Drew Dowdell

I'm wondering if you misspoke Balth? Did you mean the Model 3? The Model 3 is the $35,000 base price sedan. The Model X is the gull wing SUV... and that was predicted to be in the $50k - $60k range.

Wait.. a new Mirage? Already? Mitsubishi should partner with Suzuki to sell the next Kazashi in the US. The last Kazashi would have made a great Galant.

Why is what ridiculous? Should bus drivers only be on poverty wages? Its is long, hard, exhausting work that is potentially hazardous to your health.

Not sure why this ended in the wrong forum. It has since been moved.

Blake's 2012 Ram 1500 Midnight Express review is one of the most read reviews on the site and still pulls in a lot of hits from Google

Leave no niche unturned.

Great points, but I'm betting that it would be standalone in architecture only. The nicest Cadillac dealer in my area is technically a "standalone" on a campus of car dealerships. They're all owned by the same group, but they look like separate dealers. For service, you drive your Cadillac into a garage (the door opens automatically as you pull up and closes after you pull in). Then you walk in to talk to the service advisor. Then while you're in the Cadillac lounge, a service tech comes and shuttles your car to the main campus garage. When your car is done, it's brought back to the same garage for pickup. Doing it this way satisfies both ends of the equation. Keeps the Cadillac customers from having to interact with the commoners and yet allows for the economies of scale of a dealership with all brands. This dealership campus consists of Cadillac, Buick, GMC (used to also have Pontiac, Saab, Hummer, Suzuki, and Saturn). Subaru, Hyundai, and Fiat. Pontiac simply vacated the Buick GMC building. Saab vacated the Saab/Cadillac building and Cadillac took the whole thing over. Subaru took over the Hummer building (looks quite appropriate too). Hyundai moved into the Saturn building, and Fiat took Hyundai's old spot.

I drove by there tonight. The actual dealership is in the former Princeton Lexus building behind the Denny's. They're just using the Denny's parking lot for excess inventory. It does look pretty bad though, they should just level the building as it blocks the view of the Porsche building.

You should join up, post pics, and add it to the CheersandGears.com Garage!

Those badges only lasted until about 2008 right? Buick does seem to be getting more autonomy from GMNA, but that is more a foreign pivot with them orienting more to Opel and, with the Avenier, Holden. There was an interesting and sudden shift at the Detroit show in Buick's stance, though extremely minor on the surface. So minor in fact that I don't think any outlet thought to write about it. It was this line from the Avenier press release which was repeated during the press conference, and it has been in the footer of every Buick press release since. "Buick is an international modern luxury brand offering vehicles with sculpted designs, luxurious interiors and thoughtful personal technologies, along with responsive-yet-efficient performance." My italics.. That is an extremely subtle, yet substantial shift for Buick. It perked my ears up when I heard it and I tweeted about it during the presser. It was reenforced again when Reuss pointed out that Buick is GM's second best selling international brand (after Chevrolet one assumes).

Timely...

Where do they top out at? Is it close to the starting point of the Tahoe? Even thought they have close to the same interior space, to me they are very different animals. I don't disagree that they are very different animals. The Traverse AWD LTZ is $45,700, the Tahoe 2wd LS base price is $45,500 So yeah, I think it is the overlap. The Traverse can tow 4,500 lbs 5,200 lbs. with the factory tow package (with aftermarket tow add-ons, it is limited to 2,000 lbs) The Tahoe can tow 8,300lbs or 8,500lbs depending if it is 4wd or 2wd. Most small family boats and campers can be handled by the Traverse.

Are you seeing this in other sources? I seem to see a different attitude towards GM as well.

I wonder if VW ends up doing both vans. Both have their appropriate market and very little overlap.

I'm driving a 2014 Suburban this week (work rental) and I was going to do a write up on it, but William beat me too it. It is a fantastic vehicle. I'll be taking it on a short roadtrip over the weekend.

I think the higher price is to give the Lambda crossovers some breathing room. The Traverse has 97% of the room as a Tahoe and starts at about $30k.

