Pontiac and the Trailer Trash

Agreed with Firstwagon. My Strategic Management prof today seriously ranted about GM claiming their bumpers weighed thousands of pounds and so they get bad gas mileage. GM haters are just out of touch with the reality of what GM offers.

Whos fault is it?

I have a few more things GM could try:

- Reduce long-term costs. Sorry, not buying the "but we have to deal with the unions" BS. Figure out a way to not give extravagant long-term benefits to your employees (like retirement after 30 years, eg: at age 50). Unions used to be about protecting worker from abuse, not granting extravagant perks at exorbitant costs to the employer. Fix the union contracts, or don't bother staying in business.

- Stand behind your products. If people are concerned with quality, offer a 5+ year bumper-to-bumper warranty, with free comparable rental car, and make sure it really is zero-cost for the consumer.

- Make compelling features people want. Do you have a luxury car with touch-screen nav which lets you input directions as you drive? Heads-up display with transparent infrared overlay at night? 300+ hp vehicles with 30+ mpg city and highway? Web sites which work without flash? Why the hell not?

Seriously, the formula for success in business is not that hard: make a product people want, at a price they will buy it for, while keeping your costs below the amount you get for it.

How could you forget to mention the Fiero? I <3 the Fiero! :o)

The issue with GM, in my personally experience, is the customer service after purchasing the vehicle. I've had good experience with Fords and Hyundais, but decided to buy my first ever brand new car, a Chevy, four years ago. It was always in the shop from day 1, but to be fair I didn't get upset over that; everyone builds a lemon occasionally. However, the vehicle's issues were not resolved and corporate GM had brushed me off. In their eyes, I WAS the warranty and I was to live with the car in its state.

My best friend had a similar issue with his then brand new S10 when GM refused to do repairs. Even Edmunds was brushed off with their long-term Silverado when it had shift issues (they were told it was normal, just as they had told me with mine), only to be left stranded miles later.

It's the seemingly non-caring approach for customers that is a partial reason why they refuse to buy American or from GM specifically. Why should customers have faith in buying a product from a company that doesn't seem to back its products or care about it consumers?

Some of my Fords haven't been perfect, but every dealership I've gone to has been considerate and has tried very hard to solve the problems. And the Hyundais.....well, they've been bulletproof. Why go back to the hassle with GM?

"But the public gives Honda's luxury division a pass on these mistakes, while holding grudges against domestic brands for the similar offenses. Why is the first TL forgivable, but not the first G6?"

Because they run longer and are worth more than $100, yes $100 in two years.

"and are worth more than $100, yes $100 in two years"

I think you'll have to explain that one.

"I've had good experience with Fords and Hyundais"

And I could tell you some horror stories about Ford and especially Hyundais.... and I could also tell about some GM products were trouble free for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles.

Every company has it gems and turds, good dealers and bad.

^ Exactly.

Anyone remember the Hyundai Pony? They sold 76k of them in Canada in 1985, and nowadays they're still waiting for those that "experienced" that car to "pass on to a better place", as one journalist put it this week, so they can finish shedding the stigma it gave the brand. Successive cars did not help either, let's be honest, until 6-8 years ago.

25 years on they've only just broken that number in Canada(80k this year), on the back of a ridiculous warranty and the car of the year. The public remembers, and Hyundai had to go for broke to get it done.

Back on topic. For absolutly no reason I can think of, a passion for cars bearing the red dart has burnt in my heart. I don't live in the South, have a mullet or have anything in common with that group. I just love Pontiacs and I always have.

Have they rolled out garbage? Yes. Have they made travesties and copies? Yes. But there's always been something there. A ridiculousness, lunacy, swagger. Not all models carried it, but at any given time there's always been one. Fiero, Firebird, GTO(original) to name a few. Even the GTP's with the wider front tires. If I had to guess, that's been the only thing keeping Pontiac alive for the last 25 years. Always something that wasn't just a warmed-over Chevy.

Lately though, that's all they've promoted. Sure the new GTO was kinda bland stylistically, but to drive oh my! If they had just spent some time marketing it, it would have been a great place to start turning the ship around. Would it have solved their problems? No. I don't have the answer to that question but like sigmabody pointed out, companies need to stand behind their product.

It's to bad that they'll probably end up the way of the dodo. Would I buy my car as an Impala? Not in a million years. I'd rather drop a hemi in my driveway, which is too bad, cause I'm the General's man at heart.

I think part of it is that people mis-trust big corporations and root for the underdog. Honda Hyundai etc. are smaller than that huge conglomerate GM. GM is so big it should be able to produce a better car than tiny Honda. But they can't. Time after time this big company with endless resources makes crap. Their cars are always about marketing and hype rather than just making a good car. Hyundai Honda etc seem to actually focus on making a good car.

We've had lots of car brands in our garage the last 10 years, but none have been a GM product (our '56 Nomad doesn't count). I would consider a lease return CTS, but am worried about short and long term depreciation. I like the G8 GT also, but same worry.

How do you change perceptions of quality and desirability, and the effects these have on resale and overall value? It seems much harder to fix a poor reputation (earned or not) than to blow a good one.

I think the problem with domestic brands or specifically General Motors from my own experience is that is that their is no consistency in their portfolio of cars. Most of the time with GM vehicles they are at or below average when it comes to the competition, and when they do put out a remarkable product it usually forces you to make sacrifices.

For example my family has owned several Jimmy's, Oldsmobiles, and Cadillacs because my godfather owned a dealership. The problem is that for every Oldsmobile Intrigue that worked flawlessley, their is an Achieva model that was a nightmare(my first car). Not to mention the couple of Jimmy's that turned out to be lemons for my dad and uncles.

The second problem is that when they do come out with an really good product like my friends Cobalt SS, you are let down by the fact that the rest of the car looks(especially from the inside) like it is a playing catch up. Mechanically the car is superior to any Civic SI, but it feels downright cheap inside. I know GM is finally putting together well rounded vehicles, but when you think they've turned a corner and made a very special product(I'm looking at you Mr. Solstice) you are usually let down some way by either how it drives or how it looks.

These are the reasons why I think people have such a hard time taking domestics seriously. Kinda like a gifted athlete that never puts it together, only showing flashes of potential here and their.

"to the trailer trash of our country's midsection."

"But I never understood how selling bad cars to the low IQ, low-income, beer-for-breakfast crowd "

Are you sure you want to print that?

I was at the International Autoshow in Toronto this weekend.. and it was SO obvious that nothing will/can save GM.

All the cars and brands are pathetic. Chevy had the new Camaro on display for people to sit in and explore. This was the only car that excited me in GM's section.

Exterior looks solid!
Interior - OH LORD!! How could they do this to such a beautiful looking car. The interior of the production model Camaro is horrid. NOW... let's talk about quality of materials... HARD, CHEAP, UGLY plastic. Tap it with your knuckles and you will know exactly what I'm talking about!!

DEAR GM,
I BELIEVE THAT IT IS TIME FOR CHAPTER 11.

LOVE,
JULIAN905

Doing anything consistently? Not been tried. The one off good cars can't change the image. To me GM's image is such that they want to make cars to make a pile of cash. Many other car companies are engineering companies that happen to sell cars. It's no question to me which company I want to do business with. If you want to excuse a garbage vehicle to the public, actually learn a lesson.

I don't know about the truth of what you're saying. There is a trailer park near the entrance ramp of the freeway where I get on. I went to look at a used car in there one day. Most of the trailer trash were driving Asian brand imports. Of course they were not driving them to the dentist. Most of them were up on blocks or had huge oil spills beneath them. And I would have to say alot of them were Honda's and Toyota's

While I agree that other manufacturers can make a bad car, with GM and Chrysler it seems to be more the rule than the exception. I think Ford has stepped up their game and is actually starting to produce decent cars, but with both GM and Chrysler the half-baked cars just keep coming. Great examples include the Cobalt, the Sebring, the Aveo, the Equinox, etc, etc, etc. I just don't understand how they can produce so many sub-par cars. In my opinion, Chrysler should file for bankruptcy. Their only viable lines are their line of minivans and possibly Jeep. I think the hype of the 300/Charger is over. I think if GM gets rid of Saturn, Hummer, and Saab (as they have planned) and starts developing innovative, quality vehicles they might be able to make it. Ford is on the right track in my opinion.

With all the cost-cutting going on at GM and Chrysler, does anyone really believe that there will be people left in these companies to engineer a "good" car?

"Wait, before you answer do me a favor and shut up. You don't know. Nobody does"

Why so angry?

I think, to a certain extent, many Americans are ashamed to drive American cars. Traditionally, the U.S. economy has dominated most sectors it has dipped its toe into, but peaked in the auto industry long ago. Nobody is willing to take pride in driving U.S. cars seen by the rest of the world as lagging behind. That is not to say there are not several worthy models available from the domestics right now, there are. But the big three have a bad reputation world wide, and that reputation has been building for a couple decades. It will take time (which they don't have) but as quality cars become more of the rule, and not the exception, the buyers will come back. P.S. everything said about Pontiac I completely agree with. (It is a permanent muscle-car hangover)

You forgot truck-like cars. Oh wait, been tried.
I had a Grand Am for a very short time. It broke down every week and it was always a 30-dollar part but took the dealer 4 hours of labor to install.
It's this kind of engineering that keeps me away from any GM. Too bad, they have some good looking stuff these days.

Part of the reason for the rejection of the American car is definitely interior quality. Even if a car is mechanically solid, when the interior looks cheap, people don't want it. This is an area where American car makers have failed abismally.

I rented a Cobalt last week, and currently I am renting a Nissan Versa. There's no comparison in interior quality. The Cobalt is a 360-degree swath of bland gray plastic. A completely generic interior. The Versa is tasteful selection of browns, with some nice fuzzy parts, large seats, full gauges, power everything. The Cobalt had a better highway ride, but the interior was so bland that it was depressing, and I couldn't wait to return it.

It doesn't help matters that Americans now actually identify American cars as "rental cars" because GM and Ford have dumped so many stripped models onto the rental market. This was a huge mistake, made out of desperation and astonishing lack of foresight. Everyone who ever rents a car has probably driven a stripped Cobalt on several occasions. Why would they want to go out and spend $15000 on a rental car?

Maybe its the sum of the equation that GM is missing. Take the Solstice GXP post you guys have currently. On paper it should be a winner, but its definitely not going to swoon any Z, Cayman or Miata owners.

Another example. The last GM vehicle I drove, a Malibu, gave me a good vibe. It looked good and the interior wasn't half bad. I thought (before I started driving the car) that maybe they're starting to get it. Then I started the car. Good grief, why did they pair a 4-speed with that 4-cylinder? Yes the 6-speed is available with the 4...now, but that should have came with the car when it went on sale. First impressions are so important. If the 6-speed was coming not even 6 months later they should have waited the 6 or less months until the everything was congealed and ready to go. Why start out of the gate half-assed?

Then there are STILL reliability and quality issues despite protestations that there aren't. Take the Aura you guys had for the long term. It was out for a month because it had to get its entire steering wheel assembly replaced. Which only got replaced after frequent dealer visits to finally find the source of the problem. Or more recently the CTS carpet issue.

Which leads to why "we" gave the first TLs a pass. It was a Honda. "We" can be 90% certain that it isn't going to break once the warranty expires and if it does it won't cost a dip into the kids' college fund to fix like a German would. Comparatively, look at what Cadillac had to offer when the first TL came out. Yeah. Not a whole lot going on there at the time. The TL was a no-brainer in the near luxury segment at the time.

GM does make great cars...now. The CTS, G8 GT and the Corvette are great cars, but three diamonds in a bucket of sh*t are still in sh*t.

As for Hyundai. I own a '07 Sonata with the 3.3 liter. I got the car because I believe it to be a good value, not a bargain. Which is what Toyota and Honda did. Hyundai is just following in their foots steps at a more rapid pace. GM (or its dealers at least), for a long time, have been marketing their cars as bargains, not values.

Then there is the way GM has been marketing their products. Sometimes the advertising insults you for buying Japanese or German. Never honing up to the boners they've made WTF? That's not helping the cause. Hyundai hardly does the same, if at all. They know where they are (or were, I'd buy a Genesis before I'd buy a CTS) and the marketing's attitude is positioned correctly relative to its brand perception. Detroit doesn't understand or doesn't want to acknowledge that its near the bottom rung of consideration in the coastal markets.

BTW,off topic, but not really: What is with that dinky little "GM" badge in lower front corner of the front passenger doors ? Why is that there? You don't see little dinky Toyota or Nissan badges in the same place of Lexuses(?...Lexii?) or Infinitis.

Anyway, sorry about the rant, but there is no one thing GM needs to do except to maybe sack the management. Bill Ford stepped aside and Mulally is starting to turn things around. But that and Chapter 11 would only be a start for GM.

"Why so angry?"

Well, "from senators to meth dealers". If you'd been hanging around with senators and meth dealers, I guess that makes you angry. I think it certainly explains much of writing of "The Mechanic".

The only reason Ford isn't hurting as bad as GM and Chrysler is because they never put much money into actual development of new models. Ford's theory is "give it new headlights, taillights, interior and call it "ALL NEW" ... Look at the Ranger ... my god! That truck has been around since 1983!! But Ford keeps changing the taillights etc. and maybe a few body panels and guess what... it's ALL NEW! I think when Cadillac pioneered the interchangability of parts back in the beginning of the 1900's, that isn't exactly what they had in mind. How about that ALL NEW 2008 Econoline? 1992! Look at the ALL NEW 2009 F-150. 2004! The ALL NEW 2010 Mustang. 2005! How about that ALL NEW 2008 Taurus? 2005 (Five Hundred)! How about that ALL NEW 2008 Focus? 2000! What about that Crown Victoria? 1992! Oh, wait ... that one switched to the Grand Marquis body in 1998! What about the Escape? 2001! How about that ALL NEW 2008 F-350? 1999!!! The list goes on!

Maybe GM and Chrysler (not a fan of Chrysler) should start playing the Ford game. They'd have tons of cash on reserve and could make more profit.

And to anyone who believes ALL of Ford's "ALL NEW" models are truely "ALL NEW" and I'm making this stuff up, you obviously don't know a damn thing, and you probably believe pyrite is real gold, too.

Oh geez. Look at this: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/24/wanted-lender-for-1-000-gm-vans/

If the General can't get a guy with good credit financed for 1,000 vans, what hope is there? I mean 1,000 and vans at that. Does GM have a vehicle with more costs that have been fully amortized than this?

"Whos fault is it?"

Ignorant American public is definitely a factor.

JohnnyR:

What is with people and the misuse of the word "unreliable"? I cannot believe that people like you can honestly think that the problems experienced with today's GM products actually quaify as significant reliability issues. You are one of dozens of people on here who remember EVERY single warranty visit for the Aura or CTS but seem to get a little foggy when it comes to recalling the transmission failure on the Fit or the problems they have experienced with the GTR or the Pilot that left an editor stranded in the desert when it broke down. How can you give all that a free pass but be incredulous at the fact that the Aura had a groad in the steering rack? Was the Aura ever towed? did it leave anyone stranded? They had an annoying noise in the steering rack and they insisted on returning to the dealer everytime they heard it. It took too long to resolve but no normal owner is going to let their car stay with the dealer for 2 weeks while they try to assess an odd noise in the rack. The steering rack never failed and operated the entire time they owned the car.

"GM does make great cars...now. The CTS, G8 GT and the Corvette are great cars, but three diamonds in a bucket of sh*t are still in sh*t."

Yeah those are the only three nice cars they make. The STS, Malibu, Aura and Cobalt SS are all pieces of crap. And naturally their crossovers like the lambdas and Vue are amongst the worst in class.

GM's (and Ford and CHrysler) path out of teh woods is simple and straightforward. At the same time it will positively affect teh rest of our economy. Angus MacKenzie (Motor Trend) hinted at the solution a few months back when he suggested teh reason that Asian, specifically India and China, car companies would do well in teh manufacture of quality cars is becasue they have been building complicated technically advanced quality appliances for years. In fact they have been building virtually ALL of our household appliances.

