CARBIZ

THESE DEALS EXPIRE 46 SECONDS AFTER YOU SIGN THE PAPERS, THE WARRANTIES 46 SECONDS AFTER THAT (OR UNTIL YOUR CHECK CLEARS). Actually, that last car looks like it might make it 46 miles before dying!!!!

What about a true minivan on the same platform, rather than a cross-over? Can that be done? Giving Chevrolet a real minivan to compete against Honda/Toyota (as opposed to having to give away the Uplander with a set of dishes) would be a good marketing position, PLUS it wouldn't compete directly against the rest of the Lambdas. I tell you, some days I feel like a traffic cop for P-B-GMC. Not a day goes by that someone doesn't wander in and ask about the Acadia, then when I point out that they are in a Chevrolet store (yes, sir, I know there is a GM sign on the pylon), they want to know what we have instead. Ah, that would be NOTHING.

What is with all the birthdays in March? Could it be the first warm summer day at the drive-in in June? I know many people born this week! Happy belated b'day!

Well, the Europeans are spoiled because they have a lot of different European manufacturers to choose from, and I would take Ford, Vauxhall, Opel off their list, because those manufacturers are "foreign," even if built there. Peugeot, Renault, VW, Fiat, etc. all have very interesting choices to offer, probably more models than we North Americans can choose from, but I would have to say that between Ford, GM and Chrysler (although I am only leaving Chrysler on the list because of their long heritage and history in North American culture) surely there is something for all of us in North America, without having to throw $30k across the ocean!

Thanks, guys. Yes, it is the 17th Anniversary of my 29th birthday! I don't have any plans, but my significant other told me not to make dinner tonight and was out running around yesterday for a couple hours. Hmmm. A lof of my friends and family have birthdays this week, so it has been a slew of dinners out. Good thing I lost a lot of weight recently!

The laser blue never sold around here - we still have a couple 2006 LTZs in that color sitting on the lot. I am always very careful in assessing a customer's needs before we jump into an LTZ or LT. The Impala buyer is not the same as a BMW-wannabee buyer. They want a nice, soft ride and comfort. There is quite a difference in the ride (and of course the handling, too) between the LTZ and LT. Ontario's roads are becoming a horror, especially this time of year when the frost starts coming out of the ground. The LTZ is noticeably stiffer on the frost heaves! We've just gone through the worst February in 10 years and the roads are showing it. I am concerned about the sudden addiction to 17" wheels. Except to the well-heeled customer (who wouldn't buy an Impala anyway, I suspect), the extra cost is not worth it. I am talking about replacement time. But it seems that 17 is becoming the new 15. People on this board seem to be pretty well divided into the under 20 camp who are stitching together their first rust buckets and hoping they start, and those who have BMWs and old GM's from "back in the day." The average consumer falls somewhere in the middle of this and they don't necessarily want all the gadgetry and expense of power this and power that. I still get people whining that they can't get a cassette player in the Malibu or Impala any more! I just wish GM would skip the four models of the Impala and boil it down to LT, LTZ and SS. Too much over lapping of the LS/LT and it creates confusion on the lot.

The disease of cost cutting is cutting across all businesses. Everyone is losing business to cheaper foreign competition and the internet has really changed things, in a negative way, IMO. Circuit City's problems along with other retailers that are struggling are an exanple of that. The consumer is like a crack junky: looking for the next quick fix and damn the future. A friend of mine bought a $200 microwave/convection oven (made in China) that lasted a couple months, then returned it to the retailer (not the manufacturer) and demanded that they take it back. Ultimately, who pays for that kind of a liberal return policy? The UAW/CAW has to realize that times have changed in a way that no other downturn of the past can even come close to matching. Eaton's was one of Canada's oldest retailers and they collapsed for two big reasons 1) they were too generous with their employees and 2) too generous with their customers. Yes, there were other factors, but Eaton's went down before Wal-Mart was even in Canada in a big way. Zellers and other big retailers are now feeling the pinch from Wal-Mart. If we are willing to off-shore our future just to save a few bucks on a toaster or plasma screen TV, then we had better get ready for the $h! storm that is going to hit us in the next few years. And to you guys south of the border, I ask: Who the hell is going to pay for Bush upping the ante in Iraq? Forget the UAW mess, wait until the bill from Iraq hits you while you are working at Wal-Mart!

