2QuickZ's

I dropped the car off on Monday. Still no update on what the issue is. They gave me a new Volt as a loaner if anybody has any questions. It had about 90 miles on it when I got it. I'm not sure if it is the weather or the fact that it is new and the batteries are not conditioned yet but a full charge shows 30 miles of range and it is pretty darn accurate with the estimate. My daily round trip commute is over 50 miles so I barely make it to work on the charge and drive home on gas. For the whole couple hundred miles that are on it, it is showing FE of around 54 MPG. The person that had it before me was one of their techs and I didn't check the electric/gas split when I got it. I do know it only had 16 miles of charge when I picked it up.

I dropped by the dealership this morning and they didn't even have time to check the code. They are so backlogged with recalls they are booked 5 weeks in advance. For folks in my situation, they are reserving rental cars. They are going to try and have my rental ready by Friday and my car will be treated as a walk-in. They do keep some time set aside for these exact scenarios. One big surprise: my car has ZERO recalls. In spite of tens of millions of vehicles they have recalled this year, not one of them applies to my car.

You may want to test drive a Cruze diesel as well. It is always good to have options and the Cruze is easily forgotten since GM does nothing to advertise it.

CEL came on again Friday. I'm going to try to drop into the dealer tomorrow and get it read. It still seems to run and drive fine so I have a sneaking suspicion it has fried another O2 sensor. It rolled 11.5k miles yesterday. Fuel economy for my daily commute has stayed right in the 36 - 37 MPG range running something like 80/20 city/highway.

I'm really surprised Nissan sells so many more Leaf's (or is that Leaves?) than GM sells Volts. Nice to see CTS sales pick up a bit. GM needs to get the next Malibu out ASAP. The commend them for the quick turnaround refresh but it obviously was not enough. The Cruze is not a bad car at all and I'm not just saying that because I own a diesel. I like mine and it has been a good car so far. I've put almost 12k miles on it in 8 months.

I like the Swedes and loved my Saabs but Volvo just can't seem to gain any traction. I hope they atleast keep it going well enough to stay afloat as it would be really sad if both Swedish brands bit the dust. The new XC60 looks nice. I can't wait to check it out at NAIAS.

I actually like the Macan quite a bit but it sure is going to cannabalize Cayenne sales although YTD Cayenne sales aren't too far off.

Mitsubishi found 1300 people that didn't realize a used almost anything else is better than a new Mirage.

Has Mazda announced yet when the Mazda6 diesel is going to hit showrooms or is it still on hold? They need to get that out ASAP.

Subaru's sales continue to surprise me. It seems their vehicles have gotten more plain and/or unattractive then the previous generation lately. Rewind back to 2005/06 and I would have gladly taken a Legacy, Forester or Impreza/WRX. Today, not so much. Only the WRX looks better than its '05 counterpart IMO. Heck, I'd still take a low mileage manual trans 05/06 Legacy GT wagon or Forester XT if such a thing existed. It would be a fun second car.

Would have been a pretty bad month if it weren't for A3 and Q3. I guess the down market move is paying off.

Wow. Honda really seems to have bucked the trend with the Fit this month. While I haven't checked everybodies sales yet, from what I have seen the general trend has been for fuel efficient vehicles to be down. It just hit me. If it weren't for that one monster sales month for the Accord a couple months ago, Accord sales would essentially be flat for the year? WTH happened that month? I'd say big fleet order but I didn't think Honda really fleeted much.

Who the heck is buying a Versa over pretty much anything that doesn't have a Mitsubishi badge on it? Is the new one really that much better than the last one? I may have to check one out. Same story for the Sentra. The new Rogue definitely looks better than the last gen so I'm not surprised it is up. I guess I am more surprised the last gen sold as well as it did.

Another good month for Chrysler. I would really like to know what percentage of the 200 sales were fleet. Cherokee sales continue to amaze me.

What an odd month for Ford. Every car down in sales except Fusion. Every SUV up in sales except Edge. Flat F-Series sales are no big shock with the new truck on the horizon. I guess I get it since gas prices have been dropping but I thought it would take a little longer for people to forget the high gas prices.

Do you by any chance have a link to the sales chart?

I forgot to mention in my earlier post, I have lusted after the CTS-V wagon since it was announced. It is still my favorite current car and I hope to own one some day. I love the CTS V-sport and can't wait to see what is coming for the new CTS-V and ATS-V. Are they going to be the CT3-V and CT5-V in their next generation?