Where do the American car companies fit in this? Some of us are old enough to remember way back when - GM's Frigidaire invented the refrigerator, Ford's Philco invented television, Chrysler invented - uh the Abrams tank...Point is, todays car companies build cars. Strike that, they ASSEMBLE cars. They don't even make half the components, having spun off or sold off those divisions long ago. Bring back the manufacture of household appliances and other items that were part of a robust and diversified portfolio to the Detroit 3 and you would see such a turnaround in not only their bottom line but also the country's trade defict. A skilled autoworker is already a skilled productionist, simply change the assembly line she or he is assigned to.

"Anyway, sorry about the rant, but there is no one thing GM needs to do except to maybe sack the management. Bill Ford stepped aside and Mulally is starting to turn things around. But that and Chapter 11 would only be a start for GM."

Most of what Mullaly is doing in terms of integrating product development and tapping the potential of overseas platforms was happening at GM for a few years. He has merely implemented many of the changes that GM was working on already. "sacking management" after they have drastically cut costs and improved product is pretty stupid. You can say they should be sacked in order to be sacrificial lambs but to suggest that another magic management team is going to fly into Detroit and suddenly return the company to profitability is delusional at best.

"Part of the reason for the rejection of the American car is definitely interior quality. Even if a car is mechanically solid, when the interior looks cheap, people don't want it. This is an area where American car makers have failed abismally. "

Catch up to reality. Its crazy how people who havent been exposed to any Detroit product within the last 10 years feel they are experts on the weaknesses of Detroit's offerings. Have you been inside the Flex? The MKS? How about the CTS or STS or SRX? How about the Enclave? The Cobalt is 4 years old and is not state of the art. furthermore I have been in the VErsa and its interior is as plastic and cheap feeling as any cobalt, if not worse. Same goes for the corolla and Matrix and Lancer. Have you ever been in a Lancer or Scion xB? You wont find a soft plastic panel ANYWHERE in either vehicle and both interiors are awash in black and grey materials.

You talk about abysmal failure in the interior department but dont mention the 2009 Pilot. Get in that SUV and then get in the Flex and tell me which is better. You can also compare it to the Traverse/Acadia and see which comes out on top.

why have the Japanese and German brands succeeded and the American ones failed? i think partly in part because the oversea brands had visions for their cars. Nissan always have a sporty aspect compared to Honda or Toyota and it shows even in the luxury line. Honda has always made that reliable, but somewhat tasteless, car that could get you from point a to point b without problems and do so for a long time. same with the German brands, all have had goals.

the American ones? maybe they used to be great but they just try and cheap out in the end. sure, Nissan did badge engineering with Infiniti and it almost killed the brand. why pay 22k+ for an upscale sentra or 30k+ for a rebadged maxima? sure, the G and M are rebadged versions of Nissans from Japan but they are upscale cars there as well and you don't see a copy of it.

sure, limiting yourself to one type of style does close off a lot of people but it's a give and take scenario, you can't have all different kinds of cars to please everyone. honestly, GM should have only three segments, maybe four tops. GMC - trucks, Chevy - family cars, Cadillac - luxury brand, and possibly keep Pontiac IF they can truly keep it as a performance brand without it overstepping the feet of Chevy. Saturn? what's its purpose anymore apart from a rebadged Chevy? same with Pontiac esp since Chevy has been getting the performance cars such as the ZR1, Cobalt SS while the G3 is just blah. Buick? too overpriced when a Cadillac looks so much nicer and they're more comfortable all around. Saab? barely see a purpose for the brand since Buick and Cadillac already are luxury brands.

The Japanese brands and German ones don't have 10 divisions for separate cars, they have only two or three, and that's not including their supercars since they are out of reach for 99% of the public. just my .02

Making a car not disintegrate the minute the warranty expires would be the first step. My G6 is such a disgrace. Although I do think that they took the step in the right direction with the G8 and Solstice.

I have nothing against GM, all of their cars have been good in my experience, but I think that they should just file for bankruptcy. People in the U.S. are just too biased against them. They could sell rebadged Toyota's built in Japan and people would call it junk.

Perception is reality folks.

And the mechanic strikes again! Never fails to start up a good discussion.

Oh how I wish the big three manage to pull it together.
All has been said above. They just need to get their game together. Period.

The mechanic needs to get his facts straight. The 2G TL was very successful and certainly not a flop.

I have liked so many of GM's products, but they always fell short of my expectations. Their products offer so much performance for the buck, however you still feel like you're paying too much for it. The Corvette, for example... supercar performance for $50k. Awesome deal, right? For some reason, I feel its too much. $40k sounds like a deal, though. Same with the Cobalt SS... its what? $24k at most? Still too expensive... how about we make it $19k?

I think the problem is they're doing a bad job, yet they still want good pay and bonus'... on top of that they are stuck paying UAW too much... so they pass the extra cost onto us! i'll tell you why Japanese companies do well... the execs there will take a pay cut for the good of their company! Samurai spirit! If the company fails, I can see them thrusting a knife into their stomachs. GM execs fail and they take private jets and live it up like rockstars... I can't blame American's for acting like American's, though... every man for himself! If a building is burning down, push the women and children aside and save your own ass!

The problem is perception is going to take time to change. Defending domestics citing recent examples (Malibu, Aura, Flex, etc.) will not change the legacy that was built over the last couple decades. Like it or not, buyers that sat in a previous generation cavalier, but then bought a civic because it was executed better REMEMBER how crappy that cavalier was and go right back to the Honda dealers the next time they need a new car.

The distinction between interior materials and build quality need be made. Good materials do not equal good build quality. I don't care all that much about hard plastic, just as long as it all fits together properly. For example, wife drives an 04 Liberty. that thing has hard plastics everywhere, but it was built very well. Get in a new Patriot, softer materials, but it looks like the dash was assembled blindfolded. Even if foreign marks have made compromises in material quality, they don't on build quality. Domestics are finally starting to take a similar approach.

I know how to save General Motors.

They need to issue a 200,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty on all their cars - for free.

I think if GM could make it through the next 5 years or so, they'll be ok. I think they're already on the right track. What drove buyers away from their products is the fact that they were all poorly built uncreatively styled boxes for about 30 years. Only in the last 2 years or so seeing GM concepts and future cars have I actually thought to myself "hey thats a nice looking GM car, I would consider buying that."

Of course as soon as they figure this out they hit their biggest financial crisis ever.

Oh, and they're too big. Sell off and kill some brands. They grew to the point of unsustainability.

Late to the conversation here.

I know we all love to discuss vehicles, but could somebody please back me up on removing THE MECHANIC. Or at the very least MECHANIC, just post a 'one sentence' question and let us go at it.

I can't fathom how you start a topic telling us to shut up...Are you f-ing kidding me? Are you honestly that stupid? Oh how I would love to cuss up a storm right now!

And you couldn't just leave it at one degrading remark for people who own Pontiacs, but you brought it past 7! Are you sure you don't want to go after anybody's race now? Or how about going after people with disabilities? That would be a good one.

You cease to amaze me with your pathetic attempt at "journalism". It looks like your editor said to right a 5,000 word topic and you wrote like the kid in grade school writing about his summer vacation; "It was very, very, very, very fun." You may have hit your word quota, but it made you look like more of an a$$ than ever before.

If there's a place for me to petition for your removal from this site, please let me know. I'll be the first to sign..."in my own blood".

For everyone else...carry on. Some good posts here.

"Like it or not, buyers that sat in a previous generation cavalier, but then bought a civic because it was executed better REMEMBER how crappy that cavalier was and go right back to the Honda dealers the next time they need a new car."

Not only do they remember how crappy that
Cavalier was, they remember how good the Civic was. Most people just aren't going to be willing to plunk down good money on what they feel MIGHT be a good car when they feel that they can get a much surer bet elsewhere. Just like with Hyundai, it's going to take lots of time for most people to believe their pitch. And we need to remember we've heard this from all three of them over and over. Quality would improve but then wane. Not only have all three of the Big 3 not built trust, they've managed by their uneven performance to built distrust. Wish it weren't so, but seems to be. Time and performance is the only answer. Not sure GM or Chrysler has the time left this time.

I had two GM cars as rental, POS'! I am glad I never owned GM and never will. I own/owned Ford, BMW, Nissan, Honda, Acura... there are so many choices out there, too bad GM don't get second chance.
None of my friends drive GM, it's just too embarrassing, I'd rather buy a Hyundai instead. GM is done, rest in peace.

"Perception is reality folks."

This is the smartest comment I've seen in this thread.

"They need to issue a 200,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty on all their cars - for free"
-this will drive them to chap 11 for sure

It comes down to quality. How well a car is put together, how well it holds up, and how reliable it is. Those Pontiacs were POS. Maybe Acura has made some duds, but you know the interior will still look good in ten years.
You Edmunds guys focus too much on hadnling and styling and not enough on everyday practicality.
And yes I have been in a Malibu, yes it looked good but the new cars interior had some annoying defects. Never seen that on a new Honda.

If you're going to mention the Aztek, at least spell it correctly.

Pontiac is where they are, because GM is always willing to blatantly let us know where they refuse to spend money on development.

G6
I had high hopes for this car. Finally, all disc brakes, and independant rear suspension. No beam! But they also equipped the car with a hard plastic dash (I really hate them!) AND a PUSHROD engine. I don't care how great the Vette's pushrod engine is... mainstream cars have moved on, and it feels like GM is content to let their consumers remain in the past. How do you compare pushrods and struts to VVT DOHC and Double Wishbones?!

Solstice
How do you engineer a brand new car with little trunk space? How come every car manufacturer BUT GM can create a useful little trunk on their sports car? Again, what's with the eggshell plastic dash? Why shoot for a $19,995 base price? People were already willing to pay $5,000 above sticker on looks alone, so GM should have engineered a quality interior, and set the base price at $24,995. What's with the 5 speed tranny that cames from a PICKUP TRUCK?! Put a slick 6 speed in there, or even one of those new Dual Clutch trannies (love it in my '09 Audi TT-S). The next Solstice GXP should roll out the factory with an honest 300 HP and 6 speed tranny. And find a better place for the front plate in states that require it, or lobby those states to drop the front plate requirement. The plate bracket on the grill is a deal killer for many.

GM needs to stop thinking that their customers are stupid, and selling us an 80% solution, thinking we won't notice the missing 20%. WE NOTICE!!!

GM's modus operandi of letting the public be the beta testers for their cars like in the case of the Vega, has caught up with them.
"We didn't know those cylinders would fail like that!"
Or with the original S-10. "That's the first one of these we've seen with a failed rear main seal!"
They foister this fraudulent crap on John Q. Public and most will only let it happen once.

General Motors became the corporation Americans love to hate back in the sixties when they were caught digging for dirt to use against Ralph Nader after his book "Unsafe at any Speed" blasted the Corvair. It was all downhill from there.

Starting with the 1971 Vega, the quality of GM's products took a nose dive. By the time the X-cars came out (Chevy Citation, Buick Skylark, Pontiac Phoenix, Olds Omega), a whole generation of drivers were permanently turned off by domestics in general, and GM in particular. Let's not forget the badge-engineered J-Cars. When GM tries to sell a tarted up Cavalier as a Caddilac, it is obvious that GM was "not in the business to make cars, but to make money."

There is no magic bullet that will save GM. They have had over four decades to drive the American buying public away with poor quality and boring cars. And while my last two cars have been a Buick Regal and a Saturn Aura, two of the best cars I've ever owned, it takes a long time to break stereotypes and bad reputations.

Speaking of stereotypes, Pontiac can thank "Smokey and the Bandit" for their trailer trash image. Nothing says that louder than a screaming chicken on the hood of your car. As for Saturns, I drive one and do not live in a trailer park.

Badge sharing was a big problem too.
Late 90's, early 00's: Chevy Trailblazer, GMC Envoy, Buick Rainer, Isuzu Ascender, Saab 97-X, and I thought there was one more, but that might be it.
Now: Chevy Traverse, Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook.
The new crop of Lambda's are really nice vehicles, but dang guys, can we please differentiate our vehicles with more than a different insturment gauge color?

And before you go off on why they did it...I get it. But the took it too far and they continue to do it today. Granted, Saturn's going away, but still...

bigmuggle's comment about American cars being rentals cars resonates with me. I haven't owned an American car in over 18 years. But I travel frequently for work and I get to drive the latest from Chevy/Ford/Chrysler so I'm not out of touch with how vastly different the quality of the interior/driving experience is. Those stripped down rental cars are very important because it's the only time a foreign only buyer like me will ever be driving a domestic. We need to be wildly impressed with one before we'd even consider the remote possibility of being burned by it.

Those cheap Cobalts and Avengers tell you all your need to know about the priorities of the manufacturer. As many have said, I think Ford is turning around too. The last Mustang I had was pretty nice, even went as far as visiting the Ford website and building one to see how at GT would cost. However the 6 cylinder engine in it sounds great but idles like a tractor, I mean, how can you let that happen? In 2009? Or even 2000?

I recently had a Dodge Nitro for a week, for that alone, Chrysler should skip bankruptcy and just go out of business. Uncle Sam wants their money back NOW. Don't wait, shut your doors TODAY!

Looking outside the Detroit fishbowl, accepting the reality that you're losing market share, and scaling back production accordingly to remain profitable?

Not been tried.

And stop the sister cars! How do you think I'd feel buying a Buick Lucerne, only to see it rebadged as a Chevy Malibu? Now I feel like I have an overpriced Chevy! Or that I drive a whore who's been passed from division to division. Platforms should be unique to divisions.

The Mechanic is the most entertaining read on the internet. Reminds me of reading Top Gear.

Good Job!

Simple, when you cut costs do it without putting cheaper materials in the car.
Cutting costs by making a cheaper car that still sells for the same price doesn't work.

Imports get passes on the bad cars because they gained a reputation for building highly reliable cars when GM and Ford were pushing junk off the assembly line. So people are willing to ignore the non-winners.

Unfortunately now when GM or Ford build a good car they 'get a pass' on it and people don't pay attention to it. Because it is seen as a fluke, much like the failed imports.

Hyundais were dirt cheap when they first came out and from what I've heard form owners they even ran for quite a while. They weren't cushy or nice but they worked. So it is possible to upgrade and make nicer cars and have people accept them.

American cars (in general) weren't cheap, they weren't nice, they weren't stylish, they weren't fun to drive and they weren't reliable. So when a few models added one or two of those features it just wasn't seen as a huge change or success.

Japanese manufactures put out somewhat boring cars that ran forever so if they come out with a sporty one people get excited because it is adding another benefit to an already solid base.

European cars are (supposed to be, I haven't driven one) fun to drive and are generally stylish so they get a pass on reliability issues and when they come out with more reliable ones it is seen as a win/win.

Korean cars were extremely cheap so when they started making them nicer and sportier it was another win added to an already desirable base category.

American cars need an identity. They kinda tried that with the whole, Pontiacs are plastic and try to look sporty, Chevys are cheap, Buicks are big etc. But none of the things the cars were are what people wanted. The only identity they ended up with is they are crappy rental cars.

" I cannot believe that people like you can honestly think that the problems experienced with today's GM products actually quaify as significant reliability issues. "

That's the problem. If your wife cheated on you 25 times between 1980 and 2000 then she is probably still a slut in your mind, even if she's been true to you for the last 8 years. GM and Ford violated us for years and now we are expected to forgive them and take them back since they've 'changed'.

The generation that is buying cars now grew up with their parents cussing at American made cars and people going on and on about how great imports were. It is in their DNA not to trust them. That is hard to change.

I owned a first gen Sunfire with the 2.4 DOHC engine.

