Drew Dowdell

It's the commoditization that Serg wishes he had.

So how do you explain that in 2014, US sales of Hybrids were a combined total of 507,272 sold. Here is the official GOV link showing Hybrid sales all the way back to 1999 when only 17 were sold. 2000 9,350 were sold, 20,282 in 2001 were sold. I am sure an auto maker would love to have that large sales increase for a model. Now over half a million units sold in 2014. http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_19.html Notice that from 1999 to 2003 this was I believe all Toyota, no one else. Then in 2004 you have domestic and imports listed. Honda would have to be in that 1999 - 2003 total as well.... they actually beat Toyota to market with a Hybrid very slightly.

I dunno man... that sounds like total car failure to me.... better call Consumer Reports. I'm just saying. There's a fine distinction between hand-crafted and homemade. and I'm just saying that a single component failure is not a whole system failure..... even if the manufacturer decides to replace the whole system to get you back on the road faster

Nice purchase! I approve!

See, this is the kind of post I was trying to elucidate. But don't Prius buyers hold on to their vehicles until the battery has completely rotted? And yeah, I agree, tech does need to go forward. But still the point remains. GM can claim the FE advantage all they want for this hybrid. But it'll be quite naive to believe that just the increase in FE is all that's worth considering - because the intention there is very much to tout the frugality. Once you go down that road, like I said, people should really be indifferent towards the efficiency ratings. Buy what they want, don't buy the ratings. I don't think there is any one type of Pruis driver. Even still, there are 6,480 listings for a used Pruis under 100k miles, nationwide just on Autotrader.com alone. I think, as hyper was saying, there is a performance element to modern hybrids in cars that have a gas-only version. The most common complaint for hybrids is that they are too slow. The Malibu hybrid will most likely have equal or better scoot than the base 1.5T since it has 21 more horsepower and most likely more torque (I can't find a published torque number for the hybrid), so it's a way to split the performance difference with the 2.0T while rocking the fuel economy.

There are people who do buy hybrids and this technology is needed going forward. Not everyone buys a hybrid to reduce their total cost to own, indeed usually the best way to reduce total cost to own is to buy a used 4-cylinder from a brand that depreciates quickly. Most new-car hybrid purchases don't make financial sense if the sole goal is to save money. That doesn't mean that people won't buy them. The Pruis has never offered a financial benefit over a Corolla, but Toyota has sold the snot out of them.

I dunno man... that sounds like total car failure to me.... better call Consumer Reports.

Even the old eAssist was a step up from the base 4-cylinder in performance. It had an extra grunt at low RPM that the regular Ecotec didn't. With more powerful electronics in this Hybrid, I expect it will be an even larger distinction.

Good lord, do you remember that one Volt that caught fire? The headlines from that one... yes it caught fire..... after it was test crashed, the batteries left connected, and then parked it for three weeks.... THEN it caught fire. But there was much hay being made over that one as well. Yes but even you have to admit Tesla has been given a pretty good margin of error over the other companies in the past and present. Not as much fun beating an upstart before the masses as vs. the large cooperate entities. I just think fewer people care at this point because so few people actually own a Tesla.

Let me put it another way: If, for customer satisfaction reasons, GM started swapping out the entire engine in Lambdas where the Check Engine Light came on warning of timing chain stretching, and all of those instances were counted as a total power train failure in headlines like this instead of what they really are, wouldn't you cry foul? I think you would.

Good lord, do you remember that one Volt that caught fire? The headlines from that one... yes it caught fire..... after it was test crashed, the batteries left connected, and then parked it for three weeks.... THEN it caught fire. But there was much hay being made over that one as well.

