CARBIZ

The color of the vehicle, the angle of the shot and the lighting effect everything. Number 6 looks hot, but I think it is mostly the color and angle. I voted for #3. It just looks cleaner than the rest.

Let's face it, with 60 mo. leases cheap, cheap build quality, Kia's and Hyundais appeal to those very young people who will then spend all their money on insurance. Being young and (therefore) new at driving, they tend to bump into things. Also, being new to the whole car ownership thing, they don't realize how much they will get nailed when they try and return the car. Back on topic, I watch the sniping on the board with mixed feelings. Part of me loves the scandal of it; however, I don't understand why people feel the need to get nasty and personal. We all have our own viewpoints. Sometimes, however, those of you who think you know everything annoy those of us who do. (That was a joke, kiddies!)

FWD was a means to an end in the early '80s to get the MPG numbers up - fast. Yes, technology in the '90s could mean a resurgence of RWD vehicles with better numbers than their 20 year old counterparts, but apples to apples, FWD would get better mileage than RWD. $5 a gallon will kill RWD platforms, plain and simple. I have said this before, the United States (and to a lesser extent, Canada) are exceptions to the rule. Nowehere else on the planet do we have this obsession with power, size and RWD because everywhere else on this planet they have been paying $5 a gallon or more for a very long time.

As an atheist, I find all religions equally pointless, but I would strongly oppose any laws designed to curtail one religion's rights over another's. I survived many years of the Lords Prayer in school (before they were banned.) It is interesting to watch the liberal-left struggle to include absolutely everybody, which is virtually impossible. Protecting minority rights does sometimes go against what the majority BELIEVES or FEELS. Somebody's rights will necessarily get trampled on. There is no way of avoiding that. The only thing that scares me is the resurgence of the creationist movement in the United States. It has always puzzled me that while the U.S. purports to be the most advanced, richest, mightiest country the world has ever known, it has more than its fair share of wing nuts in the religious right. Is there something in the water down there?

Thanks, Andy. Glad to know you are more upset that I would "shame" my friends than the guy who would beat up an import owner. Typical attitude of an import buyer. For the record, you paid to much for your Camry. You could have bought a Malibu and pocketed a couple grand, plus cheaper insurance, etc. I sell both Chevrolet and Toyota, so I know what I am talking about. Go ahead, send more jobs to Asia and when you have a McJob down the road, don't blame us who support the Big 2.5.

The imports way out number the domestics in Toronto. Five years ago, that clearly was not the case. Being a masochist, I love to count a line of cars parked at the side of the street at random. Never do the Big Three account for more than 30% of the total in the street - and often they consist of 8 year old Caravans or Cavaliers. GM is tied with Toyota in SALES in the greater Toronto area, but I can feel that we are sinking. Outside Toronto, things are vastly different. YOu see a lot more Chevs and Fords.

I think 1959 was the peak of American design and power. Many of my favorite cars come out of that year: '59 Buick, '59 Chevy, '59 New Yorker. Frankly, I don't think any of the vehicles were ugly that year!

As usual, GM is losing the PR battle on this one. While GM is exploring other technologies and building hybrid buses, Toyota has struck a chord with the media on their hybrid vehicles - and as we all know, it is in this arena that a lot of the vanilla car buyers can be swayed.

I was in Brazil recently and they have a lot of diesel vehicles there. You can barely breathe at a cross walk in many areas of Sao Paulo. They are paying $R2.36 a litre - which is more than triple what Americans pay. Unless diesels improve a lot more, I am dead set against them.

Welcome to reality, my friend. GM's biggest mistake, in their eyes, is not making available manual transmissions on every vehicle and still building (horrors!) push rod engines. Because of those two main reasons, they look down their noses at EVERYTHING GM builds. Car critics are no different than movie critics. They snipe and nitpick at every little thing, instead of just enjoying the damned movie! Just enjoy the damned vehicle and take it for what it is. Constructive criticism is a good thing; nitpicking is just BS.

I would never be caught dead in an imported vehicle. I would shame any of my friends who bought one. However, "keying," defacing, or any type of vandalism on someone else's property is just plain wrong. No matter how misguided or stupid that person may be.

Great read, Z28. I agree with most of what you have said. Your ratings may be a tad optimistic, but your comments are bang on. The most important point is GM can't just sit back. Already Toyota has replacement for the Echo that takes away the Aveo's two biggest advantages: interior size and the fact that the Echo was FUGLY from any angle. The cars demand 2nd year refreshes and 3rd year bigger changes to keep the leasing customers happy, if nothing else. Toyota and Honda do it. Why can't we?

Exactly. I've never seen the need for a 50 spd transmission, but they are coming! Another silly marketing war is gearing up: number of gears. It used to be a decade or two between gears - now, only a couple years.

