roopull

My old 4 cyl Accord returns 26 mpg in mixed driving, 28 on the highway. Our Saturn SC1 gets a dependable 31 mpg. The record we ever had was 33mpg on a trip that was ALL interstate at 95mph from Savannah to Atlanta. The strange thing is, it got 34mpg in mixed driving a couple of weeks ago!!! We both hate the car, but if the gas mileage is only going to get better....

I was thinking similarly, but more along the lines of what Jeep was considering making the Compass originally... a small tough all terrain sedain/coupe. They've since turned it into a Jeep Neon :Barf: If they did a truck, something like the Dodge M80 concept would be a definite winner.

Some of you guys are missing my point. I'm not saying Honda & Toyota are just as American as Chevy & Ford (although, really, they are.) I'm saying Chevy & Ford are just as unAmerican as Honda & Toyota. Let's figure the profit line, since that's a favorite. Why is it important to follow the profits to where they'll end up? Really... ask yourself that question. Is it so that you make sure it's an American executive who makes a few million versus a Japanese one? No. The reason most folks, if they thought it through, would want the profits to stay in the US is because a US company theoretically will re-invest that money into more American plants, more American manufacturing capacity, and therefore, more American jobs. However, lately, that's not how it works. GM, Ford, & ChryCo are taking those American dollars & investing in plants - not in the USA, but in Mexico & specifically Canada. Why? If any of those three open a plant in the US, they're hampered by UAW workers... and this drives the UAW nuts, but they're exponentially more expensive as a workforce than non-unionized workers. Of course, in Canada, they have THAT union to deal with, but compared to the UAW, the Canadians are much much cheaper to employ. Nissan, Toyota, and Honda, on the other hand, can hire the most productive workers in the world - American workers - and not worry about the UAW. They can open up shop in 'right to work' states like Georgia & produce cars with labor that's impossibly cheap. So, while Ford, GM & Chryco are investing in foreign plants, Nissan Toyota and Honda are investing here in the USA. They do that with profits that are made here. For every instance any one can show of a domestic company building or expanding a plant in the USA, I can post three examples of them closing plants, reducing capacity, or one of Japan's big three doing the opposite... IN AMERICA. Toyota is no more a Japanese company than GM is an American one. They're all multinationals & are all going to get their resources from the least expensive place they can find them. General Motors is an American/Canadian/Mexican/French/British/Australian/Chinese[etc] company, just like Honda & Toyota. They're all whores of the dollar - be it a Canuck dollar, American dollar, or even Euro. They'll buy from the cheapest supplier & that includes labor. For GM, Canada is a bit cheaper. For Toyota, Tennessee is. Go figure. GM doesn't expand their plants in Canada because they're unpatriotic & Toyota doesn't build a plant in Tennessee to show thier American spirit. They do it to maximize profit. --------- The profits from my Honda are being spent on approx 1500 new jobs and expanded manufacturing capacity in Ohio... not that I'd ever make a $25K purchase based on where a product was manufactured. ------- Look at it like this. GM certainly won't hire me just because I'm an American... they'd hire me based on the merits of my work. I have no higher standard for GM. If they make a product that gives me the best bang for my buck, I'll buy & so will every other American. With that, I point to the Solstice & Sky as proof. Anyone seen a 3rd gen. Miata, lately? They're being outsold 2 to 1 even with the limited supply of the Solstice/Sky. You guys can keep your arguments about what makes a domestic & what makes an import. Fact is, most of us clearly don't give a crap. Build kick-a$$ cars & we'll buy them.

One more reason to head North! Francis dropped an 80 year old Oak on my house & I live just outside of Atlanta!

The fact that so many folks are commenting on what they'd like to have done to it to make it look good or better... well, that can't be a good thing.

