Drew Dowdell

I'm talking overall body shape. The last GM B-bodies looked more different than this.

I saw one out in front of the Costco last night only it was wearing a VW badge....

Actually you wouldn't even need to get rid of the "dud" brands if the healthcare liabilities and got some flexibility from the union. Getting rid of the "dud" brands would just hurt GM more. Look at the Malibu and then imagine what the G6 could have been if the development/production budget were just 15% higher.

Can I use the same rational for buying a CTS-V over a CTS?

Can I tell you that I also hate this whole widescreen craze. I want a standard ratio, 15" screen with 1400 x 1050 resolution. I hate widescreen like 68 hates b-pillars.

They both have NVIDIA GeForce 9300M 256MB. At $769.00 both laptops are about $100 more than I wanted to spend, so the extra $100 on top of that makes it a pretty big jump. These are both Lenovo Ideapads with 15.4" displays.

Both laptops are within $10 of each other and of the same brand and similar model. Laptop 1: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T6400 ( 2GHz 800MHz 2MB ) Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 64 4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz Laptop 2: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P7350 ( 2GHz 1GHz 3MB ) Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz The rest of the specs are either the same or don't factor into my decision. Do I go with the faster FSB but slower Ram and 32bit Vista or do I go with slower FSB but faster RAM and 64bit Vista? Or spend $100 more and get the faster FSB, faster RAM, 4 gigs of ram, and 64-bit Vista?

This car plus Malibu face = perfect

To everyone who sneers when I suggest a Malibu over a Camry/Accord/Altima I always say, "At least go test drive it so you know you make an informed decision.". I'm confident the Malibu has a chance to win people over if they'd just get through the Chevy dealer door. If they still choose an import, well that's their choice, but at least they gave the Malibu a swing and didn't dismiss it outright without even trying.

Patience my pretties.... not everything can happen at once.

Again, I'm not arguing the merits or demerits of any of these policies, merely stating what would have to happen to make the playing field level. Spark? The trade war is over 30 years old. We've been playing the part of France circa 1941. We put up some resistance here and there, but mostly we've just surrendered.

The playing field is not even. How "great" would the Accord be if Honda had to pay the healthcare and pension liabilities GM does? Conversely, since the Malibu is now arguably on equal footing with the Accord and Camry, how much better over the imports could the Malibu have been if GM didn't have the healthcare issue?

If you want teutonic design, move to Berlin! :angry2: :angry2: :angry2:

What if the transmission replacement costs at the dealer were too high for the previous owner, you could be on your 4th or 5th transmission by now and not even know it.

How many miles did the car have on it when you bought it?

Ah, see my criteria includes a transmission that doesn't crap the bed after 3 years or 36,000 miles, whichever comes first.

That doesn't happen too often, does it DF?

Cheers and Gears is now.... Cheers and Rondels Last week I rented a 3-series zipcar. Quite frankly, the 2 hours with the car has taught me the error of my ways. As such, I've decided to change our name to Cheers and Rondels. The General's troubles and our own Pontiac Custom-S's departure from GM to BMW make the timing of this change perfect. So remember. Pushrods suck, especially the harsh and rough LS series, reliability and servicability don't matter if you get free maintenance for the first 3 years, and leatherette is perfectly acceptable in a $33,000 Civic sized car.

CTS-V - 556 horsepower and 551 pound-feet of torque from 6.2 litres, 24mpg highway, 6-speed manual or automatic, faster around the ring than the M3, M5, M6, Z8, and R8.

Glad you're back. Cadillac has your car waiting....

I'd rather GM have a next generation Impala.

good.

I'm not arguing the merits/demerits of any of those policies. I'm just pointing out that we'd need to do all of my list in order for things to be equal in terms of global trade. All of those things are what the asians do.

To make American companies competative with the Asian's we'd have to: 1. Provide national healthcare. 2. Provide extremely low interest loans to the Big Three. 3. Provide massive grants to new technologies. 4. Instill a sense of national pride towards American designed/manufactured products. 5. Instill a WWII like loathing of all things imported. 6. Set tariffs equal to those imposed on our car makers. 7. Heavily tax all income headed towards the mother country. 8. Set up a testing/approval/licensing procedure for importing products such as it would make the I.R.S. look like a young, flexible, efficient start up company. 9. Require that a certain (high) percentage of products intended of U.S. consumption be produced in the U.S.

GM apparently was fine with the terms of the loan and Wags had to go.