CARBIZ

There are so many angles to approach this from.... Since most of the domestic dealeships are older, they also tend to have an older salesforce. When I go to product training seminars, sometimes it looks like a retirment home. Some of these people have been in the business 30+ years and although they should know better, many of them are shell-shocked. At my old dealership, I saw a sales sheet from '91 for a contest and the #1 guy sold 31 cars in a month; the second sold 30. Let me tell you, in the 10 years I was there, nobody hit 20 - EVER. Lately, 10 was a reason to call the mayor. Can you imagine how some of those guys feel? Twenty years ago, they were 'order takers.' They made (comparable to today) 6 figures - and a lot of it was cash. All the business office (rustproofing, warranty, etc.) was paid at the end of the week (some places at the end of the day) in cash! Liquid lunches, sales contest trips to Vegas, Mexico, wherever, driving whatever car they wanted, banging the office hoes - such is the legend of the car business only a scant decade or so ago. No more. The dealers are downsizing. In many cases the owners are waiting for a good bye check from the manufacturer, or the Sheriff to come and close the doors - take your pick. Some of the owners are counting their cash from their import dealers and don't give a flying f$#k about their Chevy/Ford/Dodge dealer. Some just want to cash in the chips and move to Scarsdale. The younger guys/gals can't make a go of it because there is no floor traffic. The older guys can barely turn on a computer, let alone surf the net. Such is the mess that Detroit has ended up with. Couple that with every Bachelor of Arts of the Week graduate moving in and moving up, at Corporate, with their theories on this or their theories on that.....well, it doesn't look great for the dealer body in the near future. Plus, I suspect that many of the guys/gals on this board would be every salesperson's worst nightmare anyway, so I doubt you would be getting a 'normal' reaction from the sales staff you encounter. I'll bet the guys at the Alamo, or the OK Corral were not in a very good mood either......

My grade 13 Physics teacher (yeah, we still had 13 grades in the late '70s) made us use Imperial for an entire week as a way of making us appreciate Metric. Yikes. Ounces, pounds, inches? Awful. Canada 'converted' in 1975, but the laws were softened in the '90s. It is hard for old farts to get used to, but truly it is easier once you get used to it. Factors of 10 are much easier (just slide the decimal) than factors of 12. Besides, 16 cm sounds MUCH better than 6", no?

How about the cool '66 Chrysler 300 convertible in the movie The Happening? The Supremes made a smash hit out of the title song. Anthony Quinn starred. Horrible movie (well, actually, as a period piece it was kind of fun), but the car steals the show, IMO.

Sometimes with these types of recalls it is just a 'bad run.' A robot or a shipment of clamps or something were the wrong spec, or a box(es) got damaged in shipment and weren't caught in time. An actual design flaw would result in more units being recalled. Anyway, Iaccoca referred to Honda as the Teflon Car Company in his first book because 'bad news does't stick.' It only proves that Japan Inc. build just as many 'bad' vehicles as Detroit. Nobody's perfect. (Just try telling that to CR, MT and the gang.)

The '69 300 (first year of the fuselage styling) is MY FAVORITE CAR OF ALL TIME. (there, I said it.) I've actually endured Escape From the Planet of the Apes more than once only because the movie features a '71 New Yorker. There was nothing more destinctive than those big Chrysler's starters when they started up. Even off camera, you could tell it was a Chrysler starting. My father had a '66 300 (wrote that off) and then bought a '69 4 door hardtop. I never liked the 2 door styling because the rear roof line was wierd. I am also happy that while the Mopar muscle car prices have gone insane lately, their big tanks' prices have remained reasonable - as long as they can stay out of the derby circuit, that is. Some day I might be able to buy one of these fuselage babies (although I would probably have to be single to do so.)

I feel your pain. About 18 months ago, a customer of mine traded in (he was forced, I suspect) his '91 black on black Corvette convertible: it was mint, only 25k miles!! We shopped and shopped it for him, but all we could get for it was $17k because it was late July when he came to me (he had been trying to sell it privately for a month or so already and just wanted it gone). When I picked it up at his house (he was also trading in his Avalanche - I volunteered to drive the convertible!), I truly did not want to go back to the dealership. If I didn't think my BF would have divorced me on the spot, I would have bought this thing myself. A real babe, er, boy magnet! (Well, that is the reason the BF wouldn't let me buy one, ha, ha!) If you guys want a real groaner, this customer traded said Corvette and (less than 2 year old) Avalanche in for...get ready for this: an Equinox, no leather, but AWD at least. The wife wanted him to get rid of some of his toys, as they were looking to buy waterfront property. I'd have gotten rid of the wife!

