Drew Dowdell

Tesla "loses money on every car sold" because they are bringing production online for 3 vehicles plus the battery factory plus all of their R&D at the same time. That is a HUGE amount of initial investment. The legacy manufacturers hide those huge investments in gigantic volumes.... imagine if GM had to bring up 3 car lines simultaneously while only selling the Suburban (44k ytd). Even at the Suburban's fantastic margins, they'd lose money on every car also.

How loans with zero balance prolonging anything? Lutz is a great product guy, but his greatness ends there in the automotive manufacturing world, and he has been extremely wrong on the subject of hybrids and EVs. Are there issues at Telsa? Yes, but none that are insurmountable. Tesla also has an interesting side bar in the energy business with PowerWall. I think there is the potential for even more money than car building with PowerWall Personally, I think Tesla is simply aiming to be bought up by another manufacturer ones their stock price normalizes.

*sigh* I need to get back into biking... I hate my bike though... and it's relatively new.

Sometimes the cheaper route is buying the higher quality stuff. What is cheaper over 10,000 miles, 3 oil changes every 3,000 miles at $20 each or 1 oil change at 8,000 miles at $40 each?

Welcome to the Anecdote thread....

Well 95% of the GMC dealers are Buick dealers with a new short wheel base Envision. I think my GMC dealer here is one of the very few that is stand alone. Note they also are one of the most productive with an average transaction price around $62,000. I know... but you and I are smarter than the average consumer. GM has noticed there are still generally strong feelings one way or the other over GMC and Buick as brands. Drew is right, amazing how many people still have strong feelings especially about Buick as an old persons auto. I have changed many when they went and test drove the Encore and ended up buying it. I have had more people buy the Encore trading in old Subarus. Clearly the car clicks with the 20-30 age crowd. Yes but it is dangerous ground to put two competing models in the same dealer. They did ok with the Nox and Terrain but it was spread out in different dealers not the same show room. ​I have seen them do this before and it is not that I do not trust Mark but there are others at GM that have not been shown the door yet I do not trust. The Encore and the Chevy model are just a little too close for comfort for me. There should have been more changes there. It reeks of profit chasing badge engineering. In the short term it pays in the long term it can damage. The Buicks and Cadillacs are now attracting younger people and I think the issue that they are for the old is on the way out. Look at who is driving what and you may be surprised there are fewer cotton tops. Acadia and Enclave have pulled it off successfully for their whole 7-8 year run so far. It amazes me that the Lambdas are still selling so well this far into their life, but Buick is going to sell over 60K of them a year with ATPs over $50k while GMC is going to move over 90K Acadias this year with over 25% of those being Denalis. Add in the Traverse with an expected 118k this year and you're up to 275k Lambda being sold... that is better than the best selling single model, the Explorer at 230k... and probably with better ATPs too thanks to Buick and Denali. So I really don't have much concern over a Terrain and an Envision sharing a wheelbase and showroom as long as they are differentiated at least as well as the Lambda are. As the owner of an Encore, I would strongly disagree with your assessment of the Trax being too close for comfort. Five minutes behind the wheel of the Trax and I was ready to turn around and go back. I imediately understood why Buick put so much work into the QuietTuning on the Encore... it is the only Buick model with active noise cancellation and its absence in the Trax is noticeable... without ANC you can really hear the sausage being made under the hood and it doesn't sound pretty. The difference in interior material quality is noticeable. Stepping out of the Encore and into the Trax is like... well... stepping out of Buick and into a Chevy..... and that's the way it's supposed to be.

Apply Car Play and Android Auto do not replace the infotainment system, they are add-ons for it. All Cadillacs with NewCUE have both.

All of the manufacturers have the opinion that the way to get a new Infotainment system is to buy a new car.

Well 95% of the GMC dealers are Buick dealers with a new short wheel base Envision. I think my GMC dealer here is one of the very few that is stand alone. Note they also are one of the most productive with an average transaction price around $62,000. I know... but you and I are smarter than the average consumer. GM has noticed there are still generally strong feelings one way or the other over GMC and Buick as brands.

The C.U.E. updates are only for 2016+ models. The update includes large hardware upgrades so it is not backwards compatible with earlier years.

