CARBIZ

Maybe you should shower more than once a week.

GoogleEarth is a simple addiction. We're planning 3 weeks in Brazil in February and GoogleEarth is a blast. For example, we are planning to go to Foz do Iguacu as one of our stops and the BF had a hotel all picked out from a website, but when I 'flew around' on GoogleEarth, I realized to my horror that there was farmland a block from the hotel and downtown was quite a distance, let alone the river, so I gave him a list of hotels based on their GoogleEarth locations. Saved us from disaster. I also realized we'll want to go into Argentina, which made me look up immigration requirements and I was relieved that my Canadian passport gets me into Argentina with no visa; however, Paraguay is also 'across the river' and I can't go there because that would require a visa: I don't want to go there bad enough to spend $48 (U.S., BTW) and the hassle of applying via Ottawa just to go across a bridge for an hour or two. I love to look up places on GoogleEarth and to plot where I'd like to go in the future.

Obviously, GM's PR department is going to say just about anything to the public right now to avoid future lawsuits. There is no law saying that they can't just privately starve Saturn to death - GM's current financial crisis will justify just about anything, should GM be dragged into court in the future. There is a lot of doublespeak going on with GM. We're just going to have to sit back and enjoy the show as it unfolds. If we thought '08 was interesting, I can't wait for 2009 to unfold.

FOG, I would never have guessed you were a fanatical neat freak! I have a Husky, so cleaning is mandatory to keep the Health Board out of our place! I like to harass my pussy (okay, okay, that was far too leading): our 6 month old kitten. She is very bright and it's fun to watch her dive-bomb and attack the dog. With encouragement, of course. Lately, I've decided to scan all my old photos - and I have thousands of them. My scanner is doing a great job and I am pleased with the results. I am looking forward to throwing out all my old albums (after the appropriate full back up, of course!) This has turned out to be a therapeutic waltz down memory lane, although at times it is more like a trip through the House of Horrors. As some of you might imagine, along with keeping a detailed journal for the better part of 30 years, I also have detailed notes on the back of all my photos. It is interesting the details one forgets about events that happened 10 or 20 years ago. Anywayk, it's a time consuming job, but transcribing the notes onto the computer is interesting, and it has the added benefit of keeping me off the street.

Canada's love of all things Pontiac has a lot to do with the (former) strength and lobbying power of strategically place Pontiac-Buick-GMC dealers. Their strength is waning. I guess part of Pontiac's success here is the fact that whereas Chevrolet is 'as American as apple pie,' both Pontiac and Chevrolet are technically 'imports' to Canada: neither is home-grown. With 20% of the population of the Toronto area being Asian (and a similar chunk of Greater Vancouver's), I can see future positive spin off for the success of the Buick nameplate in China and the rest of Asia. When I saw that special on Saving General Motors a month or so back, I nearly choked when they interviewed customers at a GM dealer in China as to why they were purchasing a GM product: the customers replied because of the quality and the history. Then what happens to them when they arrive on our shores? When they emigrate to Canada, why are they suddenly so enamored with Toyota and Honda? Possibly part of that reason is because many of them neve heard of GM over there. Perhaps Buick's success in China can change that for the better.

That's a good point, which then raises another: letting yet more competition into our markets at a very vulnerable time is suicide. Many of you wouldn't know this south of the border, but when K-Mart went under it sold its Canadian assets to Wal-Mart, which at the time was virtually non-existent in our market. I'll bet Eatons (now bankrupt) and Zellers/The Bay (sold to an American investor and now floundering) wish they had split the purchase to keep Wal-Mart out. Wal-Mart got instant access to many older, established locations and got them for pennies on the dollar. They went from a dozen to 120 locations over night. As we discussed earlier, if there were any way for Ford or GM to absorb Chrysler or to let Saturn or Hummer simply die, it would be better for the entire industry. Letting a future foe into the market cheap just to live to fight another day is not a long term solution. Why are automakers fighting to get into China? Answer: because it is the fastest growing market and will likely soon be the largest market. Why is China allowing this? Answer: because they are getting 100 years of manufacturing experience and technology for FREE (remember, these are 'partnerships' in China, not wholly owned subsidiaries). The obvious question is: why would we allow Chinese automakers to set up shop here? What's in it for us? Our markets are mature, slow growing. We certainly don't need their technical prowess. Do we need their competition to bring down prices? Well, we are seeing the results of over saturation already, in the decline or Detroit. I fear that we deserve everything we about to get over the next few years.

