CARBIZ

Check again. Chrysler has been #2 for some time, and now Toyota is outselling Ford as well. YTD Canadian sales: GM 222,526 Chrysler 145,828 Toyota 134,033 Ferd 131,420 I will agree with the comment that Canadians are a wierd lot. That is why Pontiac and GMC consistently outsell Chevrolet here. I don't understand why, but they do. The Uplander/SV6 outsell the Odyssey and Sienna here as well.

It's the bean counters who ran the company into the ground in the '90s that have caused this mess to pile up. The accounting BS that all big corporations are guilty of is now coming home to roost. It's the guys with the big, fancy degrees in accounting that cook up these wonderful schemes to 'cook the books' so the executives can get their fat pay raises, bonuses, etc. The reason Japan Inc is thriving in this downturn is because a) their middle class has already paid the price back home and b) Japan Inc probably had their accountants all lined up and shot decades ago. Personally, I have nothing against accountants as long as they are back in their coffin by sunrise.

+ 1000% This is one more reason why branding is getting so tough. The 'reason' for buying a Pontiac over a Chevrolet has become confused. What does a CTS have that a Malibu doesn't ? A bigger sunroof and 'pussy' ventilation in the seats? Why spend the extra $10k?

The rebadges from the '80s were obvious and horrible. But here we go again, dragging up what GM did 20 years ago as reasons why it deserves to die today. The average person doesn't know BOF from unibody, nor would they confuse the Impala with the Malibu. It's only when some self-appointed expert with an axe to grind points it out that it becomes an issue. GM is merely the whipping boy for the anti-car lobby that has taken roost at the media these days. I am finding my time more usefully spent these days on other sites where the auto in general is attacked directly. GM and Toyota will duke it out in their own fashion, but if social engineers have their own way, we will all be living in 50 story condos and forced to take transit or a bicycle.

Well, you know what they say: when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.

Let's not lose our heads on this one. (Sorry.) There have actually been quite a few stabbings and murders on Greyhound buses over the years, mostly in the States. Let's face it, you're not necessarily going to get the cream of society on these buses. Those with money and means will fly, rent a car or take the train. Anyone with a broken heart or broken dreams who is down on their luck and wants to get out of town fast can take a bus.

One of the reasons I have not been spending so much time on this site any more is that I am tired of the same old arguments by the same old critics who either don't know what the f#$K they are talking about, or are chiming off for the wrong reasons. It amazes me that someone can make such final judgments from a few pictures, without having even sat in the '09, let alone having driven one for a few days. We got our first '09 Aveo 5 in the other day. The extra power and the reduced harshness is quite a bump above the '08. Yes, when an Aveo is tarted up a Cobalt is not that much more, but there are some people who want the hatch or who think it is going to be easier to park. For a major refresh, the Aveo has now climbed back into the race with the Fit and Versa. They will soon be coming from Mexico which will speed their delivery, too. The interior is quite a bit better than the '08. It may seem a little too dark for some, but I find the lighter greys in the Fit a little too light. C'est la vie. For the harshest of critics of GM, it would seem that GM is more interested in updating the Aveo than they are the Cobalt. The '09 Cobalt finally gets the graphite interior which masks the hideousness of that nylon cloth and the extra ponies make the car even more impressive, but the general cheapness of plastics in the Cobalt is disappointing - frankly, the Aveo interior is better.

Hold onto your hats, girls: it's going to get bumpier. News of major banks in Australia posting bad news made my morning breakfast hard to swallow. The pain is simply everywhere. News of the sheer size of Washington's budget deficit is going to spook markets even more (although, to be fair, as a percentage of GDP, Bush's mess isn't as awful as it sounds - yet.) Not a good time to be in the auto business anywhere.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things it won't matter a lot, but it is one more nail in the coffin for a lot of dealers. Although I can understand WHY GM is doing this, it will have long term consequences. GM is shifting to 0/72 financing, which on many vehicles only makes a difference of $20-30 a month, although it shifts the burden to the consumer. I don't see how it really benefits GMAC, other than being able to 'control' their costs. I took in a '05 Avalanche yesterday with a buy out of $22k, but the market value is more like $13k. Ouch. I think GMAC (or is it Cerebrus?) is over-reacting. If oil tumbles back to $100 a barrel (not completely unlikely) the truck market will recover. Chrysler was the first to ditch 3 year leases (in Canada) back in early 2000 when they started getting raped on incoming minivans that they had whored the crap out of; GM and Ford soon followed with 4 year leasing. For the dealer, however, it will have potential consequences in 3-4 years when all the leases come due and there is nothing to replace them. We had a leasing 'hole' in 2003 when the 3 year leases that GMAC stopped pushing in 2000 were up and the 4 year leases were not due yet. It was an ugly year for a lot of dealers who were used to having that 30-40 unit portfolio flipping every month. If more consumers start keeping their vehicles to the end of 72 months and beyond, total volumes will tumble worse, plus the high profit used car market is going to dry up: there won't be any more low mileage 3 and 4 year vehicles to flog. Of course, GM is providing tons of perks NOW to put the right spin on it, but I have no doubt that once the hype has died down, those incentives will disappear. (Reminds me of how Chev-Olds dealers were told that the GM-DAT product was going to compensate us for the loss of Oldsmobile, then P-B-GMC got the Wave anyway, the Epica turned out to be a dog and the Optra which did sell well is gone now anyway.) Nothing like replacing high profit vehicles like the Intrigue and Alero with the likes of the Aveo and Optra. Volume, yes; money, no. Sorry, different rant.