Well, I think everyone has pretty much summed up the general state of attitudes on this board toward dealers! Clearly, none of you have had good experiences or had any sort of a relationship with the dealer. That is a shame, really. The dealer can be your best friend in a tussle with GM, a warranty company, or whatever, but if you hop around just to save $5 every time you buy something you're never going to get to that point. Our dealer puts a small, styled name in vinyl on the back of every vehicle. Very, very few people complain. I suspect most people don't care, but the heavy posters on this board are not MOST people, ha, ha! It isn't really about free advertising, although I would point out that if any of YOU guys bought a car, you probably do owe the dealer because they wouldn't have made anything off of you! LOL It is more about pride in what you bought and where you bought it. I agree that garish, tacky name badges have no place ( remember our dealer used to use big, ugly plastic chrome ones about 15 years ago), but a subtle name lettering is harmless. Of course, if you stole the car from them and don't want them to find it easily, then you should take it off.

The Japanese assault on the North American market is unique and peculiar, indeed. There is nowhere else in the world where the Japanese have come to dominate quite as much. Even in South America, Chevrolet is #1 and Toyota way down the list, behind Fiat and others. Of course, the real reason Toyota and Honda have made such a frontal assault on the American market is because it is so large (17 million sales a year) and because Americans are so fond of ANYTHING foreign. I won't even include Canada in this mess because we Canadians have absolutely no pride and will take whatever crumbs are thrown to us by anybody.

The Omega was the least ugly of a foursome of very nasty cars that GM put out in the mid-80s. I worked at a P-B-Cadillac dealer at the time and was shocked at how easily those 4 vehicles would stall out on sharp turns! You'll have fun finding a Cd player that likes playing on it side, for one! However, a friend of mine came across a Citation X-11 a few years back that was in mint shape, snapped it up and we were both pleasantly surprised at the ride/handling after all these years. I'm with Blu on this: the X-cars were the beginning of a shameful downward spiral for GM. It is no wonder the K-cars did so well! I hope any senior managers who approved those vehicles are entertaining Saddam and Hitler in the 7th Circle of Hell.

If you work a job for 10 or 20 years and all of a sudden someone says, hey, well were going to pay you less and take away the benefits tht youve been getting all along how would you react? There are adjustments that need to be made but this is all normal human reaction. Well, welcome to the real work, UAW. Every year I have worked for a dealership I have had my pay plan "modified." Sometimes, you would need a CRAY supercomputer to calculate the ins and outs, but the general direction is we work MORE and get paid LESS. In fact, our General Manager just had an uplifting Saturday morning meeting last week where he used the F-word numerous times, declared that this is not a democracy and if we didn't like, we could go work somewhere else. I feel the UAW's pain EVERY day. They need a wake up call. The guys around here pay cash for Z06s. Getting 80% of your pay to stay home is NOT a real world perk. Getting 100% health care is not a real world perk.

it'll take years before the car buying public changes their pre-conception of GM vehicles. The negative pre-conceptions out there are pretty deeply rooted from decades of churning out junk.

There was a glowing stroke-piece in the National Post today about Japan's stagnant real estate industry finally showing signs of life and how Japan spends more on R&D than the U.S. They also talked about having more PHDs and that the government pays them. Hmm. Sounds like a battle plan to me. Japan Inc is in it for the long haul. One of the reasons their banking sector has had problems is due to the zero percent business loans they hand out and the leverages made on the real estate boom in the '80s and early '90s, plus all the American T-bills they are stocking up on for the day they will OWN Washington.

Not to denigrate the accomplishments of the U.S. over the past 100 years, but let's face it: with a blessed topography, climate and geography, straddling the Old World (Europe) and the NEW NEW World (Asia), America could not help becoming a global super power. Yes, being a nation of immigrants when America tended (past tense) to absorb the best that those immigrants had to offer also greatly aided to her success. But let's not wallow in what WAS. Our enemies are using our former strengths (freedom of expression and thought) against us, and doing a better job of it. The U.S. is a seriously fractured animal at this point in history; China and Japan are not. I desperately hope that I am wrong, but the next 10 - 15 years are going to see Europe and probably Canada slide over the abyss. Decisions that are made in the U.S. in the next few years are going to decide whether it remains a hyperpower, or merely another has-been power, like Britain and France. Let's face it: Japan would have already slipped into Second World status if not for the single-mindedness of MITI over the past 50 years. Japan has no real natural resources of her own and must import nearly everything. How long could her economy have sustained that? The only bright spot (if it can be viewed as that) is that Japan's population is starting to implode and that may cause structural weaknesses that could potentially give North America some breathing space (sort of like the "truck bubble" has delayed GM and Ford's slide). China, on the contrary, is exploding in population and reaching out globally. East Africa and much of Arabia is falling under Chinese influence. Russia may not be far behind. Economists tend to be very narrow in their field. The sense of world economy is fairly new and I truly wonder how many economists have a handle on the complexities of that. Reaginism/Thatcherism caught even conservatives by surprise, but could any one idea have the same impact on today's World Economy?