There is a huge difference between "Needing to be replaced" and "Replaced for customer satisfaction purposes". This is why I'm bringing up the GM timing chains. You don't work on Electric drivetrains in the same way you work on an engine. Electric drive trains need to go into a clean-room before you start opening them up. They aren't worked on by engine mechanics at $50 an hour, they are worked on by electrical engineers who specialize in this stuff at $200+ an hour. What's happening is that some component in the early models' drive train is failing.... but like the timing chains going bad, this is not a complete drivetrain failure. Instead of pulling the motor, stripping it down in a clean room and spending upwards of $200 an hour to fix it, they are swapping out the drive train for a newer design. It also gets the car back to the customer in a fraction of the time. If GM did this, it would be like them swapping in a brand new LFX in place of an LLT. They are doing these swaps for customer satisfaction purposes because the swap can happen in half a day instead of a repair that takes multiple days..... NOT because the drivetrain had catastrophic failure. For most of them, the car was still completely drive able with nothing more than a slight noise coming from the back. So the "Require" part of the clickbait headline is wrong in most of these instances.

Indeed. There are only two Buicks without AWD... Cacada and Verano.... and Verano may get it next model.

... that's called the Bolt.

Popular Mechanics linked to an article that used dodgey data with HUGE statistical flaws. The author of the original article on Green Car Reports cannot even calculate 5% v 0.5% correctly.... he is replying in the comments and gets the math wrong MULTIPLE times. Here is the extended warranty for the timing chains... so STICK IT in your files. There is also a release on the NHTSA website as well that details the timing chain extended warranty. {PDF Warning} And while the extended warranty only covers the SUVs, owners of Malibus, Camaros, G8s and other older 3.6 powered cars are still reporting the same thing. The most recent LFX doesn't appear to be affected.

TESLA DOES NOT HAVE A 60% MOTOR FAILURE RATE! YOU HAVE A 100% FAILURE RATE IN READING COMPREHENSION.

Yeah, if you don't have a place to charge the Volt nightly, there is no point... just get a regular hybrid.

The timing chain issue covers the 2.8, 2.8T, 3.0, and 3.6 spanning back to 2004 with millions of units sold, even just 5,000,000 vehicles (and that is low) with a 2% failure rate is over 100,000 vehicles totaling 200,000 timing chains or more. It's a widespread enough issue that GM has extended the warranty on all of this family of V6es to 120,000 miles, but repairs are happening as low as 9,000 miles. My friend at the Buick dealer gets Lambdas back in the shop with under 36k miles on them needing timing chain replacements.

I changed the topic title to an actual topic so that new visitors might actually know what the topic is about. I have always reserved the right to make those types of changes for ease of navigation of the site. You're right in that the damage from this agenda driven F U.D. propaganda is done, but I'm glad I'm able to use my little corner of the web to try and set the record straight. I don't like agendas, especially when they use dodgey facts and statistics like this one does. I don't care if they're for or against a company that I'm for or against.

Except the Malibu cannot drive on electric only power for "X" number of miles like the Volt. Two different types of cars IMO. Not exactly the same, but that's my point. Someone will come in and think 'the volt is too small' and then you just qualify them, do you really need the plug in? Would a cheaper car with more room make sense to you? You can snag an electric intender who is not yet ready to pay the full price for a plug in, so chevy can downsell and get those people. They may not come in wanting a hybrid, but if you show them the plug in and back them down to the hybrid then that MSRP on the Bu Hybrid looks like a bargain, and they haven't compared it to the Fusion or Camry. Saying it has 'a good part of the same hybrid system as the volt' adds value because its not the same 'low grade hybrid' like the fusion or camry. Not everyone who comes in to look at the volt is going to decide they need the plug in. When you get the people to make the decision, then you can downsell the Malibu and they will think you are giving them more value. I would imagine that a lot who come in on a Volt also don't know about the additional cost of the faster chargers and then balk.

Every time you make your mortgage payment, it's like part of that payment is going into a long term savings bond. Every time you make a rental payment, it's like flushing money down the toilet. Just make sure you can handle the payments.

Then you need to read all of this thread to understand why that "report" is F.U.D. http://www.cheersandgears.com/topic/86111-oh-hi/

Oops, I"m wrong, the 2009 Buick Lacrosse had the 3800, but production of the engine had finished by August 2008... they just built enough of them to keep up with the final Lacrosse sales that needed them.

Actually the CT6 and XT5 names are a calamity in my book, so you'll get no argument from me there.

Nope, the Impala was 3400 and 3900 by then. The last year of the 3800 was the 2008 Lucerne... that was the last North American vehicle to carry it. Impala dropped the 3800 after 2005.