FUTURE_OF_GM

:AH-HA_wink: I have my guns... Do you have yours? Seriously though... It's going to get a lot more volitile when people start to get really desperate. And I feel that we're on the verge of people being really desperate given the increased drug use, lack of opportunity and money and trash that our culture has become. This country is very quickly segmenting and that's not a good thing. United we stood.... Looks like america was indeed a "paper dragon" just like the terrorists said. To borrow a phrase from you know who..... TICK TOCK!

QFT I would be a bigger fan of GM relocating from Detroit than to another country. I would love to work for the company but I'm not willing to move to Detroit, it's just not worth the horrible winters and depressing atmoshpere. GM should move south or west IMO. I've said it before and I'll say it again; if this country continues to bear a hatred for GM for no specific reason then yes they should relocate out of the country. There is no reason for america to continue to benefit off of a company it hates. Why should GM subject itself to that? I would suggest China as a HQ, not Europe since China will be the 'market that counts' soon enough.

I distinctly remember shady dealers when the Camaro went out of production in 2002. I found one on a lot here in mid to late 2003 and the dealer had jacked the price because it was "a collectible" and "one of a kind" and "rare" I pity the fool who fell for that garb.

I wouldn't mind seeing GM foster relationships with all of the aftermarket tuners. Saleen, SLP, GMMG, Roush...

I wonder... I wonder if GM could contract out their hi-po cars to someone like Saleen to preserve CAFE figures? I mean, I know performance cars aren't really the problem, but if the corporation is sweating over 1 MPG on Zeta then every little bit helps. Maybe our future performance models could be outsourced to companies like Saleen and wouldn't count against GM's numbers. I don't like the idea of having this altered state of 'factory performance' as much as I like seeing the manufacturers put out the cars. But I'd rather see some outsourcing than dropping of models/trims.

So you admit that the G8 is wildly successful already?

I run an Edelbrock on my other Camaro and I would highly recommend it over the Holley. It's not nearly as tempermental. LOL. Reminds me of what an old timer said to me one time. "Adjust that Holley today, romp on it once or twice tonight and then repeat the process tomorrow."

That's a pretty unfair comparison given how the average (READ: ignorant) consumer drools over anything with an L on it. No marketing.

I don't care. By the same logic that this author uses, the asians should be killing brands as well. The article isn't about profit, it's about product overlap. Which basically makes the article useless in the first place. Too simplistic... Many factors dictate whether GM and Ford will succeed, the least of which is how many 'channels' they decide to send product through. *IF* GM and Ford we're to downsize, you all seem to think that they would magically reverse the death spiral and emerge as major players again. This is not even remotely possible given how competitive the market is. Share given up is share that will NEVER be seen again. So the best thing for these companies to do is find a balance between giving up share (downsizing) and turning enough profit to survive until they ride out the storm. Thats exactly what GM is doing and things are already looking up despite the weak economy. Will it be enough? Probably not; I honestly don't expect Detroit to survive past 20 more years. But why kill the hog before it's fattened up? What it boils down to is this: many people want Detroit dead. Chrysler has been disposed of twice over now and will be sold off to the highest bidder. Ford is shedding brands left and right, so the only one left to destroy now is GM. So the media will SELL the public and the street on GM downsizing until it becomes a reality. Why else would this ANTIQUE story continue to be passed around between notoriously anti-GM and anti-Detroit outlets. I disagree. It's because Saab, like the other GM divisions, lacks focus. For years GM had not a clue as to what it wanted Saab or the rest of its non core divisions to be. What resulted was a series of hit and miss products. Seriously; why was Saab given a GMT360? Why hasn't the 9-5 been switched to Epsilon? The resources (platform/engineering work, etc) have been there for close to 7 years now. Why was the Subaru AWD technology wasted on a poser Saab wagon when we had a very promising and unique Chevrolet concept? There is more to this business than $$$. What GM lacks more than finances is FOCUS

As far as I know, no hesitation. And the reason I say it that way is because I haven't really been able to pull off from idle. As it is, I have to throttle the car up a bit and drop it into gear so it kind of 'hits the ground running' so to speak. I suspected a vacuum leak as well, which I'm not at all thrilled about. I'm really hoping that it's a float. On a related note, it felt amazing to be back behind the wheel of my baby after it spent a year waiting on body work.

