CARBIZ

Wow. I've seen figures of 60% for lease penetration in the Toronto area. I suspect our outrageous insurance rates and higher vehicle prices are responsible for that. I also think it is outrageous for a leasing company to be responsible for the lessee in an accident situaiton. More of the victim society crap that we live in.

I'd luv to help you, but things are mighty different down in America. There are incentives that come and go, to be sure. The Visa money has nothing to do with the dealer, so don't be afraid to disclose that. It amazes me when people hide their true intentions and don't give the salesperson the information they need to actually help the customer. Getting 8 % off a $25k vehicle seems high to me, but that is perhaps only up here in the tundra. Don't automatically assume the salesperson is out to soak you. And don't sweat it, worrying that you may have saved $100 some where else. They say salespeople make the worst shoppers, but when I made the decision to buy Hitachi with my TV purchase a few months ago, I compared sale prices in flyers, etc., then went to a local place that was convenient, talked to them, they gave me $300 off the advertised price of $2,799 and I bought it. Yeah, I "could" have beaten him down for free this and free that, but I was getting a good price, he was knowledgeable and friendly, so he got the deal. And I avoid electronics sales flyers like the plague because I don't want to see the same TV on sale for $1,999 now.

Never in the history of mankind has a society ever acted in such a self-destructive way as we in the West have in the past 60 or so years. I cannot understand why all the multi-nationals are in such a hurry to sign these partnerships with China, forge alliances and simply hand over all the technology and know-how that we have gleaned, knowing full-well that when they are ready they will simply dump the same products at half the price on our shores. They do not follow the same rules as us; in fact, they just barely follow the rules as to not totally annoy the WTO. We in North America had better discover the next big wave soon because the tech boom is waning (and all those production jobs are in Asia anyway), the industrial boom is all but dead (GM, Ford, steel manufacturers, etc.) - I mean, how many sales clerks, bankers and lawyers do we need to employ 300 million people? Oh, that's right: we can all go work for the forest and mining business because the Chinese need our raw materials to make the products that they then dump on us.

Sadly, it is almost impossible to avoid a political debate when it comes to people's health. Canada's system is in ruins (eating up enormous amounts of our GDP with longer and longer wait times) and it is scandalous that in the richest country in the world (America, in case you didn't know) there are people who have no medical coverage. Somewhere in the middle is a system that would work. I was given a prescription recently that cost $600 for one bottle of liquid that would last me 3 weeks. I was damned glad my drug plan at work covered that!

I disagree. The buying public is very fickle; the media worse. Just as the BMW 3 is the darling of the wanna-be-race-car set, the tide will turn and people will move onto the next flavor of the month. There is very little original thought out there. All GM has to do is build cars that these 30-something "writers" want to drive and all will be well in the universe.

NOT THAT I AM DEFENDING TOYOTA (gasp!), but it is a little unfair to compare how many 35 year old vehicles are still on the road. Firstly, because GM/Ford sold a helluva lot more than Toyopet/Datsun, etc. Secondly, why are there so many Cadillacs from the '60s on the road, yet almost NO station wagons from the same era? Were the Cadillacs built that much better, or were they just cared for better and treated with more respect? There was a time when the big Chevy, Ford and Pontiac wagons (we had a '66 Pontiac wagon when I was a kid) absolutely polluted the streets. Where are they now? In the same vein, why are Mopar muscle cars going for insane money at the auctions, yet Camaros are generally more reasonable? Answer: GM sold something like 200k Camaros in a good year while the Dodge/Plymouth mid-size muscle cars never broke 100k and they were treated as "beaters" (Dukes of Hazzard anyone) until very recently. As I have said, let's just agree to forget the '80s and focus on what GM and Toyota are doing now.

Yeah, I find it interesting that car manufacturers have gone to 4 and 5 years warranties, but the electronics industry is stuck at 1 year. I bought a 42" Hitachi plasma back in October before we moved. I sold my 12 year old Hitachi 48" rear projection TV that had never, ever been repaired, other than a few cleanings of the lenses when it was newer. The rear projection cabinet was huge and the picture was fading, but a co-worker bought it for their rec room. I am not concerned about the newest generation plasmas. One problem with earlier models was their "refresh" rate - don't forget you are basically buying a graphics computer! They claim a 50,000 hour lamp life, but after spending a small fortune it is a risk because if part of the screen dies in two or three years there is nothing you can do.