Riiiight.... I've bought Japan's PR BS & you've bought Detroit's. Most of the parts, technology & design come from Japan? Wrong. You're either ignorant or intentionally lying. Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai have had design studios here for quite some time. The Camry was at one point the car with the MOST USA sourced parts of any vehicle sold here... 80%. That figure is a couple of years old, however. Either way, that number was better than anything GM, Ford or ChryCo was doing. In fact, the Honda I drive is sold nowhere BUT America. They sell an Accord badged car in Europe & Asia, but it is NOT the same chassis that's sold here. Honda of America is but one arm of a huge multi-national corporation - not unlike GM & Ford. Commandeering plants? How the hell is any US president going to commandeer a plant in Canada or Mexico? Your own argument is an argument against your own point. Like I asked before.... is Ohio a foreign nation? How about Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, or South Carolina? If, God forbid, there were a war ugly enough to necessitate that sort of thing, there's nothing that would stop the production of tanks at an Ohio Honda plant that would stop them from being produced in a Detroit Chevy plant... a plant in Mexico or Canada would be a different story. And sending $30,000 to a foreign soil? There's a family or two in Ohio who might take that comment as BS. Or how about the hundreds of people about to be hired by Kia here in Georgia? Unavoidably, many of those hired will be former GM Doraville assembly plant wokers & former Ford Hapeville assembly plant workers... You know... plants GM & Ford are closing down? The simple fact is that almost every single Honda badged car you see on America's roads were built here. You simply CANNOT say that about Fords or GM badged products. IIRC, the only Japanese built Honda-badged cars on the road here are Insights & the upcoming Fit. Everthing else is built here & the ONLY time they're imported is when the Ohio plants can't keep up. And if buying a 'domestic' is so important to the nation & money flows the way you say it does, where does the money go when a Vibe is sold? How about when one of the DSM cars were sold as Chrysler products? How about an Aveo, Geo, Raider, Tribute (or any other Mazda, for that matter?) How about when I buy a German designed & built Saturn? What about the old Merkurs? Nay, sir, I believe you are the one who might due well to look at economics & specifically the term multinational corporation. Perhaps it's YOU that are being manipulated into blindly buying what YOU think is a domestic product. There simply are no more domestic auto manufacturers & there will soon be very few imports. It simply costs too much to produce a vehicle in only one location. That business model has been tried & has failed. Putting aside the cost of transporting them, fluctuating labor costs & currency valuation makes the terms "import" and "domestic" all but irrelevant. The whole reason Lexus and Acura are still imported from Japan is that it's only with the extra profitability can those products be built in Japan & still be sold in the USA at an acceptible profit. Your red white & blue Chevy is no more an American product than my Honda is an American product. The difference is only in your mind... For a REAL lesson in this brand of marketing, check out Ford. If ever there were a wiz at making a domestic an import & an import a domestic, it's Ford. In the end, I'll buy the best product my money can find. If it's badged a Honda, so be it. I'll not buy American out of fear or pity. I'd hate to think any American would want me to.

I was referring more to the American market. Nothing bugs me more than some ignorant redneck in a Canadian built Chevy telling my I'm somehow unpatriotic for buying an "import." What? Is Ohio a different nation, now? The big 2.5 "domestics" sell plenty of vehicles in the USA that aren't built here, yet they're the only ones credited with being 'domestics.' Meanwhile, a Camry is not only assembled here, but most of the parts come from here... compare that with the upcoming Chinese engines we'll be seeing in "domestics" and I get a little confused. In truth, there is no longer a 'domestic' car company any more than Honda, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, Kia etc are imports... in my humble little opinion, anyway.

Makes sense.I just realized this was a poll!

Kinda' boring & predictable. I expected something a bit more bold & unique. This looks very vanilla... mild... uninspired. I'm not saying it's ugly. It's not ugly. It's actually handsome, I suppose. Handsome in a very normal way. Not a face you'd remember five minutes after meeting it. Panel gap around the hood is huge. Hope that's ironed out by production time.

How does that differ from "Born in USA made in Canada," or "Born in USA made in Mexico," or Born in USA made in Australia," or "Born in USA made in Germany..."

Why do you say that? What will I see? A Saturn Equinox? Another attempt to sell an Opel as an American car? The Ion? Puke! What will I see that I haven't already seen? We quit taking our Saturn to the dealership for service because they've gotten to be such a pain in the arse that we'd rather deal with a private mechanic. The cars they're now offering don't come close to appealing to my nor my wife's desires... did something change? Did they replace the a-holes in the service department with people who aren't a-holes? Did they replace the idiotic sales people with folks who actually know more about the cars than my wife? Saturn is its own worst enemy.

I don't get how Toyota is evil. If making money is evil, I wanna be Satan. Wal-Mart, IMO, isn't evil because they put little Mom&Pop joints out of business... they're evil for using government to condemn private property, having governments sieze that property & then sell it to Wal-Mart for pennies on the guarantee of higher tax revenues. Is the Harley plant unionized?