Absolutely! Well, damn. I was mostly being facetious and was awaiting a witty response from someone. Your experience was in a dealership, right? It fits no matter which side of the table you're on.

Absolutely!

It doesn't matter if it is boosted or not.... or V6 or not.... if you pound on it, you get crap fuel economy. C&D managed to get 22 mpg out of the 2008 Malibu with the 2.4 Ecotec! I can't imagine what they did to that car to get it to that!

Again, they had to be tromping on it constantly to get it to 20mpg. I hate when magazines do this... run a car through high(er) end performance tests and then report the fuel economy on it. No one will drive it like that day-in and day-out. It is a disservice to their readers to report it that way. Even the heavier 2014 Malibu 2.0T with two fewer gears got 23mpg when they were tromping on it..... When I drive a Regal or Malibu 2.0T, I get anywhere from upper 20s to just over 30. So take their fuel economy estimates with a Malibu trunk full of salt.

I hate the "How much are you looking to get your payment to?" question. Mostly because I usually have financing lined up before I even get in the shower to head out shopping.

Oh come on now! You most certainly have!

The incentive was over on November 2nd. I can't imagine there were that many 2016 Volts even available at that point... it just started rolling out in October. There are 172 2016 Chevy Volts currently listed nationwide on AutoTrader and the 2016 is only being sold in certain states. The real test will be to see if Chevy can move the 2017s when those are rolled out to all states. And the Volt enjoys extremely high owner satisfaction, the people who buy them, love them.

There were no good choices there.

Take off from the thread about Tesla fighting Michigan Dealership laws Tell your tale of dealership bad behavior or poor service. One experience that stands out in my mind - When cross-shopping the 2004 CTS, I visited a Chrysler dealership to look at a 300M (this was before the RWD 300C came out). I had a salesman that didn't know his product at all. He was trying to tell me that the 300M was engineered by Mercedes, and that it at a 3.5 liter supercharged engine. After our test drive, I popped the hood, got out, and made him point to the super charger on the engine. He pointed to the H.O. sticker on the cover and said that meant it was supercharged. After I had settled on the CTS, I went to the dealer where my Oldsmobile was usually serviced. I was around 25, had on ripped jeans and a ball-cap, and was walking into the dealership to pick out the car. They directed me to the Pontiac or Saturn showroom instead. I ended up finding the one I wanted online at another dealership and pre-arranging the deal over the phone so I didn't have to deal with the "get out of here kid, ya bother me" type attitude.

You could be right on all counts.... but from what I understand is that there is a short wheelbase (direct replacement) Terrain coming and that the long wheel base is above it. It might not even keep the same name, just ride on the same platform, so pulling off a stretch isn't just pulling the rear wheels back further. I"m guessing GMC dealers would not want to give up the sale volume from the current model and only have a 3-row/LWB to sell.

It's written at the top of the windshield.

Excellent points. I've been in the I.T. industry in some fashion or another for 20 years (I'm 37, so that should say something there) and nothing annoys me more than having to talk to a salesperson at Best Buy. It annoys me to even overhear Best Buy employees talk to OTHER customers because I just have the strong urge to jump in and intervene on the customer's behalf. It's not the profits that anyone is complaining about here Reg, though I do think transaction prices might tick down slightly at a corp owned store. It's the bad behavior by so many dealership that would likely be reigned in by Corporate if they were actually in charge. I don't visit a car dealer unless it is the one my friend works at. Even then, we called and told him what we wanted and that we had a prenegotiated price. He also knows that I have equal knowledge to him on the products.

Apple doesn't really have a direct competitor for their entire line-up, so that's why there is never a deal. Sure, you can built an rough equivilent out of competitor's products, but you'll be shopping a 5 different stores and there is no guarantee that it will all work together. (I am not an Apple fanboy, I don't own any of their products anymore)

Well, we do take all kinds here at C&G

And yes, I did have a senior moment.... but I have no way of knowing how many miles are on the oil. I've always used the oil life monitor. It was probably the 4th 5th oil change ever, so if you figure the oil change monitor is fairly consistent, then I average either 6,600 per oil change or 8,250 per oil change. This is the lowest I've ever let the oil change monitor go though.. I usually change right at 10%.