CARBIZ

Not news. Saturn/Saab have always been paired here. So have P-B-GMC. Seems like your northern neighbors are ahead of the times (again.) Cadillac is 'free-flowing,' but has most often been postioned with P-B-GMC stores up here.

How do 3 people shower at once?

Farewell and good luck. I have always enjoyed the posts you made and the arguments you started. I understand your situation only too well. I was shocked (and flattered?) when my previous District Manager of GM made a point of approaching me at a meeting and telling me that 'they' knew who I was 'Carbiz.' It was a slightly scary feeling that the powers that be in Oshawa had taken the time to figure out who I was. (Of course, it has also given me pause when I post now, too.) GM is watching. We know that. All the best to you.

Tracker customers were fiercely loyal and we sold/leased a ton of them. They were pretty tough trucks in their day; perhaps a little 'over kill' for their intended market. Even without a 6, we moved a lot of them. I would kill for a replacement.

Good points. Detroit was at its best when it took risks. Wallstreet has too much power these days, however, for that to happen again. Just look how different any mid-60s Detroit iron looked from each other: there was no mistaking an Impala from a Catalina or a Polara from a Belvedere. The '50s and '60s were about whimsy and design: spoilers, fins, push button trannies, square steering wheels - it was all fun. Then again, they didn't have crash tests or committees and other crap to get by. Still, I can't help but think that sometimes Detroit just thinks we are all STUPID. Perhaps Chrysler needed a break with the original K-cars because they simply didn't have the money, and they had a bonafide hit on their hands anyway, but this constant cloning/rehashing of the same vehicle, whether it is Ford, GM or Toyota, is silly. You can fool some of the people most of the time.....................

Ok, you do make a couple good points, but I think in many markets it has gone beyond 'greedy' dealers. We are talking about dealer survival here. People's jobs and livelihoods. While GM thrashes around (perhaps deliberately?) trying to figure out the correct product mix, real people's lives are being destroyed. I don't know of any dealer in the greater Toronto area that is making money right now. I just had a friend crap out after 3 months at a major Mazda dealership because they were selling THIRTY FIVE new vehicles a MONTH. MADZA. In a heavily Asian neighborhood, too! GM f$#ked up with neglecting the Chevy dealers for lambda, plain and simple. I don't know how far along the P-B-GMC amalgamation is going down there in the U.S., but it has been reality here forever. It makes no sense for those dealers to have TWO, while Chevy dealers are stuck with a Trailblazer they can't give away (not even with 0% 72 month financing, I might add), an Equinox that has languished for 4 years the same (unless you include the Sport, but nobody up here knows it exists). Chevy dealers can no longer make excuses for the Uplander and nobody here wants a $65k Tahoe. I don't know how well the Traverse will do. My suspicion is that it is too little too late. In markets where Lexus and Acura are mopping up, the Traverse will be received with a big yawn. Personally, GM can shove the Traverse and give Chevrolet a small, cheap 4 cylinder CUV.

I really don't know what to say. It looks wonderful, but coming a year late to the party, I doubt it will do much in the GTA market, other than further destroy Trailblazer and Equinox sales. I would have preferred a competitive minivan. I don't want to be the sole nay-sayer around here, but this is a classic case of GM trying to cover their tracks in the market place. GM had better price these right, because at a $36k starting price, the Acadias are too much. Only Honda and Toyota can get away with gouging their customers.

Higher transaction price does not necessarily mean the dealer makes more money, only GM does. You should see the 'grosses' on Corvettes around the GTA these days! I've made more money selling Aveos! The one advantage of having a 'desireable' vehicle, instead of a 'cheap' vehicle is that you can attract better clientelle: you know, the onese with money and credit ratings that don't look like a small country in South America.

SSSSHHHHHH! Don't upset PolishKris! He's sipping his kool-aid.