Japan would surely be against it: it helps keep foreign makes out of their protected turf, no? This idea makes a lot of sense, especially as business people and tourists mix and mingle the world over. I have driven in the Bahamas a few times and it is scary - actually, walking in the Bahamas is scary! Clearly, since the majority of coutries drive on the right, it would make sense for England, Japan, etc. to make the changes. But while we are at it, why don't we post a map of countries that use metric, versus those on the ANCIENT, OUT-DATED Imperial system and suggest those changes, too?

First of all, electric vehicles have been around for more than 100 years and have been developed (see golf carts!). Secondly, there are two major forces at work at this juncture in time pulling at the auto industry: the impending oil crisis (see China, Terror Threat of the Week, etc.) and/or the greenhouse gas/carbon scandal. This has the potential to be a Perfect Storm for the auto industry, worse than the crises that hit Detroit in the mid-70s. Ethanol is not about saving the environment. Ethanol is about stretching existing oil reserves with home-grown solutions. One of the challenges facing the Alberta Tar Sands is the fact that they actually require massive amounts of natural gas to extract the oil. This is only going to be a nightmare for the oil industry, if carbon taxes start kicking in. In fact, the Alberta government and the oil industry is actually looking into possible nuclear power as an alternative to power the oil industry there. Electric cars are not necessarily a solution either; in fact, potentially they create a worse environmental problem if the electricity generated for your vehicle comes from 'dirty coal' or natural gas generators. Electric vehicles run on electricity generated by nuclear power plants would save our atmosphere, but then the matter of disposing of the spent fuel rods creates another entire future nightmare scenario. Ethanol, is at best, a stop gap measure. Electric cars would seem to be the future, but most jurisdictions (Ontario especially!) simply could not handle an entire switch over of personal vehicles to electric any time in the near future. Although I suspect there will be amazing technologies that will stretch the life of the internal combustion engine, inevitably we will move away from it. Nearer in the future will be the virtual death of the V-8 engine and large vehicles as personal transportation. Like it or not, we lived in a bubble that started in the late '80s and lasted until about 3 years ago. We are back on a track that began in the mid-70s, with respect to the environment and fuel consumption. We will be moving toward smaller vehicles, lighter vehicles, smaller engines and more regulation from all levels. THAT IS JUST THE WAY IT IS GOING TO BE. You can move to an ice flow, but otherwise, we will all have to adapt. My first car was a '67 Polara. I learned to drive on my uncle's '62 Plymouth. I had my first sexual experience in a '58 Plymouth. You guys don't need to tell me about the thrill of a fire-breathing V-8 or doing 'wheelies' in a parking lot. Been there done that. But times have changed. They are changing. I watch Barrett-Jackson in envy at all the beautiful Detroit metal still out there, but more and more personal vehicles are becoming complex, expensive and dangerous. Drivers are idiots. Governments are greedy. People are selfish. A lot of converging social and technological changes are going to force us in a direction that will not appeal to many on this Board. In a democracy, rarely is everyone happy.

My HP has a 17" screen and I get about 75 minutes out of the batteries, depending on what I am doing. Still, 40 hours would be great. You could take it to work and not have to recharge it for an entire week! Great for camping trips or long boat trips on Georgian Bay (where the batteriers are already recharging everything else that is dragged along.)

C'mon REG, the Magnum is a very butch looking beast! It would look very masculine, parked on Church St., next to all the Miatas and Civics. The outside is hot, it's the low ceiling/high beltline inside that is freaky. Not to mention - how the hell are you supposed to have sex in the back with that low, tapering roof line? That was the only reason I bought my '91 Caprice back in '91: the 7' bed and lots of head room. (No pun intended.)

The University of Toronto is trying to sell of the land that the observatory sits on. The Royal Ontario Museum used to have a planetarium, but now it is mothballed and they are trying to put up a 45 storey condo there. I think video games and Star Trek Next Generation killed interest for a lot of young 'uns for astronomy. How's that for irony? I mean, who wants to crawl to Mercury when Captain Picard has been half-way across the galaxy and back! I used to be a big astronomy freak. I once fancied myself to be an astrophysicist one day (now I can barely spell it!), until I realized in grade 12 calculus that my math stank to high hell. Still, one of my class mates is a big shot physicist/lawyer working in California, and another of my buddies is a hot shot SF writer. Sigh, if only I had kept up my studies, kept my willy in my pants and stayed in university.

