CARBIZ

I have no problem with the concept of toll roads for situations of the actual construction. That happened here 40 years ago when the Burlington Skyway was built: the government promised to take the toll off the bridge once it was paid for and they did. Since many governments have a love-hate relationship with the auto, they love to brey about how the automobile is 'raping' the enviroment, while quietly raking in billiions of taxes, fees and fines on the hapless motorist. I understand that new highway construction can be obscenely expensive; however, what the Ontario government allowed with the 407 deal is nothing short of robbery. Plus, the horror stories about mistaken billings and collections with our 407 tollway are legion - as is to be expected in any case of a monopoly being granted to any one single company.

Exactly. There is a lot more to consider about a warranty than just the full-page newspaper ads! In Canada, which is still largely tundra, I have successfully pointed out that the Hyundai warranty is useless if you have to pay for a 300 mile tow to the nearest Hyundai dealer; whereas, there is a GM dealer in every trading post and watering hole in Canada. And it is the list of what the warranty DOES cover that is important.

What we 'send over there' are raw materials, which they need to survive, and our technology. In the rush to build our factories in Communist China, we forget that they are still a totalitarian State. They are only too happy to let us build our factories over there, in finely orchestrated 'partnerships' so that we can show them a better way to do things, then they can beat us over the head with our own technology. In the rush to craziness, Westinghouse is going to build 3 or 4 nuclear reactors in China. That makes a great photo-op, but I'm not too sure sharing nuclear technology is the way to go. The National Post wrote a piece today about how Hyundai exports vehicles to Canada but builds nothing here. The author then proceeds to gloss this over with a comparison of the $300 million in paper pulp that Canada exports? Is he kidding? First of all, a one for one comparison is just silly. Canada has a huge trade deficit with Korea, for sure. On another level, how the hell can one compare the $300 million in lousy tree pulp to the BILLIONS of dollars worth of cars that Korea ships here. He conveniently forgets to put a price tag on the value of those imported cars to Canada, although he boasts they amount to about a half million units in the past few years.

As ugly as those late AMCs were, they were ahead of their time. AMC anticipated the SUV craze, but were about 10 years too early!!

Maybe someone in Washington woke up! The current account deficit with the Asian countries cannot be supported forever. At some point, Japan, China, Thailand and others will own more T-bills than the U.S. has money in circulation! On the one hand, it is great that neither China or Japan can now afford to make a run on the U.S. currency (as has been tried before), because it is tied to their own financial health; however, if you keep borrowing money from your neighbor so that he can then turn around and renovate your house - well, eventually your neighbor will end up owning your house. I would like to think (hope) that there has been a decades long conspiracy in Washington to "tie" the Asians to our economy so that they have to be our friends, but I doubt I could give either of our governments enough credit for actually planning that.

Over all a good article, but the back-handed compliments are in abundance. Until North Americans realize there is a strong advantage to keeping their money here where it can recirculate and create more value-added jobs, I doubt articles like this will be enough to unseat the 3-series as the Snob King. There is something for everyone in this article: the "pissing contest" buyers have plenty of references that there are "better" cars out there, and the "clipboard" buyers will enjoy the references that BMW outsells the Caddy and the frequent references to its (only) American roots. For those few loyal domestic buyers left, I suppose the new King has been crowned.

The 407 is one of the biggest scams perpetrated on the public in the history of public scams. I've used it once since it opened. It is an outrage in Ontario, where we pay something like $6 billion in gasoline taxes, which just gets dumped into general revenue, but then have to pay for a road, too? I really wonder what kind of backroom deal that French company got from the Harris government for allowing a 99 year lease and absolutely no recourse for the government to claw back their frequent increases in fees. For all our American friends out there, bare in mind that we in Canada are paying $4 a gallon in gas and nearly half of that are gasoline taxes. We export oil to you, but you can buy it for a third less. Road tolls in the U.S. almost make sense because your gasoline taxes are far more modest, but we are paying at least double what you guys do in gas taxes. Oh, that's right - WE HAVE FREE HEALTH CARE, DON'T WE?