Do not equate more 'expensive' parts for better 'quality.' I will grant you that Japanese parts are more 'expensive;' that's why Hondas are stolen so much and 'parted out.' Zenith was the best color television manufacturer. Period. Their quality of manufacture and picture quality was superior to all others, right up until about the early '90s. Then they were routed by Japan Inc., along with Electrohome, RCA, Admiral and all the others. Not by superior Japanese quality, but by DUMPING. Even the venerable Sears switched suppliers. I worked for an auto parts dealer in the early '80s. I witnessed many Datsuns up on hoists, with their wheel mounts sagging with rust. I heard the mechanics laughing. A '81 Tercel had all the sophistication of a flashlight, but that was part of their beauty: simplicity. While GM and Ford (with their bags of cash and, yes, hubris) tried to find sophisticated answers to simple questions, Japan Inc found plenty of people willing to drive tin cans to get 30 mpg. GM and Ford tried to find ways to fit their customer's fat arses into big cars that would get 30 mpg - but the technology was not ripe back then. So, instead, they produced overly complicated vehicles (8-6-4, anyone?) that were mere shadows of their former selves anyway, pleasing no one. GM sold 5 million vehicles a year in the '80s: more than all the imports combined by quite a margin. So, statistically speaking, what were the odds of finding a Chevy or Ford behind a tow truck, as opposed to a Honda or Toyota? We all know that GM and Ford made their fair share of mistakes, but so has HOnda and Toyota. GM and Ford do not have Washington blocking imports at every turn, like Japan Inc does. I will give Toyota and the others credit for their patience. It has taken them 25 years, but they have made a believer out of people like you.

The apple cart is in serious danger of being toppled up here. In general car prices have been significantly higher than in the U.S. and Toyota is loathe to actually release any REAL incentives (unless you call 0% financing for 36 months a real incentive to anyone but Bay Street lawyers), whereas, GM has released a battery of incentives ($9k credit on the Corvette and 1.9% financing, for example.) Toyota is terrified of upsetting the myth that their vehciles depreciate less than their American counterparts. Since Toyotas are so over-priced (along with BMWs, I might add) a lot of import dealerships thrive on their 'in-house' leasing businesses. Now, those in-house leasing companies are in serious $h! because those X5s and Lexus coming off those 'closed' leases are worth $8k less than the buy back states. OOOPS. The company I left is awash in 2007 Camrys and high end vehicles they can't dump. The dealers are screaming, too. A lot of them have spent several millions in renovations, forced on them by Toyota, and now the foundations are getting a little wobbly. Couple that with the fact that your typical Lexus owner thinks he/she is all that and a bag of chips, they were among the first to slink off to the U.S. and make their purchases there. (Me, Me, Me is their mantra.) I mean, if you are going to screw your manufacturing base, why not screw the retailers, too? This is a perfect storm for Toyota retailers. Welcome to the Big Leagues, Toyota.

CR has not had an original thing to say in decades. YOu can pick up any back issue from, say 25 years ago, and see the same BS exclamation: "Chevy/Ford/Dodge catching up to the imports." In THEIR eyes Detroit will always be 'catching up,' but will never quite arrive. No bias there. How the F$%K they can rate the Camry superior to the LT2 Malibu is WAAAY beyond me.