Yeah, our idiot courts just allowed the Province Of BritishColumbia to sue the tabacco companies to recoup their health care costs. Duh? Last time I looked, cigarettes were legal. Full disclosure: I don't smoke. So we can see an example of the type of breathtaking logic we can expect from the government. However, having said that, energy is becoming a matter of national security. In fact, we in North America could just choose to ignore all those wackos in the Middle East if we didn't need their oil so damned badly. And health care is killing the Big Three. Face it gals: the U.S. consumes 25% of the world's oil. A 5% drop would be, like a million barrels a DAY saved. I know many people on this board are married to their Tahoes and Silverados, but we on this continent are the only ones on the planet who have the luxury of driving such vehicles enmasse. Not in South America, not in Europe. Not anywhere else.

Okay, after I got as far as the above quote, I realized that this is just a joke. Surely nobody, not even from some deepwoods bayou would take this crap seriously! I was shocked at first, then started to laugh out loud.

How is buying a f@#king pizza the same thing as buying a $30,000 vehicle????? Washington doesn't care what kind of pizza you buy. Trade wars aren't fought over pizza! Would you walk into work with a Pappa Johns bag and eat it in front of the customers? Would you use your Dell laptop where you work at a Sony Store in front of the customers? These are the issues. And I don't think we are talking about some entry level "would you like fries with that?" kind of job where you work for six months and then are off to the next minimum wage job. We are talking about high paying, relatively skilled jobs that are supposedly careers. Nobody expects you to sell your Nissan the day you start work at Ford, but when it comes time to trade it in, damn straight you should be looking at a Ford. Pride and supporting your fellow workers!

Good article, but the Yen problem is not the elephant in the room. Americansand Canadians love imported goods. Don't just blame the media, although I do agree they are part of the problem. Drive through any affluent neighborhood, especially on the coasts. In the Toronto area, Rosedale is the ritzy neighborhood. I walk my dog through there all the time and let me tell you: the driveways are full of Lexus, Infiniti, Jaguar, BMW - not an American car in sight. If the Japanese stop buying American treasury bills - now that is the real elephant in the room. Take a look at your current account - far more money leaves your country than comes in. That defictit of goods and services is being paid for by foreign interests; namely, the Saudis, Japan and China. Ironic, isn't it? You buy cheap Asian goods which put Americans out of work, the Chinese buy raw materials from Canada to build these products from and then store away American dollars in the way of treasury bills to deflate their own currency, thus the cycle begins again. Sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost. American money policy may some day be at the mercy of foreign nationals so don't expect much more than saber rattling from Washington.

But you can't look at it like that. You have to look at the buy out (which is probably pretty cheap) and see if that is a good deal for YOU. Of course you should buy a new car - who wouldn't want one? And GM always had a CASH price or a lease/finance price that didn't include the cash back. As I posted earlier, each vehicle's deals are different and they are different at various times of the year. twenty one grand for a Cavalier, considering that would include the taxes and 4 years of interest is not bad - not for 2002. Of course, six months ago you could have bought a 2005 for $12k, but even with taxes, fees and (horrors) INTEREST if you didn't actually have the cash, you would still have paid $18-19k. (Of course, you would at least have gotten the ecotec engine!) Naturally, the dealer is going to tell you to lease or buy another car, but unless you have money to put down, you are into another $300+ payment on another lease on a Cobalt/Optra/Aveo. Don't believe the ads: $179/mo (plus tax) on a Kia Rio is ZERO DOWN, but they still want $2,000 UP FRONT, and that is for a 5spd no a/c, nothing. And that is a 60 month lease!! OUCH. If there is one thing I would tell you NOT to do, that would be NEVER, NEVER, NEVER lease any vehicle for 60 months. You will get sucked dry when you return it - I know, I dig customers out of 60 month leases (Kia, Hyundai, etc.) all the time. Awful, just awful.

The last car I owned was a 1991 Caprice wagon that I factory ordered. My friends at the time thought I was nuts. I was 29 when I ordered it and still single. However, I put a 200W Cd in it, complete with bazookas in the footwell of the third row. I had the windows blacked out. I put American Racing wheels on it. It actually looked "tubbed" when I was done with it. The first runner up was the 1991 Thunderbird SC. Strange, eh? I had also looked at the (then)new Previa but it was over priced (what else is new?) and way under powered. Practicality has always been important to me. The Caprice had ABS, a single air bag and a torquey V-8. I knew I was buying a boat and would have to be able to tow and I had a canoe. The T-bird would have been a boy magnet, though. Kinda glad I never got it, though: I put 240k on the Caprice in 6 years and only put a condenser, a set of front shocks and a starter on it. Not bad. Oh, and I towed my boat to Florida in 1995. Beautiful!

Naturally I am relieved, but I hope GM has sent the proper message to the UAW, which will prove to be the greater challenge when their contract is up. Although a strike would have been painful now, I hope Hargrove was sent the message to tell his buddies in Michigan to not expect kid gloves. I have to have faith the GM knows what they are doing. This is like a chess game: you gotta guess two or three moves ahead what your opponent will do. If not, we are just postponing the pain until 2007.

