buyacargetacheck

Buick's out of time. Game over.

It would take a minor miracle for Buick to grow its sales on a consistent basis AND be seen by the coast markets as a hip alternative to any number of great offerings out there. All while surviving GM's "channel strategy" which helps solidify Buick's non-special status and pedestrian feel. This is more bogus Lutz spin. He's probably talking about the next LaX without qualifying that the old LaX will also be taken out of production making it seem that products are being "added." And a Cobalt Skylark or a Torrent whatever will fail if that's what the braintrust has in mind.

BTW, the so-called "quality" rankings on which Lutz's statement might have been made are also a joke. The old Regals (which supposedly did so well by JD Power standards) loved to cough up their power steering pumps at around 70,000 miles. Nothing of the kind would ever happen at such low mileage and on a large scale with a Lexus or Toyota comparable product. But then again, 70,000 miles is out of JD Power's 3 year long-term durability range (usually 36,000 to 45,000 miles are typically driiven for that period of time).

This is the best it's gonna get. For you cheerleaders here who actually buy new Buicks (population 1), get 'em while you can.

Big loss for Toyota and an equally big gain for Chrysler. Interesting that Bob McCurry, who recently died and who was largely responsible for growing Toyota's business in the US in the 80s and 90s originally spent the first 20 or 30 years of his career at Chrysler. Now Press, who has spent the first 30+ years of his career at Toyota, is returning the favor. A sign of good times to come at Chrysler???

Hey, let's not get personal. It's just a car. Sounds like you need a woman (or a man). If not, don't worry. They're be plenty of G8s left at your unfriendly PontiacBuickGMC dealer to buy, take home and make love to. Just hope your '87 antique pickup doesn't get jealous - might blow a rod

And "you look like the piss-boy."

The front looks like a 90s BMW with nose piercings. The rear looks like an Aveo sedan. It may not be stretch to say that our Aussie friends' tastes in styling rivals the Koreans for dullness. Get on yer Pontiac and ride mate...

"Import minded?" What is this the 1980s? The word "import" is so outdated when talking about cars it sounds like something that belongs in an old Chrysler ad.

Just another excuse to fudge what's really happening; or has happened (Typical of the import minded) The Tundra is pretty much a flop, I mean, it hasn't even been on the market for a year and it already needs almost 1/3 of the price back to move off of lots.

It may not even take a general perception that "Toyota trucks are better." Toyota is showing an aggressive willingness to buy market share for a quick impact. Within 10 years the Tundra will be selling a full-line of trucks that will rival the Silverado, F-Series and Ram in sales. I'd expect them to tap their stakes in Hino and Isuzu (diesels) to give them even more credibility.

What concerns me more is if the public starts to swallow that Toyota trucks are better than GM's, then we have problems right here in River City my friends.

Fairly easy pickings for Toyota. They want quick market share in a segment where the domestics by and large make a good product, and they have the cash to make it happen. Once Toyota converts a Big Three owner to a Tundra they'll do everything they can to hold on to them. Tundra will be rivaling Silverado, F-Series and Ram sales within 10 years. They'll buy the market share if they have to. Bank on it.

Maybe that's true in your area. Do a quick search for all the 1985-1988 Novas and Cavaliers for sale in the entire country on Autotrader.com. You'll find 16 Novas and 18 Cavaliers. Amazing considering the Cavalier by far outsold the Nova during these years 1,485,046 to 471,147 (3:1 ratio!!!). I'll grant you this is not a scientific survey, but I'd be surprised if the actual registration numbers were much different.

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/searchresult...mp;keywordsfyc=

I'm laughing because I see no Novas on the road anymore. I DO see old Cavaliers. I know replacement mechanical parts for Japanese cars are/were much more expensive than for domestics, a good reason to junk a Nova much earlier than a J-body. You couldn't buy a carburetor rebuild kit for the Nova, Sprint, etc., you had to get the whole carburetor... at a price that was more than the car was worth at the time, for example. I worked at a GM dealership parts department before going into the bodyshop.