You sound absolutely silly. Did a Honda beat you up on the playground or something? You sound like you're nursing a wound.I've owned one Chevy, one Plymouth, a Volvo, a Saturn, a Ford... and six Hondas. I never bought a new one, so I absolutely LOVE the fact that folks will buy a new Honda every couple of years & then sell their used one to me at a bit of a discount. Most were bought with between 40K & 60K miles on the odo. The only Honda I ever sold with LESS than 200K was a Prelude & I sold it because it had no real backseat & I have more than one friend... Every other one was sold with over 200K & in good running order when I sold it. Other than timing belts & CV joints, only routine maintainance was ever done on any of them... Deal with it... Honda has been building excellent cars right here in America for 20+ years. If GM is just now getting around to making excellent cars, it'll take a while to catch back up in the 'public perception' department. What can I say? I like to drive my cars, not work on them. Aside from cars I have owned that were 'play thigns' my cars are used to transport me from one place to the other... they're appliances. Reliability is key. My own experience with Hondas tells me they're extremely reliable, Consumer Reports says they're reliable, JD Powers' Vehicle Dependibility Study says they're reliable... There's a reason they have good resale & God knows it isn't styling.

I'm wondering if when Toyota becomes the #1 seller if this BS double standard will change... My point is... does GM get negative press because it's the number one seller, or is it for other reasons?

You're certainly right. If your products have a reputation for lasting forever & having outstanding resale value (last I checked, Hondas had the highest resale value of every brand marketed,) you can afford to offer ugly products & people will still buy them. Companies like Chrysler, with horrible resale & horrible reliability have to rely on great pricing & great styling to get people in the door. Consider the 300C, the PT, or even the Ram back when it was first given the 'Freightliner' treatment. Virtually no one was buying Ram trucks until they figured out folks would buy the big beast if it just looked cool. That being said, folks can only handle so much ugly... the Ridgeline, while selling decently when compared with their forcasts, IS turning out to be a disappointment for the boys from Ohio. Expect a re-skin before too long.

Oh, now, forgive me for being rude, but that's just BS. What's needed in a country that isn't socialized like France is adults acting like adults. You don't have to depend on a big company any more than you have to depend on the government. The only thing you have to depend on & the only thing an adult should ever depend on is YOURSELF. There are thousands of methods of investments & savings that are much more reliable than a company pension (especially a pension from a company that hasn't made a good profit in years!)Now, if you have a contract with GM & that contract says that GM is going to pay you via a paycheck AND insurance AND a pension, by all means, you're entitled to it. However, don't try to convince me that you NEED government or NEED GM in order to survive. Puh-leeeeze! I've never worked for a big company that is supposed to 'take care of its employees for life' nor will I be one to accept government handouts. I'm a man... a man willing and able to take care of my own self & my own family. Hell will freeze over before I become a leach. ...and if you think VATS & socialism are so friggin' great, check out the constant strikes & riots in France - to say nothing of the unemployment rates over there!

Hard to tell from the pics. Even though I like the current one, it looks like it weighs 8000lbs.

I recently started a job where the Teamsters are a huge force (something like 70% of non-management is unionized (that's probably less than most GM plants, but whatever...) I've worked a few jobs in my life & I've never worked somewhere where the relationship between management & labor is so horrible. I mean... it's bad, real bad. The attitude on both sides is full of resentment & anger. The workers have a 'you can't make me do that' attitude & management clearly doesn't give a crap about any employee's individual situation. It's all "according to the contract." There is no teamowrk. I'm not sure if that attitude exists at UAW entrenchments, but judging how UAW members sometimes brag about 'working with management' as though they're really going beyond the call of duty, I think it must. It would be interesting to see some GM management & some UAW workers get transplanted into a non-unionized & well run company for a year... specifically a small family run type of joint where everyone knows everyone & everyone is on the same team... might open some eyes. God knows my working at a unionized job certainly has opened mine.