No power windows?

Pheewwww.....I thought one of my ex's had done a 'kiss'n tell' piece...............

Leasing is big, big business around here. Half my portfolio are leases. The last national stats I saw for Canada put leasing somewhere around 43%. Chrysler is advertising huge cash incentives and ugly 'bi-weekly' payments for 60 months, but with 72 month amortizations around here. That is going to mislead and piss a lot of people off. Wait until they find out they have a balloon payment and they are forced to buy it out! Judging by two battling Chrysler dealers I saw in a local paper the other day, it is not going to be pretty for them. One dealer is advertising a T&C LTD for $27,998, but the fine print states it is for Air Canada employees, Aeroplan employees and Chrysler employees only. Two pages later, another Chrysler dealer, clearly pissed off at the first one, declares 'sale prices should be for everyone,' and advertises a more basic T&C for about the same price. Both advertise at 7.99 rates and 'bi-weekly.' This is going to piss off and confuse a lot of buyers. I do not understand why these dealers would advertise this way. What's worse, why do consumers put up with that BS? A big helping of not good. Chrysler's desperation is showing. The sharks will smell blood in the water, though.

Well, the big power outage that we had in '03 was fun for about the first 8 or so hours. I was liiving on the 26th floor. Fortunately, there were generators for the emergency hall and garage lighting and for the elevators. However, we had no water. I had the wits to try the laundry room taps and there was pressure there, so I was able to bring up pails of water for basic hygiene. My camping gear was locked away, so I had to get the frazzled super to let me into my locker to get my propane stove for coffee. Downtown Toronto was largely without power for about 24 hours. Parts of the city went longer. There were lots of horror stories about tall buildings with no generators for elevators. I have walked DOWN 26 floors before, but not UP.

Cheers to you! I think the crazies are out in force. I got chased by a nutjob in a cubevan yesterday because I gave him the finger at an intersection. (It's a long story.) Shades of Starsky and Hutch! I had to call the cops to get him away from me. Not one of my better days. Although a concerned citizen did step forward and give me his card in case I need a witness for Court.

Like I've said before, something about this entire roller coaster ride stinks to high hell. It sounds to me like somebody, somewhere has made a pile of money and now that the golden goose is starting to croak, they're going to ease off on the throat a little....... In the meantime, my gas bill has gone up $75 a month. I really want to believe this is all a good thing - y'know, to help with prospecting and searching for future oil sources or alternates, but the skeptic in me fears that we are getting it up the ying yang............without a reach around.

A huge explosion in the power room of a major mid-town apartment building through 900 people out of their homes. They will be homeless for at least a month or so. The power room in the condo where my BF works also blew up about a year ago and they had to run off generators for 6 months. There is a lot of aging, badly designed infrastructure out there. Private companies are slacking off on inspections and public utilities are full of lazy, self-entitled ne're do-wells. We had all just better get used to it. Everything in North America was built 50-60 years ago and it is all OLD.

It is almost impossible to talk about General Motors or the auto industry in general these days without getting political. With Jim Press admitting (and, of course Toyota denying) the Synergy drive was handed to Toyota on a silver platter by the Japanese government (big surprise there), how can we separate the two? Maybe some people are jealous of California, maybe some are not, but a charmed existance cannot last forever. Eventually, the cost of living, smog and influx of newcomers is going to turn a very desirable place into something less than that. That is a fact of all real estate markets. Toronto is going through a similar 'renaissance'. Downtown is choked with cement mixers, dump trucks and closed roads due to the explosion of 50 story condos. It has become unbearable to actually live with the mess and noise. It becomes a quality of life issue. Long time residents become resentful of the pressures on infrastructure and local resources. And it is human nature to be suspicious of newcomers. A lively debate is not only healthy but it is interesting. If you want to see the consequences of over-zealous moderators and imposed dialogues, go to www.urbantoronto.com. Boring. Mods love to ban people for not reading directly from the Jane Jacobs handbook. (You know: cars are bad/bicycles are good, pigeons over people, etc.)

