Yeah I guess that’s true…

Sorry ihustle robot,

The Cobalt SS blows the ever-loving doors off the Mustang V6 in speed, handling, fuel economy, and warranty. It’s probably got more space inside, too. The only thing the V6 Mustang’s got going for it is styling, which is subjective anyway..-inline6

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Mustang V6’s are crap, the only people that should be driving a V6 Mustang better have a vagina…

Dr-Fill: Why would Ford knock off the Mazda 3?

inline6- I don’t have figures, but I remember reading that the QX56 has some of the largest premiums for any SUV on the market. Good paragraph (post 35).

AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

Ok. IF the domestics were SMART (think Toyota/Honda), this is what they would’ve done with their competitive advantage starting, I don’t know…….25 years ago.

Take a good portion of the profits you make from your full-size cars/trucks, and invest them into WHAT SHOULD BE your “Bread and butter” nucleus.

Small cars and family sedans, you know, the things that bring buyers to your company and when they’re 25 and build a customer for life. The two cars that ALWAYS SELL, come hell or high gas prices.

If Toyota or Honda were, in 1980, making money hand over fist on pick-ups and Fleetwoods, do you think they’d make Cim-morons, Gremlins, and Vegas?

And what’s with the third name change in a decade? Name change admits failure.

So you raise prices post-failure?

Just when I thought GM was growing a brain……

Monkey see, monkey do.

Anybody wanna bet the Fiesta will be priced like the Focus, and the Focus like a Jetta? Ford can’t even knock off the Mazda3, which they didn’t make, but could at least get some ROI off of the best car in the class.

Jetta sales numbers are sweet, BTW!

How many yuks at Hon/Toy staff meetings today?

DrFill

1) If GM cut its profits on the Escalade by half (say $15k) and drop the price accordingly, who’s to say Escalade sales would double? GM sells about 40-50k Escalades a year. Would a $15k price cut make it 80-100k? Not if the Tahoe’s having a hard time clearing that mark.

2) If GM were to cut its profits on its large SUVs, they’d have to raise their smaller vehicle prices even more to earn the same amount of profit (which is still actually a loss right now). The profits from GM’s trucks are probably the only things paying for their new passenger car development.

3) Who’s to say that Nissan isn’t raking in the same kinds of profits on its QX56? Heck, they’re probably getting more, since their labor isn’t unionized. Same with the Lexus LX570.

Saturn’s line in Spring Hill was still union. Honda’s plants aren’t. Honda can build Civics in Ohio because they don’t have a union there that will strike every time GM wants to put a robot in the plant, or pay the guy that mows the grass as much as the guy installing the engine. Honda doesn’t have a workforce that is still living off it from having worked in their plants 30 years ago. Honda doesn’t pay its workforce the union wage.

Now, it’s not like GM just rolled over and gave the unions whatever they wanted every time. Not at all. The unions shut down GM for almost the whole summer of ‘98 (when GM was trying to get enough ’99s to its dealers). BTW, 1998 was also the last year GM market share was at 30%.

GM doesn’t get a tax incentive every time it wants to build a new plant in America. Honda does. And when GM builds a new plant, it doesn’t have the choice of union or non-union labor. Toyota crushes even the faintest whispers of unionization, and Nissan threatens to pull all US plants if they don’t get concessions on CAFE. Not to mention the fact that Nissan, Toyota, and Honda can, at any time, decide to pull NA production and build anywhere they want without fear of backlash in the NA market. Put “GM” and “Mexico” in the same sentence and Friedman writes another vitriolic op-ed in the NYT.

So yeah, things wouldn’t be as bad if GM management in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s were better. But come on…that song’s been sung for 10 years. Their cars are getting better and better, and more competitive with your beloved Hondas each passing year, and GM’s doing it all while netting a loss in NA.

The playing field isn’t level, my friend. And they can’t build a better product if no one will buy it at $2500 more than the competition because that’s what it costs them to make.

The Cobalt SS blows the ever-loving doors off the Mustang V6 in speed, handling, fuel economy, and warranty. It’s probably got more space inside, too. The only thing the V6 Mustang’s got going for it is styling, which is subjective anyway.