Push rod engines? Stop drinking the bong water before you post! And I have driven a Honda lately: not impressed. In fact, Honda is where GM was 15 years ago: resting on its laurels. Honda has been decontenting its vehicles like crazy to squeeze every dime out of them. Or why is the 4 cylinder Accord significantly noisier than the Malibu, to name just one example? God save the sheeple that can't look beyond the headlines!

It's easy not to lay people off when you are expanding your world-wide empire from a safe, protected home base.

It depends on the gym, OC. I see lots of heffers at mine. The gym sells them 'packages', then hooks some 230 lb old bag with a 22 year old college 'Master Trainer,' then she lifts 5 lbs of weights while oggling the kid's crotch and telling him her entire life story. Usually retired school teaches, by the looks of them. Meanwhile, the rest of us who are serious, have to wait 5 minutes for the equipment. I see the same cellute-ridden cow there every January: in the 6 years I've been going to this same gym she still looks like the south end of a moose going north. Frankly, the gym should be ashamed of themselves for taking her money.

Imperial, please! Too bad they went kind of bland & boring after '64. Well, at least until '68. Not a big fan of the Imperial dash, though. Somebody was trying too hard at symmetry, IMO. The Caddy dash aged better.

Nice hat, lady - hope you win!

It's almost like they are afraid to say it is a good vehicle. Oh, it is better looking than the other GM Lambdas, and 'possibly' the best looking CUV in the segment. Possibly? The only other CUV in that segment that isn't FUGLY is the Mazda. Good grief. Toyota wouldn't know how to make a good looking truck if its' life depended on it, because - well, people will buy anything with that ugly T on the hood. Still, I guess we need to accept the (reluctant) good press when it comes.

I'm stayin' out of this because the BF sometimes reads my postings.... :AH-HA_wink:

... and the debate goes back and forth ad nauseum. Those who want Big Government, support government education/intervention; those who hate Big Government, think we should just go out and shoot fat people or people who smoke. The reality is, medical science is getting expensive. 50 years ago, if you were fat or smoked 2 packs a day, you were probably dead by 50 years old and Society didn't have to worry about you sucking dry the hospital/medical system. Now, we can keep these people alive until they are 100. In Ontario, our 'free' healthcare is consuming HALF the government's budget - and that figure is climbing. Sooner or later, governments and/or insurance companies are going to have to start drawing lines. Triage in the future? Not entirely unbelievable. A system I envision would be heavy taxes on foods known to be unhealthy, with those funds directed into public education/health care. Of course, we know that governments never earmark funds like that - it just disappears into a black hole somewhere. Ontario already does the taxing bit: that's why cigarettes are more than $7 a pack here and a 26 oz bottle of booze is $35. Being as insurance companies are for profit companies, I also advocate a mixed system of public health insurance with the money directed to hospitals, who would then compete with each other like in a private healthcare system. Hospitals would be allocated funds from the public purse, based on per capita patients served, with bonuses based on efficiencies and Customer Satisfaction (surveys to be sent to patients, just like GM does to us.) Good doctors would be attracted to good hospitals, bad hospitals would see their client base (and funds) drop, which would cause their board to fire the administrators and get better management, etc. Internet government postings of hospital and doctor 'ratings,' would ensure a competitive system where quality of healthcare would be balanced by watching costs. Of course, this makes too much sense. Unions want Big Government to control healthcare in Canada (which really results in more paperwork, less productivity) and private health insurance providers in the States are too powerful and have too many lobbyists on Capitol Hill.