It was a great looking car. The engine was much more powerful than the standard Civic/Corolla/Sentra. It offered very good acceleration for its time, and was a smoking good deal with standard ABS and traction control. It was an easy call over the Civic I looked at (I drove a CRX at the time). It was very reliable and when my wife was hit head on by a driver in a full size van who crossed lanes into her path, she walked away with a very broken arm, but no life threatening injuries.

GM had definitely done too much badge engineering lately, but then they have always done that. in the glory days of the muscle cars the Chevelle/Tempest/GTO/Skylark/Cutlass were all basically the same car. Heck, they even badge engineered within the one brand with the GTO/Tempest.

But then it was more about the brand and less about GM. Chevy and Pontiac competed like they were different companies and they both benefited. They didn't even share engines all the time. Plus each division had one or two cars they really didn't share. Now, Chevy, Buick, and Pontiac have almost identical lineups (with the notable exception of the 'Vette and Camaro) with only minor differences.

Why carry three divisions selling the same cars? Offer variety via options, SS package for performance, GT for mid level, Executive Edition for luxury. The money they save on advertising alone would be millions, whcih they could then use to design better cars.

Loved the first paragraph, which really captures the frustation of people like myself who have real affection for the domestic auto industry, and GM in particular. But don't forget to mention that the press, and Edmund's is a leading example, rarely gives them an even shake and demonstrating an ever-skeptical stance toward GM. Whatever areas GM does really well or even best, those become not-so-important. Anything they do worse, that brings out the magnifying glass. The latest Solstice review is a good example. Despite the great speed, good fuel economy, and possibly the sexiest shape south of $75,000, the car is a write-off, with the subtext being "don't even bother to test drive this car, move along to Nissan." Frankly, I couldn't ever even consider the 370Z because it has the most incredibly awful, in-your-face door handles in the history of mankind! But as others have suggested, once you put the Asian nameplate on a car, people automatically assume that whatever boneheaded door handle, hideous face (just about any Acura), loud interior (just about any Honda), or overall mediocrity (think Toyota) is being offered, well it must be good. Or look at the genius post above me by "btrdayz", calling the Malibu a rebadge of the Buick Lucerne. Not only does the Malibu look nothing like the Lucerne, it's a comletely different platform (FWD vs. RWD for godssake)! This is what GM is up against, and why that first paragraph from the Mechanic is hitting the nail on the head. It seems most Americans simply want to self-destruct, and we could all very well get their wish. :-(

The fact that GM wants to keep Pontiac instead of Saturn just shows that GM management still doesn't get it. They should drop both brands entirely, but Saturn would take a lot less effort saving than Pontiac if they really wanted to save a brand.

I used to sell Pontiacs (well, try to sell anyway). We also sold Mazda and Dodge under the same roof. We would typically sell more Miatas every month than all of the Pontiacs combined. And for good reason. We were burdened with Azteks and Junkfires. And I thought I had buried that abomination into the deep, dark corners of my memory, but seeing that Junkfire Convertible at the top of this article just made me shudder... one of the worst vehicles ever made, period. It was a bad car to begin with, and chopping the roof off made it so much worse.

And they keep on making mistakes, even with new vehicles. Sure, there are some pretty darn good ones, such as the G8, Malibu, Enclave, and CTS. But that Solstice GXP Coupe that was just reviewed here... who in their right mind would approve a car that has cupholders behind the headrests where a seatbelted person cannot reach it? Why even include them at all? And a removable targa panel that can't fit inside the car, so you have to carry around a folding soft targa panel that tumbles around and takes up half the cargo area? Why did they build the Solstice in the first place? Why is it that Mazda was able to build a smaller car with more interior space, double the trunk space, more safety features, and 300+ pounds less weight? Why not spend the money used to fast-track the Solstice to production on a new Firebird/Trans Am version of the Camaro? That would have sold at least ten times better than the Solstice, cost less to develop, and bring back some of the old-school excitement that used to draw buyers to Pontiac. Instead, the car that would save Pontiac was meant to draw buyers away from Miatas and Boxsters and Z4s... world-class cars that would require something world-class to draw them. I know Bob Lutz is highly respected, but I think his vision for Pontiac was just wrong.

Pontiac needs to go away along with Saturn, Saab, and Hummer. It's a ruined brand that has no future. It has but one model that's worth keeping (G8). The problem with that vehicle is that it's more expensive than its brand name can support. That perception can change, but it would take decades, while the parent company is trying to stay alive month-to-month.

Check consumer reports reliability ratings. GM and Chrysler cars come out the worst.

American cars are not made for people who want to drive, they are made for people who want to be driven.

To yamahr1:

The Lucerne and Malibu are both FWD, for godssake. Try knowing your facts before you go on a rant.

Maybe V8 FWD cars such as the Lucerne CXS have something to do with why engineers such as myself can't take GM seriously. I can't believe that in 2009, they're still trying to shove all that torque through a FWD transaxle and expecting it to handle well AND stay on the road. Oh, and it's 4-speed automatic from 1992 I believe. Let's move on, GM.

'No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." -- H L Mencken

GM proved Mencken wrong. An accomplishment, of sorts. Now let's put them in liquidation, let the execs move into the trailer parks, and move on.

yamahr1, with the amount of information available at your fingertips, it's amazing to me that you could not do even the most basic research before erroneously ranting about my comparison of the Lucerne and Malibu. You don't have to go to the library. You don't even have to go to each dealer's service bays to look under their cars. A visit to chevy.com or buick.com would have told you that you were about to post ignorance... BEFORE you made yourself look stupid. I could assume you're simply young and immature, but I know plenty of mature intelligent young folks. Next time, check your facts.

Both cars are FWD, and are nothing more than rebadges.

yamahr1, in fact, YOU'RE the problem with GM. They are trying to sell to YOU! The fully expect that someone like you doesn't know the difference between a Lucerne and a Malibu. They'll take the same car, change minor interior and external appearances and option packages, and if you want a Chevy, then "We have a Chevy for you!" or if you're a Buick man "Boy, wait til you see the Buick we have for you!". Same damned car, and too many customers that don't realize it. The problem is that too many customers DO realize it, and for them, GM doesn't have enough quality product offerings to sway those customers to Buy American.

btddayz: I made a mistake thinking the Lucerne was RWD, which I realized just minutes after posting it; (too bad you can't edit your own posts on this forum, or I would have changed it quick!); and as it happens, we JUST HAD a Lucerne Super as a company car (really nice BTW) and its torque steer was so well controlled that you could barely tell.

So, what's making you a ranting idiot here? The Malibu is designed from the Epsilon I platform, as are the Saturn Aura, Saab 9-3, and Pontiac G6; the Lucerne is built from the older G-platform, which also is the basis for the Cadillac DTS, and used to be featured by the Park Avenue and LeSabre. Totally different platforms. Furthermore, there is nothing rationally wrong with platform sharing. Most of Nissan and Infiniti it seems are built from the same FM platform of theirs. Toyota does one smart thing, they don't talk about it! Many people have the ignorant opinion that "platform" means everything under the skin is the same, when it generally means a collection of fixed "hard points", so that different vehicles with the same points can be built on a single assembly line, with similar crash characteristics. Obviously GM also shared many engine/driveline components within a given platform, but if you look at Saab 9-3 vs. Chevy Malibu: same platform, different mechanicals.

To ssaxsma: I already admitted my mistake about RWD/FWD. But to your point about "shove all that torque through a FWD transaxle and expecting it to handle well AND stay on the road", I can tell you the Lucerne does quite well, especially the Super. Furthermore, let's look at the HP figures of some other 2009 FWD cars: Acura TL (280); Toyota Avalon (268); Honda Accord (271). What's so different about the Lucerne's available 292 HP? When it comes to who handles torque steer better among them, my money is on GM.

And for the record, I'm 49.

^ In all fairness, the Lucerne and Malibu don't share the same underpinnings. I wouldn't call the Lucerne a rebadge either, maybe an evolved Bonneville.

^ Yamahr1, you beat me to it.

yamahr1:

I mentioned torque, then you switched to a HP comparison. The 288 lb-ft generated by the Northstar V8 (which weighs much more than a V6, hence my handling comment because of the understeer from all that weight) would be a greater contributor to torque steer, since it's based on torque, hence the name. Now that you mention it, though, the fact that it requires a 33% greater number of cylinders for a GM engine to produce nearly identical horsepower to, let's say the Acura V6, shows just how behind the times the engineering is over there in Detroit.

Saving GM is no different than saving any of the American built imports. First and foremost you must make a automobile that people find irresistable.

January 2009 Top 10 Best-Sellers

Ford F-Series: 25,237
Chevy Silverado: 23,987
Toyota Camry: 20,782
Toyota Corolla: 19,238
Honda Accord: 16,581
Honda Civic: 14,198
Nissan Altima: 14,135
Honda CR-V: 13,143
Dodge Ram: 12,853
Chevy Malibu: 9,312

GM makes the following great cars. The G8, Lucerne, Corvette, Vue Hybrid, Cobalt, Malibu, Enclave, Silverado, and Solstace all of which are low volume specialty cars. The Malibu and the Silverado need help against the competition. GM needs an answer to the CR-V and the Civic.

I would hardly call the Cobalt, Malibu, and Silverado low-volume specialty cars (and I wouldn't call the Cobalt great--fair, but certainly not great). They are about as high-volume mainstream as you can get.

And GM does have an answer to the Civic: Cobalt and G5. Unfortunately, they haven't resonated as well with buyers as the Civic or Corolla. The Cruze may be better received if GM can survive enough to see the Cruze into production. But it's also going to have to try to steal some spotlight away from Ford's upcoming Fiesta... a car that has already received critical acclaim, and has a long history of outstanding sales success outside of North America.

ssaxsma wrote: "Now that you mention it, though, the fact that it requires a 33% greater number of cylinders for a GM engine to produce nearly identical horsepower to, let's say the Acura V6, shows just how behind the times the engineering is over there in Detroit."

GM 3.6L V6: 304 hp / 273 lb-ft (CTS)
Acura 3.7L V6: 300 hp / 271 lb-ft (RL)
Ford 3.7L V6: 273 hp / 273 lb-ft (MKS)

And of course, although it isn't a truly fair comparison, but it does show that Detroit (Ford in particular) is not behind the times:

Ford EcoBoost 3.5L V6: 365 hp / 350 lb-ft

"GM makes the following great cars. The G8, Lucerne, Corvette, Vue Hybrid, Cobalt, Malibu, Enclave, Silverado, and Solstace"

Umm... remove Lucerne, Vue Hybrid, Cobalt, and 'Solstace' from that list and then we'll talk.

yamahr1, I won't debate the pros/cons of platform sharing, but I will apologize for my response rant directed towards you. You are indeed correct that the Lucerne and Malibu are built from different platforms, and are not sister vehicles. I stand corrected and acknowledge your mistake in claiming one platform was RWD while not being able to go back to edit it. I am just as guilty for not thoroughly researching a claim I made. Thank you for calling me on it. Again, my apologies.

Every time I see that ugly chrome with gold chevy crest, I can't think of nothing else but bad quality, chaep american car. I think GM should kill chevrolet and just call it self GM. I mean a General Motors corvette sounds more serious than a a chevy corvette. I bealive that it should only be GM, Cadillac and GMC. Maybe then, we can see General Motors as something more serious and more competitive.

I hate that chevy crest. It has a history of bad quality cars and that history stays in the mind of everyone, even with new better cars. Chevy, Pontiac, Saturn and Buick must die. Their bad reputation is what's killing the company.

ssaxsma:

There's no question the Lucerne is based on older GM technology, and represents a conservative, evolutionary approach that characterized the pre-Lutz GM. Things at GM have definitely changed since then. And despite your spec-sheet based evaluation, the Lucerne is still a car I'd buy hands down over the Toyota Avalon (arguably its nearest competitor from Asia when it was introduced.) The Hyundai Genesis, by all reports however, is possibly the new benchmark in the "affordable luxury" class, and you almost have to be in awe of how quickly Hyundai has reinvented itself. But I haven't driven the Genesis, and I'm sometimes surprised at how different my impressions of cars are when driven than what I read in the automotive press.

All that said, I think the new Buick LaCrosse, coming out later this year, will likely put Buick squarely back in the hunt, with all up-to-date technologies and a really fantastic design inside and out (just saw it up close at the Philly car show.) That is the new GM. Not that there was anything terribly wrong with the old GM. Certainly not enough to make a good excuse for Americans to send an estimated $180 Billion a year in gross vehicle sales to Asian and European brands. What the hell did people expect would happen to our economy?

I'm looking at both used BMW 335is and the Pontiac G8 GT and GXP. It's amazing the reaction I get when I say Pontiac to my coworkers and such that don't know much about cars. They don't know the G8, but they have an image of Pontiac. One guy even had a dad that worked for GM most of his life, but still drives a Toyota and said he's never buy an American car. I can understand the stigma they are fighting. to overcome. I've never had ONE negative reaction when I've mentioned my interest in the BMW. Of note, I've owned 2 Fords (1 was a 1987 Lemon), a '94 Caprice 9C1 (LT1), a '99 BMW M3, and a '99 BMW 328i. I've had friends & family with issues with Toyotas and many problems with Hondas, including transmission and electrical issues. Heck, it almost seems luck of the draw sometimes. The German car makers definitely have their issues as well, especially VW.

GM definitely played (and is still playing) the badge engineering game. For every great car they produce (Lambda vehicles, G8, CTS, Malibu, Corvette), they put out crap like the Pontiac G3 and G5. It makes me want to smack somebody at GM on their head.

What's a Chevy 'crest'? Caddy has a crest, but the Cheverolet bow tie doesn't seem to qualify as a crest to me?

Interesting idea about GM as car brand rather than a parent company though. Maybe that is the solution, take away the preconceived notions of what a Chevy/Pontiac/Buick are.

The GM name and logo has become more and more prominent on it's cars and advertising, so maybe it is time for GM to shrink to two namesfor cars: GM and Cadillac, plus GMC for trucks.

I'd go for that movement.
I would suggest changing the look of the GM logo though.
It's as uncharacteristic as many of the vehicles they put out. Needs updating.

"What is with that dinky little "GM" badge in lower front corner of the front passenger doors ? Why is that there?"

GM wants you to remember how big a company it is by branding their vehicles with this useless badge. They did this with their seat belt buckles back in the 80s and 90s.

Chrysler also did a company badge on their cars in the 80s and 90s. Look for the pentangle on the fenders of Plymouth, Eagle, Jeep and Chrysler products.

The Lucerne is a rebadged Cadillac DTS. The Lacrosse used the platform of the old Pontiac Grand Prix. Nothing in Buick's stable shares anything with the Malibu platform.

Don't Ford's EcoBoost engines have a supercharger on them -- ergo the "boost"?

GM needs to severely downsize. I checked GM Canada's website in early Jan to go through all their offerings up here, and as first thought, they have many duplicates, triplicates, and a quadriplicates. If a potential customer doesn't want "American", they won't buy any of them - regardless if it truly is good (Malibu for example). In most cases, I'm guessing GM just competes with itself, and its wasted money on "badge engineering" and vast dealer networks. No surprise really.

I went through the list, and on my "perceived" judgement, quickly labeled if GM should KEEP or DROP a car. As armchair-CEO I was able to whittle down the production from 48 to 20 offerings. Obviously far more difficult to carry through, though.

Here's my breakdown:

Buick
- Allure - KEEP: New 2010 model is (finally) Lexus looking. Should be a good mid-size FWD Lux car
- Enclave - KEEP: Nicest CUV GM builds. Price range fills wide range.
- Lucerne - KEEP: Apparently, folks buy it (25% of full-size car market?) Re-evaluate at the end of current gen.

