours is just as valid as mine. Mine is just as valid as yours. Everyone is going to have an opinion. Not everyone is going to be right. There are those that cannot be convinced to change thier mind no matter what based on thier own idea of what thier experiences may have been [my idea of you], and then there are those that are more willing to listen to reason and logical debate [my idea of me]. You have to take my opinion for what it is, an opinion. Everyone's got one. And for all every Buick owner here knows about me, I am some dumbass snot-nose, so get over my opinion. I try to deduce in a logical and respectful manner, and yet I get consistently accused of being disrespectful. It is getting to a point where this is no longer fun. I understand it seems as though we are beating a dead horse, but read carefully our opinions and understand the perspective we are coming from. We are not atttacking the creation of your beloved engine, or the W-body, we are simply asserting its uncompetitive nature in today's market. GM is beating a dead horse by repeatedly offering this engine in cars it has no business offering it in. I could sit here and respond to every point in your post, but it would seem to you like I am harping. I will just repeat that 200k miles on an engine is not a special accomplishment, when Japanese manufacturers do it on a daily basis, with next to no problems on thier cars. Hence the legendary reliability that got the Toyota gravy boat started. I am not on that gravy boat, but I will come to a time where I will be able to do mass purchasing of vehicles for those in my immediate family; if GM doesn't offer the sophistication and class I am looking for, I will move on. I am a sympathetic person and have put a lot of effort into communicating to GM what I have beleived thier problems were; but enough is enough.

My problem is with it still powering Buicks. Despite razor's ranting, there is nothing aspirational in the design characteristics or operation of the 3800. It's just a solid engine that can make a lot of torque, along with a lot of noise, in most cases. It just shouldn't be in Buicks today, when a V6 Accord gets 240 hp with equivalent gas mileage. I don't have a problem with it being in cars before, the problem was the 3800 and the 3400 were all GM offered throughout the entire lineup of midsize cars until very recently. Competitors just offered much better engines long ago.

you've hit the nail on the head. GM's problems go a little further than this as well, but the "class" factor has been the biggest idea missing from GM's consumer products. Having a consumer driven business means you must understand the sentiment of the consumer. GM has lost too many sales to imports that have come in with fanicer interiors, quieter engines, more refined designs and in too many cases more sophisticated chassis dynamics. One need look no further than GM's own newest products and compare them with what is coming out of Toyota now and in the near future. The Colorado has been completely blown away by the Tacoma; Camry will completely blow away Malibu and Impala, Lacrosse, G6, and every other GM midsizer currently in production, it will even have a nicer interior than most current Cadillacs; Rav4 will completely blow away Equinox, Torrent, and Vue, and every other midsize ute GM currently has; 4runner is more expensive looking thanks to tighter and flusher panel gaps and the interior is worlds ahead, engines and suspensions are closer to each other; Yaris has a better, higher quality interior, with more genuine looking alluminum trim than Cobalt; Cobalt interior is already outclassed by current 5-year old Corolla. It's that factor of taste, of class, of substance, of tailor made goods that is hugely, resoundingly missing from GM.

Totally agreed OC. Most Pontiac and Buick owners could care less whether it's the 3800 or the 3900 or the 3400. It's that extra degree of refinement that is missing from those engines compared to the competition (excepting the 3900, which has other issues: fuel economy and availability) that is keeping Toyota, Honda, Nissan et al buyers away. And that is after all the goal, to steal buyers back from these companies. Furthermore, Toyota, Honda and Nissan engines make it past the 200k mark on a regular basis, and are legendary for thier dead reliable nature. Fans of the 3800 appreciate its reliable characteristics, but ALL of Honda's and Toyota's engines regularly achieve that stature, that is no spectacular achievement. Those companies still improve and change their engine designs. They keep up with the times, upgrade power, improve fuel efficiency, all while meeting the benchmarks of refinement, power, flexibility in the rev range, and fuel efficiency. The 3800 had a lot of things going for it for many years, but it's simply been outclassed, five years ago.

The IS is a great little car and one I've thought of owning from time to time. I'm sorry this had to happen. It's always bad when it's a car you've loved and treated you well. Look to the bright side, there might be one, and you may end up owning the newer version. My experience with my first car that was totalled was that I received more than the value of the car, by about 30%, which was completely unexpected obviously. I hope you share a similar experience.