CARBIZ

Honey, I am probably the ORIGINAL fag :AH-HA_wink: My parents 'found out' in '76 (when I was 15.) Try holding hands with your BF on Yonge St. in 1978 and see what kind of cat-calls you lived through. That was at the height of Anita Bryant's fanatiscism! Plus, when I worked at Canada's biggest Caddy dealer in '81/'82, I was out to all the guys there - and managed a couple dates out of that knowledge, too! Back on topic, though, to add to what Paolino said, keep you finances separate in the beginning, get a good prenup if a house or condo is involved, but be prepared to amalgamate your finances should the relationship last past 3 or 4 years. One of the reasons my BF of 10 years and I spit up was that when we met I was making a lot of money (had my own company), had a boat, the car, the house, the fab holidays - all paid for by me. He was 23, I was 30. But when we moved to the big bad city (after my family pulled a coup on my company), and our finances took a huge dive, trouble began. My attempts at putting him on a budget failed and even as my income continued to be double his, I naively thought we could keep our finances separate. It wasn't until I gave up on that, and we 'decided' that he would 'give' me half what he made and I would pay ALL the bills (except his cigarettes, junk food, and clothing stuff), that things finally began to calm down. Then we split up. The joke was on me. Current BF makes about the same as me, but has a ton of money in Brazil, so I am the one playing catch up this time. And watch out for year 4 BLAHS. Straight people can handle it, because they usually have kids to bog them down and distract themselves from the fact that they haven't had sex in 3 months, and they've both gained 40 lbs, but we gay folk don't have those distractions. Be prepared to get 'creative' with the sex life. Lust is part of love, IMO, and those who ignore the sex part are asking for trouble when something younger (inevitably) comes along and catches one's eye. You do reach a comfort zone in year 3 and 4, but be wary of taking each other for granted. You'd be asking for big trouble. And say, "I love you' every day.

...and the service departments of dealers all over North America are salivating!

Try paying $18k for a base Cobalt or Civic and $23k for a Cobalt 2.4 or $26k for the Si. Canadians are getting a little tired of paying .65 prices when our dollar is above par. Sure, in my market, most people lease and our lease payments are competitive, but all the manufacturers here have to lower their stickers and stop playing games with cash credits, zero financing, etc.

My mother, now that husband #3 has passed away (BTW, any guys out there interested? she's got money) wants to get rid of her Grand Caravan. Too big for shuttling her carcass back and forth from her place in Panama City Beach and Collingwood. Friends of hers down in Florida have a Vibe. She likes it. Asked my opinion on the internet. (Besides the fact that I've only spoken to her once - at her late husband's funeral in December, in 6 years) Here is what I told her: the Vibe is gutless. I know 2 people who own them and they got rid of them because they have no power. She is used to 6 cylinders, so I think the Vibe would be too small for her. Since my mother will do as she pleases anyway, what I opine doesn't matter, but I told her to consider the HHR, the Journey (even though Dodge has re-invented 1990s plastics), and the Uplander (only because the RWB is cheaper than the Journey.) She has a dog and will do a fair bit of highway driving. I am also trying to talk her into leasing, because paying cash is not really smart, even though she has more cash now than she will ever be able to take with her. She is 66 this year and being as she is the Spawn of Satan, she will probably live another 30 years. (BTW, I know what this revelation implies, but if you knew my family, I must be adopted.) Anyone who knows me postings on this board knows that I would never recommend an import for her, and in one of the few sensbilities she has, she would never buy an import. Husband #2 did buy a (then new) '79 Datsun 510, which we all thought bizarre at the time (even though I grudgingly admitted was a nice car.) She has owned a bunch of Caravans, then had a 1980 Ford Econoline, all customized up, complete with murals and shag carpet (and about 10 mpg).

:rotflmao: We sold a few of those Aveos, with the 'snow plow kit,' as I liked to call them. Really great for Ontario roads. We got one back on a trade, the lower fascia was all cracked and mangled after only a couple years. It was cheaper to just take it off. One guy had his puttied and painted a few times before giving up. They are also great for helping people find the curb when parking.

Good luck. Trust your own judgment. I had one relationship last 10 years and my current BF has lived with me for nearly 6: both moved in with me in a matter of a few weeks of meeting. I never had second thoughts. When I was dating, guys (usually the younger ones) would ask,"How do you know if you've met the right one." The answer to that is very simple: you don't ask. You just know. And if you do have to ask, then something isn't right and your inner voice is setting off alarm bells. Having a BF that knows NOTHING about cars can save on the arguments, though!