Although I grew up devouring Science Fiction books, I never took to video games or comic books. I was a bad dresser and had questionable hygene when I was a young teenager, but then my "gay shield" kicked in, and except for a brief fling with a very bad punk look in the late '70s, I became an okay dresser. Computers still consisted of card readers and the school board only had one keyboard in our class when I was growing up, so although an opportunity to be Bill Gates was there, I skipped that bus. I think that if a person gets attracted to sports and athletics at an earlier age, they can possibly avoid the geek end of the scale, but other than riding my 10 spd everywhere, I more or less avoided physical exertion when I was a kid. Ironically, I hated gym class as a student, but now as an adult, I go to the gym 2 - 4 times a week and would LOVE to meet up with the jocks from the Class of '80 to see who can make ONE lap around the track now. LOL

YADDA, YADDA, YADDA. Hey, you forgot racist on your list, too. Don't be all patting yourselves on the back because America's $11trilllion economy is bigger than the next 3 largest economies. American soldiers are paying for Iraq with their blood, but Chinese and Japanese financiers are paying for it. Just wait until they call in their chits. Has it ever occured to you that Washington doesn't do anything because it CAN'T? Blackmail doesn't always come in the form of a letter under the door. There are many, many scary things at play in the world today, and we in the West are still living in the 1950s. Totally off topic, but one item I came across recently that scares the crap out of me: Russia is losing nearly a million people a year, either throught death or emigration. They have a 2,400 mile border with China. China is growing at 3 million a year. 80% of Russia's resources are in Siberia or near the Chinese border. Do you think Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. because it wanted to? No. They knew that either Britain or the U.S. would take it, so Russia decided to sell it while it could. Do I need to draw a picture for you? Japanese and Chinese companies force Western companies to form "partnerships" to steal the technology, then remarket the same items in our own back yards at half the price. Well, no wonder: if you don't have to spend the money on R&D, of course your product will be cheaper! Canada is about to be black-listed by Hollywood because we are a huge source of illegal DVDs. Hell, everybody at my work watched Blood Diamond and the new 007 weeks and weeks ago! In a related article, the local police made a token raid on Pacific Mall in north Toronto where not an English sign resides. I challenge anyone on this board to try and buy a house or business in China or Japan. Go ahead. See what happens. Yet, we are allowing huge tracts of lands, buildings and entire industries to be bought up by them. Oh, yeah, and in exchange, they finance our penchant for cheap imported goods, and our government's inability to balance their damned budgets. Wake up people, there is a big difference between FREE TRADE and what is happening between the West and Asia. Big difference. They barely hold their contempt for us in public, let alone in private. Funny, they will send their kids here to be educated, but then they are summarily yanked home, unless they can prove they are buying up half the city. And just for total disclosure, before everyone flames me for being racist, 6 years ago I was dating a very well-known (well, at least over there!) Hong Kong entertainment personality, so NO I am not racist, I am just sick of us selling our futures so that we can buy $20 toasters. Or "better" cars.

