Drew Dowdell
Editor-in-Chief
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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell
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But a car like the Fusion has gone up in price to where the Taurus was. And people are turning away from larger cars. I do agree that car prices are rising faster than salaries, which really puts a boom on cars like Escape, Soul, Elantra, Rogue, Fusion, etc. A lot of those used to be bare bones model cars, but now have the power heated seats, nav-system, apple car play, and upgraded stereo that used to be on the luxury cars. I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not. People want those features you listed and are willing to downsize to get it. Just like someone who bought a C-class in 2006 probably is going for a CLA today because the C-Class is out of their range, and clearly coming from an '06 C-Class interior quality isn't a deciding factor.
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Welcome back. Nice write-up and time does fly. Next month C&G will be 15 years old!
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Agreed, they do make a good product. The difference in brand quality these days is so miniscule as to be nearly irrelevant. It primarily comes down to personal taste and comfort level.
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To go with this..kind of.. Personally, I would rather have a loaded up smaller vehicle than a stripped down larger vehicle. I could have bought an Edge when I bought my escape but it would have been a lesser trim, 2wd(not like I NEED AWD), and it would have literally only been a larger vehicle. This trend is exactly what is fueling the sub-compact crossover market. When the Encore first came out it was really the first of its kind. The Nissan Juke was there, but it doesn't really have any usable space or rear seat room. Buick was very specifically targeting people coming out of Explorers, Volvo XC90s, Highlanders, etc, who no longer wanted to wheel around such large vehicles and no longer needed that sort of room. People trading down is exactly why the GLA, CLA, A3, Q3, X1, 1/2-series, Encore, Trax, etc exist.
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If anything, people are trading down as car prices outpace salaries. You can see that in your Eclass to Cclass statistic. You can see it in the Suburban to traverse statistics. You can see it in the Taurus to Fusion statistics. You can even see it at the bottom of the market in Civic and Fit.
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Wow! You did toast them!
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SMK, you have to look at the target market for these vehicles. The up-level engine in the RX is the hybrid that sells the most, not some 500hp F-Sport model. I think all Cadillacs are going Plug-In hybrid as an option in the next few years. Escalade and as the article mentions, Coming Soon - Something Between XT5 and Escalade.... lets call it the XT6.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. Suzy McMansion does NOT care which wheels drive the car as long as they all do. Suzy McMansion doesn't care which way the engine faces... she couldn't tell even if she popped the hood, which she won't, and she won't understand why it would even matter. Suzy McMansion does NOT care or has even HEARD of the nurburgring. All she wants to know is if it has automatic climate control, navigation, bluetooth, AWD, and heated seats for $4000 down and $499 a month. As for Hilde Hausfrau over in Germany, she'd want to know that the engine is clean (dirtier engines can't go into certain cities) and if she can buy it in a diesel or not. Das ist Alles.
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Verano was simply surpassed by newer vehicles. The new Astra could have easily moved up market above the Cruze. I still don't know what GM is thinking there... 30k sales is better than 0k sales on a vehicle that is already completely developed and just has to be shipped to dealerships. Even if they dropped the base trims and shipped them over from Europe.... I really like the Regal wagon idea. The fits in nicely with Buicks "Fill the white space" mantra.... finding niches that no one else is doing right now and then find something in the GM portfolio worthy of filling it. Thats what Encore was, that's what Cascada is (still), and thats what this Regal Wagon would be. The ONLY other option in the semi-premium realm is the Volvo V60 with a base price of $36,150. The V60 Cross Country is $41k. As nice as the V60 is, it is old and in many ways outdated. It appears Audi doesn't make an A4 Avant anymore, only the All-Road which bases at $42k. The only Benz wagon is the E-Class at $59k. The BMW 3-series wagon is $42k. A Regal Estate starting at $35k and a TourX starting at $38k would fill some white space. I'd advice against pricing it directly against the Volvo... but putting it just a K or so under would be fine.
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Well they did screw up by putting a n/a v6 in it to begin with... I don't understand why they did that. Because that's what the two best sellers in the segment have... the RX and the MDX. The SQ5 and GLC may seems the same size as the XT5 on paper, but they feel much smaller inside. This is Cadillac going after RX and MDX drivers... and why not? Those are the two best sellers in the segment.
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Nice pick. I like these, particularly in black.. (but I like all of my cars in black)
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My interactions with Lincoln's PR department have been..... less than positive. In fact, one time it was insinuated that I was trying to steal an MKC at an event where journalists are invited to drive cars from all participating manufacturers (of which, Lincoln was one) and my badge was more than clear.
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GM, in a sense, opened the can and set the precedent themselves when they recalled the 2007/8 Police Impalas for the faulty spindle rods, then shun the civilian models of the same yrs claiming GM has no responsibility as those cars where built by old GM. Fleet contracts supersede that (hence the reason for the recall) and make it completely unrelated to civilian models. Apples to oranges. I'd be interested in seeing the clause in a fleet contract that supersedes GM's bankruptcy. The GM of '07/'08 no longer legally exists, so any contract someone may hold with that company would be null and void.
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Loans don't counteract continuous losses per unit. They simply delay the inevitable. GM of all companies should know that.
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I'm gutting two of my apartments. I've owned the buildings they are in since 2007, but the neighborhood back then could best be described as "troubled". They have always been low to medium income housing. The market has changed rapidly in the last two years and suddenly there is a large influx of hipster tech workers nearby looking for housing. So I'm completely redoing them in a more "hip" fashion so that I can up the rents and increase the value of the property. The one I'm cutting up now, I'm completely reconfiguring the room layouts. I'm changing it from a standard floorplan 2 bedroom (the bedrooms are tiny) to an open floor plan 1 bedroom. Going to leave one wall in the living room with exposed brick... and electrical conduit on the walls for the electrical outlets.... it's like hipster crack. I'll be able to increase the rents by 50% - 75% over what I was getting before. Then once the leases run out on the remaining two units, I'll term those leases and start on those to apartments in the spring.
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Actually, the article points out that there are very few benefits to a flat plane crank. Slightly lower rotating mass is about it. The performance that Ford gained in the 5.2 mostly came from excellent engineering at the other side of the engine... .the valvetrain. Sorry I can only read what Balthy copied and pasted in as I can't get to Linkedin from my work computer. Well, when you get home... you can read why all the fuss over a flat-plane crank in a V8 is just marketing fluff. It's confusing why Ford decided to promote that rather than the real engineering feats in the valvetrain. Probably simpler.
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Actually, the article points out that there are very few benefits to a flat plane crank. Slightly lower rotating mass is about it. The performance that Ford gained in the 5.2 mostly came from excellent engineering at the other side of the engine... .the valvetrain.
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Sounds good on paper. Cheers for the availability of a manual to go with the sport. I wish GM would bring their 1.6T over from Europe in more than just the Cascada, it gets rave reviews over there and has about the same spec as this Hyundai unit.... though 10 more lb-ft of torque in top tune.
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