Caddy
- CTS - KEEP: Finally a 3-series competitor. Hot inside and out, and is key to keeping Caddy alive
- DTS - DROP: Aside from the President, is anyone buying this FWD super-size sedan? Not fitting with new Caddy image
- Escalade - KEEP: For now, this is still the vehicle that put Caddy back on the map, and no one else offers such a massive Lux-SUV.
- SRX - KEEP: New 2010 model is stunning. GM definitely needs a top-end CUV for at least the next several years. It'd be good to see GM focus on a hybrid version a la RX450h.
- STS - DROP: If there's not a new one around the corner (not expected for another 4-5 years). Not a strong seller, but Caddy should offer a full-size at some point.
- XLR - DROP: Well, already announced that it will stop producing in Spring 2009. Too bad, this was a very nice design.

Hummer (Go back to core values as go anywhere, indestructible image...doesn't have to be a gas guzzler, does it?)
- H2 (SUT) - DROP: At least the SUT model...it's useless as a pickup. GM should really try to fit a diesel or Hybrid into this.
- H3 (SUT) - DROP: The SUT model for sure...even more uselss than the H2 SUT.

Pontiac
- G8 - DROP: After the current gen. Great car. Bad timing. About 5 years after the 300 was introduced is way too late.
- Vibe - DROP: Toyota outsells this 4 to 1, which doesn't appear to be a hot seller anyway. Good car that no one wants.
- G6 - DROP: Competing against the much better Malibu. And though sales of the Malibu and G6 combined are still not as strong as Accord, you can bet the G6 only takes away from Malibu sales. The coupe and convertible are forgettable.
- Solstice - KEEP: If there's a silver lining for the Pontiac name, this is it. Coupe especially. Sure, needs some "refinement" (maybe), but what a looker!
- Torrent - DROP: See Equinox.
- Montana - DROP: I always feel sorry when I see someone driving this. Has "The Mechanic" ever driven one of these? Right up there with the Aztek.
- G5 - DROP: See Cobalt. Besides, as GM's "Performance" division, the only performance version is offered by Chevy. Go figure.
- G3 Wave - DROP: See Aveo.

Chevy
- Camaro - KEEP: Might as well now. After how many years of being hyped at how much better than the Mustang it is? Let it stick around for a couple years until sales dwindle again.
- Avalanche - DROP: Sales would make some "low-volume" sports cars look mass produced.
- Cobalt (Cruze) - KEEP: Chevy will need a car competing in this class. The Cobalt isn't bad, but there's real hope with the Cruze. Besides, why hasn't GM marketing department taken full advantage of the Cobalt SS whipping most every competitor in recent tests? As R&T recently wrote, "The Cobalt SS may be the most underrated car in the world. We're about to set it free of that title." Unfortunately, not all the likely buyers of a Cobalt SS read R&T.
- Malibu - KEEP: Sales are still only 40% of what the Accord sells in the U.S...but, I think some of the other GM offerings help to limit this potential. Far more attractive than the Accord and Camry (okay, not saying a lot I guess).
- Impala - DROP: Leave the full-size cars to Buick and Caddy.
- Tahoe - DROP: See Yukon. Leave the truck-based SUVs to carry the GMC brand.
- Corvette - KEEP!: No way GM can drop this one. But, might be worth it to start changing the direction of the Corvette - a leader of affordable "Green" sports car. Drop the Z06 or ZR1. Don't need both (okay, I didn't really say that...but I'll never get to drive either anyway).
- Suburban - Drop: See Tahoe above. Actually, leave this size vehicle to Blue Bird Corp.
- Trailblazer - DROP: So old now, this can't possibly help GM's image or perceived quality.
- Traverse - KEEP: See Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban, Acadia, Enclave, Outlook. Chevy "Trucks" should carry the non-lux CUVs.
- Express - DROP: Leave this for the GMC brand. See Savana.
- Equinox - KEEP: New 2010 model is fantastic - very promising. See explanation under Traverse.
- Uplander - DROP: Get out of the mini-van market now, GM. Don't bother again. Please.
- Silverado - KEEP: the light-duty 1500 model. Leave the larger ones to wear the GMC badge.
- Colorado - DROP: For now. The market for these little run-about trucks are going to dwindle, and the Colorado is not great, or competitive.
- HHR - KEEP: Well, I say this through my heart, since I really like the HHR. But, the fad is dying and sales dwindling.
- Aveo - KEEP: For image if nothing else. The newest Daewoo Aveo is actually not a bad little run-about.

Saturn
- Sky - DROP: Let the Solstice carry this style - which will also offer coupe.
- Outlook - DROP: Chevy and Buick to carry the Lambda CUVs.
- Vue - KEEP: With Saturn going away, I'm not sure where this could fit. Maybe as a Buick? Outfit it with higher end features? Already has a Hybrid (unlike the Equinox), so it'd be silly to turf it altogether. Though heavy, it's a nice CUV.
- Aura - DROP: Again...chewing into the slightly-better Malibu's sales...which sells only 1/3 the volume of the Malibu anyway.
- Astra - KEEP: Need to bring over the hot 240hp version, and especially the slick TwinTop convertible! Badge it as a Pontiac. Or something. Just bring it!

GMC
- Acadia - DROP: See Traverse.
- Canyon - DROP: See Colorado.
- Yukon - KEEP: See Tahoe/Suburban.
- Envoy - DROP: See Trailblazer.
- Savana - KEEP: Needed for commercial sales at least.
- Sierra - KEEP: Only models of 2500 and up. See Silverado.
- Canyon - DROP: Too small for the GMC brand.

altimadude00 wrote: "Don't Ford's EcoBoost engines have a supercharger on them -- ergo the "boost"?"

The EcoBoost 3.5L V6 has direct injection and twin-turbochargers. I prequalified listing the EcoBoost by saying that it's not a fair comparison but it's an example that Detroit is not behind the times as previously stated by another poster.

It is pretty telling that BMW was lauded and praised for introducing this technology to the premium car world, but hardly a passing glance is given to Ford for introducing the technology to the mainstream car world. Honda will come out with this technology five years from now, and they will probably be hailed as the world's savior.

There's a reason Acura got a pass with the previous TL designs. (Though say what you will about the new one). Acura learns from its mistakes and continually evolves. Pontiac doesn't.

Case in point, the RSX: a decent car, sold well, but it had to go. Acura saw the value in increasing the positive perception of its image. The typical Acura buyer does not want to pull up next to some kid in a RSX at a gas station and see that they share the same logo on their cars. This type of planning helped to move Acura mature as a brand.

Next, the postponement of the new NSX. Its a pity really, I wanted to see this thing in action. But it makes sense right now to put it on hold. Having a sense of restraint in today's economy is good thinking.

Next, Acura never offered stupid and pointless cars. In my opinion, this was Pontiac's downfall. Sunfire convertible: you wanted a trashy car, this thing looked trashy right off the lot. Never should have been built. Then there are the plastic cars: the Grand Prix and the Bonneville. These cars are proof that plastic body cladding can make a bad car downright hideous. And why did Pontiac ever make the Montana? A minivan in the GM performance brand? Just dumb, a fact made even more apparent when you compare one with a Sienna or an Odyssey. Then there's the Aztec...I won't even waster your time...everyone of you guys knows how bad that thing was, is, and will always be.

GM is caught in the same feedback loop that every US company is: stock market/shareholders/earning reports. GM needs to be allowed to focus on something for more than a fiscal quarter if it's going to succeed. Currently, GM has the worst case of ADHD ever diagnosed.

The reason the other brands have succeeded where GM has failed, is because if sales are down for a single quarter they don't rewrite their entire business strategy and make huge changes to the product line.

But in this country, everything is about short-term financials, so I suspect GM will never be allowed to do anything but change direction every two seconds.

I just went through all the GM brands matching up the badge engineered names and it was quite shocking. (I included Saab as well.)

The only vehicle not sharing a platform that I saw was the Saab 9-5. The Vibe has a non-GM twin. So does the Equinox. However the upcoming Equinox only has internal-GM twins.

The previous CTS shared platforms with the SRX and STS. Not sure about the new one.

Technically the Pontiac G8 is related to the Chevy Camaro.

Ultimately, I found that if you conglomerate all the platform sharing in GM's US stable, they only have 19 models.

They have dispersed those 19 platforms into 49 vehicles.

Wow.

"They have dispersed those 19 platforms into 49 vehicles."

But if Toyota or Honda did that, they would be praised as smart and efficient.

Platform-sharing is smart. Badge-engineering is not. If the customer can't tell that two cars share the same platform, then job well done (G8 and Camaro, for example). If the customer has deja vu when they get into a car, then one (or two or three) of those models should be discarded (Cobalt and G5, for example).

tds27 - I almost agree. In Canada Acura sells a woeful little car called the CSX. If this isn't phoning it in, I don't know what is.

yamahr1: "Not that there was anything terribly wrong with the old GM. "

well if you don't consider hanging by a thread and asking for 30+ billion aid from the government while on the brink of bankruptcy then I guess there really wasn't anything terribly wrong with the old GM. I mean it's just a car company failing at what it's supposed to do - make and sell good cars. No biggie. =P

intothewest, I found a couple of flaws in your list:

1. Why keep both buick enclave and cadillac srx? They're both luxury cuvs. Let chevy's traverse take the lambda responsibility.

2. Hummer: "Go back to core values as go anywhere, indestructible image...doesn't have to be a gas guzzler, does it?" That's just impossible.

3. Solstice is a bad bad coupe... No refinement will help the current model

platform sharing is fine so long as it's a good platform. it just means it has potential to be better. if a platform is bad, sure you can improve on it but it'll still be a bad platform. problem is with this is that platforms are expensive to engineer. as for the engines in US vs Euro and Japanese brands, the US has been behind. only now are they catching up but still behind in my eyes. resorting to turbocharging and direct injection is just when you can't make the engine perform well enough. yes i do know it's going that way and actually applaud the advance but a lot of japanese brands still have non-direct injection cars with VVTL and they still make more power.

case in point, VQ37HR - right around 330hp and 270ft/tq. LY7 in the CTS - 263 hp and 253 ft/tq, LLT 303hp and 274 ft/tq. both are 3.6 but still low compared to the VQ. the 3.8 Lambda from Hyundai puts out 306 hp and 290 ft/tq without direct injection or turbos. nissan's VQ35DE puts out up to 298 hp and 268ft/tq non-turboed nor direct injected and the VQ35HR goes up to 303hp. even the 3.3 Lambda from hyundai could come close to 250hp and 230 ft/tq. the duratec from Ford seems to keep up without direct injection but only up to about 265hp and 250 ft/tq.

like i said, i have nothing against turbos or direct injection but it's just covering up the fact that the engine can't put out that kind of power without going to that. throw a turbo or direct injection on one of the japanese or korean engines and i'm sure they'll hit close to 400 if not more. VR38DETT, twin turboed without direct injection, throws down 480hp and 430ft/tq. ecoboost 3.5 with direct injection and turbo can only put out 365hp and 350ft/tq in comparison. it's this kind of difference that i'm always ashamed. my Altima 3.5SE smoked everything in its class when it was new and even close to the end of it's generation before the 4th gen came out. granted way too much power through the front wheels. even if torque steer wasn't present, it was hard to make use of all of the hp and tq from a start without spinning the wheels.

You don't think GM or Ford could make 330 hp from their V6s? They make roughly the same torque, and horsepower is a calculation derived from torque. It just depends on how they want to tune them for drivability, emissions, cost, and durability. If you want lower torque peaks for drivability, you sacrifice high-end power. (And it seems OK if a Japanese vehicle doesn't have low-end power, but if an American vehicle doesn't it gets highly criticized.) If you want to cut costs, you can't push the same amount of power without sacrificing durability. The Japanese, in particular, have had the currency exchange rate in their favor, which allows them to use more expensive parts without impacting profit very much.

When I got my 2007 Volvo S60 2.5T, I also looked at the Acura TL. The TL made a whole lot more power on paper. But I hated the TL because you had to really rev it to make that power, as opposed to the Volvo that was making peak torque at just 1,800 rpm (and the torque curve stays completely flat to 4,500 rpm). Unless really pushed, the Volvo felt considerably more powerful. Under relaxed driving (which is why I was look at these cars in the first place, otherwise I would have kept the Miata), the TL couldn't keep up with traffic. That's useful drivability, and for an everyday car that's what is needed. At the track, high-end peak power is what is needed.

The current world economic situation has revealed something. Most of the profits of the Japanese manufacturers didn't come from brilliant engineering and efficiency. It came from exchange rates. As the yen grows stronger against the dollar, their profits plummet faster than Chrysler's pulse.

Plus, the domestic manufacturers must turn a big profit in order to pay their legacy costs. That means cost-cutting everywhere in order to maintain prices that are competitive with the Japanese (again, from currency exchange). The Japanese don't have these burdens, so they don't have to cut costs as much.

In the end, it's not that the domestics don't have the knowledge or experience to make big power out of their engines. They just can't do it feasibly due to legacy costs and exchange rates.

God only knows... but I also question why the major imports are given a pass when loading John Q Public w/ a piece of #####. The 2G TL transmission failures, MK3 Supra Blown Head Gaskets, Camry slug engines ect.. I recently rented a Camry V6 2009. The car rode well, strong engine and decently quiet but the interior fit and finish along w/ the quality of plastic was subpar. Drove a 2008 Pilot for a week last year; same issues and it used more gas than my 2001 Pathfinder. The Big 2 1/3 have made great strides for the most part but are ragged on by the media to no end. When they train their sales staff/service mngrs to be professionals and treat every customer w/ respect great inroads will be made.

ctpax says "well if you don't consider hanging by a thread and asking for 30+ billion aid from the government while on the brink of bankruptcy then I guess there really wasn't anything terribly wrong with the old GM. I mean it's just a car company failing at what it's supposed to do - make and sell good cars. No biggie."

No, it's failing at selling its good cars while running a profit.

A few percentage points in market share made the difference between a profitable GM and a money-losing one. I think most people don't realize that GM's gross sales in 2008 were more than $160 billion, and they were steadily addressing their cost disadvantages vs. the competition. A small swing in sales at these levels makes the difference between making 10 billion and losing 10 billion, quite obviously, especially when giant GM wasn't well poised to adjust its expenses according to the change in demand that happened with $4 gas. It had also recently taken some major one-time write-offs, one of which was the disastrous Fiat deal gone bad, but there were many others. It was probably at about its most vulnerable point financially when the tidal wave of the housing meltdown hit the economy and sales went down, oh, say 30%. When you were selling $13 billion worth of cars a month worldwide, and you lop 30% off of that, that's $4 billion a month not coming in the plus side. This is why even mighty Toyota is losing money right now, and did you know they sit of $128 billion in debt? One big difference here is that Toyota still has great credit (they're rumored to be close to exhausting their cash reserves), and GM does not (who exhausted their cash reserves around December of '08), hence the reason Toyota can simply get a loan to ride out the recession but GM had to go to the (gasp) Feds and have their pants pulled down.

But hey, don't let rational facts get in the way of choosing your own reality; certainly most of the media and Congress have been doing the same thing with abandon. The GM-haters and various southern Republican Senators (who apparently bow down to their import transplant factory masters from Japan, Korea, and Germany) have been opportunistically using the circumstances of the economy (something GM didn't create) to throw poison spears of distorted facts in an effort to bring GM down utterly, not to mention Ford, Chrysler, and a host of suppliers. What's 2 or 3 million jobs as long as it's not in my back yard? The domestic auto industry has already shed 250,000 jobs in the last 10 years. GM might need a kick in the ass, I fully realize. A gunshot to the head, however, would be, in its aftermath, a national tragedy, easily 10 times worse than 9/11 IMHO.

@jstandefer

your 2.5T had that power so low because it had the turbo. the V6 in my altima had enough power downlow to get it going. i was fine keeping it below 2.5k rpms and still had enough grunt to get going. the V8 in my M45 seems to only get that kind of grunt once i go over 3k rpms. maybe it's to do with gearing.

the torque is still low though. look at the 3.7 vs 3.6 engine. the 3.7 makes 270 while the non-DI 3.6 ones makes only 253. that's 17 ft/tq and quick a bit in my boot for only 0.1L difference. Ford puts down 20 tq less than the VQ3.5. drove a friend's v6 mustang, current gen but first year, and was surprised by lack of power compared to my altima, esp considering it's a 4.0L engine.