Well, I would definitely be going solo. I can't get the BF to go the auto show in Toronto here. But I guess an Optra 5 would be an impressive sight down there, considering you guys never got the privilege of getting them down there.

If I was given a Corolla rental, I would walk. I was forced to drive them when customers whined they were going to shop the Cobalt against them and that was quite enough. The last rental I had was a Mustang when I was in Vegas and L.A. in October - loved it, especially on Mulholland Dr. Before that, I had a Fiat and a Corsa, in Brazil. It's nothing against Toyota, but I had to drive lots of them in my previous job. That was asking too much.

Wow, some of you guys like stayin' up late on a weeknight! OC, you are Spring chicken, compared to me (although I do TELL people I am 37, ha, ha). The 'fights' are what makes this place lively, sir. It would be about as monotonous as talking to my sister if everyone here agreed. Besides, it's all good practice when one comes across 'import humpers' in the real world. And ya never know, sometimes you do pick up the odd tid-bit about how the 'other side' thinks. I used to haunt Toyota Nation for a while, but that place was scary. I didn't post much there, just observe. Still, I felt I was in a bad episode of Twilight Zone, so I stopped. I don't have a lot of time for the internet. It seems that whenever the BF sees me on C&G, he catches me staring at a pic of BV and thinks I am on some twink porno site! I may come across as one of the more 'forgiving' members on the board because I am not as 'demanding' (perhaps) in what I expect a vehicle to do and because I have lived through much worse - the Eighties, for example. My partner thinks I take life too seriously, but I get frustrated when I see both our countries changing for the worse and most people too oblivious or selfish to notice or care. That includes Detroit. I ran my own company for 11 years, so I have a pretty good idea how getting kicked from all sides can be rough, so that may make me a little more sympathetic to Detroit's plight, too. And as a general rule, I try to stay off C&G Saturday evening (which is the only time I drink, or worse), because I tend to be even more type-first-think-later It would be a blast to meet someplace with a bunch of the east coast/midwest types. I used to make weekend excursions to Chicago, Buffalo, Montreal, even down into the Allegheny State Forest (in my younger days.)

Exactly. How the hell are the marketing people and product planners supposed to plan for that? When GM ruled North America, there really were only a few types of vehicles. SUVs practically did not exist. Most people drove big cars. Imports were for hippies. Pickups were for farmers and contractors. The demographic changes of the past 25 years alone must give most advertising companies apoploxy. And the targets move constantly. GENERAL Motors is going to find it very, very difficult to remain GENERAL going forward in the future, which is one reason why Toyota has had an edge and a free ride: they have only had to do one model very well and grow into that. GM has had a starving, bloated dealer network to feed - not an easy task. Perhaps a benchmark Malibu is all GM needs, but then what about Pontiac, Saturn and Buick? That is one of the greatest challenges. Look at the back and forth endless debate on this board about whether any brands should be dropped. Toyota only has to worry about one dealer network and one model in each category.

Isn't playing Revisionist History fun? I was 21 when I saw my first K-car. It was a taxi, actually, sitting at the luxury hotel where I was working at the time. I had just parked a Rolls Camargue (the most expensive car at the time) and had a long chat with the cabby about his car. He loved it. As this thread says, the Eighties Sucked. We all know that. But for those of us who lived it, it was one punch in the head after another: detuned V-8s, the sudden appearance of FWD, hardtops and convertibles gone (then suddenly back, although the Dodge 600 was truly ghastly, too). The automotive world tried to fool us with talking cars (EEK - my New Yorker just told me to F$#K off!) and dazzling digital dashes. The K-car saved Chrysler. Against the Tercels, J-2000s and Escorts of the day, it was more than competitive. It was cheap, decent on gas (not by today's standards, mind you) and had a lot of space inside - a very efficient interior lay out. They were also very cheap to repair, which you did have to do ofte, but then so did everyone else's POS break down or rust out, too. Trust me, the Citation and the Corolla of its day were no better.

I wouldn't know: I have been listening to XM Radio for the past 2 years, and before that only certain digital stations from my cable provider. When I see commercial pop music today (like at the grammies), I think how unoriginal most of this stuff is. However, if you get off the Top 40 stations, there is a lot of good stuff out there.

+ 1 I doubt we will see many Datsun 210s, Tercel hatcbacks, Stellars or J2000s in auto museums anytime soon. However, there was some very cool early electonica (Kraftwerk, Nina Hagen, Giorgio Moroder) to come out of that era, but I guess you have to be into that kind of music. (I am.) Alan Parsons 'I, Robot' perverted me and put me on the path to electronica.