Quick question. Where was the "garbage product at Cadillac?" Second.. the CT6 is not a renaming of any existing car. Its a name for a new product completely. The whole line-up at some point will have new naming "scheme" granted, but the reasons for sticking with the "CT" part was to keep in relation with the oldest and best known CAR product still in the line-up. The issue at hand is whether or not the name CT6.. the "6" portion being worthy of being the flagship. Furthermore the true focus of the Cadillac brand should be is focusing on the BRAND CADILLAC. This is what the original reason they went with alphanumeric in the first place. NO ONE.. and I mean NO ONE.. ever tells me they drive a 3series,, 5series,,, 7series... EClass.. XTS. They always say "oh that's my BMW.. my Benz.. my Cadillac." Well. unless its the Escalade.. which is essentially a brand in and of itself similar to the Corvette. I stay on course with the idea that the S-Class name is not iconic.. the idea of the "big Benz" is iconic... for reasons I still don't agree. Lastly people who automatically write this off as an exercise in futility simply do not want this great American brand to rise back to its rightful place. As simply as that. Well, Catera production (remember the Caddy that zigged?) ended in 2001 so I guess it has been about 14 year now. Either way, I said that GM needed to stop thinking that way. I think their current Cadillac's are excellent. My post was regarding their renaming problem in general, though, not just with Cadillac. What iconic GM vehicle names have stood the test of time? Corvette, of course. Camaro, Impala, Malibu and Regal have, though they have all taken a hiatus at one time or another for various lengths of time. Suburban for sure. Tahoe since it has made it more than 20 years? Silverado if you include the years that it was a trim level on the C/K? Am I forgetting anything? Is that even 15% of their lineup? True, CT6 is not a renaming of an existing car. Obviously I was speaking about their plan to rename their whole lineup based off of this naming convention. Your last statement is absolutely incorrect. I DO want Cadillac to succeed. That is exactly why I hate the new naming scheme. Apparently I'm not alone as I really haven't read too many positive comments anywhere. To me it seems like exactly what Cadillac DOESN'T need if they are trying to turn sales around. I guess a potential positive side effect of it is they are going to have to spend big marketing dollars to help the consumer understand what the new names mean and that is probably marketing money that wouldn't be spend if they weren't changing names.

I think if Cadillac's goal was to draw in new customers while simultaneously alienating their existing customers, they may just have a success on their hands here! At what point does GM's renaming insanity stop? They have to get out of the mindset that they make garbage product and therefore have to rename each model when the new generation comes out so the new car isn't tied to the negative brand equity. That "old GM" thinking should have been left with "old GM." I hate to say it but while the execution plan may be better than Infiniti, I still predict this will turn out poorly for the brand.

There would have to be a pretty big price difference between the 4 and the 6 for me to even consider a 4 with so little difference in fuel economy. In the case of a crew cab short box LT, it is a true $1235 option for the V6 with no other options tied to the selection. I just could not see going with the 4 banger in a vehicle this large with so little pay back. I guess you could look at it as the 4 cylinder numbers being disappointing but in this case I think it is more a case of the V6 numbers being pretty impressive.

How does 20 city / 27 MPG hwy sound for a 4 cylinder auto RWD? The fact that highway is only 1 MPG better than the V6 is a little perplexing. It should be interesting to see what the diesel numbers turn out to be. I would imagine it will be over 30 MPG highway. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2014/09/21/chevrolet-colorado-gmc-canyon-fuel-economy/16002885/

I saw one of these Sunday and I honestly thought it was a Sierra. It wasn't until I could see the badge that I realized it was a Canyon. To me, that isn't so much a problem of styling being too similar since they both look nice. It is very much a problem of the sizes being too similar. You would have never mistaken an S10 for a Silverado even if they were styled exactly the same. Once I realized it was a Canyon, my next thought was "Wow, that is really big." The funny thing is I saw them at the auto show and don't remember thinking that. It sure looked huge in the wild, though. Too big for me. That would take it off my shopping list. Too bad because I've had two S10's and two Rangers so I obviously like the little trucks. Never owned a full size and never plan to.

Okay, next tank is in. 100% city driving. EVIC showed 22.3 mph average for the tank and 27.7 MPG. It went 437.6 miles on 15.05 gallons for a calculated average of 29.07 MPG. If the amount of fuel exceeds the tank size it is because my wife was driving it and running low so she just splashed a few gallons in and let me fill it up when she got home. lol

They dropped the ball on the new 200, though..interior choices are black or black and light gray. Blech. I don't think Chrysler even offers a gray interior on the new 200, even on the base models. The one you are thinking of is a linen color which is not gray at all. More like antique white?

So for BMW proper you have two models up (3/4 series and X5) and the rest of the lineup down and it is still best ever August sales. Hmmm.