I had the misfortune of having to watch those cars be built It was part of my driver's ed course. We had a tour of the AMC plant in Brampton. I enjoyed the crash victim's film more!

It is a smart move for Chrysler. Realistically, not many people keep their vehicles passed 4 or 5 years anyway. This just trumps GM's 100k mile powertrain. Of the hundreds and hundreds of customers I have sold, very few of them still have their '98s any more and those that do have barely gone 100k miles. It's a strong signal to the market, though. PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS. Go get 'em, MoPar!!!!

There is absolutely no end to the sheer audacity and magnitude of the negative press aimed at Detroit.

Now that Toyota has revealed itself for what it truly is, I would love it if GM and Ford would band together and make a frontal assault on the Japanese market, the only closed market in the world. Even Russia's market is more open than Japan's. Why are some people so blind to that fact? There are people openly gloating over GM and Ford's losses here while cheering on Japan Inc. JAPAN IS THE ONLY MARKET IN THE WORLD WHERE NOBODY ELSE SELLS ANYTHING OF CONSEQUENCE. Does that not make anyone wonder WHY?

Patience, my friend. Model change over is always a nail biting time for the manufacturer. There is a reason most people won't factory order any more: lack of patience. Factory orders can (and often do) take 12 weeks. Color is a big factor. Slow ramp-up on a model change is another. Slow dealer buy-in may be another. With all the deals on the 2007 Equinox/Torrents (0 %/60 mo. financing/$750 stackable credit/free sun roof on LTs, etc.), many dealers here have been slow to even order 2008s. I don't know what changes had to be made at the factory due to the windshield concerns on late production 2007s either. That may have slowed things down, too. I would never presume to tell a customer a 'guaranteed' or even 'suggested' arrival date. I had a S-10 sit in a holding pen in Windsor for 10 days - they knew where it was, they just couldn't get to it. Then, some salespeople are only too happy to take the order (and the deposit.) My motto: I would rather under promise and over perform, rather than the other way around.

It looks like North America is going to continue to be the world's 'dumping' ground - and I mean 'dumping' in the trade sense. VW hasn't had the decency to build their vehicles on our shores (like GM and Ford do in Europe), so now they plan to club us over the head with their crap built in China. IS ANYBODY IN WASHINGTON OR OTTAWA AWAKE?????

The thing you have to realize about trannies, in particular GM ones, is that there is a 'break-in' period. I have been driving a 2006 Pursuit for the past couple months (it has the kick-ass Pioneer subwoofer and speakers) with about 24k km on it and the tranny is very responsive to me when I floor it - which is a lot. Yesterday, on a lark, I took a brand new (4 km!) 2007 Cobalt out on the highway and nearly got run over because when I floored it, there was nothing there. It was scary. The tranny did not drop down a gear or two fast enough. If you rent a Cobalt that has been abused (which I am sure is a lot of them), who knows how 'loose' the tranny will feel.

All this amazing milestone proves is that someone should bring back the Pacer or the station wagon. Most of these women would be right at home in a '72 Colony Park. The CR-V is an over-priced station wagon.

Wouldn't it be faster to walk? (or swim, as the case may be) I have a friend who works for the airlines and he calls himself a "space waitress." And thank God he does NOT wear a miniskirt - there would be a lot of open windows on his flight.

