CARBIZ

I've always liked the Equinox just the way it is...3.4 and all. No one has ever complained about the lack of power with that drive train. Even the Toyota Star's truck guy wrote a glowing article about the Equinox when they first came out. As usual, however, the 'Nox's Achilles Heal has been the crappy seat fabric and door material, but that is slowly evolving out - and, of course, the leather fixes that issue altogether. The XL7's 3rd row is desperately needed at Chevy dealers. I didn't find the bigger XL7 engine all that faster, and I wonder what that will do to real world driving mileage: we are paying over $4 a gallon again here. The XL7 just has a better looking interior, IMO. I mean, I drove the Acura home the other night and thought, OMIGOD - nearly double the price of a 'Nox. ARE THEY KIDDING? BTW: there are certain advantages to working at a used car 'superstore:' I get to drive everything now, but I still want a '08 Malibu.

....funny, that's what many people claim about Japanese cars: flimsy and unsubstantial. The Equinox may not be a lot of things, but it does ride and handle nicely, especially now that the rabble rousers convinced GM to can the electric steering. I've been driving an XL7 recently, and although it shares a lot of parts with the Equinox, it is what the Equinox could have been...if GM wasn't spreading itself so damned thin between 8 divisions. I've also been driving a lot of Toyotas lately and my opinion has still not changed...WHAT'S THE BIG FRIGGIN DEAL? The RAV4 is never going to be for true SUV drivers. It is for posers only. Let's call these vehicles what they are: station wagons, and not even good ones at that, and be done with it.

We're getting about a foot. I can barely seen the highrises across the street. Ha, ha. I wonder if Toronto will have to call the military in again to clear the streets.

There are a couple of flaws with our argument: 1) Canada is larger than Europe and the best selling vehices here are small vehicles, especially in the larger urban areas. 2) As the U.S. surpasses 300 million people (all concentrated in 3 or 4 mega urban areas), pollution and crowding will approach those of Europe. It's not like 100 million people are going to move to Nebraska and North Dakota, after all (no offense to those who do live there!) And along with American's God-given right to have guns and drive SUVs, do you guys not get it that you are financing the very people that hate you? Sure, Exxon and Mobil are doing very well, but every time a Shiek buys a mega-yacht, he has YOU people to thank. Saudis would be EATING their sand if Americans started buying Aveos and Fits. Some of you on this board get it when it comes to buying Toyotas, how it effects everyone's standard of living, but don't seem to get it when it comes to buying frivolous, gas swilling trucks and cars that are unnecessarily consuming energy. There is a world of difference between restoring a '70 Cuda and driving it on Sundays and driving a Trailblazer SS to work every day - alone. Americans IMPORT 60% of their oil, and that number is not going down any time soon. Everyone would benefit if that number dropped in half, by whatever means.

My enthusiasm for 'spirited driving' and boulevard cruising in the big V8 of my dreams died a long time ago. Endless traffic jams, ridiculously low speed limits, arrogant and stupid drivers, outrageous insurance prices - these all killed the automobile as anything more than mere transportation for me. There are so few places where the modern motorcar can be used to its full design capability left. Sorry, but I would rather see the European approach of high gas taxes to 'encourage' people into more fuel efficient vehicles. At $10 a gallon (which is where most other countries in the world are at these days), consumers are free to buy what they want, but most will choose a vehicle that gets 40+ mpg. A 1960s anything will always turn my head, but I live in the reality of today...........

Thus, driving up the prices in general and forcing manufacturers to load up their vehicles with useless crap that only the magazines and 18 year olds with mopeds in their garage would want. I think GM has built a car for the masses, not for Edmunds.

I'm half with you; however, I would submit that somewhere between the hysteria of what some countries like Germany and Holland are doing, and the apparent disregard we North Americans have for our wholesale consumption of energy and resources, lies a compromise that future generations can live with.

While I agree that GM seems to be building some momentum here of accolades in the media, nothing has really changed. The press is still driving the LTZs and praising them, not the base cars/trucks that GM will be selling in droves. It is this type of elitism that begs to be quashed. The jaded press need to base their opinions on what the vehicle is and who it is intended for, not on whether or not the particular writer would be caught dead in one. Things are slowly changing, it would seem, but Hyundai still gets praised because the doors don't fall off (exceeds expectations), while GM gets scrutinized because their vehicles don't walk on water, so to speak.

As one of 34 million Canadians, I laugh at the puny efforts Canada makes on the world stage at leading the green front. Although as individuals we should all do our part not to waste energy, NOTHING that Canada does will even be a blip on the chart as long as China and India keep leaping at 100 million babies a year.

..but wouldn't that be following the Camry/Accord formula? Over 75% of their 'sales' are in the 4 cylinder category. After all, this is the mid-size family class: these people are not necessarily looking for rockets, just reliable, affordable transportation to get from A to B. Back when the Malibu sold over 300k units a year, they were hardly 'class leading.' Still, it does't hurt to have a car that people WANT to be seen in, rather than choose because it is cheap.

Ya'll are in the South to us!

I'd rather kiss a girl than buy a Japanese vehicle! But, yeah, I do realize I am driving a Korean made vehicle, if only partially owned and marketted by GM.