I broke down and bought a Logitech wireless mouse for my HP laptop. The little square touch pad on the notebook was okay for regular use, but any kind of games (even solitaire!) was a nuisance. I paid $59 and I am still waiting for my $40 internet rebate. [This is me holding my breath.] So, IF I get my $40 back, $20 for a wireless mouse with 5 buttons and 1 central roller is pretty good. Now I can really lose a hand of solitaire fast.

Like a lot of Mopar products, I like the styling of the Magnum; however, Chrysler has always sacrificed sight lines, trunk space or whatever in the name of outside looks. The Magnum felt like driving in a coffin, especially when trying to see out the rearview mirror. The Maxx is completely different from that! However, the LX cars have lent Chrysler a degree of cool-factor: a lot of TV shows, including the 4400 love the LX cars. Having had a Caprice for many years, then a Blazer and FWD vehicles since, FWD will always win in the winter.

Sorry, but the last time I looked, GM sold more vehicles OUTSIDE the U.S. than inside. Right now it is markets OUTSIDE the U.S. that are critical to GM's future. And it seems to me that the precious RWD V-8s are coming from other places, too. (Australia, comes to mind.) If Detroit did more 'outside' thinking (and some people on this board) perhaps Detroit wouldn't be in such a pickle. I don't want to pick a fight with my American cousins, but there is much to be learned by what is going on OUTSIDE. Get a passport and find out.

California driving is irrelevant to this discussion: 290 million other North Americans have to put up with salt, sleet, hail and snow. See what that does to your MPG numbers when the puny motor has to try and heat the cabin at 5 degrees in the winter.

I would take the $3.20 a gallon out of the equation real fast. We are paying $4.12, which would increase the savings you guys are batting around by another 25%. Anyone here NOT think you will be paying $4 by year's end? Or haven't you been reading about the crashing of Citigroup, CIBC (our bank) and others: the mortgage meltdown is now anticipated to cost upwards of $700 Billion. If GM wants to sell ANY Tahoes in a year's time, it will very much need the hybrid.

Are you advocating the cancellation of the Saturn brand? I'm not saying I would disagree with you, but GM is still licking its wounds with the hits it took on cancelling Oldsmobile (it has decimated Chevrolet dealers in Canada, who desperately needed the 'premium' customers that Olds once brought.) We know GM does not have the $$ to spread across 8 brands, so many releases are, at best, stop-gap measures. That is the trouble: GM is structuredfor 50% market share, not 20%. Herein lies what is probably GM's biggest challenge, now that the legacy costs have largely been tackled: the bloated dealer body. I wholeheartedly agree that ALL the Opel product should be brought to North America. They will sell like crazy here, like they do in Europe and South America. Where I urge caution is to how they are badged. Chevrolet is a power house in the U.S. and its volume trucks keep Chevrolet dealers humming. Chevrolet is just another name in Canada. I predict that the dumping of Opel product into Saturn dealers will destroy (or at least further seriously damage) the Chevrolet name in Canada. And as I've predicted before, at $4 a gallon the landscape changes. Chevrolet struggles here because at the low end, Canadians treat Hyundai the same (they are, after all, technically all imports) and due to the higher gasoline costs, all the volume Chevy product (even the Impala) does not sell to the same relative degree as in the U.S. Canadians prefer GMC over Chevrolet trucks all the time. If given a choice between solid entries like the Astra, Zafira and other models, it would further erode the Chevrolet base here - and, I dare say, eventually in the U.S. as you guys hit $4+ a gallon. Where does this end? Will re-badged Opels, sold through Saturn, eat away at Toyota's share because it satisfies the import humpers desire for 'anything imported?' Will that kill off Chevrolet in the process? Does GM care, as long as it keeps Wall Street happy? Many people on this board speak in disdain about the Chevrolet name, but at the end of it all, General Motors has to decide which brands they are going to promote world-wide and DO it. Hell, even McDonalds get's that. A Big Mac is a Big Mac here, as in Tel Aviv, Sao Paulo and London.