I agree GM doesn't exactly set pants on fire with their cars, but you guys are leaving out a major thing GM does right--trucks.

Obviously they know how to make them, and they know how to turn a profit, or know how to design something people want--how many bare bones, stripper Yukons and Tahoes do you see? Granted, here in East TN SUVs are prevalent, but I'll pass five brand new Yukon DENALIs on a jaunt to the gas station which is fifty yards away. The thing is, I'm not exaggerating; they are EVERYWHERE. Also, 19 out of 20 Tahoes I see have the chromed out mirrors (which is indicative of top-line status). Obviously GM knows how to do some things right.

My father drives an '03 Yukon (SLT). Yes, the interior design is horrific, but the thing is six years old, has never been in the shop once, and looks and drives just as well as it did the day he brought it home. Feels every bit as solid. A Yukon/Tahoe is the Accord/Civic of trucks. If I were to buy a full size truck/SUV, I wouldn't think ANYTHING OTHER THAN GM. There is a reason I don't pass 5 Armadas (even though they are great trucks too) in a row daily.

You are an idiot. This will be the last time I read your blog, as you never have anything insightful or remotely interesting to talk about. I have no idea why you're even given a forum to spew this crap.

Real classy to lump Pontiac owners together as brainless hicks. My girlfriend owns a Pontiac Sunfire and she is very intelligent, I'm sure far more so than you. She bought the car a few years back because it's somewhat sporty looking and it was all she could afford at the time. Now she's keeping it even though she could afford a much nicer car because it's almost paid off and she doesn't want a car payment for a long time. Yes, again, I said she's very smart.

Lastly, whoever said GM is savable? Not me. Their only option is bankruptcy, which they should have done before we gave them $25 billion (or was it more than that, I've lost track of all the socialist handouts to various companies) dollars of taxpayer money. All the government has done is further prop up the national debt and prolong the inevitable.

I wonder if the blog writer is a govt employee, as it obviously doesn't take too much intelligence to get a job as one these days.

The things is GM needs to kill Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and Hummer and just call it self GM. Just keep Cadillac as the only true competitive luxury brand and GMC as their work-truck and offroad company. By doing these it will show the world that the company its serious about finally puting all their efforts and resources into a true car company. It will also have to back that up with great new cars, maybe the best that ever came up from an american company.

I'm sure that they can pull that off. General Motors should just be one company. I think its bad reputation is what's killing GM. It only makes sence to restablish it self as one, strong and better car company. A General Motors corvette makes all the sence in the world. It just sounds more competitive.

I don't want to live in a country where all of my choices for vehicles are imports.

Hmmm. Some people here just simple do not get it. American cars are not built to last. They are built to make quick profit and to ask for immidiate government aid.

First off, calling all 80's to 90's Pontiac owners "trailer trash" is a bit harsh. Many of them actually owned houses! Was it the blue collar brand? Absolutely. Were they tackily overdone? Definitely. Boring to drive if not at least quick on acceleration? Yep. So what went wrong with the brand? They started listening to all of the naysayers talk about their over the top styling and underperforming chassis. Just like oldsmobile in the 80's. In one fell swoop they changed their whole styling idiom and tried to shift their demographic. Why!?!

They were selling truckloads of cars and then they decided that they "were not your father's Oldsmobile"! Why not? It worked. Saturn had a consitant if not stagnant fan base for it's cheap, mostly reliable cars and good dealer practices (the latter being something that GM should have thought about spreading to the other divisions). Each niche worked. But there in lies the problem. Niches aren't always profitable.

Then you add in GM's labor and benefits woes. Pure greed and and disaster waiting to happen. Just like our country's current woes. They can and will throw lots of money at it, but at some point somebody's going to have to pay for it.

The true success story will be Ford. They started paying attention to the writing on the wall about 5 years ago. What they have done to maintain cashflow was not always pretty or preferable, but it has kept them able to do business. For now.

johnferinal: "Hmmm. Some people here just simple do not get it. American cars are not built to last. They are built to make quick profit and to ask for immidiate government aid."

Vitriol aside, this is the everyman's "wisdom" we usually hear, and yes Consumer Reports fans these flames. Many before me have pointed out the flaws in CR's methods, and I defy any one of you here to quantify in any report they ever made the difference between "much worse than average" and "much better than average". They don't. Is it 6 repairs? Is it 0.6? Now way to tell, but it sure whips the reader into an import buying frenzy, which has been their modus operandi for as long as I can remember.

Here's a much more scientific and scholarly report, a white paper on Car Longevity by Hamilton and Macauley from 1998, who studied the actual "death rates" of cars (not people) over many years:
http://www.rff.org/RFF/Documents/RFF-DP-98-20.pdf

In it, they conclude:
"The three panels in Figure 12 show the death rates by age for Japanese and domestic
vintages. For 1968 vintages, beginning at age 6, Japanese auto death rates are significantly
below those of domestic autos. For vintage 1971, Japanese and domestic auto death rates are
virtually identical until age 9, after which Japanese cars do substantially better. By the 1977
vintage there is essentially no difference.
The only support for superior durability of Japanese cars comes from the very small
vintages which were imported well before the surge years of Japanese cars. Surprisingly, for
vintages beyond the early '70s, Japanese and domestic cars look indistinguishable. The
popular hypothesis, that Japanese cars during the boom years were more durable than
American cars and that American manufacturers finally caught up in the late '80s, finds no
support in the data."

"Those cheap Cobalts and Avengers tell you all your need to know about the priorities of the manufacturer. "

What a stupid comment. Do you believe a base model Fit or yaris represents the best that Honda and Toyota can offer? I also get annoyed when peopel act like imports to sell to rental agencies. Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai sell to rental fleets. For years "rental car" was supposed to be an insult but these days every major brand is selling to rental agencies and the imports are increasing their share.

"Don't Ford's EcoBoost engines have a supercharger on them -- ergo the "boost"?"

No, twin turbos.

saxma,

"Now that you mention it, though, the fact that it requires a 33% greater number of cylinders for a GM engine to produce nearly identical horsepower to, let's say the Acura V6, shows just how behind the times the engineering is over there in Detroit."

typical of an ignorant person you chose one of the oldest engines from Gm's stable and assume that it's state of the art. Why dont you try this comparison instead; GM's 5.3L to Nissan's 5.6L DOHC v8. Or, GM's 6.2L V8 to Toyota's 5.7L DOHC V8. remember, those import engines have twice as many valves per cylinder and yet dont produce more hp/L than the GM engines I mentioned. The Northstar has been around since the early 90s and is being phased out. The 2L turbo and the 3.6L DI V6 are representatives of GM's current engine technology.

ghostg,

In the minds of those who have turned their backs on American cars no amount of reliability issues with imports will ever change their thinking. These people only believe in absolutes. American cars absolutely represent inferiority and imports are absolutely infallable. What I find is that import people tend to blame the owner when an import has an issue. They suggest the owner didnt care for the car properly and that caused the problem. If they dont do that they excuse reliability issues by praising how the problem was handled/covered up by the manufacturer. Then they say "if this were a chevy or Ford they would have fought me all the way on this so I'm glad I had this problem with my Toyota". Its nothing but excuses and denial. I have asked this question before and have not gotten an answer. If a large number of Honda/NIssan/Toyota products are engineered and built in the US by Americans how can their quality be light years ahead of American branded products that are also designed and built by Americans? Can anyone answer that? What makes an Ohio built Accord far better than a Missouri built Malibu or Aura? Are the people in Ohio much smarter?

1487 writes: "What a stupid comment. Do you believe a base model Fit or yaris represents the best that Honda and Toyota can offer? I also get annoyed when peopel act like imports to sell to rental agencies. Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai sell to rental fleets."

I have to agree, some of the worst rentals I've had were 1) Toyota Tercel; 2) Toyota Corolla; 3) Honda Accord 4-cyl. I've had a few domestic clunkers in there, too, like the older 6-cyl. Mustang and a Chevy Impala with a steering problem--OK maybe both of those squeeze in before the Accord. Interestingly, the older generation Hyundai Sonata I had around the same time as the Honda seemed like a much nicer car, quieter, smoother in operation, more pleasant to drive (these were both about 2-3 years ago.) For all I know the Honda could handle the slalom better than the Hyundai, but who gives a crap? In the real world, enthusiast magazine conclusions are often not worth the paper they're printed on, and it seems like Honda and Toyota reviews are the most skewed in their favor.

By comparison, the current company car in our house is an absolute stripper '09 Pontiac G6, just the 4-cyl. 4-speed auto, electric power steering (all higher up models use hydraulic PS), all the stuff people like to dis. To actually drive it however, it's one of the nicest 4-cyl. cars of that class I've ever driven! (We had an electric power steering Pontiac Torrent not too long ago, and that steering really was about the worst I've ever experienced! They've come a long way with that system.) The G6 feels really solid and quiet, nice to drive, the cloth seats are quite good, common sense controls, very good fit and finish. Feels like you really got your money's worth for the $22K on the sticker, and in reality you can probably buy this car now for well under 20. The magazines don't even include the G6 in their midsize tests anymore, they've so written it off. WTF? I just don't get it.

A wonderful point my boss brought up to me in a past meeting, "If Toyotas and Nissans are so reliable, then why did they just ADVERTISE how their facility is now equipped with 50 new repair bays to handle your service needs?" I can tell you this, it's not so they can get you out of there faster (because that would kill their labor $ intake), it's because they have just as many problems as the American cars do. And by the way...those bays are almost always full.

yamahr1 wrote: "Here's a much more scientific and scholarly report, a white paper on Car Longevity by Hamilton and Macauley from 1998, who studied the actual "death rates" of cars (not people) over many years:
http://www.rff.org/RFF/Documents/RFF-DP-98-20.pdf"

I don't think car death rates are as important as maintenance costs. The car I kept the longest (over 160,000 miles) was a Ford Tempo. So I guess that car had the best "longevity" for me. (Subsequently I had a Nissan Sentra and now Hyundai Elantra. The Nissan got totaled at 90,000 miles, Hyundai still going nicely at 90,000 now. Hope it keeps on...)

Problem with the Tempo was that I put many times the cost of the car into maintenance. New alternator, axle, CV joints, steering rack, radiator, transmission, on and on and on ... everything. Not to mention the interior falling apart. And then I would talk to Toyota owners, and hear about 200,000 miles with just minor maintenance. So when I was done with the Tempo, and smoke was coming out from under the hood, and it was sucking up a quart of oil every four days, I decided I couldn't risk another one like that, and went with the Nissan.

But I'm sure American cars have improved since then. However, my subjective impression looking at them in dealers and auto-shows, and driving rentals, is that they are not up to the standards of the imports.

But with regard to the point someone made about rentals: Yes, of course you can get imports as rentals. (I always try to, if possible.) But the fact of the matter is that the American manufacturers absolutely *dump* their cars onto the rental market to keep production numbers up. I just spoke to an Enterprise manager this past week and asked "Why so many Cobalts?" Answer is that they get incredible cheep prices on American cars like the Cobalt. Honda barely gives them any deal by comparison, which is why I think I've never seen a Civic for rent. But I think Honda is the smart one in this game of perceptions...

Think about it. After GM's greedy finance guys took hold of the power reins, this company began to quickly cut out the ultra-sophisticated Harley Earl roots and traditions of modern auto-making.

Right up to current times, Earl's true leadership role and impact on the modern auto industry was entirely hidden, marginalized or just cut out of the storytelling of GM's history by this company's corporate financial crooks.

Harley Earl created the successful business paradigm (DESIGN)that made GM so victorious in the first place.

The answer to The Mechanic's how and why question:

Financial Greed
Incompetent CEO's
I suspect that if Harley Earl were alive today he would eliminate Rick Wagoner and quickly act for sweeping modernization and reforms to be intelligently injected into the new leadership role at GM.

With all due respect to Harley Earl, and that would be a lot, he was a stylist.

"There's a reason Acura got a pass with the previous TL designs. (Though say what you will about the new one). Acura learns from its mistakes and continually evolves. Pontiac doesn't."

Really? The new TL is better than the old one? The RSX, Integra, SLX and RL are examples of "hot" Acura products? What about the Vigor? Acura has a history of mediocre vehicles there were a few exceptions like the '99 and 2004 TL and the Legend but the list is short. What is amazing is that Honda was able to convince gullible Americans that Acuras are "luxury cars". It takes more than leather and a moonroof to make a car a luxury model. You need some sort of legacy and roots to draw from for styling inspiration. Acura does not have that. This is why they bring over European accords and call them "Acuras" in this country. In Europe an Acura is what people expect when they buy a regular Honda. In the US regular Hondas are dull and Acuras are the step up. Acura is no Cadillac or Mercedes or BMW or Lincoln or..........well you get the message.

smilex,

Excellent point. Here's another: why dont Toyota and Honda offer better warranties that Hyundai or GM? If their quality is as good as advertised they should have no problem offering 5 year bumper to bumper warranties. Now someone will say "they dont need to because they are doing well and have nothing to prove". Wrong answer. When your sales are down 30% you need more customers. Why not offer a better warranty?

yamah1,

the G6 isnt a bad car but it gets slammed because its a pontiac. It looks better than the camry and accord and gets competitive mileage. The interior is a little plain but the same could be said for other cars in this class. The cobalt isnt a bad car either but around these parts you might get burned at the stake for suggesting that. Keep in mind most of the people who tell you its a terrible car have never driven one. I have and its not that bad. The vertical rear bench was the worst aspect of the car by far. Its quiet, has plenty of power and rides nicely. Ergonomics are very good too.

I was just thinking about the new Hyundai commercial where the scenes flash by meetings at BMW, Lexus, and Mercedes and they're all angry they've been outclassed by Hyundai. The commercial is for Hyundai, but I think that it says something very positive about how we perceive the other 3 makers.
They are damn proud of their cars and are out to be the best. And this perception is true. You may say "but those are luxury brands." BMW and Merc are volume sellers in Europe (Lexus is only now branching off to sell globally instead of US only) and they are still known worldwide for their styling, handling, and quality. They have an in-it-to-win-it attitude that seems to be sorely lacking at American manufactures. GM, Chrysler, and Ford don't strive to have the best car, they strive to have a car that will sell enough to be profitable.

Over the last year or so I've finally heard talk from Ford and GM about world beating cars. Its about time you actually took pride in your product

If you have to spend $30,000 over five years are you going to spend it on a car that isn't "that bad" and that has questionable reliability?

"why dont Toyota and Honda offer better warranties that Hyundai or GM? If their quality is as good as advertised they should have no problem offering 5 year bumper to bumper warranties. Now someone will say "they dont need to because they are doing well and have nothing to prove". Wrong answer. When your sales are down 30% you need more customers. Why not offer a better warranty?"

Don't try to be a business strategist. You're bad at it.

1487,

Although I agree with some of what you said, I can't let your Acura is no Lincoln comment slide. Not even close. Towncar? As plain as the RL is, its a lot better than that dinosaur. The RDX is way better than the MKZ. And the Navigator is dead in the water after that hideous redesign. Lincoln over Acura...please tell me that was a typo.

One last thing that they didn't tried is close out the entire GM Company. Since we are all defending GM with everything they tried didn't work. Why still keep dumping money to it, where GM seems like they have no reason to exist in this planet. Well, I have written here before and said Ford and GM should have change years ago. And who cares about Chrysler. Look I am speaking as a GM brand owner. I own a GM brand. They don't worth the money I paid.

I just think that GM (and Ford and Chrysler) got hopelessly behind during the 80s and 90s when they just stopped caring about quality or gas mileage. They have now given themselves the image they are desperately trying to get rid of, and Toyota Nissan Honda BMW Merc and Audi have become the cars people by these days.