The pickup truck market and the mid-sized sedan market couldn't be more different. Sure, a lot of pick up truck sales are to posers, but then again a lot of them are to people who need something tough and durable, which is why the Ford and GM twins own the market. To place a pick up buyer in the same class as a mid-sized family sedan buyer is...well, naive to be charitable. It is pretty clear that the Camry has a lot of things going for it, but it seriously is the most boring car on the planet. Nobody that buys one has had a single neuron in their head fire in at least 5 years. Challenge that? The Accord alone is a superior product but does not sell as well. Undoubtedly, the Malibu is going to have an uphill climb against the Camcords out there, but we are cheered by the fact that the Malibu did outsell the Accord in Canada in January. I know one month does not a trend make, but when was the last time GM could even boast that? What has happened to Detroit in the past 10 years is not alarming, merely inevitable. If GM were to sail below 20% market share, then I would panic, but what GM enjoyed in the '60s and '70s was something that robber barons of the 19th century would have envied. The media is already devouring itself in it own irrelevancy: witness the Malibus top scores with most concerns and 3rd or 4th with others. After beating GM and Ford into near bankruptcy, they are now turning their attentions to Japan. The recent mea culpa from CR about Toyota is testimony to that. I hate to say this, but $5 a gallon gasoline is going to shut a lot of 'enthusiasts' up and the implosion of the real estate market south of our border is going to realign a lot of people's thinking. Those that clamor for everything with 500 hp and 21 speeds will be silenced into bankruptcy. As the Wallstreet fat cats dump their BMWs and Audis for something more 'practical,' we may see a return to sensibility in the auto market. People might actually start giving a $h! about other people's jobs, once they start losing their own.

Very true. We live in a society where we are surrounded by information but most people are numb to it. If you challenge most of these dolts as to why domestic vehicles are inferior, they state it as fact as though it were in the Bible, but they cannot support it with any evidence. We are also greatly influenced by what our parents/peers drive as we grow up. I am the first to admit that I have never owned an import because I grew up surrounded by Detroit metal. Even two bad experiences with Dodge products in the '80s did not sour me on Detroit because I looked at the Tercels and Civics of the day and realized they were really no better than the cars I was driving. Most people cannot and will not think for themselves. There is comfort and safety in herds. How else do you explain the governments that get elected these days?

Opinions are like.....well, you know the rest.

What about it Reg?

Some day when I have time, I should load the pictures I scrawled in the mid-70s when I was 14 of all the cars I dreamt about. I had visions of the entire Chrysler line up in the early '80s. There is absolutely nothing wrong with cockiness in youth.

I, and Copernicus, agree with you.

You make some very good points, but good luck with that. One very interesting point I came across with the vaunted Kyoto Protocal is that oceanic shipping companies are exempt from the emissions calculations. Isn't that very convenient for China and Japan? Along the same lines of school consolidation, I have often watched 2/3 empty buses plying up and down the streets of downtown Toronto, even during peak hours. The problem is that the unionized driver makes close to $30 an hour with benefits, so although it sounds like a good idea to buy smaller buses and hire more drivers, there would be no cost savings since labor probably costs more than the diesel in the bus. The schools face the same problems, I suspect. I read a couple years ago that Ontario has 4 people in non-teaching jobs for every teacher in the school system. Now there is a sign that the system is broken! Both our nations highways are choked with truck traffic, thanks to the 'just in time' delivery efficiencies (not) of manufacturers today. Whereas 30 years ago, big plants would stockpile parts shipped by more efficient trains, we now face double the truck traffic for parts shipped on an as needed basis. The trucking lobby is very powerful, but they need to start baring the true costs of their pounding our roadways and highways, which of course would get passed onto the manufactures who may then look at shipping by train again as more cost effective.

Another point to be made is that in today's world we are being absolutely bombarded with information - way too much information. Any interest group today has to shout from the rooftops just to be heard. Undoubtedly there is an awful lot of hyperbole being exercised with regards to the global warming debate; however, there is no doubt whatsoever that we need to start somewhere. I made this point before: those of us old enough to remember will remember the state the highways and streets were back in the '60s with respect to litter. My parents generation would have thought nothing about throwing pop can out the window of a moving car, or dumping their ashtray on the street. When I was in grade school, there was a big push against littering and pollution. We drew posters in school, scolded our parents, but it was all for the best. I will walk a block out of my way to drop a pop can in a bin now. It is all about responsibility, but it does all go back to the root evil: over population. As a species, until we figure out how to convince the lower-income, lower educated peoples of the world that having 5 or 6 kids in a family is irresponsible, we are doomed.