I wish I had paid more attention to my French classes when I was in grade school. I missed a year, tried to catch up but my French mark was pulling my average down, so I dropped it as soon as it became optional. I suspect learning Portuguese would be a lot easier, had I have stuck to my French studies as a kid. Learning a second language was a challenge, but kind of fun. Helping my other half to learn English was a real chore. When we met, he had 3 months of ESL language under his belt. I don't know how we got passed the first year, and there were some spectacular miscommunications, but we persevered. People, especially adults, grossly underestimate the time it will take to learn a second language. If you are lucky enough to know one of the European languages from birth, then learning a second European language will come eventually. However, a lot of recent immigrants to Toronto ( I won't say Canada because most of them end up here) don't even share the same alphabet. How these people expect to learn English while driving a cab 12 hours a day, and then go home to a wife and 6 screaming brats is beyond me, but then they turn around and complain that their "credentials" are not being recognized. I don't know about you, but when a doctor is about to cut me open, I want to make sure he knows the difference between 'scalpel' and 'chain saw', and that the attending nurse will understand his accent! Our embassy is lying to these people. My partner has been struggling for 5 1/2 years and still has a lot of problems with 'articles.' I spent ten minutes explaining the difference between 'betrayal,' 'set up' and 'framed' during a movie the other night. (Not in a theatre, mind you!!!) You are learning more than just a language - you are learning an entire culture. Communications is the end-all-and-be-all of modern society, yet we are not making the least demands on who we are letting into our countries. It will be to our mutual detriment as we go forward. We are not doing them any favors, nor ourselves. I understand American's concerns about the sudden influx of Latinos into the country over the past decade or so; however, the U.S. has a proud and strong identity to tempt these people with. Due to the fractured nature of Canada's history (the British defeated the French, but then allowed them to keep their institutions), we are paying the price today. Since we cannot decide if we are "British," "French," or "First Nations," all the rest of the world is using us as their door mat. We cannot assert our own culture because, in fact, we are told we have none. Canada - or at least Toronto and Vancouver, will become the Bosnia of North America, IMO. I should be learning Chinese or Hindi or Farsi if I want to keep a job in the future.

Organized, yes. Lists, that would be me! He believes in instant results. He would pay his bills yesterday, if he could. Procrastination is my middle name! I've travelled extensively in Brazil. There is a big divide between the north and south. It would be easy to blame everything on their colonial past, but there certainly is a disconnect between the large black minority and the more successful Portuguese majority. I don't see it as bad as the disconnect evident in the States, but it is still there. The differences between Canada (colonized at the same time, but by England) and Brazil are striking. At the turn of the previous century, Toronto and Sao Paulo had the same population - 1/4 million. Now, Sao Paulo is 3 times the size and growing exponentially. Canada needs to learn from these county's mistakes, or we are going to end up just like them. Brazil is such a rich country in so many ways. It is sad to see it get so bogged down in internal strife. It is constantly struggling against the corruption that plagues most other South American countries. We should be careful not to judge these "poorer" countries with our values. For example, you rightly pointed out that there are "opportunists" every where, wanting you to pay for something. The beaches in particular are full of vendors selling something. However, Toronto is such a "rich" city, yet the "homeless" people are everywhere and all they do is beg. They don't offer anything in return, they just stick their hand out. During my first trip to Salvador, we watched a group of 5 young black boys, the eldest being about 12, in my estimation. They worked the pedestrian cross walk in front of our hotel from morning until late afternoon. They would juggle their home made sticks, with the littlest often standing on the shoulders of the tallest. They were quite talented. I saw the eldest scold the youngest a few times for some errant behavior. My first instinct was to feel badly for them, but I realized they had formed a social unit and were looking after each other. They were not doing drugs. They seemed healthy. They probably made good money doing that all day. On the beaches, vendors sell everything, but a polite, dismissive wave of the hand or a brief, "Nao obridgao" rebuffs them - and they usually smile! Not so the vagabonds on Toronto's streets. Yes, we had to pay a couple of reals to have our car watched (not in Sao Paulo or in the South, but in the poorer north), but these same opportunists warned us where we couldn't park or we'd be ticketed. In Toronto, the parking skags are like locusts. I"ve left my car unattended for 40 seconds while dropping a rental DVD off and returned to a $20 ticket. TWENTY DOLLARS, not a $1, which is about what 2 reals are worth these days. I frequently get customers who owe hundreds, even thousands in parking tickets when they go to buy a newer car. My partner has observed that there are far fewer differences between the "poor" countries and the rich, then we in the West want to admit. Or do we forget the 36 hour black out in the "rich" eastern U.S. and Canada just a few years ago? Is there any difference in having to bribe an over-worked, underpaid city official in South America then the systemic corruption we see in North America? I am talking about the Big Business all levels of government has become here. My partner "failed" his driver's license twice, yet he drove for 13 years in Sao Paulo. When I joined him for his third test, I realized why: big, big business. Each failure and payment of yet another $50 buck to re-test is big money for the government. This keeps the unionized $25 an hour examiners (in shorts and T-shirts - how professional!) in jobs. It cost him almost $400 to get his G1 license, and he still has to graduate to the next level. A TOTAL AND COMPLETE SCAM. Just look at the shambles our roads have become and you will see we are being hoodwinked. A friend of mine spent 6 weeks in Ethiopia, Kenya and other African countries on safari. He saw women proud to be flogged by their husbands. He saw children living in mud huts who had perfect teeth, big smiles and NO internet or video games. We need to get out of the Hilton Hotel syndrome and live with the people in some of these countries. I wonder who is right and who is wrong.