QFT

I don't understand what is so difficult about this concept to most people. GM is not handicapped by the number of brands. GM is handicapped by not having the balls to focus the divisions across the ENTIRE market instead of just throwing them volume crap to appease fat, lazy dealers who would rather sell Toyotas anyway. An off thought: Maybe GM should've stuck with the mom-n-pop dealerships. At least those people actually cared about the company and it would build an exclusivity on some of GMs divisions. I worked in stocks, I know this as fact!

Okay, so here's the deal. I run a Holley 600 on one of my Camaros. Every week or so this winter I would go out and idle the car to keep everything in good shape, but the car hasn't been "on the road" in a year or so. I got it out the other day, everything seemed fine, and changed the plugs. With the new plugs in I fired it up and it purred like a kitten. I put it in gear and tried to make it to the gas station but ran out of fuel at the bottom of my drive. After adding about 3 gallons of fuel, the car started this thing where it wouldn't idle. I figured it had just sucked something up into the carb or fuel filter. So, for good measure, I added some fuel system cleaner, replaced the fuel filter and replaced the PCV filter all to no avail. The next day I got in and fired it up because I was going to spray some carb cleaner in, but the car idled fine. "Problem solved" I thought, "I guess it just sucked soming into the carb and now that 'something' has dislodged and burned." Then I made the mistake of putting the car in gear. It started doing the same thing; struggling to idle like it's not getting fuel. I took my chances and decided to go for a ride anyway. I figured I'd air the carb out a bit and try to clean out the cobwebs. I cracked open all four barrels at least 3 times and the car runs absolutely great as long as I've got my foot in the gas. But as soon as I take my foot off, it dies and wont even idle. It also flooded out on me one time while I was out (So much for those new plugs, eh?) So what the eff is wrong with my carb? (Besides the fact that it's a Holley) I've never really messed with carbs much but I'm thinking either the idle is too low (it's cammed and idles around 5-600 rpm) which i doubt or something is wrong with the float levels/choke. Anyone know how I can fix it? (Keep in mind that I haven't messed with carbs tht much)

Looks like they're ready to destroy another one of our final strongholds.

You know; I'm real tired of the "eliminate a division" mission that the media proliferates non-stop. So now, the cars aren't even badge engineered anymore, yet they "compete with each other" First it was; GM needs to eliminate badge engineering... Now this same damn argumnet is being recast as "the cars compete with each other... I got it; why don't we just eliminate ALL of the divisions except Chevrolet and then let the asians have the market. I mean, that's what this is all about anyway, right? If GM needs to eliminate divisions, then so do the asians. We can start at Toyota where most of the same damn cars sit in a Lexus showroom and then we can get rid of Scion since it's the same thing as a Corolla. (Technically, it's not... But these vehicles are as close to each other as the subjects of this article) Then we can go to Honda which has an entire DIVISION that is redundant to it's core. Then we can move to Nissan, the cars even LOOK the same from their 2 divisions. I'm with reg... How 'bout f*ck off WSJ. Like they've ever had a grasp on what it takes to survive in this industry anyway and they are CONSTANTLY calling for GM or Ford to phase out divisions. GOD FORBID we actually have *choice* in this country anymore... We're all destined to drive homogeneous appliances that look, act and have the same status. Not for me. So thats why Aura sales were up for February along with record Malibu sales. Which has nothing to do with having 8 divisions, unless you consider budget. But big budget marketing doesn't necessarily mean SUCCESSFUL MARKETING. A totally unfair comparison since GM only wishes to sell 40-50,000 G8s. Umm... That has more to do with the fact that Saab is trying to sell 10 year old junk for the price of platinum than marketing or GM's 8 divisions. Yeah... Whatever... I have a hard time believing that there is so much pent up demand for a cheap Chevy crossover that it is affecting Outlook sales before the Chevy has even been viewed by most of the public. Here's the real story: The Outlook failed and Lambda needs volume. In comes the Traverse to fix Lambda and Saturn will slowly build it's image with fewer Outlook sales. **This is yet another ploy by the media to downsize and kill off the biggest and trongest american automaker. Notice the headline, notice the target is GM's hottest new models.