They should just start pricing Asscalades closer to Malibu’s then. Maybe then they’ll sell?

My 85 K1500 faded but didn’t chip. The hood was nearly chip free and that’s with lots of highway driving. My Suburban has a fair amount of chips and I don’t really drive more.

Comment by injunraiv, posted _______
hate to disagree.
our 1977 Camaro..it rusted, but NEVER chipped on the side of the doors, like our 90 Sentra did, in 1995 storm, or on the current Focus, even….by the rear doors…it looks dirty, but when you wash the dirt off of the Sides….there’s so many small paint chips gone… it is grey primer(like my 1990 Sentra xe had, in 1995).
Yes, I know my deceased mother’s 1979 Buick Regal Peeled….paint peeled off of the car, the hood and roof, within 3 years, and left grey primer, and had HOOD paint chips(all cars get this, even today)due to stones/cinders on road during snow/ice storms, etc…
The 1977 Camaro? Sorry to say this, but Never more than hood paint chips.
We owned it. I know. We replaced the floor pan, under the drivers seat, due to rust, in 1985, at 105K miles.
Besides 13MPG(maybe 16 all hwy cruising, for 200 miles road trip)…hwy…and rust, not a bad car.

THE WARRANTY, THE WARRANTY, THE WARRANTY TOOK CARE OF THE REPLACEMENT..IF IT WERE JUST A CLEAN AND SPRAY,IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN 1000 DOLLARS… LJ SAID:”Cost? 1,000 dollars, plus 100 for towing…the “good thing” was ,
(LOOOK AT THIS PART RIGHT HERE….what I said)”we had an 880 dollar 6/100K miles plan added for **drivetrain warranty**(to our 5 year payment/loan)…so we saved 150-200 dollars, and did not need to conjure up 1,100 dollars out of thin air to pay for this../____________________________________________
Learn to read, before replying.

So, instead of reading, you just wanted to act “funny”..ACT is the word.

So, either GM continues to produce low-margin compacts in America, paying workers their high wages and getting killed by the competition in product competence because of the pricing pressures, or they outsource production to Mexico or Korea, or they raise prices to profit margins that are in line with what the competition gets for their compacts and suffer with flagging sales.

Stop bashing GM because they’re between a rock and a hard place. While bad management decisions have contributed greatly to their malaise, they’re getting screwed from about 5 ends in our market because the playing field isn’t level.

If you wanted an economical no-frills DD, why would you not get a manual Cobalt LS? Stickers for $15k and gets best-in-class fuel economy while still have a full complement of air bags. Sounds economical and no-frills to me. I’ve seriously considered getting a Cobalt LS as a daily driver and leave the Suburban parked, but when I think of what hitting a deer in a car like that @65mph would be like, I frown on the idea.

SUVs ARE safer than cars in a collision. Equipped with the same safety equipment weight wins. More inertia to absorb impact force that isn’t transferred to the occupants.

—————————
If I was in the market for a small, economical, no-frills daily driver right now I’d be headed right down the road to Honda or Toyota.

Comment by RaineMan, posted on July21 at 12:31 pm

——–
Not sure about Honda, but our 2005 Scion tC(purchased in September of 2004), is a great small car, But,at 75K, it died on the road…would not turn over.
Had it towed in, and it was Throttle Body Stuck Shut.
Cost? 1,000 dollars, plus 100 for towing…the “good thing” was , we had an 880 dollar 6/100K miles plan added for drivetrain warranty(to our 5 year payment/loan)…so we saved 150-200 dollars, and did not need to conjure up 1,100 dollars out of thin air to pay for this.

The car has 96,987 miles as of today. Still a good car…But, perfect? No.

Our 08 Focus has 21,000 in 8 months. Does fine.
34-37 MPG.
Only gripe is the tires are cheap. Even with being rotated, they are wearing(for hwy miles) too fast. They will be shot by 40,000 miles, or sooner.
And, if you want a spare, you have to buy it. Not included in purchase.
And paint seems to chip easily, also(so does the Scion tC, at least in the Midwest, where ice on roads= cinders on road/salt= paint chips..our older cars never chipped like this, though).