First off, you should know that I don't post from work - far too busy for that. Sorry if you don't like the politics, but in case you have had your head in the sand for the past 35 years, there is a War of Civilizations going on here. Please, do some research. Japan does not encourage 'friendly competition.' Lest how would it take Toys R Us (how can anything be less threatening than a toy retailer??) 5 years to get into the Japanese market - and then only by forming a 'partnership?' I witnessed first hand how MITI (look that one up, too) orchestrated the destruction of the American television and electronics industry. Better products? (Tell that to Zenith in the '80s) No, it's called DUMPING. Why else would Toshiba and others have received import quotas on sugar beets (???) to offset their losses in the U.S. and Canada? MITI than turned its attention to the tool and die industry, with somewhat less success, thanks to several large American firms like Houdaille out of Texas that tried to sue their former Japanese 'partners' with no success. Now, it is the auto industry's turn. These are people's jobs on the line, but more importantly it is the future of the manufacturing in North America that is under assault. Of course, many North American businesspeople are complicit in this sad tale, but the way that Toyota and others have bought fellowships and wooed the media is sickening, IMO. Kris, if you don't think the auto industry is political than you need to get better informed. Ever since Toyopet and Nissan/Datsun/Nissan (look up what they did during WWII) entered our shores it has not been about friendly competition but about total domination. I save my anger for the idiots in Washington and Ottawa that have blindly allowed this to happen, and I stand in wonderment at our rush to China's shores to let the cycle of doom repeat itself all over again. Washington/Otttawa laziness began this cycle and Wall Street/Bay Street greed will finish it. I don' t have kids so I shouldn't give $h!. Do you?

Well, Reg, you've pulled a quote from the Toyota Star, so excuse me while I have a good chuckle. I like these gems: "Toyota has thrown down the gauntlet on the competition." "This is very significant." I guess it is cheaper than continuing to pay off the media. They are pretty much the last car company to do anything about their prices. GM, Ford, Chrysler and Honda already did so. Significantly, Toyota's sales were up a miniscule 3.1% in January, in a market that was up 13%. GM was up 18% (climbing nearly 1 1/2 points of market share), Ford nearly 10% - even HOnda managed 76% in a single month. So, yeah - Toyota is nervous. The price of kool-aid is going up, along with oil.

As with all Corporations, oil companies are in it for the $$$. The only part that pisses me off is the amount of free money both our governments give these leaches. The Mackenzie Oil Pipeline is on hold once again, threatening national security in the U.S., because oil companies weren't getting enough 'guarantees' and free hand-outs from the Canadian government. F$#K, Exxon has MORE money than the Canadian government!

Yeah, and like a '84 Tercel was SOOO much better..... Let's not judge ANY manufacturer by what they built 24 years ago, okay? I think we all agree that the '80s is a decade best forgotten. Everybody built crap back then. That's the trouble: most of the import humpers today are basing their opinions on what they (or in most cases, their parents) owned in the '80s). I had the misfortune of owning a '82 Dodge Rampage and '87 Dodge Shadow back then, but I do not judge Chrysler today based on that. Renault and Citroen today have some very interesting vehicles - just not in North America.

I hear the music from "It's All Been Done Before.." Just like reality TV, college campuses, politics...everyone thinks it is necessary to act more and more outrageous to get noticed. All the hard work has already been done. What is left? The younger generation is having to make up its drama because it's already been done. The trouble is, with all the screaming, most people are no longer listening. Maybe being a man is just learning to say things like "Thank you," and 'please,' and 'sorry.'

Lexus is over-priced to begin with, but we Canadians have always taken it up the ying-yang with auto prices. The recent surge in our dollar has made it painful. I know of a few people who have gone south of the border to buy their chariots, but only in the high-end of things. It isn't that a Lexus dealership is NOT a good investment - clearly, it is; however, Toyota is getting increasingly demanding with its dealers and you should see some of the new Toyo and Lexus palaces that have been built up here in the past couple years. The company I used to work for is building two cantilvered wings, jutting out over a hillside: one for Toyota and one for Lexus, with a skywalk to the service area and parking. Can you say BIG MORTGAGE? Perhaps Toyota is overcompensating, shall we say, for their lack of heritage, or maybe they are just playing catch up to BMW and Mercedes? In any case, with the recent storm clouds on the economic horizon, and knowing how fickle the buying public can be, I certainly wouldn't want to be holding the paper on those new dealerships.