Just think about it at the individual level. After test driving the Malibu (if the Accord owner is even so inclined), he is going to weigh whether or not 60+ months of payments for a Chevrolet that may not hold up as well or whose design might age too fast is worth the risk. To overcome this the Malibu has to be light years ahead of the new Accord. After seeing the new Accord in pictures I don't think the Malibu's sales potential looks as hot as it did a few days ago.

Toyota showed GM (up close and personal with NUMMI) and the entire industrial world how to manufacture things at low cost and high quality under The Toyota Lean Production system. The Chevy (Corolla) Nova was a far better product quality-wise than anything GM built at the time. Toyota consistently lands itself at the top of quality surveys year after year (although the Big 3 are getting better too). No one denies they are the quality leader (for now).

Ironically, as poorly as GM and Ford do in SoCal it's still their largest market. Galpin Ford, based in the San Fernando Valley (THE Valley), is Ford's largest dealer in the world. Escalades, H2s, H3s, Tahoes, Corvettes, Mustangs and Suburbans are everywhere here despite gas prices being among the highest in the country.

We aren't talking about the people in CA or NY......we aren't debating the merits of living coastal versus midwestern......we aren't talking about values and morals.

All we are simply talking about is the unescapable impact on the automotive market that the coasts impact. Something GM turns a (somewhat) blind eye to.

If you take all of the emotion out of it.....and simply look at the facts.....the sheer population in these markets....and the sheer number of new cars sold in these markets (Southern California is the #1 largest auto market in the country.....the NY tri-state area is the #2 largest auto market in the country) and the sheer impact of the media exposure in these markets (they get reversed....NY tri-state area is the #1 largest media market, southern California is the #2 largest media market) and you have quite a serious impact.

One simple fact is mind-boggling.....and I've stated it before. In the greater L.A/Orange County/Inland Empire region (not counting San Diego to the south) there are over 17,000,000 people. That's 17,000,000 potential consumers for new cars. That's over a million people more than the entire states of Michigan and Indiana combined...!

And don't you think that a major market that has that kind of potential impact should be a major focus for all manufacturers?

A friend of mine that works for Audi in L.A. said that in Germany, at Corporate headquarters, they have a conference room with huge whiteboards on the wall with all performance metrics listed for Audi USA.....one whiteboard for the Western Region, one whiteboard for the Central/SE Region, one whiteboard for the Eastern Region.....AND there's a fourth whiteboard up there....one JUST for Los Angeles.......

Now THAT'S focus....

More lies and spin from GM. If this was such a successful strategy why aren't they continuing it with the Aura and implementing it with the Malibu, potentially a much greater payoff? The peanut gallery here at C&G could do a better job at marketing GM's cars - probably for free.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/31/autos/gm_v...rce=yahoo_quote

The Aura program was successful, said Matt Armstrong, GM's Saturn marketing manager.

Aura sales increased 24 percent from June, when the program started, through July, he said. At the same time, the overall market for midsized cars went down 14 percent. July was the second-best month for the Aura since the car's launch in 2006, said Armstrong

The Saturn test drive program had always been intended as a summer promotion to boost awareness of the Aura, which was an entirely new vehicle and name for Saturn.

And I suppose you're going to tell me that the roads around your town are just teeming with 1984 J2000s right? Ha ha. GM's direct competitor to the Corolla during that time was pathetic. So pathetic that GM called in Toyota to show them how it's done. GM fans owe Toyota a great deal of thanks for helping to make their vehicles the decent machinery it is today. That's a fact Jack!

Oh yeah, and where are they now, Mr. Getacheck? Whoops, now I remember, they're all rusted back to earth.

It'll still be with us a couple of more years. GM has to be careful not to create too much demand from Kansas City and too little from Oshawa especially if they don't have the spare capacity at KC. Keeping the line moving reasonably well in Oshawa (esp with GP being axed and Lax a lame duck) is the only reason I can see why GM would price the Malibu at near Camry levels.

Protecting Impala isn't on the agenda, that car is on its way out.

GM's DOHC effort never matched Toyota's smoothness, reliability or power. More importantly, GM customers liked the pushrod stuff just fine at a lower price.