But as a customer, do you approach them with a chip on their shoulder, or do you give them the benefit of the doubt? I've worked in retail all my life and the customer who is equally nice back will have clerks doing cartwheels and backflips for them; the customer with attitude will get stuck on hold or be left to the back of the line - that's human nature. When I owned my own business, I had customers make up total lies about an incident involving me (when they later called back and asked to speak to the owner.) It takes two, but I understand that some of the rich 'older' dealers may have lost focus, or maybe they are sitting on real estate that is worth a fortune and are just waiting for a buy out offer. Every business alive today knows that communication and service is of paramount importance; however, the lies and games customers play can be exasperating, to say the least. I know one battle I see a lot is when a customer demands a 'better deal,' then gets bitchy because we won't give in. One thing they lose sight of is that although they may be spending $20k, if it's only $500 profit to the dealer (which with overhead, carrying costs, etc. is really a loss), then maybe the deal isn't worth doing. I just don't see the same degree of nasty fights at the import stores because the ones I've dealt with are firmer with their price and are not fighting for the deals because they don't have to.

Not quite what I meant. Hitachi, Sanyo and others are guilty of dumping televisions on our shores in the '60s and '70s until one by one all the American names were gone, except Zenith which held out until '01 but then went bankrupt and was absorbed by LG. Where is all that technology now? Where are all those patents? Who owns them? We won't be seeing any American made TVs any time again, will we? That's okay, the Pentagon can always order their screens from Korea.

:rotflmao:

The Excursion was a horrible vehicle! Did you ever drive one? It had a Ford Super Duty chassis and drove like a Mac truck. Ford could have at least gussied up the suspension a little. The SSR was over-priced and took 4 years to come to market. By the time it did, any interest in it had passed. (Sounds like the upcoming Camaro is going to be deja vu, no?)

Yeah, I caught that, too. Again, these f'ing writers know nothing about cars. They sift through a bunch of pictures and think 'oh, yeah, I remember hating that car,' and include it on their list.

Perhaps you're new here: we had an entire thread about the Cimarron where C&D gushed about what a great car it was. Again, we're playing revisionist history. The Cimarron was no worse a re-badge than the ES is a tarted up Camry. I won't defend the Cimarron, but I worked at a Caddy dealer in '82 and we did sell a lot of them. Gas prices doubled over night around here. Our car jockeys beat the $h! out of those little Caddys and they were pretty tough. REMEMBER: IT WAS THE '80s.

STOP! You're making me cry.

So are Canadians. I was at a family reunion 3 weeks ago and as my Aunt (from Belize) and I looked around the room, we laughed our asses off that the only 3 people in the room that were under 200 lbs was her, myself and my partner. I have two cousins under 40 who are walking with canes! My cousin Richard is about 5'10" and must be 300 lbs. His mother can barely walk. It's sad. But then we are required to have a dog license but everyone can spit a kid out.

Those Toyota diesel pickup were environmentally friend, too - they dissolved in water and biodegraded into ferrous oxide.

This has always been about buying time. Both GM and Ford are well on track to 'fixing' their problems, but the economy has knocked 6 million units out of 2008's sales. How could anyone be expected to survive that? Or have you not heard that Japan Inc is having troubles back home, too? Despite Washington's (and Ottawa) posturing, this has always been about whether or not North America wants a viable auto industry going forward. Japanese transplants are not a viable auto industry: they are window dressing; they are insurance against future trade wars; they are tokens in the PR war of who is American and who is not. I followed the electronics wars of the late '60s and the parallels are scary. We are far too complacent about what our trading partners are up to. Just ask any former executives of Zenith or Philco or Magnavox.

Customer service is always a fine line. Remember: if you are getting marble floors, free gourmet coffee, brass rails, loaners and table dancers - someone is paying for it, and it's not the manufacturers. If the import stores have all these fancy things its because they are raping someone: their service customers, their used car customers, their new car customers - somebody is paying and paying.