Because pickup trucks that can carry four adults AND their gear inside the cab get horrid gas mileage & are twice as long.The engine is rather pathetic, though... We're moving to the mountains late this Summer & the thought of climbing all those hills in anything underpowered is one of the big reasons we're steering clear. If you need to carry a load, pull a trailer? Are you serious? With that kind of thinking, you're going to always be baffled at products like the Element. There are folks out there who want a vehicle with REAL utility (unlike most SUVs,) but don't want to be driving a giant overweight beast. Mini-mini-vans are going to be a big hit in the near future. The PT, HHR, and Mazda 5 are all examples of this... sliding doors or not, a high roof & flat floor say mini-mini-van, to me. There WILL be more to come. The suicide doors, while not perfect, allow a much larger entry into the side of the car... almost as big as if it had a sliding door, but with much much less weight.Face it, there's no other utility van even close to this size. The next size up used to be the Astro... now, you either have to get a fleet-prepped mini-van or something the size of an Econoline!

They may not be scientific, but they are specific... there's a definite benefit in that. And, while they aren't scientific, the numbers are somewhat consistent & they take the info from subscribers. If scientific polls are the only way to go, Al Gore is president.

How do you figure Toyota is concerned with being number one? Every interview I've read regarding the issue makes it sound like they either don't care if they're number one, or like they are a little nervous about sitting in that spotlight - with all the extra media attention it garners. Here'sa portion of an interview with Toyo's top man in the US Of course, there's plenty of PR BS in that, but I think Toyota and GM certainly both want to be number one - not just in volume, but profit per vehicle (a big part of GM's restructuring goal.) Their hiccups with the Camry & Avalon, I think, are the result of their SIZE as much as a result of anything else. Think of all the models GM & Toyota Corp make... there are going to be hiccups with both. I hope that once Toyota takes the number one slot, they get all of the unforgiiving media attention GM currently gets... I think that's the true downside of being #1. Everyone wants to knock you off your pedestal. The underdog, however.... everyone just LOVES an underdog.

JD Power's Initial Quality Study is almost meaningless! It's IINITIAL quality that it measures. If you want to see how reliable & well built a car is, either go with CR's reliability ratings - which tells you WHAT broke as apposed to this blanket something broke that the JD study does. In the JD Power study, a broken stereo knob carries the same weight as a blown engine! If you're stuck on JD, however, their VDS or Vehicle Dependability Study is just like the IQS, but instead of being taken after a couple of months of ownership (how meaningless!!!) it's taken after THREE YEARS.

From a utility standpoint, there's not much on the market that compares at the size & price of the Element. The interior is much much more useful than any of the other little SUVs like Honda's own CRV. The closest anyone else has is the PT Cruiser & Chevy's HHR... however, the interior of those two is nothing like the interior of the Element. Before you question teh brains of someone interested in that little trucklet, get in one & fold up the seats up - or better yet - take them out. It's like a scaled down version of the dearly departed Astro Vans... We seriously considered buying one, in spite of the ugliness, because it was the only smaller vehicle we could put my bike in the back of without dismantling part of it... It's also the only one we could put larger appliances in, thus preventing the rental of a truck. It may be rather unattractive, but the design is brilliant. Give credit where it's due, man.

Anyone remember any of the concepts Lincoln had out a few years ago with similar names... names reflecting the Conties of the 60s? Many looked more like ZZTop styled customs than show cars! Example: Click here With the upcoming CTS coupe, I'm not surprised to see a BLC... They'd be nuts not to... bringing back every imaginable badge for the Mustang is obviously working for Ford & Dodge is putting old Plymouth badges on Dodge trucks & they're selling well, too. With how bad the last Cougar did (a car I actually liked,) I'd be surprised if Mercury brought this name back... ever. The Z3 became the Z4 because all two door BMWs will have even numbered names while 4 door cars will have odd numbered names (thus the new 6 series, as well.) The Zs are all 2 door coupes & convertibles, so the Z1 & Z5 names, I would guess are either for 4 door convertibles or to keep other makes from using the names. That, of course, makes the next portion baffling: On again off again naming schemes? What gives? I just wish they'd give every car a nice real name. We didn't run out of animals & natural disasters to name cars after, did we? If they build that thing, it may dethrone the Aztek for "ugliest American car, EVER."

Agreed... same sentiments here. I don't have anything against union members in general, I just see the reality of why the union exists... if the union is wise enough to realize that playing hardball will hurt union members in the long-run, kudos to the union.If the UAW were to act like Eastern Airlines' unions back in the late 80s... ug!