Not to say that the Americans build bad cars, because they don't anymore. Most of their cars are pretty nice, but it just seems to be too little too late. Also GM has far too many divisions and copies of the same car. Who cares about the difference (read: similarity) between the G5 and Cobalt? They both suck, and they cannibalize each other.

GM builds POS cars. It does. I have been driving enough rentals to know that. And I don't know if I ever have it in my heart to forgive GM my first car: 87 Chevy Celebrity. The year was 1991. The car had 60,000 miles when I bought it. It ran fine for about two month, and then sent me to a mechanic on a monthly basis. And when it broke - it broke. I mean lots of money and wasted day waiting for a tow truck kinda broke.

Now GM build cars that still look kinda like that Celebrity, sound kinda like that Celebrity, handle not much better, and even smell kinda like that Celebrity. I don't know what their reliability is like this days - but from what I read, it is not awesome.

As our great new president likes to say, the day of reckoning has come. Nobody forgives GM the first G6, because it is not the first. It is renamed something of a long line of disgusting cars. And Oprah didn't help either.

Acura may have missed the mark on the design of the first TL, but at least it was bulletproof reliable. And people didn't give them much of a pass either: Acuras are a tougher sell than Lexus even when undercutting them on price. Also, they benefit from the excellent reputation of Honda cars.

everytime the mechanic makes an article it's always the same stupid discussions of which is better imports or domestic...

At this point it's already beating a dead horse, the only logical conclusion that can only comes from this is that.

Yes, domestic cars are much better than they were years ago, but those past decades where their product has faltered has left them with a reputation of unreliability and bland styling etc.

While imports have been improving their quality and styling for the past couple decades so they have their reputation of reliability.

In the end, the people purchasing the automobiles don't have that much money and when they're going to drop 20-30k on a new car or take a new loan if they even can in these economic times, they're gong to opt for the cars with better reputations and the domestics just don't have that reputation right now. A little too late that's all.

All these firms are based on reputation and the image they conceive in their respective markets whether it's foreign or domestic and that's where America completely screwed up. So all the people that just worship imports or domestics (e.g. 1487), it's useless to argue this because nobody has the time or financial resources to risk on a car that has a bad reputation.

In short, America wants to go with the tried and true and right now it's the imports and hopefully the domestics can play catch up...in time.

There is one thing they haven't tried: building solid, competitive cars. Somebody should suggest it to them.

I can see steam coming out of 1487's ears after reading your comments =)

Whomever is speaking about Honda/Acura and Toyota quality has never spent time in my wifes Honda Odyssey. Two transmisson rebuilds before the 20k mark. Rotors replaced, Eats DVD players, dash rattles and leaks oil. My Toyota CAmry blew its engine due to Toyotas Famous Engine Sludge cover up. We see a small article but no formal recall about it, but it spends six weeks at the dealership because Toyota says I put the wrong oil in it. I followed the owners manual though. Are these the "quality" cars you are talking about? Am I missing something? It will be a cold day in hell if either of those two crappy over rated companies see another dime from me.

1487,

GM is dead. Let them die. They are consuming precious capital other more worthy companies need.

There is no free lunch. GM, like the US, can NEVER hope to pay back the money they owe.

They lose hundreds on almost every vehicle they sell. Does this sound like a viable business?

They have ceased being a car producer. They are simply a health care and pension company that happens to sell cars.

The New York Times

February 27, 2009
G.M. Loses $9.6 Billion as Its Struggles Continue
By NICK BUNKLEY

DETROIT — The automaker General Motors said Thursday that its cash reserves were down to $14 billion at the end of 2008, a year when the industry’s worst sales slump in decades nearly forced the company into bankruptcy before the federal government gave it a lifeline.

G.M. lost $30.9 billion, or $53.32 a share, in 2008 and spent $19.2 billion of its cash reserves.

For the fourth quarter, it lost $9.6 billion, or $15.71 a share, as its global sales fell 26 percent. It spent $6.2 billion of its reserves — $2 billion a month — in the fourth quarter alone. The company has said in the past that it needed a minimum of $11 billion to $14 billion in reserves to finance operations, but the estimates were made before the recent drop in auto sales and cuts by G.M. in response.

In 2007, the company lost $43.3 billion, a record, mostly the result of a noncash accounting charge; it adjusted the figure higher by $4.6 billion on Thursday.

The losses, though, are unlikely to shake investors, who have already realized the automaker’s perilous state. G.M., which has borrowed $13.4 billion from the government since December, said last week that it might need as much as $30 billion to complete the restructuring plan that it has submitted to the Treasury Department.

The $14 billion that G.M. had on hand in December included the $4 billion of federal assistance that it had received at that time, meaning that the company would have been below its minimum level without the cash. An additional $9.6 billion was disbursed to G.M. in January and February.

Executives have repeatedly insisted that the company’s best option is to restructure outside of bankruptcy. G.M. estimated last week that it would need nearly $100 billion to finance a bankruptcy reorganization.

G.M.’s reported 2008 revenue of $149 billion was 17 percent lower than the previous year’s revenue of $180 billion. Global sales fell 11 percent in 2008, its centennial year, making Toyota of Japan the world’s largest automaker and ending G.M.’s 77-year reign at the industry’s pinnacle.

Excluding one-time charges, G.M. lost $16.8 billion last year, or $29 a share. Its fourth-quarter operating loss was $5.9 billion, or $9.65 a share, worse than the per-share loss of $7.40 that analysts were expecting, on average.

Its revenue in the fourth quarter fell 34 percent to $30.8 billion.

G.M.’s global automotive operations lost $10.4 billion last year, compared with a $553 million profit in 2007.

It lost $2.1 billion in the quarter in North America, the most troubled market, compared with $1.1 billion in the final months of 2007. It reported losses in all of its other geographical regions, as well,

GMAC Financial Services, the automaker’s lending arm, had a fourth-quarter profit of $7.5 billion, though it would have lost $4 billion without a bond exchange in December.

Shares of G.M. have lost 89 percent of their value in the last year, touching a 74-year low of $1.52 last week before rebounding.

G.M.’s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, is scheduled to meet Thursday with members of the auto industry task force created this month by President Obama. The panel, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Lawrence H. Summers, the White House economic adviser, will oversee the restructuring at G.M. and Chrysler.

“2008 was an extremely difficult year for the U.S. and global auto markets, especially the second half, ” Mr. Wagoner said Thursday in the earnings statement. The conditions “led us to take further aggressive and difficult measures to restructure our business.”

“We expect these challenging conditions will continue through 2009, and so we are accelerating our restructuring actions,” Mr. Wagoner said.

Chrysler has borrowed $4 billion and wants an additional $5 million next month. Its executives met with the task force Wednesday.

Mr. Obama, in his address to Congress on Tuesday, expressed a commitment to the auto industry, saying that “millions of jobs depend on it” and that the country “cannot walk away from it.” But he and his task force have not indicated whether they would favor giving the companies more money.

G.M. is pressing for concessions from its bondholders and the United Automobile Workers union to reduce its debt and cut expenses. The U.A.W. last week agreed to a deal on many issues, but talks on retiree health care are continuing. G.M. wants to substitute its stock for up to half of the multibillion-dollar payments it must make into a health care trust, which would be similar to an agreement the union reached with the Ford Motor Company several days ago.

The terms of G.M.’s loans from the government require it to obtain the concessions. It must show progress in its restructuring by March 31 or risk having the loans it already has received called back.

As part of its restructuring, G.M. says it will cut three of its eight brands — Saturn, Hummer and Saab — and turn a fourth, Pontiac, into a niche brand with fewer models. Hummer is expected to close by the end of March if a buyer cannot be found, and Saab filed for bankruptcy protection in Sweden last week after that country balked at providing aid.

Saturn will be phased out by 2012, unless its dealers or another entity come up with a plan to save the 24-year-old division.

Ford, in contrast to G.M. and Chrysler, has not taken federal aid, but it has been seeking concessions from the union and other stakeholders nonetheless to improve its financial health. Ford, which lost $14.6 billion in 2008, the biggest annual loss in its history, is extending more buyout and early retirement offers to its hourly workers and is eliminating performance bonuses for salaried workers for the second consecutive year.

G.M. is offering 22,000 of its retirement-eligible hourly workers $20,000 plus a discount voucher worth $25,000 off a new vehicle if they leave by April 1.

One issue I have with the American companies is when they price their trucks comparitively with the foreign brands, but then offer more than $10,000 cash back to sell the dang things!! It's like they're saying, "We know we're not as good, but we're willing to give you a barrel full of cash to take home one of ours.

I think they ARE as good as their competitors. I think they should lower the initial price and offer smaller rebates. If you advertise a F-150 for $100,000 and offer a $60,000 rebate, all I see is that you're trying to see the truck for $100,000. Price it right, undercut the competition and the rest will fall in to place.

America is selling some damn fine products right now. Both sides of this argument can bring up faults with the other all damn day long. But the fact of the matter is we are bringing up our level of quality in great measures. It is in no way, shape or form going to turn around over night. But it has to start somewhere, and I think we are at that point with the products we have put out in the past few years and the products coming down the road. Masssive re-org will happen like it or not, and one way or the other we will be back on track.

"l these firms are based on reputation and the image they conceive in their respective markets whether it's foreign or domestic and that's where America completely screwed up. So all the people that just worship imports or domestics (e.g. 1487), it's useless to argue this because nobody has the time or financial resources to risk on a car that has a bad reputation."

What in the world are you talking about? I dont worship domestics. I dont even like most of Chryler's lineup. Bottom line: If you ignore warranties and empirical data about reliability you are uninformed and ignorant. Period. Dont give me this crap about the "risk" involved in owning a car that isnt Japanese. The domestics offer better warranties than the Japanese automakers and dealers will extend those warranties for a few hundred bucks. What risk are you talking about? The only risk involved is that some people who are stuck with 80s perceptions are afriad they may be proven wrong so they continue to talk about domestic inferiority without having any actual recent experiences to back it up.

"GM is dead. Let them die. They are consuming precious capital other more worthy companies need.

There is no free lunch. GM, like the US, can NEVER hope to pay back the money they owe.

They lose hundreds on almost every vehicle they sell. Does this sound like a viable business?

They have ceased being a car producer. They are simply a health care and pension company that happens to sell cars. "

Did you make up those sentiments yourself? You know what I am convinced now. I am so glad you enlightened me Pfflyer. You are right, GM is draining precious capital that could be flowing to prop up the banks that got us here in the first place. It is imperitive that we let them die ASAP so we can subsidize failing banks and save those banking jobs. Makes perfect sense and yet it took me so long to see where you were coming from.

"If you have to spend $30,000 over five years are you going to spend it on a car that isn't "that bad" and that has questionable reliability?"

Which brands have questionable reliability? There are no unreliable cars on sale today if you use the true definition of unreliable. Hyundai makes reliable cars and so do the Big 3. How long before you get out of the 80s?

I read a book recently about GM and one chapter is about perception. A market analysts noted that American cars arent uncompetitive anymore but she said that Boomers are stubborn and self righteous and have invested so much time into believing that you have to buy Japanese to get a good car that they refuse to be swayed. They will ignore the facts or just totally ignore the products offered by the Big 3 in order to preserve their antiquated view of domestic quality. Many of the comments here reflect that head in the sand mentality. While some folks are still stuck with 80s perceptions of automotive quality times have changed. You can wake up and catch up or stay stuck in ignorance.

It never ceases to amaze me how people like PFflyer are actually excited about the prospect of America losing its ability to design and build cars solo. How is this anything to embrace or encourage? We are the richest country in the world and one of the most populous and people dont think it would be a disgrace that we have to rely on S. Korea, Germany and Japan to get a new vehicle. We keep hearing how having native car companies isnt important in the global economy but we never hear that from Koreans, Japanese or Germans. I wonder why.

1487 - Don't forget that if we just let them fail now instead of waiting, then all of the auto workers can get in the unemployement line that much faster. We wouldn't want them to have to wait.

Honestly people, "Let them die".
You should be just f-in ashamed of yourself.
I hope you never have to worry about feeding your family or making house payments.

It's not the autoworkers that are the problem, it's everbody above them that are taking corporate jets to meetings to request bailout money, all while taking in their huge bonuses while losing billions of dollars.

Clean Slate, new drawing board, whatever you want to call it for anybody in the Big 3 that wears a tie to work every day.

"There is one thing they haven't tried: building solid, competitive cars. Somebody should suggest it to them."

How out of touch are you? If you are on this site I assume you read about cars. competitive cars? Fusion, G8, CTS, MAlibu, Aura, 2010 Taurus, MKZ, MKS, 300C, STS, Corvette, Cobalt SS, 2010 Lacrosse, Camaro, Mustang........need I go on? Your ignorance of competitive cars isnt the same as a lack of competitive cars.

ctpix,

No steam. Nothing from the opposition has been thought provoking or remotely accurate. When you are ignorant its always easy to argue because you dont have to worry about silly thinks like accuracy or facts. I've yet to enounter one "Detroit makes crap" poster who is actually capable of making claims that can be supported with sound logic and some regard for the truth. Thats probably because such arguments really have no basis in the truth. Look at the posts by the people who believe imports and domestics are about equal vs the posts by the import fanatics who think we are in 1985. Which side has proven the most capable of making logical arguments? Import fanboys are usually very angry, very inaccurate and extremely biased. They deal in hyperbole and rehashing of 25 year old stories about domestics. These are people who cant discuss domestic quality wihtout brining up "current" examples such as the Cimmarrron or the Vega.

1487,

"GM is dead. Let them die. They are consuming precious capital other more worthy companies need.

There is no free lunch. GM, like the US, can NEVER hope to pay back the money they owe.

They lose hundreds on almost every vehicle they sell. Does this sound like a viable business?

They have ceased being a car producer. They are simply a health care and pension company that happens to sell cars. "

Did you make up those sentiments yourself? You know what I am convinced now. I am so glad you enlightened me Pfflyer. You are right, GM is draining precious capital that could be flowing to prop up the banks that got us here in the first place. It is imperitive that we let them die ASAP so we can subsidize failing banks and save those banking jobs. Makes perfect sense and yet it took me so long to see where you were coming from.

First, who mentioned banks? Are we not talking about GM?

So... how much is enough to "loan" GM (as if they can ever pay it back)?

Do you think there IS a free lunch? Must be an OBAMA! guy.

Since GM does not make money from selling cars, do you think they should continue to do so, at taxpayer expense?

How is GMAC working out for GM? GMAC has TRILLIONS of dollars of derivative exposure and billions of dollars in sub prime and Alt-A mortgages. Do we bailout GMAC in the process of bailing out GM?

Now, I have always been a GM man. I personally own three GM vehicles. Love my 2004 LeSabre.

As an investor and a taxpayer, GM deserves to die. Period. To argue otherwise is to discount logic.

I look forward to buying a new Chevy truck during the fire sale GM will have this fall when the inevitable happens.

GM has roughly 250,000 full time employees (Yahoo Finance).

pflyer - Got tell them what you said above.
Tell them you'll be glad if their company dies.
Tell them they deserve it.
Tell them they don't deserve to have jobs.
Tell them it's your complete and utter stupidity about not even looking at an American made car because you either had 'a' bad experience or because you read a post that said Americans cars are bad, so you freaked out, as to why you think they should be in the unemployment line.
Why don't you just go spit in their faces while your at it.

Well, of course I post right after you do.
So take out my last "tell them" rant and replace it with an "investment" rant.

My money is on GM surviving, particularly if auto sales start trending upward toward the end of the year. It's clear to me that this administration, bless it, has a good 2-pronged approach: 1) save the domestic auto industry, period; 2) talk tough to try to assuage all you "let it die" miscreants. Given a reasonable recovery and some supportive government policies, there's no question in my mind the GM can go in the black within 2 years. Ford possibly sooner.