Well, buckle up - I doubt this tired old planet will sustain the 10 billion souls that will be on this planet in 40 years, so we'd better start buying real estate on Mars now.

Yes, we have rehashed this before. Keep in mind the Civic is 2 model years newer than the Cobalt - it should be 'better.' The greater tragedy is that GM aimed for the Mazda 3 and barely reached that. GM was quick to acquire Daewoo, but has been slow in really capitalizing on any synergy there. The Aveo was competitive 4 years ago (and may be again when th new one comes out in a few months with the tweaked motor), but has been overtaken. It is easy to see GM's point 10 years ago when small cars were unprofitable and SUVs sales were growing by leaps and bounds. However, that argument lost its luster about 3 or 4 years ago. The main issue here is that GM has been fighting a war on about 15 different fronts and is only now capitalizing on its international ties. A bunch of us at GM were talking about the lack of stick shift on the new Malibu, for example, and the GM guys were quick to point out that since the new Honda Accord is sold globally and they do sell manuals elsewhere, it cost Honda nothing to make available the manual Accord in North America - even if less than 3% are sold with the stick. The irony lost on the GM corporate guys is that the Malibu should also be sold globally, or a European or Asian version sold here - as is. I agree that the lack of manual won't matter a hill of beans to sales of the Malibu here, but if the same car was sold on 3 or 4 continents, then the development costs would be spread around. Wouldn't it be great if the Malibu did sell a half million copies again like it once did, even if those sales were around the globe. This is the next big challenge facing Detroit, I believe. The Colorado replacement, the upcoming NG Cobalt, etc. should all be the same GLOBALLY. Spread the development costs across a million units and aim for 3 years beyond the launch date.

You're forgetting a major factor in the over all efficiency of a powertrain: the transmission. Why would the Impala be at the top of its class in fuel economy with the 3.4 engine (I'm talking the last generation), while the Alero with the same motor got atrocious mileage: the transmission gears and programming. I actually was getting better mileage with the heavier and larger Malibu a couple years ago than with the Cobalt, which had the same 2.2 motor. Go figure. GMNA's automatics are just so damned efficient. That also explains why my current Optra (which does not have a GM-built tranny) gets comparably worse mileage than the more powerful Cobalt. Every driver is different, to be sure, but I have changed my cars on average every 4 -5 months for the past 11 years. One of the first things I do when I get a 'new' vehicle that I am unfamiliar with, is top the tank up, zero out the odometer and run at least two tanks to see what kind of mileage and range I can get. This has also proven to be effective when customers whine and bitch about how 'poor' their mileage is. I can get an extra 50km on a tank in the Spring/Fall than what I would get right now when the temperature dips to - 10 celsius regularly. Hell, I remember I bought a 13 year old K-car (as a winter beater) a few years back and was appalled that it was getting 25 mpg! It was gutless (0-60 probably measured in hours) and had horrible mileage, but it was ancient (although in immaculate shape) and had a ghastly old 3 spd automatic. I also had a Mazda Protege with a stick that got horrible gas mileage, but then the way that vehicle was geared, the tach was spinning at 3,500 rpm at 110 km/hr! No wonder the mileage was awful. The Cobalt auto, by comparison, will sit at a much more leisurely 2,400 rpm at 110.

It's all relative. The oil that oozed out of the ground (see: Beverly Hillbilllies) and cost next to nothing to process is all gone. It is now nothing more than degrees. Ethanol, in my opinion is nothing more than a temporary measure - a way to stretch out the already exhausted U.S. domestic supply. None of the alternative energy sources have zero carbon footprint. Not solar, not nuclear, not windmills, nada. After all, each of those sources requires a lot of technology and manufacturing to begin their life cycles , plus maintenance of equipment. We can dance around the subject for the next 50 years, but the bottom line is that as a civilization, humanity is going to have to figure out how to make an economy flourish, and keep our planet running on ZERO growth. The developing world has to stop breeding like rabbits and the developed world has to learn how to prosper without growth. There are plenty of resources on this planet to go around, but we can't keep growing our economies (or populations) at 3% a year and not expect some serious fall out in the near future. When you think about it, our entire economy is nothing more than a gigantic pyramid scheme. Figure out how to acheive prosperity without that pyramid and I warrant all of our problems will be solved. All of them.