Yes. My partner is Brazilian and he can understand Spanish just fine, even picked a lot of it up from a Cd he bought, but apparently the reverse is a lot harder. Additionally, be careful about Portuguese, since more of it is spoken in Brazil than in Portugal itself and there are a lot of differences. I spent about a year learning Brazilian on the internet www.rosettastone.com is an amazing course that I used. However, when I was practicing at work, a Portuguese guy I work with kept correcting me. When I challenged him, he retorted that I was not learning 'real' Portuguese. Really? Let me see: on the one hand, 10 million Portugese. On the other hand, 180 million Brazilians. Hmm. Who do you think is having a greater influence on the language? To my layperson's ears, Brazilian (except those from around Rio, who sound strangely different) sounds more fluid and musical than 'real' Portuguese, which I find sounds harsher, so much so that in public I can immediately tell if a group is from Portugal or Brazil (and we have a lot of both in Toronto.) I find the unfriendliness between the two closely related cultures a little disheartening, however.

There are a million reasons why some people can never seem to settle down. Regardless of the 'why,' I believe the person may be in serious trouble if they either have never had a serious, long term live-in relationship in their life, or are as noted above, in their 'thirties' and are still habitually single. We are a social animal, but society looks down on us if we are not in a meaningful relationship. One can find themself ostracized from previous social groups when everyone else has paired up. A lot of bad habits are learned in one's twenties. Some people who are exceptionally attractive just learn to play the field and get used to the idea that someone better may be just around the corner. These people are in a lot of trouble because once their looks run out, that train will end and they will be very lonely. Other people just develop such unpleasant personal habits that even though they may make a great friend, nobody could actually live with that person. Still other people set their standards so impossibly high (deliberately?) that nobody could ever be that person's partner. Many people of both sexes can have a lot of fun when they are young. They can party till dawn with few consequences. They can snap their fingers and get anyone they want in bed. Their eyes are full of stars and the possibilties seem endless. However, when their 30s begin to unfold and all of their friends have begun to settle down, they start to realize the party ended but nobody told them. A warning to any gay posters out there: look in the mirror. We don't have kids. We cannot live vicariously through them. We cannot regain our lost innocense/childhood through our children; therefore, plan to have a lot of money and friends to surround you when your looks and energy fade if you want to avoid a lot of self-destructive behavior. Even fat chicks can throw themselves at guys when they are young, but as one gets older the offers get fewer. There is a lot of social upheaval. Some of it is noisy (kids who go off and shoot up a school), but most of it is quiet. I call it 'quiet panic.' The Church can no longer fill the niche it once did, yet 'humanism' has not yet figured what to do with the varied and wonderous types of social settings out there. Fifty years of Hollywood (and 30 years of porno) has created a groundswell of personalities who judge everyone by how they look. Although this is natural and not new, it has become inflamed.