What I would kind of like to "let die" are the people who are cheering on the prospect of GM's demise, and starting with 2 top contenders: Tom Friedman, and Senator Shelby. Anti-American A-holes of the first order. Then followed by all the dumbasses behind them who fly the American flag on their Toyotas.

smilez,

GM has roughly 250,000 full time employees (Yahoo Finance).

pflyer - Got tell them what you said above.
Tell them you'll be glad if their company dies.
Tell them they deserve it.
Tell them they don't deserve to have jobs.
Tell them it's your complete and utter stupidity about not even looking at an American made car because you either had 'a' bad experience or because you read a post that said Americans cars are bad, so you freaked out, as to why you think they should be in the unemployment line.
Why don't you just go spit in their faces while your at it.

Four out of the five cars in my household are American made. How many do you own?

Who is happy over GM's demise? It's a shame. Why make it worse throwing good money after bad?

Things change. Do GM workers have a guaranteed job because they make cars? I believe they call that socialism. Is that what you want?

One of my dearest friends works at the GM Arlington TX plant. He knows the score. Is he happy? Of course not. Is he getting Plan B for his future ready? Of course he is. Does that make him wrong or evil to plan for GM's demise? I don't think so. He sees the future clearer than you or I ever will. He has 33 years with GM. He knows they are doomed (in their present state).

Just for a moment, separate emotion from logic. GM does NOT make money selling cars. Their cars are wonderful, for the most part. However, as they are structured today, they are not a viable business. Bankruptcy is the only way to shed union contracts, employee and retirement pensions and eliminate their debt.

Is that brutal? Yes. Capitalism is "Creative Destruction" and only the strong survive.

As it should be, I might add.

Now, if you want socialism and guaranteed jobs, there are several countries that participate in those programs. Or, wait ten years and the US will there.

Full disclosure: I am a proud AFL/CIO union member who has lived through a bankruptcy of my company and has lost his defined benefit retirement, costing me over one million dollars in lost pension benefits.

How about you....

The Business Insider, Feb. 26, 2009:

As we mentioned this morning, GM's total loss for the fourth quarter of 2008 was $9 billion. It's hard to imagine any number that large, so we decided to break it down by the day. It turns out that GM lost something like $85 million every day. That's still almost unimaginably huge. So let's break it down further.

General Motors losses.

Quarter: $9 billion.

Day: $85 million.

Hour: $3.5 million.

Minute: $58,333.

So that's a number we can understand. That's just a few thousand dollars more than the average household income in the US in 2007. In short, with every passing minute GM loses slightly more money than the average American household makes in a year.

Hey, GM can always fall back on being the sole company supplying rental car fleets.

1487, is that your union number? One need to look at the Ford F-150 and Ford's World Models to see that Americans can make good cars. The truth is that many times these companies go cheap on us due to having American branding (see Mustang and Corvette interior, any Pontiac).
GM is a bad business, no matter who it employees. Rick Wagoner is in way over his head. Chapter 11 will allow GM to restructure under a board with the best minds in the field. It will also give GM a clean slate with unions.
As for Chrysler, they are done. Sell the Ram to Nissan.

Nobody would disagree that GM needs to return to profitability. That's what they're wrangling over in Washington at this very minute with all the stakeholders. What we are disagreeing on is whether or not to let the entire U.S. automotive industry die, from GM, Ford, and Chrysler, down to the suppliers, and further down to the small businesses that are patroned by all of those employees from the top down. It's a complete unknown if our economy can take that or not without a huge amount of suffering, possibly a full-blown depression, yet oddly many folks have a thrill of the dice roll mentality. Is it a side effect of the Freudian death wish? I have to wonder.

And by recent analyses, bankruptcy will not be any cheaper to accomplish than a bridge loan with restructuring, and meanwhile could kill sales so much that they become completely inviable.

It also occurs to me that the money GM "lost" last year is money that went to the economy, paying interest (that's a big one for them), paying suppliers, paying salaries, and so forth. People act like they just burned it in a fire! I'm not defending deficit spending, no you'll have to talk to our own government for that lesson. But all of this money was still in play in the economy, as whatever they get from the Feds will be as well. And let's say all the Big 3 go under. That means all the cars that get purchased after that will be have to be sourced from imports. If you estimate $8000 average profit (returned to the parent corp.) per vehicle, that's an additional $40-80 billion (depending on volume rebound) a year added to the national deficit. With no end in sight. Probably ever.

Try investing in ourselves for a change, and that includes at least cross-shopping domestic cars. I won't tell people what to buy, but at least consider the home team seriously before buying foreign. At least half of Americans don't do that, unbelievably.

pflyer -
At least you didn't go on any sort of tangent there about socialism...

Maybe you should re-read your statement. Did you tell your "dearest friend" that you hope his company dies? 'Planning' for a demise and 'hoping' for a demise are two completely different points of view. Please do me the favor of telling your views to his face.

If you are such a claimed patriotic hero because of what's in your garage, and the fact that you are an AFL/CIO member, then why don't you try and comment on how they can turn things around? Have you by chance looked at the figures for what their bankrupcy will cost?

That's what annoys me the most about posts like yours and so many others.
"If something's wrong, kill it. I don't have time to think of ways to fix it, so just kill it. My brain is being used to spout off how patriotic I am, while at the same time saying..."

You know what? I'm done. I'm tired of fighting with people with your point of view. You've gone beyond low hoping for hundreds of thousands of jobs being terminated instead of trying to figure out a solution.

I'm moving over to a happy blog.

smilez,

pflyer -
At least you didn't go on any sort of tangent there about socialism...

Maybe you should re-read your statement. Did you tell your "dearest friend" that you hope his company dies? 'Planning' for a demise and 'hoping' for a demise are two completely different points of view. Please do me the favor of telling your views to his face.

If you are such a claimed patriotic hero because of what's in your garage, and the fact that you are an AFL/CIO member, then why don't you try and comment on how they can turn things around? Have you by chance looked at the figures for what their bankrupcy will cost?

That's what annoys me the most about posts like yours and so many others.
"If something's wrong, kill it. I don't have time to think of ways to fix it, so just kill it. My brain is being used to spout off how patriotic I am, while at the same time saying..."

You know what? I'm done. I'm tired of fighting with people with your point of view. You've gone beyond low hoping for hundreds of thousands of jobs being terminated instead of trying to figure out a solution.

I'm moving over to a happy blog.

Where do you find me happy about GM's demise?

Where do you find me hoping for GM's demise?

Is buying a new truck from a company that is selling one cheaply because they can't sell it at a higher price evil?

Did not say I was patriotic, although I did serve in the military for 13 years. How long did you serve and where.....

GM is losing money selling cars. Are they a business or a charity?

Let the courts decide what their bankruptcy will cost. I bet it will be less than what our government has spent on GM so far (with no end in sight).

The fix is to LET them declare bankruptcy, get out of their union contracts and debt. Yes, workers will be shed (they are now, aren't they?), stock holders will be wiped out (free market) and debt holders will take less than par value. That is GM's only hope.

Do you understand now?

PS: Go suck your thumb. Weak knee people such as yourself are killing this country. The strong survive and the weak perish. THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD BE. That's the free market.

Have you read the reviews on the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Imagine if it looked a little tougher and had Ford badging? I love the new Mustang, but it has handling out of the 80's and the interior is so cheap you constantly think your going to break something.
Cars are rated on two levels: what car will attract women to you and what car would you feel save having your daughter drive?

Your rant of "been tried" doesn't point out that GM tried things but put a milquetoast effort into them, lending towards failure. How many times did GM say that Pontiac would become a performance brand, but then gave it rebadged Chevy's (including the Aveo, which was originally a re-badged Daewoo)?

I am now thinking bankruptcy could be a good thing for GM, as long as they break free of the legacy costs of the UAW and start fresh. Granted, these legacy costs were a burden that was created because they built the auto industry and brought us to our world today, so they can't be fully blamed as they could not avoid most of it.

One more thing to point out: unlike Germany and Japan, the USA has a huge aerospace industry. As a generality, the best and brightest engineers would tend to go into aerospace in the US, whereas they would go into car companies in Japan and Germany. I'm not saying that American car designers are dumb, but they might not get the same talent pool as in other countries. Also, I'm sure a lot of people refuse to move to Detroit, so there's another set of people that GM cannot get to work for them.

I won't reprint your whole diatribe as you feel the need to do.
Caeful on the personal attacks Jack-a$$.
Where did you serve and what did you do? You obviously want to puff your chest out. It's a car blog, but you really just seem to want to go off about who you are, so have at it.

"GM is dead. Let them die"
That pretty much says it all there Hoss. Maybe it's not hope, but it sure does sound like the ultimate pessimism, no hope, let God sort 'em out mentality that makes someone as American as you a disgrace.

You still have yet to point out any way to save them other than costing the American tax payers more than $100 billion (read some more Edmunds.com articles, they pointed out some figures).

So you go back to staring in your mirror after a work out, slapping yourself in the face screaming "I'm the MAN!, I'm the MAN!!! Kill the weak!"

Honestly, bankruptcy might be where they end up. But to say it's the only way is pure ignorance...get it?

smilez,

I thought you were done.

What happened to your happy blog?

Hugs and kisses

Thought you were gonna spout off some BS and get away with it?

Been checking every five minutes to see if I replied? Been doin' some curls in the meantime?
No I figured I'd head somewhere where it was car talk, not personal attacks.
But you keep fighting the good fight tough guy.

Interesting J.D. Power Customer Service Index. No Americans in the bottom 5, one in the top 5:

Behind Lexus, the remaining nameplates in the CSI top five were Jaguar with a score of 810, BMW at 808, Cadillac at 806 and Acura at 805. The industry average was 761, and the bottom five were Volkswagen (725), Kia (724), Nissan (723), Mazda (716) and Suzuki (702).

Thanks Edmunds.

My impression has been the UAW costs are not the major drag on GM, and it's been stated over and over that they're already realigned with new contracts to be fairly even in the wages department (even before that I'm not sure the UAW wages was a key factor, and I certainly don't begrudge line workers making a decent salary.) One of the surprising problems GM has that you never hear about is that many of their pensioners, and particularly pension spouses, are living WAY longer than the tables would have predicted; last I heard the number of 90+ year olds and even 100+ year olds on their pension dole is surprisingly high. Time will naturally take care of that, of course, and GM hasn't had a pension plan for new hires for over 10 years I think.

There seem to me to be a couple of keys to successful restructuring: reducing the interest on debt they're paying (major chunk), getting health care costs under control, and overall "right-sizing" the operation and brand structures to match their market share. Doing all that is not a hail Mary, it's just accounting and deal making, and it's certainly possible, even if it requires Chapter 11 (I hope not.) After that, it will all come down to 1) car/truck market rebound, and 2) great product, which in turn will eventually lead to perception catching up with reality. I'm pretty confident in the great product department: other than rebadges like the G3 and G5, every new car or truck GM has released in the last few years has been at or near the top of its class. If the market stays this depressed or worse for, say 5 years, I'm not even sure Toyota will survive.

So these calls to kill GM, like from that complete raving a$$hole Tom Friedman (NY Times), or Michael Moore for that matter, are sheer personal agenda and vendetta. Might as well throw in a call to hunt the Commies and burn the witches.

One may argue that the design, reliability, assembly, etc of such brand has come a long way and is now equal if not better than another, but the bottom line is that overall, a majority of people have been and are still more willing to put their money on foreing cars rather than domestic, and that's just not a coincidence.

Here's a test that I'll call brand-switching: if domestic companies had been producing for decades cars such as GM Accord, Ford Camry, etc., and foreign companies had been building Toyota Taurus, Honda Caprice, etc, domestic companies would own 90% of the market in the US, and foreign companies would have never ever made it here.

For my part, I do not believe that domestic cars are now on *average* producing cars that are on par with foreign manufacturers. And not only did I have serious problems with a domestic vehicle not so long ago, it was when dealing with the corporation (at a legal level) that I realized that they just had no consideration whatsoever about customers and their products. They've had their money, and that's all they wanted. I experienced other issues on foreign cars, and I was always treated in a fair way. Btw, all the people I spoke with were from this country, so it's not a US/anti-US issue here, it's simply the mentality that drives (!) domestic car companies that have led them to where they are.

IMHO, the root problem is in the product. They can blame the economy, this and that, but they make cars and people are not buying them. Period. And it's going to take a whole lot more than a Malibu (which could have been significant 5 years ago, but has nothing innovative today) to save GM. Have you seen the top-value Genesis sedan and coupe? Who would buy a LaCrosse over a Genesis (we're talking abut the same money here...). If you think the LaCrosse, do the brand switching, and you'll buy the Genesis in no time.

mexibec: "Who would buy a LaCrosse over a Genesis (we're talking abut the same money here...). If you think the LaCrosse, do the brand switching, and you'll buy the Genesis in no time."

The 2010 LaCrosse coming out in a few months is a car I'd likely buy over the Genesis, even with your brand switching argument. Remains to be driven, of course, but I have very high expectations--I fully expect the new Buick to set the standard in its price class. Further, the LaCrosse is expected to start at a slightly lower price point than Genesis. And I'd certainly take a V6 DI CTS over the V8 Genesis (similar prices there.) I would also take Malibu over Accord and Camry, based on product alone, probably Aura over those 2 as well. CTS over any Asian competitor, but would consider 3-series (not 5-series) BMW. Enclave over any competitor in that price and vehicle class, easy. Corvette over... oh wait, it really has no competition at its price point. GM is not on the top of this scale in all departments, but at least they show up at that level, more and more now. There are many companies out there that never hit these highs (think Mitsubishi and Volvo, 2 off the top of my head) yet they're not being bashed every single day in the media! GM has had a target on its back since Ralph Nader, and then Consumer Reports. So keep justifying those import car and truck purchases; Japan, Korea, and Germany will love you. And soon China!

pfflyer,

One of the reasons you sound so stupid is that you have no clue about what changes have been made. GM cannot make any money if they arent selling cars. The market has killed their revenue stream in the middle of a massive restructuring. You are not qualified to speak about Gm's operations because you dont know anything. Wagoner and his team have cut billions in costs over the last 5 years or so and if sales were ANYWHERE near normal GM could be profitable very soon. Unfortunately sales are at a 26 year low and Gm cannot bring in enough revenue to come close to breaking even. Read their viability plans. They are free and available to anyone who is curious. I suggest that you read that and then come and comment here. You are so out of touch with reality that it is actually embarrassing. Much of what you are lecturing about is already underway at GM and your notion that they have no plan to acheive profitability is a flat out lie. Get informed and then comment. Try it, you may even like it. I can guarantee you there is 100 times more thought and intelligence in GM's viability document than there is in all your dimwitted posts combined. The documents were put together by smart people who have taken a hard look at the facts and numbers and come up with a workable plan. The only way GM cant return to profitbility is if the US market stays below 10M for the next 2-3 years. If that happens all the automakers are in trouble.

"One may argue that the design, reliability, assembly, etc of such brand has come a long way and is now equal if not better than another, but the bottom line is that overall, a majority of people have been and are still more willing to put their money on foreing cars rather than domestic, and that's just not a coincidence."

Domestics have about 48% of the market. There are three domestics and 7 major foreign automakers doing business in the US. Why the hell do you think that "most" people drive foreign? Foreign automakers JUST surpassed the 50% mark within the last year or two. People like you act like no one even buys American cars anymore and they are as common as Izuzus.

"Here's a test that I'll call brand-switching: if domestic companies had been producing for decades cars such as GM Accord, Ford Camry, etc., and foreign companies had been building Toyota Taurus, Honda Caprice, etc, domestic companies would own 90% of the market in the US, and foreign companies would have never ever made it here."