The McDonalds case is just the most famous. Every major (and small) company pays out thousands or millions of dollars every year in stupid legal cases. When I was manager at a big retail store, I had an incident of woman slipping and falling on a wet spot (it was snowing like hell outside) on our floor. The stupid b**** was wearing high heeled boots in a storm!!!! She stood up very quickly, stammered her apologies and hustled out before we could check on her (no doubt hugely embarrased), but later head office heard from her lawyer. No sense of responsibility. Victim society. Blame someone else.

It is called PRIDE. If I sold IBM computer, I would own one, plain and simple. Take pride in your work. To me, that is just a given, but then that is probably why the work ethic has gone all to crap in this country...nobody has pride in their job. Come on - nobody should not have to FORCE you to buy what you build, but if you don't have pride but just collect a pay check - that is just a shame. Maybe that little Chinese girl making 50 cents an hour is just damned glad to have a job to feed her family and has some pride in her work. Something we all take for granted. Work for Chrysler, buy a Ford???? WTF?

I have often said to management that when we do a used car appraisal we should hand the prospective customer a bill, itemizing all the deductions due to scratches, dents and excess wear. Believe me, if you owned the Cavalier and were trading it in, you would get deducted for the shape it is in, you just wouldn't see the bill. The trouble with a lot of people in their leases is that they treat the car like sh*t. Have you ever heard someone say,"Oh, don't worry about it, it is leased!" Sounds like you should get in touch with your original salesperson and ask him/her to get off their ass and help you. Scratches and dents are only charged for if they are above a certain size; otherwise, it is just normal wear and tear. If a dent is bad, there are companies like Dent Wizard, etc. that can go to your house and fix them for a nominal charge. Sometimes, the dealer can do that and just put it into the payment for you. In many cases, leasing is BETTER than financing. For example, right now to lease a 2006 Impala, the rate is 1%, but the finance rate is 3.9%. In this case, you would actually SAVE about $1,500 (I am at home right now so I can't work it out exactly) if you leased the Impala and then bought it out. Sometimes, GMAC has hidden things like "lease cash" (like the 4 door Cobalt has right now) that you don't get if you finance or pay cash. Your salesperson's sworn job is to manage your account for you, to advise you when to get out of the lease. Timing is everything. Your Cavalier would be a great car to buy out and drive into the ground until you were on your feet and could get something you really want in a couple years. Call GMAC 1-800-616-4622, have your acct # or VIN handy and get them to send you the papers to buy it out yourself, if that is what you choose to do. Or call your dealer and ask for help. Screw 'em if they won't help you.

Canadian made: MDG, locally assembled and sold. Bought three years ago, then just spent $800 (don't ask!) upgrading it last month . Never, ever use Future Shop for anything, boys and girls! They started the SIMPLE project of adding 512mb of RAM, putting in a new video card and adding a DVD burner, charging me $550 to do that, then I had to pay a guy over $200 to wipe the computer completely and reinstall everything because whatever Future Shop did buggered up the system. Then, of course, I had to spend another !00 on a new modem and network card because I couldn't find the original discs from three years ago and the old modem is "no longer supported." Frankly, if the auto industry was the same as the computer industry, we'd all be riding in horse and buggies because they would be more reliable. Anyway, P4, 1.7ghz, 768mb DDR RAM, Radion ATI 9550, 80gig hard drive, 19 CRT monitor (it is ugly and huge!) I just want to get another couple years out of it then I will buy a laptop.

If you buy your car out, you can do it yourself (provided you have the cash), but you will need to pay for a safety (Ontario's rules) and your emissions test must be less than a year old. The safety itself will cost you about a $100, provided they don't find anything wrong. Tires, signals, brakes - all have to be above a certain spec to pass. If you call GMAC, they can send you a kit via fax (letters to the Ministry, etc) that will walk you through it. If the dealer handles the buy out for you, chances are they will charge you their customary admin, registration fees, usually amounting to around $300, but they can arrange the financing for you - OAC, of course! If you go new from a dealer, then you have the admin, registration fees, plus the PPSA (again the government charging for the lien). Advertised prices are usually plus freight (almost always $1,000, give or take), admin, taxes and fees. GM does not charge PDI (or PDE, whatever), unlike many of the imports. The dealer is credited for this work. The gas tax is $75 on most cars - higher on SUVS and non-existent on trucks. Most of these fees and taxes are - TAXABLE. Used vehicles from a dealer will avoid the freight and gas taxes, but you will still pay the admin, registration and PPSA (unless cash, naturally.) Of course, you can buy privately or from a small lot and their fees may be less, but then - who knows what you are buying, right? I would rather lease my own car and then (possibly) buy it out at the end, than buy a used vehicle. Unless the used vehicle was only a year old with lots of factory warranty, or from someone I knew and I knew that car, too. Give me a well looked after older car (like the '95 Cutlass Supreme 2 dr. I saw yesterday - black on black with 90k!) that is only worth a couple grand, or a daily rental with lots of warranty. Everything in between I don't like. Just my opinion, though.