Just to be clear, the price of oil increases for YOU guys. It's all relative. The $C is still holding at par today. It really hasn't budged for the past few months. Oil had dropped about $20 a barrel in the past 3 weeks because both the two biggest oil consumers (the U.S. and China) are starting to show cracks in their foundation. They were trying to sneak in a 'OMIDGOD-A-HURRICANE-IS-COMING' surcharge, but it didn't work. The scam artists who are pushing up the price of oil are getting nervous. They realize the market won't support $150 a barrel, so they are backing off. They are afraid to kill the golden goose, so to speak.

I've been haunting a different website lately (I know you guys will miss me, though!) and it sickens me to see some of these people gush about their new 400 sq ft condos they paid $450k for! I see a lot of justifying going on for buying a pill box 300 feet in the air just so you can walk to a Starbucks and pay $5 for a coffee. Then you get sucked into paying an extra $50k to live 30 floors higher, only so some builder comes along and slaps a 50 story building across the street from you. Well, maybe your new neighbors have better cable than you - you can always watch their TV. This is what is being passed off as city living these days. But it's all good because with the $6k you save on car ownership you can replace your bike 8 times year when it gets stolen. I think people need a bit more imagination when it comes to picking a place to spend the rest of their life. Just because some magazine says a place is a great place to live, does not mean that is true. (Hmm, doesn't that sound familiar?) Maybe for the guy writing the article (who makes $80k a year and bought his house 25 years ago!), but for the average chump, I am not so sure.

I've often thought that if I had a time machine, I'd love to back and have a good chat with my 15 year old self. (Well, that would be AFTER I went back a little further and convinced a certain art teacher that Hitler actually had a great deal of talent!) My chat with my 32 year younger self would be simple: Keep it in your pants, buddy, and stay in friggin' school!!!!

It's always risky recommending to friend's and family. After all, how many people know what they want and how many people are informed enough to ask the right questions? I've seen lots of people asking about sedans and then drive off in a convertible. You never really know what is going on inside their mind. Plus, with family they may be to embarassed to be completely honest with you. (What they want versus what they can afford, for example.) Of course it's always fun when a friend buys a vehicle without your help, then comes whining to you when they realized they made a mistake, as was the case with a friend of mine that thought they bought a 1 year old 155" cargo van, but ended up with a 135" van. For the most part, I stay out of it with friends and family. Let them buy what they want and avoid the subject at Thanksgiving.

Well, I'd warrant that Richard SMELLS better.

Interesting. I've personally taken at least two or three customers who have inquired about this vehicle, but nobody is stocking them. Sometimes it is difficult to get through to thick management that you can't sell what you don't have. Recently, I managed to convince a man with a '01 PT Cruiser to take a HHR LS only because nobody had the SS for him to drive. I'll never know if he would have stepped up the extra few grand for the SS. I'm having the same problem with the SS Cobalt. I've been working an internet customer for a YEAR (he wants the sedan which is not out yet) and now that he can order one, I will have to send him to another dealer to drive one.

It's always a balancing act. Often popular locations can become victims of their own success. They do run the risk of pricing themselves out of the market. Eventually, some sort of 'push back' in the market can take hold. For example, if you are a teacher making $50k a year, would you rather live in L.A. where a bungalo will cost you $400k, or in Seattle where it is 1/3 less? I am pulling these numbers out of my ass to make a point. If you are a long time L.A. resident (having bought your home 25 years ago), then it is a wash - other than the traffic. However, if you are looking to set up in L.A., the entry costs are prohibitive. If a place becomes too popular, then some of the reasons for living there in the first place can diminish with time. The balance of L.A.'s nice weather, versus famous smog being one example. I suspect a 7.5 on the richter scale might not do L.A. county any favors either.

I skimmed the article, then dismissed it as a poorly written piece of crap. $3,995 MORE for the Malibu Hybrid? Ah, hello - IDIOT - when you get the hybrid version, you also get the 1LT equipment (Stablitrak, etc) not available on the LS, so the price increase (apples to apples) is $2,100. That's HALF. That doesn't make for as sensational headlines, though.