Every time the hoary subject of Japanese superiority is raised, someone HAS to mention the K-car. Look, boys and girls: the K-car when judged against its peers of the day, was a decent car. In Canada, where cars barely make it to 8 years for being eaten alive by rust, I can tell you that we still see the odd K-car rattling around. There are absolutely no Tercels from the same time period: all the lift gates rotted out. I am sick and tired of people rubbing Citations and K-cars in our faces when the truth is the Civics and Tercels of the same period were POS, too. Anemic and under powered, unless you drove a stick. I drove my roommate's 1973 Datsun 210 (with a stick) and then rented a 1982 Datsun 210 with automatic - still under powered, tiny and tinny. They were base cars, no a/c, now power windows, nothing. Let's just agree to forget the '80s - everybody built crap in the '80s. But the problem is that all these so-called experts are basing their opinions on what Detroit built 20 years ago!

...and the "real" truck guys (contractors, farmers, etc.) don't tend to read CR, plus they are more mechanically savvy so don't fall for the hyberole and outright lies of the media. You'll get the usual martini swilling weekend warriors and the odd disaffected GM/Ford customer who will buy these trucks, but that's it. Unless GM or Ford do something completely stupid with their trucks in the next couple years, they have the home court advantage.

What I find interesting is that more and more, sheeple are depending on these somewhat useless surveys to make their buying decisions in a time when these surveys are more and more irrelevant. This is an age of 5 year warranties. Twenty years ago when you were stuck with a 1 or 2 year warranty it would have been damn nice to have some idea as to which vehicle may last longer than the next, but with many vehicles covered for 4 or even 5 years, does it really matter any more? Most of the so-called quality measurements are purely subjective (where I think the radio should go and where you think it should go are completey different) and the longevity issues can be subjective. People tend to exaggerate when trying to recall an incident: if they like their car, they will tend to gloss over bad incidents, and if they don't like the car, they will blow them out of proportion. I've seen it happen many times. The mpg tests are also unreliable. A higher torque engine with a flat torque curve will benefit someone like me who tends to be aggressive behind the wheel, while a lower torque engine would benefit my great aunt (who is dead, BTW). So you get some survey in the mail and it is 217 questions! I've filled out other surveys, online usually, and after 30 or so questions, I log off. It is too long. We on this board, who I would hope would be a little more informed than the average consumer, bring with us all kinds of prejudices and biases. For the sheeple it is worse. They are being pulled every which way by "facts" and don't know what the hell to do.

Flourescent lights are not "age friendly." In the kitchen, fine. In the living room? Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror at 4 in the morning after tying one on? I would want a dimmer switch in the bathroom, to be sure! LOL When I was in Brazil, everyone was using flourescent lights, but they also use motion sensors. It is a wierd feeling to step into the hallway of your hotel and it is dark for a moment until the sensor detects you and clicks on the lights. I am all for saving energy. I always turn out lights when I leave the room. I never run the hot water while shaving. Then again, they use flash heaters in most countries, too. I don't know why we don't get into those more in North AMerica. I never thought about the power consumption of a plasma TV, but now that I think about it, the top of my 42" does put out a lot of heat. That should be fun once summer arrives. TV on, more A/C.

As has been pointed out here (but not in the media, naturally) many times, the hybrid buses that GM has shipped out do far more for the environment than all the Priuses sold, but the media has virtually ignored that reality. Still, it is to Toyota's credit and GM's shame that Toyota won the PR battle on this one. GM took the high road by actually DOING the right thing while Toyota APPEARED to be doing the right thing and GM got their ass kicked. Such is the fickleness of the media. Besides, most of what the tree-hugging-brocolli-eating-save-the-whale types are doing is about LOOKING like they are doing someting, without much substance. GM should have figured that out earlier.

Hold onto your lightbulbs, boys and girls. Australia just banned incandescent bulbs; now the weenies in our neck of the woods have latched onto it as the next cause of the week. These guys need attention to get funding and to get funding they need headlines. Drowing polar bears and sea water on 5th Avenue make pretty good headlines. The only thing I see dimming around here is the average IQ of the voting public.

Hold onto your lightbulbs, boys and girls. Australia just banned incandescent bulbs; now the weenies in our neck of the woods have latched onto it as the next cause of the week. These guys need attention to get funding and to get funding they need headlines. Drowing polar bears and sea water on 5th Avenue make pretty good headlines. The only thing I see dimming around here is the average IQ of the voting public.

Did Hell freeze over and nobody told me? Is this article a mis-print? Did Toyota forget to mail their cheque this month? I am shocked and dismayed that the Wall Street Journal has broken with party line and is printing the truth. Or were they just getting cocky because Al Gore was out of the country lecturing us Canadians on the Inconvenient Truth?