Prior to the 1982 Supra only an odd assortment of ancient Italian cars had twin cam engines. Throughout the 80s Toyota introduced some cool DOHC engines. Anyone remember the Twin Cam Corolla GTS? Or the 7M-GTE?

Wierd that GM was doing mainstream DOHC engines back then and then later walked away from them, considering the competition went for them completely...

Assuming GM wants to get closer to what the Camry does in sales, they should have priced it $1,000 below the Camry as a penetrative strategy. See, Chevrolet has to prove itself all over again to all those Baby Boomer and Gen X customers it has lost - particularly on the coasts. We here all think that the product is better. But better product alone is not going to get Camry and Accord buyers to sign on the line that is dotted. Remember how Lexus priced its first new products against Mercedes-Benz?

Once it's established (word-of-mouth, press) that the Malibu is better, then Chevy can raise their prices to Camry levels with their EpII version.

Again, maybe GM doesn't want the new Malibu to be "too" successful thereby harming Impala demand. Hence the high pricing.

um, no. you're wrong, the pricing is fine. its in line with all the competition. the malibu will outdrive the camry. the new accord will not sell at the prices chevy wants, it will be higher, much higher.

it gives them some room to discount the bu at the dealer. plus, how many camrys you see at the base price? UM, not many. sure is great for a price leader ad maybe.

Not priced aggressively enough. The 2008 Camry CE automatic with destination charge is $20,280. The 'bu at $285 less is not compelling enough to get conquest sales. GM will end up discounting it big by the end of the model year if they want to make a high-volume impact. On the other hand, maybe they're keeping expectations low internally? GM is acting like Chevy is still the mid-sized sales leader.

Good news? Much nicer looking than the Camry and it comes with alloy wheels.

Southern California DOES lead the country in fashion, style and trends. It's been that way since the end of WWII. It's why GM has a largely unknown styling presence in LA and why all the majors are here in one form or another. It's all quite independent of your jealousy or disdain for it.

By the way, you'd be surprised how many "Bible thumpers" there are here in Gomorrah. Much more conservative here than, say, SF.

Agreed. I live in the San Francisco area and I am sick of the elitist attitude of the west (Los Angelos in particular) and east coast states. They believe they dictate fashion, style etc to everyone else and think the people in the states between the coasts are bible thumpers, redneck and many other slurs.

It's clear that GM has bundled Pontiac, Buick and GMC because they intend to kill one or more of them at some point. This will reduce the lawsuit risk. GM will continue to throw pretty good product at PBG but it won't be enough. The G8 and the Ute (if that rumor is true) will bomb because both cars are pretty dull looking. The "Excitement" division gets no pass for a dull looking offering. Buick's image is beyond repair in the US. As good as it is its real competition (Mercury) is dying and its fantasy competitor (Lexus) is so far ahead in quality, performance, features, number of offerings and freshness day in and day out that Buick doesn't have a prayer. GM is too slow, too poor, and the competition never rests. GMC will eventually get the ax whenever Toyota starts getting close to the Silverado in sales. Sierra sales are just cannibalizing Chevy ones. Some GM brands are going to close down - I've been watching this saga for a long time now.

Killing Pontiac and further decimating their dealer base gains GM nothing right now (that may change). It would just further alienate GM’s dealers and accelerate retail market share decline in the short term, something GM management feels it must stop at all costs (a notion I agree with BTW). However, the problem is GM really only has the resources, as you correctly surmise, for four major brands. What Mark LaNeve and crew have decided to do is group GMC, Buick and Pontiac into a single amalgamated full-line fourth brand. Now, I don’t know if this is a workable long-term strategy, as no one in the automobile world has tried this before (Lincoln-Mercury doesn’t count because it’s hardly full-line, and both brands have been mismanaged from day one), but as it stands right now, GMC-Buick-Pontiac doesn’t have the product it needs to even validate if this strategy can work.

Excellent. We need more fuel-efficient alternatives (4 cylinders - low to mid 20s city) in the midsize family wagon market (5 pass plus at least 30 cubic feet of cargo space).