Having a job where you work EVERY SATURDAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE helps to while away the boredom. Or, you could get a dog that likes to eat papers and napkins from the street. Mine kept me up half the night. My partner and I came home from a very awful bar a 12:30 a.m. to discover a river of $h! in the hallway. I walked through the pee before I realized he had left that extra gift, too. I got up at 2:30 to pee myself and discovered more rivers of $h! in the hall (at least not on the carpet!). Now, I am looking at the balcony and it is a river of $h!. GOOD MORNING SUNDAY LOL! Seriously, Usonia, I agree with some of the above guys: you need to get out in the world and shake it up. Fun things will come to you. I am one of the fortunate people who has never really been single since I left home at 17 (29 years ago - hey, that's how old I tell people I am!), but my current partner works a lot and while he was working 50 hour weeks AND taking English classes, it was tough. I would often go out with my single friends to the clubs and dance till dawn, knowing that I was coming home to an empty bed. The dog (despite my feelings at this very moment!) has been a big help. Just because I am in a very good mood this morning: I have a very big secret to share with you. I tested positive for HIV 16 years ago, and until 2 months ago I was healthy as a horse, so to speak. Other than a bout of shingles in '01 (I was sick as hell as the WTC came crashing down!), I never needed meds and could out-drink, out party any of my friends. Something happened in early January and my CD4 (which has been 230ish for the past 15 years) suddenly crashed to 78. My doctor (one of the top AIDS pracititioners in the country) freaked and (gently) nagged me to get on meds. Five days before our 3 week holiday in Brazil, I was flat on my back, sick as hell (I took a bad reaction to Sulfatrim, which he insisted I take to ward off pneumonia), not selling any cars at work (obviously) and my partner was beside himself because we hadn't gotten cancellation insurance on our $4,000 in tickets. Did that get me down? No. My motto has always been: FIVE YEARS FROM NOW I WILL LOOK BACK UPON THIS AND LAUGH. That has always comforted me through the bad times (like turning 40 alone and single because my partner of 10 years left me for a younger guy!) (BTW, he wants me back - so life does have a sense of humour!) Anyway, I am telling you this to let you know that you never know what is around the corner. I have been on Truvada and Sustiva (the current "gold standards" of HIV medicine) for a week now and I feel like a million bucks. I cant wait to have my blood work done in another 3 weeks because I KNOW things are on the up. Hell, last night I wanted to stay out dancing and my partner was tired! (he is negative, BTW)

Has anyone refuted the author's examples? The only thing I view as outdated about this article is that now American and Canadian companies are tripping over each other to jump into bed with Chinese companies and history repeats itself all over again. Will we ever learn? We have free trade with the EU and even Mexico, but not Japan or China. When Japan's economy was tiny, we felt all pleased with ourselves because we were helping rebuild their economy. Just because Japan's banking sector seems bogged down for the past decade (zero percent loans to business anyone?) doesn't mean that Japan Inc. isn't up to something. They are not a transparent society. There are no whistle blowers at every stock holders meeting, ready to rat out the cartels, etc. Yes, this is old news, but no less valid than it was 20 years ago.

The Equinox replaced 2 vehicles (Tracker/Blazer) and the Tracker actually sold up here. I wouldn't compare the Equinox to the Edge or even the Xterra. Even GM compares it to the Escape. Not quite a cross-over yet, I think. The Pontiac dealers got the Torrent anyway, plus they've had the Aztec (for better or worse!) and Rendezvous to sell. Get my drift? We had to share the Tracker with Suzuki (!) Plus, don't forget the Swift + is sold up here. And I've tried the dealer argument with customers, but to most people (up here) Suzuki = Chevrolet. I agree with you that if you are stuck in the boonies with a Saturn, you may have a harder time to find a place that can fix it than a Chevy or GMC, but most people don't care, especially up in Canada. Yes, I am whining, but only because I think GM made a mistake with killing Olds in favor of Saturn (which is what this topic is about) and now they are threatening Chevrolet in Canada with the Opel product going to Saturn. Small vehicles sell up here. When the U.S. hits $4 a gallon gas, Optras, Aveos will sell, but Opels will sell better. The U.S. is a very different world. The Silverado outsold the Sierra last year 3:1 - in Canada, the Sierra actually ousold the Silverado, not by much (1,700 units or something like that). I am sure most hobbyists on this board don't care about the fate of dealers; some even have open contempt for them, but I do know that as dealer margins have been squeezed tighter and tighter, the frills like free coffee, loaner vehicles, etc. are all going out the window. None of that is good for customer service. GM's 8 divisions are being pitted against each other and I think the U.S. has yet to feel the pinch. Remember: a good dealer up here sells 150 retail units a month; whereas in the States they will do that in a week.

Am I missing something? $4.7 billion only buys a quarter of the company? Is that Daimler-Chrysler or only Chrysler? I thought that Chrysler was in play for around 2-3 billion for the entire company. After all, if Ford is only worth $8 a share, what would Chrysler on its own be worth? Magna isn't stupid. For $5 billion I would want a lot more.

