Drew Dowdell

Really? I wonder what I saw under the hood of one then when I was jump starting it. Friend of a friend has an unusual love for them Edit: I always thought of them as the natural Chrysler competitor to the Pontiac Bonneville. Big, but still sporty and youthful. The Intrepid of that vintage would have been equivalent to the Eighty Eight, austere looking, but still capable and comfortable, and the Concord/LHS would be like the LeSabre/Park Ave respectively.

Volvo is trying to nudge prices up. Slower sales will be a result of that. I thought I was pretty clear in my intro paragraph that I was attempting to address the deception of percentages. Cadillac is the one brand with the most growth potential in the near term because they have the most core products coming online soon. The 2014 CTS really won't take off for another month or two, then we'll get Escalade, ATS coupe, plus whatever else Cadillac has up their sleeves.

I would have liked to see MR there, but this isn't a bad move either. Clearly MR is also being groomed for the position.

I never got to drive one... but they always did interest me

The 300 is a luxury car... Do you guys think I should have included Buick? Except the Verano and Encore, most of their cars sticker predominatnly over $30. Even the Regal which is under $30k MSRP for the most basic model heads north of that as soon as the destination charge is added.

From what I understand, Costco only uses nitrogen to inflate tires there. I am a big advocate of Costco for tire service. Unless you need some sort of specialty racing tire, they'll probably have a good tire for you. In addition to the standard mount/balance, they include road hazard warranty, nitrogen inflation, and free rotation/re-balance for every tire they sell. They are also really good about the tread life warranty. I just had tires put on my CR-V on Saturday. I only got 33,000 miles out of an 80,000 mile tread life warranty and because I had proof with Costco that they had been maintained/balanced/rotated properly, They gave me $56 back per tire towards the purchase of a new set. My new tires have a 90,000 mile tread life warranty, but the car will be sold well before I cover even 1/4 of that distance.

It's not just the weight, it is the "closeness" of the atoms in the molecule. So while the N2 molecules might weigh less, they are physically larger. I use N2 in my tires, but only incidentally. I don't seek out N2, but since I have my tires installed and maintained by Costco, I end up with N2 in all of my tires anyway. I do notice I can go longer between re-inflations, typically all the way to my 5k tire rotations during which Costco checks the pressure and re-inflates as needed anyway.

Fleetwood Brougham has a 7,000 lb tow rating

I always liked those Eagles... in fact both of the final Eagles were pretty good looking. Shame that one only came with the 2.7 liter.

Unititized I can see. Fwd probably not.

That looks right

Yup, it's going to be sports car year at Detroit this year. Mustang, Z06, Supra, ATS coupe

Superchargers do need oil changes too, but you should be able to get a used one for a lot cheaper than that.

Happy birthday

They re-launched Chevy in Europe in 2005, so about 3 to 4 years before the big event that prompted talks of the sale of Opel.

That would be a stretch. We got our Encore almost completely loaded and it stickered at $32k. The only things we didn't get were engine block heater and chrome wheels. I can't see a $7k premium on the Encore for being a diesel. In the Opel Mokka, the diesel is only a €1,595 premium over the gas model, roughly $2,178. That gets me a 1.7 liter diesel with 221 lb-ft That would be a very easy decision for me to make.

Eh....Nissan has been hanging out with the French too long

Not at the estimated $31k starting price it isn't

Escalade is coming next year plus some addions to the ATS line late next year. SRX should be in 18 months to 2 years.

The 2014 CTS didn't really make it into dealers in any great numbers until the very late in the month. It will pick up more.

Why you always carry a fire extinguisher. A Facebook friend of mine was driving his 1928 Buick Master Country Club Coupe and spotted this VW Passat on fire. He stopped to help, and though he couldn't put out the fire completely, he was able to keep things under control until the fire department arrived. Apparently she had just picked up the Passat from the shop and the shop may have left a shop rag or two in the engine compartment somewhere.

Each month we chronicle the sales figures for each of the manufacturers in our Sales Figures Forum. Here are notes from the "Who's Who" for November 2013. The luxury brands posted mixed results. Some brands posted healthy overall numbers, but when you dig in to where that growth came from, we find that it comes entirely from one or two models. Others posted more modest brand growth numbers, but spread that growth over a larger number of product lines. Generally, we feel that a 10% sales increase over a majority of a brand's product line is a healthier gain than a 20% increase owed mostly to a single model. The two biggest selling German luxury brands also had the most to lose. Mediocre results for both Mercedes and BMW this month. BMW's 1.7% sales increase supported entirely on the growth of just two models, the X1 and 3-series. The Mini brand was down double digits across the board. Mercedes Benz did a bit better with a 13.4% increase with that growth spread primarily over the CLA, E-Class, and M-Class models. Audi gained a similar 13%, but spread that increase over a sturdier base of 5 models and didn't suffer losses as great as the others where losses occurred. Other European Luxury manufacturers posted mixed results. Jaguar was up a healthy 41% with Land Rover up 15%. Volvo fell a shocking 31.1% with total sales coming in at 4,233 units. Porsche posted just a 3% gain. Maserati, which joins our sales ticker for the first time this month gets the prize for the biggest increase, with the Ghibli contributing to a 319% sales jump. Asian luxury auto makers posted similar mixed results. Toyota's Lexus division had the most solid gains with a 12.7% increase spread throughout their core products. The Lexus IS and ES posted solid gains while all of Lexus's SUVs were up. The best selling Lexus RX even notched up 7%. Nissan's Infiniti division posted a gain of 10.5%, but nearly all of that gain comes from the new Q50 model that replaced the G-series and the new QX60 with all other models posting substantial losses. Acura posted an 18.9% gain with most of that coming from a dramatic upswing in MDX sales. Hyundai's Genesis line dropped by about 400 units for the month, but as they do not break out sedan and coupe sales we have no way of knowing which one (or both) took the hit. Of the U.S. domestic brands, Lincoln posted the largest percentage gain with a 17.4% upswing, almost entirely from a jump in sales of the new MKZ, though 762 Lincoln Navigators found new homes as well, which was an improvement over this time last year. Cadillac had strong growth overall with a 11.4% gain owed mostly to the ATS and XTS sedans. The CTS sedan, with a new model just rolling in to dealers last month maintained pace with only a 5.5% loss for the month. Chrysler performed terribly with only the Town & Country Mini-Van posting any increase. View full article

in your "auto class" Are there any Autos that clock in over 7500lbs?

I was thinking about this over lunch and feel that I have to amend this comment. The exception to this rule is Ford. Europeans, and Germans in particular, tend to see Ford of Germany vehicles more as European cars rather than American cars.