I think it is worthy, I am enjoying the banter and discussion about PT. I see your point and others. So if I am reading you right, you are saying each county have a local bus system to get around. then have a system that goes cross county from transit station to transit station then pick up a local bus to finish getting to work or home? FYI, Bill and Melinda gates foundation announced quietly that they will work with local social services to provide monthly passes to poor and street people so they can get around. I like how they are stepping up to make a difference with their money. In my area, the entire county is served by one bus system. Other counties have their own bus systems that run express service into a couple of stops downtown, but that isn't what I am referring to here. I am only about 15 miles from downtown Pittsburgh. I take what I would call a "suburban bus" all the way into downtown. 50% of the trip is on a special highway built just for buses, it is a reclaimed railroad right-of-way that runs directly into town. Too narrow to be a typical highway at one lane each direction, it is fine for defined routes like bus systems (It should have been light rail, but that's another ball of wax). My bus joins the busway at a major transfer point, it then makes 6 more stops along the busway on the way into town before making a small loop through town to drop people off. Also running on the busway are buses that I would call "major corridor" buses. These are the super long articulateds that can hold double or triple the number of people as a suburban bus. These buses just run up and down the busway with small loops at each end. Only on the city end do these buses travel on city blocks and only for a short time. At the suburban end, they have a dedicated turnaround point inside the last station. The express buses from outside the county travel the busway also, but make no stops into town. These are fine as they already have a very long bus ride as is. The suburban bus should drop me at one of the busway transfer stations where I would get on a corridor bus for the rest of the trip into town. This would free up the bus to head back out into the suburbs without running all the way into town. The bus run has just been cut in half and now can offer an additional run without additional equipment or personnel.

This is a topic I've been planning to do an Op-Ed on for a while now.

The waste at the Port Authority is entirely on the employment side of things, but the problem is that they are unable to hire enough employees to cover sick days and such, so drivers end up doing lots of overtime and getting those newspaper headline salaries. They can't even keep enough equipment on the road to run all of the scheduled buses today, so it's not like they're wasting money on hardware. The only other thing I would do for them is a fare structure change. Raise all fares by 50 cents (half the cost of a transfer), but include one free transfer in each trip. Then they could successfully run a hub and spoke system. My bus currently runs the entire way into town. But during the trip, it passes through three major transfer points. Instead of running me all the way into town, it should drop me at a transfer station and then turn back on its run outbound again. This would increase service density without the need for additional hardware.

Once people realize the benefits, it will catch on. The system has to have critical density for people to want to use it. The Port Authority in Pittsburgh is an example of a death by a thousand cuts. Every 6 months they cut routes and cut runs citing declining ridership and lack of funds from the state, but the problem of declining ridership just keeps accelerating. My bus route in to work was standing room only years ago. Today, on the rare occasion I take the bus in, it is not unusual for half the seats to be open. The problem? They've cut the frequency multiple times over the years. During rush hour, it used to be every 15 minutes, then it increased to every 20 minutes, then it increased to every 30 minutes, today it is every 40 minutes. If you miss your bus at the time you intended to take it, you're sunk, walk back to your car and drive in. If you're trying to take a bus outside of rush hour, better not miss it because it could be an hour or more wait. Furthermore, because of the Corbett administration choking off funds in an attempt to break the union, they don't even have enough operational buses to run every scheduled route on most days. There have been reports of up to 20% of the scheduled runs during the day system wide not happen due to lack of running equipment. That level of unreliability scares people away from using the system. Here I am, someone who wants to use public transit yet no longer able to due to lack of system density and reliability. I have been stranded waiting for buses out of the city more than once due to my bus simply not showing up. The problem is that certain political mindsets think that everything everywhere should always always always turn a profit on the books. Something like public transit doesn't operate in that way. The profit to the taxpayers comes in the form of savings elsewhere and off the books. It comes from not sitting in traffic jams and killing your MPG, it comes from lower road maintenance costs, it comes in lower environmental costs, lower accident rates, etc etc. If you build it, they will come. While I have no problem using PT, I agree that business should be profitable but the PT at least should be break even. The system in Seattle is a perfect example of stupidity. They only charge $1.25 for 1 zone, $2.50 for 2 zones and if you cross counties then it is $4.50 and yet non of this is break even. Worse is the Socialist idiots that feel the PT system should be free for street people and people who can prove they make less than $50K a year. This costs city of Seattle 38 million last year alone. They finally are killing off the free ride program as the tax dollars do not support it. Worse yet is that the free program was scaring riders due to assaults by street people and other crazy people. PT needs to be break even and safe for it to work. Nothing wrong with having $5 one way fares so that for the average person, you are looking at $50 a week, $200 a month. If you choose to use it and not have a car you will get ahead due to gas savings, insurance cost, car payments, etc. But right now biggest problem is PT not being run as a break even system. Then you also have the Unions with their seniority based jobs that does not mean you get the best worker and then you have pay issues. Some bus drivers have been sited earning 100K or more a year due to no limit on over time. I would think better to hire more drivers than control it and pay OT. Political mess that does not promise that if you build it they will use it. One Solution is the Fed's paid the bulk for HOV Lanes. If they want to get people out of their auto's then convert the HOV lanes into Lite Rail now fast quick and have the stations over the freeway systems so people walk out to the lite rail get on and zoom off. Public transit is socialist... its right there in the name... get OVER it. Public transit does NOT need to break even on the accounting books to be a net positive to the cities they serve. You have the EXACTLY WRONG mentality about public transit. The benefits of which will never ever be seen in accounting software. Every single run of of a bus route can take 25 - 50 Toyota Corollas off the road. Multiply that by thousands of bus runs (not routes, but runs) and you're talking some real numbers in terms of traffic and congestion avoided. That can mean the difference between 12mpg and 18mpg in your Suburban, every day. Even if you never ever take a bus, tram, trolley, train, etc, it is in your interest to strongly support public transit and using tax dollars to do it.