If you can drive a Smart car and not lose confidence, you need to be checked into a mental hospital. I see WAYYY too many of them around here and I can't help but smirk every time I see one! Oh, and Chris, I hate to burst your bubble, but the Miata is the official car of Church St. (along with the Civic and Mazda 3) :gay:

Not that I would want to defend the Kia vans, but the new ones are leagues ahead of the originals. Honda has been advertising like mad up here and that reflects in their sales for January: up an astonishing 76%. They jumped a full 4 points in market share! Malibu is not going to eat Accord's lunch until GM figures out how to build more 3.6 LTs. Wheel excuses easide, why the powers that be would imagine GM buyers would go for the same 76:24 ratio of 4s to 6s like the imports is beyond me. Nobody can get 3.6 LTs. We are told it will be a 2 month wait. Until that happens, the Accord will do just fine.

Ford needs to take all their designers into a field and shoot them. The only decent looking cars they have are the Mustang and the Fusion. The rest are boring and simply do not stand out in a very crowded market. They have done wonders with their small SUVs and 'cross-overs,' but they are rapidly becoming a one-trick car company. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Chrysler 'boxy' styling stands out. GM still has market share to envy (or squander) and is winning back legions of defectees with the Malibu, CTS and their mid-size SUVs. Ford needs to be very careful, as they are running a high risk of becoming irrelevant. Honda and Toyota already have lots of irrelevant vehicles that the mindless masses buy because they are imports. What is going to be Ford's excuse? I, for one, would hate to see Ford go away. Too much heritage and tradition on these shores.

Toyota has taken out center-spread, two full page, full color ads in papers around here, touting their new 'lower' pricing. Not a good time to have a Lexus dealer around here. A lot of their customers (being somewhat mercenary to begin with) have flocked to the U.S. to buy their new vehicles, whereas GM's customers are a little more loyal and GM is enticing them with 72 month 0% financing and (first time ever) 0% leases. I would be curious to see how many Toyotas were 'purchases' in the U.S. and ended up here. The numbers would be in the several thousands for last year, I would guess. More remarkable, considering Toyota's sales are down in the U.S. for January. In Canada, GM's sales are up a remarkable 18.3%, year over year. Honda is the real stunner: up 76.4% in one month. Chrysler, 1.9%. Toyota, 3.1%. Ford, 9.7%. All in a market that is up 13%, year over year. I suspect a lot of cross-border shoppers who were waiting in the wings suddenly decided they had to buy a new car. I wonder what is up with Honda, other than the fact they, too, have been advertising incentives like crazy. This January was phenomenal, sales-wise. Link: http://www.desrosiers.ca/pdfs/sales.pdf

I had a customer with a '89 Caprice that had 1M Km (about 600k miles) on the clock - and it hadn't been used as a taxi! The gentleman used to be in sales and drove all over northern Ontario where 1,000 miles in a day were not uncommon. Sadly, these long term stories are rarer up here because of the SALT. Many vehicles get retired at the 120k mile mark because the bodies are rotting out - especially Hondas.

I respectfully disagree: we don't put enough emphasis on sex. Somehow it has been 'enshrined' as sacred when, in fact, all animals do it. The trouble begins because we leave adolescents and children to their own devices, then when they fumble around in relationships they don't have a clue what they are doing. Religion (and I don't want to sidetrack this discussion, but this point needs to be made) has confused the issue by elevating sex to some revered status. Their are millions of ruined marriages everywhere because the sex has died in the relationship. Why is that? Could it be that the two involved were not sexually compatible in the first place? There is so much beyond the 'missionary position,' but we are supposed to be ashamed to discuss it. That is why in my earlier post I mentioned that I am glad we are finally seeing an end to moral hypocrisy. It serves no one to brush sex under the carpet, but then it would largely depend on whether you believe 'love' and 'sex' are divine or merely natural processes of the firing of neurons, etc. Moral relativism may scare some, but the world order (and definitions of man and woman) imposed by the Church over the past 2,000 years has hindered progress on so very many fronts.