Gee... This is so appropriate in so many ways. It's shows 1) what side CR is on 2) How uninformed the source and media in general is and 3) Just another day's work in how the media flat out lies about the facts to portray whatever story they want the reader to believe.

Naturally... I mean, god forbid we "right wing nutjobs" have a different opinion about a theory as opposed to believing everything we hear. I can't wait until the liberals hype the world into such a global warming hysteria that us right wing nut jobs can justify not only another war for oil, but war within the states against ourselves *GASP!* for the sake of our survival!!!

I wish.... Unfortunately, in HS I was too interested in cars to focus on the sports that might've provided me with an opportunity like that. 6'9" 350lbs, so not quite a foot.

What you fail to realize is that a lot of us future Camaro owners ARE core GM buyers. In fact, we come from generations of core GM buyers. Not all of us (actually the majority of us) need the Camaro as a primary car and in the garage beside said Camaro usually sits a vehicle that keeps GM in business (An Epsilon, W-Body or GMT900, etc.) So go ahead... Piss away your buyer base. Just remember, we are enthusiastic about YOUR job and we spread the word on YOUR successful products via the most effective form of advertising. WE also know a lot of other "like minded" and easy convinced (by us) people. Once GM angers it's core buying base, (enthusiasts and loyal buyers) the company will die... It's as simple as that. GM already doesn't have the money to market the cars themselves, unless it's a "one shot, make it or die" deal like Malibu. Don't think so? Well, maybe you should check the import vs. domestic cross shopping stats again. Hope you weren't betting on Japan Inc. "core buyers" to replace us. Oh, what's that? The youth will buy GM, you say? Because they have no anti-Detroit bias? Nah... www.notgonnahappen.com because unless you have cars that the youth aspires to own (READ: Not epsilon sedans) you're not going to even touch those buyers as marketing becomes more fragmented and it becomes more and more difficult to reach them. I thought GM had finally learned the lesson that PRODUCT is the most important thing in this business. Ya know, VW tried to sell my generation some blandola sedans with chrome icing... Yeah, they just got bought by a NICHE sports car maker. I certainly hope you have a good retirement package, if GM follows the path some want it to.

LMFAO!!! "Once again; GME innovates!!!"

I heard rumor that the petro companies were charging more for diesel "just because we can" I wonder if they're not trying to sway the automakers/the government to stick with gas engines so that we'll continue to pad their pockets. then again, with diesel as high as it is, why not force that fuel on us. It's sad that these companies are allowed to run their oligopoly and rob us like they do.

A.K.A. The same rehashed design theme we've seen on Saab concepts for 6 years at least. It'll be "old" before it even hits the streets. Umm, okay. Get used to this term... As we are all "rightsized" into a communist like existence with no fun cars and no luxuries. Till the battery dies. Yet ups energy use. ** Seems pretty cool; if not a bit bland. Go figure, it came from GME. I just felt like having some fun. I LOVE those wheels!

My problem is that I'm almost a foot taller than you and about 100 lbs bigger. That said, I think it all depends on the design of the car. I fit in my Focus pretty well but at the same time I fear that automakers will "cut corners" for the sake of CAFE.

Just like the Wendy's ad: "That's right!" (I'm in a funny mood tonight)

I think chrome wheels are nice on some applications and I don't really see why we should limit choice. Of course, I'm used to the chrome/polished aluminum wheels of classics too. I LOVE anything machine faced or machined... So much so that I sold my painted wheels on my Focus (The 6 spokes) and replaced them with the same six spoke wheels, except the machined versions from one of the special edition cars.