Don't go into accounting. Unless you can't read, I have stated above that leasing is the great equalizer because it all boils down to PAYMENT. Shop the Cobalt LT, then shop the equivalent Civic. I can guarantee you the Civic will be $30-$50 more AND will have a higher buy back - a lose-lose scenario for the ricer lease, for sure. If you paid sticker for your leased Cobalt, I want you to lease from ME. I could use the money. As I tirelessly pointed out above, there is potentially a few thousand dollars in discounts from GM at any given time on the Cobalt. Factoring in some of them, should bring the effective buy back factor to around 44% or even slightly higher, but that does not matter to you. In fact, the higher buy back is only part of the equation. The APR is very important (the difference between the Cobalt's typical 1.9 lease and the Civic's typical 3.9 lease is about $25 or so a month) and the SELLING PRICE (which is the MSRP, minus all the incentives GM is offering and the price you negotiate) are equally important. And this is the point: if you only look at the MSRP and your buy back, and then gripe to your friends and family that you got "ripped off' or could have gotten a better deal on a Civic - well, my friend, Kelly Blue Book has a job for you.

Not at all. I can't stand kids, and my nephews are monsters. It grates my teeth when we go into a nice restaurant and there is a table of brats destroying the place next to us.

And yes, Car Heaven crushes the vehicle to get it off the road. Let's face it, a tip top '95 Mercedes would pollute more tha a 2007 Kia Rio.

A 55 year old, Canadian born man who had resided for the past 12 years in the Bahamas was quoted $500 a month for a Venture van. Ontario has the worst rip-off insurance in North America; Toronto is probably the worst in the world. When I moved from Collingwood to Toronto, my insurance DOUBLED and the irony is that when I lived in Collingwood I drove to Toronto sometimes twice a week. I know of many people who have cottages or second homes outside the city and keep their mailing address there to get the lower insurance. If you let your insurance lapse for a few months here, many companies will treat you as a new driver. It doesn't matter if you are 35 and have been driving 15 years. One of my best customers is an insurance agent and when I asked him if I could throw him any business, he flatly told me that they were not taking any new business. NO NEW BUSINESS? Who here on this board has so many customers that they could afford to turn them away? You obviously have not driven in Toronto lately. The 401 is busier than the Santa Monica Freeway - and that is not something to brag about. I was told off the record that "new Canadians" are costing the insurance industry billions and, of course, since Toronto accepts nearly half the 'new Canadians' that come to Canada every year; well, you draw your own conclusions. Here's the thing: I have driven in other countries and I have seen far worse drivers, BUT when you drive in Brazil, for example, they all drive like nutcases but they all drive badly the same way. They can anticipate each other's awful driving habits. In Toronto, probably 20% of the driver's learned to drive somewhere else (or not at all, and at 40 years of age are driving a car for the first time!!), so you have 30 different sets of bad habits driving 30 different ways and nobody can anticipate the other's move! That is why "new driver's" of any age are treated like 18 year old drunk drivers; since insurance companies can't descriminate based on nationality or race, but can by age, sex and "experience," they will treat all new drivers the same - and screw them to the wall.

The trouble with shopping for anything over the internet (whether a soul mate or a car, for example) is that it short circuits any possibility of the 'human touch.' We are animals, deep down and we all need that human touch. We read a lot from someone's mannerisms, the way they talk, tilt their head. Hell, even the phemerones they emit are important to the mating process. I also believe that our brains communicate on a sub-conscious level, perhaps psychically as well. How are you going to get that over the internet? Too much honesty can be a bad thing, and I am not being facetious. My sister, for example, is a great looking gal. She has an amazing job, a big house that is nearly paid for, just turned 40 and is single. She is bright and passionate and would probably do okay in the "bar scene;" however, she has 4 boys - all under the age of 14. What chance would she have on the internet? Even if she posted an airbrushed, professional photo of herself, when the questions start flying and she reveals she has 4 kids, guaranteed the postings will stop. At least in a social setting, the prospective suitor would have a chance to get a feel for her personality, her mannerisms, he humor, etc and MAYBE the fact she has 4 boys would matter less. On the internet, she has zero chance, unless she meets some poor schmoe who is a total masochist, or perve! Or he lives in South Africa!