After Honda, hopefully GM will have an EpII alternative, Toyota a Camry wagon and Ford a 4 cyl Fusion wagon or Edge.

Well, Lutz obviously has a Holden fetish and thinks that Holdens are good enough for American muscle car fans. And, so far, he seems to be dumping these incredibly dull-styled Aussie things at PBG. So, a GMC Caballero seems more likely. Still, it's hard to see why anyone would want one. The volumes would have to be extra low - like 10K at most. Hell, nobody wants 2 door pickups anymore except real tradesmen.

I think coming from Lutz, that's pretty darn official. Ahhh but hope springs eternal, that's nice to see.

Yeah, yeah I read the same news article you did about the dealer vote. It doesn't make sense. I'm sure that the top dealers did "vote" and planted a bug in Lutz's ear, but no car company makes a planning decision solely based on what their dealers say. Capital investment realties trump all. Have you not spent any time at all in a corporate environment?

What would you expect GM to say if production was constrained on a RWD Lucerne replacement that Lutz gets asked about, oh, every five minutes? The reason they spin it is so they don't have to say something like, "We're at capacity with the new rave-reviewed Park Avenue so our NA markets will have to soldier on with the lame duck Lucerne for another 3 agonizing years." Nobody's "being blamed." It's called putting a positive spin on things Northstar.

I haven't seen any evidence that anyone wasting their time typing on message boards knows anything about Zeta plans for Buick. There's just a lot of "I wish" and "wouldn't it be nice." Nobody even knows if Buick will be around in 2012. That includes China, by the way.

You act like you know everything, yet you know nothing at all. The dealers were given a vote for either a Zeta-based vehicle or the Lucerne, and they picked the Lucerne. Why would GM try to spin it so that it seems like the dealer's are the reason we don't have one? Why wouldn't they say that the car is doing so well elsewhere that they don't have production capacity if that is the case?

The next LaCrosse is already going to be on the LWB EP II. If you actually read any of the posts of people around here with knowledge, you'd already know that the Lucerne is being moved to Zeta after it runs it's course (2011-12 MY).

I'm sure it's a great car. I like how they look.

I am the happy owner of a 3 week old Sky Redline. I looked and drove a GXP and liked it but the Sky's styling inside and out is why I bought it. GM could've easily put a bowtie in place of the Saturn Badge and had a mini corvette. The car's performance is awesome! People stare at it and ask about it all the time. It's funny to see the confused look on peoples face when they realize it's a Saturn so I think the car is doing it's job for Saturn. I live in Pensacola, Fl, and had to drive to Tallahassee to get mine, (I didn't want to wait the 4 mos to order) Nobody from Shreeveport, LA to Atlanta had one, nobody in Alabama, or Mississippi and I looked all the way to Gainsville Fl and even they didn't have one. I got what I wanted, 3 pedals, monsoon, chrome wheels etc and couldn't be happier with it.

Once again GM is telling us a little campfire story. Again read between the lines. Buick NA won't be getting the Holden Park Avenue more likely because GM, wisely for once, figures that they can sell out all the Aussie Zeta capacity in China and elsewhere without the expense of federalizing it for NA AND taking the risk that the car doesn't do well here because it doesn't look enough like what Americans expect a Buick to look like. This "decision" has nothing to do with what the dealers "want" (that's just positive spin).

The question, then, becomes how long will the G Lucerne remain? This car IS Buick in America. What, if anything, will replace it? Perhaps a lengthened Ep II? If nothing, then it's the swan song for Buick in NA. Probably about the same time frame when Mercury (2012?) peters out from a lack of replacement product.

Needs to be a Chevy El Camino. Maybe GM should wait until the Oshawa line is up an running and design one off the Impala lines. Shoot for 30,000 sales or less.

A Ute imported as a GMC will not do well - the styling is too bland - aka the Monaro GTO effect. And hardly anyone in the market for such a niche vehicle will fondly remember the Caballero so they'll have that going against them as well.

Convert the GMC dealers to Chevy - problem solved. Call it the El Camino but only sell it at the Premium Chevy (former GMC) dealers.

...awaiting flames...