Do I detect a touch of bitterness here? :AH-HA_wink: Just blame our do-nothing Mayor and the usual NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) people. Brampton has the right idea: they incinerate most of their trash, but NOOOOO our Mayor wouldn't even look at that. So, off to Michigan it goes, and the hundreds of trucks a day on the 401 and all THAT wear and tear on an already overcrowded highway, plus the emissions released. Yeah, great idea that, shipping our garbage 300 miles. We should ship most of our Council to Michigan - THAT would be an improvement! Then you would really have something to complain about! What is the going rate for used up, knee-jerk politicians down there anyway? That's okay, with their latest brainiac ideas, people will just end up dropping their garbage in front of schools, parks, etc. By 2010, I think city residents will be down to a sandwich baggie a week of garbage that they are allowed to put out at the curb.

I don't mind the Civic...in fact, I am embarassed to admit that I like it. To sit in one and drive it is to appreciate its strong points. It does not deserve the sales it gets, especially in view of the questionable quality of the previous generation Civics, but the public is fickle and it remembers the 'classic' Civics and conveniently ignores the shortcomings of the later ones. I even drove a Yaris the other day and even though the inside is plasticky and cheap, the ride was okay. My view is a little different than many on this board: I don't hate small, FWD vehicles. I think they are the future and need not be the dreaded memories of the past (think first generation J-car, Escort, Omni). I also drove a '04 Prius on Friday (the beige interior color is HORRIBLE), but the car has a lot of things to like about it. I have said this before: in a vacuum, the Mazda 3 is the car to beat, followed by the Civic and then the Cobalt. When price/features are included, I would put the Cobalt at #1, followed by the Mazda, then Civic. I don't even enter the Corolla in the equation: it is so over priced and under-powered that Toyota should be embarassed. The Fit is crappy. I would consider a Versa, but not the Fit. The Aveo WAS a far better first attempt than the Fit is. We had all better start getting used to these vehicles and get used to being more objective about them. If we hit $150 a barrel of oil this year, as I have seen more than one article about recently, then we are going to see far more of these vehicles than Tahoes or Explorers.

Is this guy new? "GM has been sucking for years?" My flame thrower is nearly out of fuel and I'd rather save it for a not so easy target....anyone else care to flame away?

Both of you are talking around each other. BACK INTO YOUR CORNERS OR I WILL SPANK YOU BOTH! Enzl, you seem to dump all over everything GM does. Reg makes good points about the Astra being good enough for the Euros. We don't sell the damned thing and I've had too many people ask me about them already! Lutz had a mess to contend with, no one is arguing that. He has avoided the iceberg, so far. Everything he has had his hand in for the past couple years have been bullseyes, but GM doesn't have limitless development money. I think Astra will do a fine job for Saturn until the real replacement comes along, and GM can get back to the business of worrying about the next Equinox, Cobalt, Aveo, G6........................

It is a vast improvement over the current Pilot, although that is not saying much. For a company that makes decent looking cars (Civic, some of the Acura line up), its truck line up looks like it has been beaten by an Ugly Bush, forget the stick. I've always thought their trucks made Toyota's look glamorous. It looks like the truck market is going to get more interesting very soon. I hope GM has a doozer in the wings for a Equinox replacement.

Everything has changed in the past 5 years. Forget about 9/11, it is the coming Chinese collossus that is going to be the challenge of the 21st Century. China's insatiable appetite for resources is going to outstrip anything we can imagine. With sheer force of population, China only has to acheive 25% of the per capita GDP to surpass the U.S. - a number it is fast approaching. It is good to see GM, and the U.S. government finally getting religion. This is one oil boom cycle that won't go away.

The church pew back seat died with the '99 revamp of the Silverado. It was only Ford and Dodge that continued to sacrifice rear seat back angle for bigger bragging rights on leg room. The explosion of the 'crew cab' is only a marketing ploy. They have been around forever; they only just took off in popularity in the past 4 or 5 years. The Tundra only exists as part of Toyota's Master Plan of World Domination and to put another nail in the coffin of Detroit. The truck brings nothing new to the table and benefits no one, other than Japan Inc. and the morons who are flocking to Toyota dealers to buy one. Is it a bad truck? No. Is it necessary? Also, no. Are we going to sacrifice our manufacturing base on the Monument of Choice? Yes, we are.

The Aurora battery was under the seat. The HHR/Cobalt is in the trunk, but boosting can be done back or front. The BMW X5 battery is in the back and a nightmare to get at. I think a lot of vehicles are trending this way. Makes sense from a weight distribution/heat point of view. I guess the theory is that batteries don't fry like they used to, so access is not as important, but you have to wonder with the explosion of electrical toys on vehicles today (including the increased availability of 110V a/c plugs on newer vehicles like the Malibu) will do to future battery life.