Once people realize the benefits, it will catch on. The system has to have critical density for people to want to use it. The Port Authority in Pittsburgh is an example of a death by a thousand cuts. Every 6 months they cut routes and cut runs citing declining ridership and lack of funds from the state, but the problem of declining ridership just keeps accelerating. My bus route in to work was standing room only years ago. Today, on the rare occasion I take the bus in, it is not unusual for half the seats to be open. The problem? They've cut the frequency multiple times over the years. During rush hour, it used to be every 15 minutes, then it increased to every 20 minutes, then it increased to every 30 minutes, today it is every 40 minutes. If you miss your bus at the time you intended to take it, you're sunk, walk back to your car and drive in. If you're trying to take a bus outside of rush hour, better not miss it because it could be an hour or more wait. Furthermore, because of the Corbett administration choking off funds in an attempt to break the union, they don't even have enough operational buses to run every scheduled route on most days. There have been reports of up to 20% of the scheduled runs during the day system wide not happen due to lack of running equipment. That level of unreliability scares people away from using the system. Here I am, someone who wants to use public transit yet no longer able to due to lack of system density and reliability. I have been stranded waiting for buses out of the city more than once due to my bus simply not showing up. The problem is that certain political mindsets think that everything everywhere should always always always turn a profit on the books. Something like public transit doesn't operate in that way. The profit to the taxpayers comes in the form of savings elsewhere and off the books. It comes from not sitting in traffic jams and killing your MPG, it comes from lower road maintenance costs, it comes in lower environmental costs, lower accident rates, etc etc. If you build it, they will come.

I can't think of a single city in the US outside of NYC that has anything close to the public transit density needed to have a majority of residents live car free. Yet there are many cities overseas much smaller than some of our major metros where it is not only possible, but more desirable to use PT due to the ease and cost v. the hassle of driving and maintaining a car, and then use car sharing services for the sporadic instances where a car is necessary.

Pretty sound hypothesis. I'm betting that the OEMs later wanted to put a stop to that hence the new convention. I think all of the Saturn dealers for example were Saturn of Bordentown, Saturn of Monreoville, etc.

Yeah, the Ray Catena in NJ and Rohrich Lexus/Cadillac... few others and Bobby Rahal Lex, MB, Jag are a few that I can think of as well. But they've all been in the business of selling those cars for many years. They probably got in before the contract terms changed to have the newer naming convention. Our local BMW dealer is known interchangeably as P&W BMW and Shadyside BMW, so I wonder if they are phasing the P&W name out. Bobby Rahal came and built a new Benz dealer right on P&W's doorstep a few years ago (this is a fairly urban area) but they are "Mercedes of Pittsburgh" since they're the only Benz dealer inside of city limits.

Acura saw the MKC and got scared?