Obviously, I am thrilled that the Silverado was #1, but all of these comparisons tend to be very much "flavor of the month" oriented. None of these trucks on the list are "bad," and who likes what is going to be more subjective than even a car comparison. Also, it largely depends on what you are doing with the truck: pleasure or business. I think that in the pick up truck market appearance (subjective as hell) and loyalty play major factors. How many engine/transmission/cab configuations/box sizes that are available only looks good on paper and confuses a lot of people. Knowing your target market is becoming ever more crucial. GM and Ford with their nearly 1 million annual sales each can afford to be all things to all people. Nissan and Toyota have to be a little more selective. One of the greatest ironies may be that if GM and Ford's truck dominance erodes and the market splinters (as it has in all the other segments), the consumer may end up with LESS choice than before, as companies can no longer afford to innovate in a segment that becomes too fractured and unprofitable. Bringing a new truck to market costs a lot of money, obviously. There is a crisis looming, and it looks not unlike the mid-50s when Ford and Chevy slogged it out, wiping out many smaller independents. Fifty years later, Ford and Chevy are fighting for survival and the future (next three years) will mirror the late '50s, IMO.

I wonder what the consumer reaction was to power steering when it was introduced 50 or so years ago. I have driven Malibus and Equinoxes on and off for the past couple years, and I must say I prefer the electric steering. I guess it largely depends on what you get used to. Now, when I come out of a Malibu and into, say, an Impala I find the steering stiff. In any event, the '07 Equinox ditched the electric steering. A shame, IMO.

I was in Rio two years ago. It helps a lot if you go with a native. In many countries you can become a target if you are a tourist; nothing sinister, it's just that they know you have money. This time around, we went to Sao Paulo, Joao Passoa, Salvador, Florianopolis and back to Sao Paulo again. My Portuguese is not great, so my other half does virtually all the talking, which is better anyway. We bumped into a bunch of Canadian tourists in Florianopolis. They were on an Italian cultural tour. Florianopolis is very, very European. The Canadians complained of a couple situations where the local restaurant/tourist place took advantage of them because of their language/ignorance. But that happens everywhere.

I came back from Brazil last week. Lots of scams there, too. Sitting on a beach in the north results in people trying to hock just about anthing. Get used to saying, "Nao, abridgo" a lot. Try to avoid eye contact. A dismissive wave of the hand works, too, if you are worried about your accent giving you away. (At least I tan easy, so I can blend in!) In the north and Sao Paulo, Chevrolet is clearly the winner, followed by Fiat. Toyota and Honda are mercifully very rare, although I was dismayed to see a few very expensive Toyota trucks down there. GM may be winning the volume war, but I suspect (as usual) Toyota is being more profitable down there. How much money does GM make on a Corsa, for example? In the south, things were a little different. The monied folks in Florianopolis love their Peugots, Citreons and Renaults - they were everywhere. The only badge engineering I saw was a thinly disguised Blazer and the S-10, which looks like our last generation with a bad nose job. Their gas prices are horrendous, so not too many of those anyway. GM is doing the right thing in Brazil by pushing Chevrolet only. Toyota is Toyota. Honda is Honda. No confusion. The bowtie is front and center.

When I had originally heard that Daimler was "merging" with Chrysler years ago, I thought at the time that it was a marriage made in heaven. I figured Chrysler could teach Daimler to design vehicles quicker to market, their new design center was a dream, and that Daimler could fix all of Chrysler's engineering woes - plus, Chrysler got access to Europe and Daimler had access to North America. What the hell happened? This marriage of equals should have created an engineering/design powerhouse. Instead, we get this mess. If GM can get Chrysler for the right price, I guess their are synergies here. I certainly understand GM's concern not to let VW, Hyundai or anybody else get their hands on it. Sometimes, the smartest thing to do is close out your competitor, or just not let it fall into other competitor's hands. I would be a very rich man today if I had followed that advice 17 years ago when I had my own company.

This is the vehicle that the grey-haired set were swarming over at the Toronto Auto Show. Sadly, white paint and all, this car will sell well. Then again, the Smart Car has sold a few thousand in the Toronto area..............................

...WTF?? Typical. The two rivals spend millions slagging each other and paying way too much for the likes of Stern, etc., then go boo hooing to the FCC that they want to merge? I've paid up my XM until August. This doesn't sound good to me. These guys are jumping the gun. Of course their start up costs are going to be high, but don't they amortize those over many years? Name one industry where a single entity resulted in better service and lower costs. Or doesn't anyone remember when it was ILLEGAL to have more than one phone jack, unless you paid to have it installed AND used only Bell equipment?

....he was in the GOOD parts. Things only get worse, once ya hit Kenora.

Yeah? And then what is he going to do with all those Japanese vehicles? Dump them on the American market? Oops, that was already tried once............................

Are you kidding me? Loud and profitable dealers have a lot of influence. Just look at all the Pontiac product dumped on the Canadian market that the Americans don't get. The Buick dealers might be onto something. Don't forget about the P-B-GMC amalgamation going on. Look at all the large cars that grouping will have: G-8, Lucerne, Allure and then the trucks. A lot of confusing inventory and the dealers have to pay for it, not GM.