Ewwww....gross and sweaty! :AH-HA_wink:

We're still getting lots of people wandering in here, looking for the new Malibu Out of sheer loyalty to GM, I've even talked at length to a couple people about them....................

but depending on where you drive, more and more urban dwellers don't have access to their own driveways. Hell, some municipalities are banning car washing in your own driveway! I used to wash my '87 Shadow ES all the time by hand - and wax it two or three times a year. Now, the building I live in has no wash bay and no water tap (I used to sneak downstairs in the last building I lived in and hook up my own hose to their tap). I hate spending $10 for a wash, then having it snow the next friggin' day!

And that is where the nitpicking drives me crazy! Plus, there is a difference between the way a vehicles rides and the way it handles. I will always choose a vehicle that rides better over a vehicle that handles better. Unless you get into extremely complicated (read: expensive) suspensions, like in the Corvette for example, the two are mutually exclusive. This is where the market (as dictated by the self-appointed experts has diverged over the past 25 years. Whereas, 'floaty' suspensions were all the rage decades ago, we are being forced into rides that make you feel every frost heave, every bump in the road. This is why I don't like the BMW philosophy, and would choose a (traditional) Cadillac, Lincoln or Buick any day over the BMW or Mercedes. I find all of this mystifying because our roads are getting worse, not better. Now that we literally have bridges falling down, pavement is becoming more coarse and tell me - where does one get to 'open up' a car these days? Photo radar, red light cameras, 'facility' insurance rates....I think you get the picture.

To me, an auto enthusiast is someone who simply acknowledges vehicles around him or her. When I was a car jockey in a major hotel years ago, it was shocking the number of people who couldn't even remember the model of the car they were driving: "It's blue..." they would offer. An enthusiast can have a favorite make, but they would be generally aware of other makes as well. I would argue that to be an enthusiast you would have to have a working knowledge of the mechanical principles of a vehicle, but don't necessarily work on them. Too many people live in apartments or condos these days (guilty!) and don't have the means (or the time) to work on their vehicles any more. I can't even wash my own car any more! I am a Mopar freak when it comes to old cars (50s-60s), but GM fan when it comes to more recent vehicles.

Frankly, I was hoping for more than a freshened face. Just like the old Tracker days....GM was first out of the gate (with the help of Suzuki, of course), but then dropped the ball and handed the entire CUV market to Honda and Toyota by letting the Tracker hang around too long. The Aveo was a decent car in 2003, but by letting it languish (although the interior refit on the sedan last year was pretty good, IMO), other competitors, notably the Versa, have passed it. You Americans sneer at this car, but in the Toronto area (and I suspect Montreal, too) this is an important market. We don't sell Tahoes, we sell Aveos and (did) Optras. At $4.16 a gallon (US gallon, that is), the Aveo is too important to become second rate. Fix the engine and fix the transmission.

Mods have birthdays, too? I thought you guys were, like, immortal, or created from primordial ooze, or something like that......... Have a great day anyway!!!

I agree with you, but unfortunately the average person has the reading comprehension of, at best, grade 3 level. I mean, how hard was it for Toyota to produce 5 or 6 models through the '80s and not fall flat on its face - especially considering many of them were sold as 5 spd with maybe a/c only? When the media keeps dredging up GM's flops and near disasters, the average Joe (especially those too young to remember the Awful Eighties in any context) keeps seeing GM and Ford's names in dubious lights and think, 'Wow, the domestics are crap, I think I'll buy Japanese. Again." We self-appointed 'enthusiasts' can laugh and cry about GM's foibles in the past, but even 'mistakes' like the Corvair were not as bad as the jaded media loves to point out. The General used to put itself 'out there' to try new ideas and technologies. No wonder it has become such a conservative company in the past couple decades.

Dealers are very quiet right now, especially the high end ones. Expect the rhetoric to ramp up. Look at the full page ads in the Star and even the Post. Traffic is way down. Even those who can't afford to pay cash or who have no intentions of going south to buy are waiting to see if Canadian prices will fall.

There was nothing wrong with the interior space on vehicles like these. They were so big that they had tons of room inside and out. There was a lot of wasted space under the hood area, though. One thing these vehicles suffered from was awful sightlines out the back. But they were gorgeous. The real beginning of the end for Chrysler (and others) was that these behemoths had massively detuned engines, but still got mediocre gas mileage. And those damned hidden headlights would freeze shut in the winter. My father's '69 Chrysler had two motors put on for the lights, then the dash caught fire! So he disconnected them permanently. I talked a friend of mine's parents out of buying a '73 Charger SE. (See, I was practical even at 13 years old!) I sat in the back and declared that Erin (my friend) would hate it back there because of the silly (but cool) slit opera windows in the side. Of course, being a Mopar fan in those days, I was horrified when they went out and bought a '74 Ford LTD with bumpers the size of a Checker cab. Yech!

With a few thousand dealers to supply, it is taking some time to just get a few to each dealer so that they can show it! I doubt many (if any) have been fleeted yet, being as dealers everywhere are screaming for more for their lots. There certainly has been a lot of interest in the Malibu, spurred largely (I suspect) the direct comparisons GM is making to the Camry and Accord in their ads. Kudos to the advertising gals/guys for getting this one right. I've already had an Accord driver (he has owned 5 Hondas) drop by to see the Malibu (when we had 3) when his Accord was up the street being serviced by the dealer (6 years later - their brainwashing is exemplary!) Of course, now we don't have any Malibus and he is looking at a used BMW, which we have lots of.