....so what you're saying is that an Acadia with a base price of $39,945 (Can.) is a better deal than an Outlook with a base price of $34,449? Is that how it works, Pontiac Custom S? You don't think the Saturn retailers don't deal? You don't think GM corporate isn't aware of allocations and market share? (Shuffle a $2k rebate to this side and watch the sales rise; take it away there and watch them drop.) Personally, as a salesperson at a former Chevrolet-Oldsmobile retailer (now Chevrolet only), I am getting sick of fielding directions to Pontiac-Buick-GMC stores (as they have always been in Canada) for people looking for the Acadia, Grand Prix, etc. With the loss of Oldsmobile in Canada, I think some retailers are really hurting. I know I have lost a big chunk of my portfolio as customers with Aleros and Intrigues defect to Buick (doubtfully) or Acura/Nissan/Mazda. I think the mandarins in Oshawa/Detroit are all on quaaludes, or something. Chevrolet is the golden goose in the U.S., but up here (at least in the Toronto area) we are getting ravaged. Saturn has always been the ugly step-sister, but with the rumours of the Opel product washing up on these shores in the next couple years; well, at least in Canada I suspect it will be a blood letting of Chevrolet dealers. The Opel product for Saturn makes good sense - 10 years late! The HHR doesn't sell here. We never had anything to match the Vibe. The Pontiac dealers whined until they got the Pursuit/G5 (and we make fun of Ford's name changes!), then the Wave. Chevrolet has never had a cross-over, and we are told it will be a couple more years until one arrives. How many does Ford have now?

I guess this may be a case of putting the cart before the horse. Service Centers have to be convinced to carry ethanol because there are customers out there capable of using the fuel, I guess. I've seen a few Silverados with the flexfuel stickers, too. I guess it is a start.

It's beginning to sound a lot like an election! Harper is just shuffling the deck and doing what most politicians do at election time: trying to be all things to all people. Most of the SUVs have a $800 tax on them already (which you then pay PST and GST on, by the way! The Avalanche is classified as a pick up, so you pay no tax; whereas, the Suburban (on which it is based) you will. More of the tree-hugging appearing to be doing something rather than actually doing something. The Impala with "flex-fuel" will qualify for a $1,000 rebate. Good thing we ordered a lot of those already. All of this is nothing compared to the havoc Kyoto will create when (if?) implemented. They should jack up our gas taxes (already double that of our American cousins) to match Europe BUT use the extra revenue to fix our f%$king roads, highways and transit. I mean, the Don Valley Parkway is older than I am and is jammed on Christmas Day, for Gawd's Sake! Instead, Ottawa will just pussy foot around the issue, strangle the large urban areas of any useful cash to DO something about gridlock and the white flight will continue in Toronto.

Well, Turbo, I hate to burst your acid-induced bubble but I drive the Corollas and Cobalts nearly every day and there is no competition: the Cobalt bitch slaps the Corolla in handling, performance and ride. I am comparing the most popular lower models. I will credit the base Corolla (particuarly the cloth seats) as being somewhat nicer to look at inside, but the 1.8 is awful, unless coupled with the manual shift and since in the real world most vehicles are equipped with the automatic, that is all that is important. Cowl shake in a moder car is unacceptable and I have witnessed that in the new Corolla on uneven pavement (and, boy, do we have a lot of that around here this time of year!) I have not ONCE had a customer choose the Corolla over the Cobalt when I have marched them over to our sister Toyota store and drove them in it in a head to head comparison, coupled, of course, with the necessary antidote to the daily BS and crap that CR and others print. Throw in the fact that (in this market) the Corolla is $1,800 more in an apple to apple comparison price and I would say the Cobalt is a damned bargain. The Civic is probably on the other end of the scale: for another $1,800 over the Corolla I would grant that it is superior (in many respects) to both vehicles, but PRICE does matter in this segment. The Civic's sales are DOWN 20% so far this year in Canada, largely due to increased incentives on both the Cobalt and Mazda 3, but also because the arrogance over at the Honda dealers is beggining to grate on some people's nerves. I realize the Corolla is the oldest in this segment, but it has become an embarassment. The only reason it sells, IMO, is the drug haze spewed out from the crap over at CR and others. The Mazda 3 and Civic are much more worthy contenders in this segment. I don't think any of those three (Civic, Cobalt, 3) are bad vehicles - they all do different things very wel. The Corolla only exists so that BMW-driving spawn can protect their inheritances by badgering their elderly parents into buying one.

I agree with the above argument for the mid and full size card segments, but the point about the Corolla is well taken. The Aveo/Optra should get better gas mileage than they do, both on paper and in the real world. The Cobalt actually gets decent mileage in the real world, which closed the gap with the Corolla, but the Corolla/Civic still look better on paper. In the small car segment and the so-called hybrid segment appearances are EVERYTHING. People want to feel warm and fuzzy about themselves. Of course, the people who are actually doing something for the environment are taking the bus or bicycle to work..............