Wrong again. Americans are so ill informed that its pathetic. Look at Europe's market and tell me what share VW, MB and BMW have and then get back to me. VW has about 23% share in Europe which is similar to GM's share. Ford is the 2nd or 3rd biggest player in Europe. No one has dominant share in Europe because there is so much competition. It has nothing to do with the fact that the native companies made bad product. For the record, Asian cars are not nearly as accepted over there and Toyota/Honda/Nissan have been unable to duplicate their success from the US.

If you increase the number of players the establihed players are going to lose. Japanese automakers dominate their home market because they face little foreign competition. Same with Hyundai in S. Korea. The European market is the closest to the US market and most of the major players there have a modest marketshare.

The primary reason the Japanese got a foothold in the US market was that they already had small, efficient vehicles when the oil crisis hit in the 1970s. If that hadn't happened things would have turned out much differently. Prior to that Americans saw little need for small cars or nice four cylinder engines and thus the big 3 didnt make them. Small cars have always been the standard in Japan and at the time thats all they really made.

"IMHO, the root problem is in the product. They can blame the economy, this and that, but they make cars and people are not buying them. Period. And it's going to take a whole lot more than a Malibu (which could have been significant 5 years ago, but has nothing innovative today) to save GM. Have you seen the top-value Genesis sedan and coupe? Who would buy a LaCrosse over a Genesis (we're talking abut the same money here...). If you think the LaCrosse, do the brand switching, and you'll buy the Genesis in no time."

You are obviously blinded by your bias and ignorance. YOu aren't making any sense. The Malibu experienced a 39% gain in sales last year- all its competitors experienced declines. The Malibu has been named 10Best and an all star twice and beat the Camry in numerous comparisons and you are foolish enough to say it would only be relevant 5 years ago. Check out what Automobile mag said about the Malibu (and your beloved Camry and Accord) in their all-star issue and get back to me. That "nothing innovative" Malibu gets better mileage than the Accord and Camry. Even the improved 2010 Camry cant beat it on the EPA cycle with an automatic.

The Genesis is a nice car and so is the new Lacrosse. To say that the Genesis is "clearly" the better pick is pure stupidity. Its only "clear" if you are hopelessly biased and refuse to consider the Lacrosse because its made in the US.

"So these calls to kill GM, like from that complete raving a$$hole Tom Friedman (NY Times), or Michael Moore for that matter, are sheer personal agenda and vendetta. Might as well throw in a call to hunt the Commies and burn the witches."

Exactly. I suggest that any of these critics who are making statements based on sentiments they get from pro-bankruptcy business writers read "why GM matters" before saying another word. The author addresses all the issues we are talking about here and shows that GM has made major changes over the years. He also explains why its not good for the US to lose the ability to design and produce a car as an independent entity. Whats really funny is that the collapse of GM is only going to mean Ford will need money from the government and suppliers will start to fold. Once that happens the transplants will start to question whether they even need to be here anymore. It wouldnt be long before workers in the south started losing their jobs because without suppliers you dont assemble cars.

1487,

GM is already bankrupt. If they were not, they would not need my money to live.

Let them go bankrupt. If they have any chance to survive, that is their only hope.

Is that so hard to understand?

"First, who mentioned banks? Are we not talking about GM?

So... how much is enough to "loan" GM (as if they can ever pay it back)?

Do you think there IS a free lunch? Must be an OBAMA! guy.

Since GM does not make money from selling cars, do you think they should continue to do so, at taxpayer expense?

How is GMAC working out for GM? GMAC has TRILLIONS of dollars of derivative exposure and billions of dollars in sub prime and Alt-A mortgages. Do we bailout GMAC in the process of bailing out GM?

1. GM got pushed over the edge by the credit crisis that started last fall. A reduction in lending means a drastic reduction in revenue. The lack of private lending meand that GM cant even get a loan to survive while it deals with the fact its customers cant get loans.

2. GM paying back the loans is dependent on the market starting to recover next year. If that happens and they are business they will be able to pay the loans back. If the market does not improve GM and much of the rest of the industry is in serious trouble. Read the viability plan, its all in there. OR you can continue to talk out of your rear and pretend that none of the issues you are raising have been addressed by GM.

3. GMAC was already bailed out. catch up with current events. The fact that GMAC was a mortgage lender is a big factor in GM's recent woes. Again, this is an issue unrelated to GM management or products.

4. I mentioned banks. After commiting hundreds of billions to banks I have trouble understanding how people can be outraged about $13B for GM when Gm's situation was caused by the mistakes made by bankers. Dont get me started on taxpayer dollars. I would rather see us pull out of Iraq tomorrow and divert money to US industries but as a taxpayer I really dont have an option. If we are going to talk about wasting money or "good money after bad" we could definitely talk about the $657B we have dumped into Iraq. Amazing how no conservatives have an issue with that but they are fuming at the prospect of GM getting billions to survive past this recession. For $30B we should maintain a domestic auto industry and hundreds of thousands of jobs. What do we get for the $657B we put into Iraq?

"As we mentioned this morning, GM's total loss for the fourth quarter of 2008 was $9 billion. It's hard to imagine any number that large, so we decided to break it down by the day. It turns out that GM lost something like $85 million every day. That's still almost unimaginably huge. So let's break it down further."

Royal Bank of Scotland lost like $39B in the last quarter. GM's lossses are huge because their revenue figures and costs are huge. A mom and pop operation isnt going to post a $9B loss. GM had $160B in revenue last year and that was down considerably from 2008.

"GM is already bankrupt. If they were not, they would not need my money to live.

Let them go bankrupt. If they have any chance to survive, that is their only hope.

Is that so hard to understand?"

Do you understand the purpose of a bankruptcy? do you understand the government will have to provide the financing or force banks to transfer bailout money to GM to finance Chap. 11? Are you aware it could cost $100B? Are you aware that if the company liquidates the government will have to absorb the pensions? Do you realize that over the next few years Gm's collapse is going to cost as much or more than the aid? Is any of this so hard to understand?

The entire purpose of all this is to achieve Chap. 11 type concessions and savings without the uncertainty of Chap. 11. No company as large as GM has successfully navigated Chap. 11 and this idea that they will come out healthy and strong paying UAW workers $8/hr is a fantasy championed by right leaning morons. They will liquidate, hundreds of thousands will lose their jobs, Ford will end up asking the gov for money to survive after suppliers go under and the taxpayers will spend billions supporting unemployed workers and picking up a % of outstanding pensions.

Understand any of that?

First of all I would like to comment on The Mechanic's blog. While I agree you have a good point, was the length of the 4th paragraph necessary? We get it... they tried many things! Also I take offense to calling people who drive or like Pontiacs trailer trash. While I do not own one, I do like their style and would consider buying one if I was shopping for a new car. I don't consider myself trailer trash.

Secondly, I am pro-American car but since people like 1487 and yamahr1 do a good job defending them I don't really need to put in my .02 except to say that American or foreign they are all made by humans and we are not perfect. My friend has a 1987 Celebrity wagon with 200,000 miles that he bought for $400. It looks like a piece of junk but in the 4 year he's had it he never had anything wrong with it. My 2001 Z24 I had for 2 years with barely 100,000 miles went through 2 engines before I got rid of it. My other friend has a 1992 Camry with well over 200,000 miles and has nothing wrong with it while a third friend of mine has a 2000 Tundra for barely 2 months and had to take it twice to the shop to get some fairly major work done. Like I said no car company is perfect.

Thirdly, I drive a Cobalt and I think people need to live with a car longer than a rental before they can say how bad one is. Mine is a 2007 LS coupe... the stripper you would find at Avis. I'll admit interior materials need work but it is put together well and doesn't squeak or rattle. Also, ergonomics are some of the best. Also, it has a peppy motor, great gas mileage, looks better than alot of compacts and I only paid a little over $10,000 for it brand new. It also has been reliable... sure it only has 16,000 miles but I don't see it being an issue in the future. The only major problem with Cobalts that I have read about has been the electric steering going out. That particular component, from what I have read, comes from a Japanese company which happens to be related to Toyota.

1487: relax! If you want to fight a war, go to Afghanistan. This is a forum to share ideas, not to insult anyone. If your feelings are too hurt because the brand you cherish is going down the drain, get over it, because it's happening and for good reasons. We can agree to disagree, but if you can't do so in a civilized manner, move out!

1487, you are way out of touch. GM has not been profitable since 2001. Even when the Economy is good they can't bring in a profit. I recommend you read some of Alex Taylor III's reports on Fortune. By going into bankruptcy, GM can break the union obligations that are tying them down and make the bond holders renegotiate. Ford just came to a deal with the union, why can't GM.
Wagoner is just in way over his head. GM will never be a market leader again. Chrysler is dead and GM should be looking at Hyundai for inspiration.
Also read any Edmund's long term tests on American Cars, they don't hold up. The Aura's interior was falling apart, the Malibu Hybrid has a four speed automatic, the Cobalt SS has rental car interior, and the Corvette has the same steering wheel as the Cobalt!

Saturn Aura-Opel-G6-Smaller Malibu long term review:
"Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Saturn Aura which, when it wasn't in the shop, was frequently the last one picked."
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/LongTerm/articleId=121777

1487,

The entire purpose of all this is to achieve Chap. 11 type concessions and savings without the uncertainty of Chap. 11. No company as large as GM has successfully navigated Chap. 11 and this idea that they will come out healthy and strong paying UAW workers $8/hr is a fantasy championed by right leaning morons. They will liquidate, hundreds of thousands will lose their jobs, Ford will end up asking the gov for money to survive after suppliers go under and the taxpayers will spend billions supporting unemployed workers and picking up a % of outstanding pensions.

We have been through this before 1487. It is ILLEGAL to terminate pensions and contracts outside of bankruptcy. The union could agree on wage concessions, but they could not terminate pensions or contracts if they wanted to.

3. GMAC was already bailed out. catch up with current events. The fact that GMAC was a mortgage lender is a big factor in GM's recent woes. Again, this is an issue unrelated to GM management or products.

GMAC's problem is NOT over. I don't have time to explain derivatives to you, but GMAC's exposure is in the TRILLIONS. Their exposure is more than the GDP of the US. Do you see now why banks will not lend to each other and to individuals. They are ALL bankrupt (as GM is) and insolvent right now. It's not a liquidity problem, it's a solvency problem. They don't trust GM or Ford or Boeing or themselves because they know what's on their balance sheet and they figure the others are all in the same boat. By the way, up until 18 months ago, GMAC was the only part of GM that was making money.

As far as Iraq goes, I agree with you 100%. We should not be there and if left tomorrow, it wouldn't be soon enough for me. But, what does Iraq have to do with GM. (I'm a Ron Paul guy, can't you tell?)

If you want GM to survive, you should be cheering a Chapter 11 filing. If you want to ensure their death, keep delaying the inevitable.

If you want an example of prudent and correct Chapter 11 filings, look at the airlines. Delta, Northwest, United, US Airways and several others went bankrupt. They were able to cut wages, terminate pensions and rid themselves of debt.

I participated in one of those companies listed above. I lost a defined benefit plan worth seven figures, my pay was cut by 47% and my work rules were changed (not for the better).

Did all of that SUCK? What do you think? But today, my company is strong, I still have a job I love (making lots less, but that's life) and I am saving like crazy so I can make up for my lost retirement.

So... do you get it now??? It's not personal, it's the economic law of the jungle. The strong survive and the weak (and insolvent) die. That is how it should be.

I am getting tired of spanking you and smilez. You guys can have the last word.

1497, GM is no saint either:
"Facing a saturated car market in the US in the early 1920s GM engaged in in a controversial policy along with road-builders that triggered the massive shift from the mass transportation of the previous century to the 'one-person-one-car' trip of today. In order to expand auto sales and maximize profits GM bought local mass transit systems and privately-owned railways, following which it would proceed to eliminate them."

Maybe this time around GM can buy all the airlines and dismantle them?

Hugs and kisses tough guy.

"typical of an ignorant person you chose one of the oldest engines from Gm's stable and assume that it's state of the art. Why dont you try this comparison instead; GM's 5.3L to Nissan's 5.6L DOHC v8. Or, GM's 6.2L V8 to Toyota's 5.7L DOHC V8. remember, those import engines have twice as many valves per cylinder and yet dont produce more hp/L than the GM engines I mentioned. The Northstar has been around since the early 90s and is being phased out. The 2L turbo and the 3.6L DI V6 are representatives of GM's current engine technology."

The smart 1487, who was recruited from his job at the local burger joint by GM for the sole purpose of defending GM on IL. GM could have
hired someone a lot smarter but they just didn't have the money. Instead they had to settle for someone whos comments are pointless as the cars they make.

First- aren't the two engines you just mentioned truck engines? TRUCK ENGINES, you idiot. To carry heavy loads you need more torque which is easily derived from high displacements. You are comparing engine outputs for truck engines. That alone shows what a retard you are. Truck engines aren't there for you to prove your automotive capabilities, you moron. More valves per cylinder? Every other manufacturer is using at least four valves per cylinder. The fact that GM is still using two valves is another fact of how backwords they are.

You want to compare engines? Compare the ZR1s( GM current best offering) engine to a German and Japanese engine. How much do you think the ZR1 powerplant can muster without a supercharger? Probably what the base Vette does with its 6.2L block, around 430hp. Heard about the BMWs 4L, 417hp engine used in the M3? What about the R8s 4.2L with its 420hp output? Thats automotive excellence. Since you were in you usual "unbiased" way, unable to resist the imports comments, did you here about the Honda S2000 powerplant which delivers highest output for any naturally aspirated piston engine? Were you humping the Vettes mufflers when Toyota released the 5L V10 sporting well over 550hp, the engine intended for the LF-A?

Some of the guys made legit comments but you, with your out of this planet, stupidity insult anyone who doesn't like GM because of past experiences with their automobiles.

And this 3.6L DI V6 that you are talking about is used in the Cadillac CTS? In that case you need to look up the G37s engine(VQ37VHR) which makes more horsepower and gets better mileage WITHOUT direct injection.

You would have been better off at the burger joint. Sure GM pays you a little more but at the burger joint, you wouldn't have unconsiously advertised what an A$$ you are. The number of posts you make are proof that a low life like you has no private life or you really do work for GM, in which case I pity you.

"comparing engines....you idiot"

GM junk blah blah vs Audi 4.2L blah blah BMW 417hp blah blah etc.

You're comparing apples to oranges. The correct way to compare engines is cost of building, weight and brake specific fuel consumption in a given horsepower class.

On those regards, GM does a truly excellent job with its LS1 series V8s. The Pontiac G8 6L V8 gets 4 more mpg highway than the BMW M3 and 1 more mpg city. Plus it's a cheaper engine to build by far.

But wait it gets even better for pushrod engines. The Dodge Charger 370 hp 5.7 V8 gets 8!! mpg better highway than an Audi R8 4.2L V8 and 3 mpg better city. Plus again it's a lot cheaper to build.

Make no mistake if you consider horserpower vs fuel milage, powerplant weight and cost, pushrod engines are a viable engineering solution, despite what a lot of snotty "more cams than thou" types on the internet (most who couldn't disassemble and assemble a lawnmower engine if their lives depended on it) would have you believe.

The die was cast for GM during the restructuring of the company during the Roger Smith era when the divisions ceased to be manufacturing entities and evolved into brand marketing organizations. The strategy was to make the break up of GM impossible by Anti-trust watchdogs. The unfortunate byproduct was a loss of distinction and control of engineering, styling, and quality of each division. For example, once Buick, Olds, and Pontiac lost their own V8 production capacity to GMPowertrain's rationalized assortment, the primary distinction between one automotive to another its engine was lost. Any who have driven an Olds 350 could tell you that it was very different from the same sized Chevrolet motor, just as the Pontiac 307 had different driving characteristics from the Chevy 305. Indeed the differences in engineering between a 1969 Olds Toronado and a 1969 Buick Riviera were remarkable despite the fact that they actually shared the same platform. Today could one argue that the Saturn Aura is remarkably different from the Chevy Malibu? Not as much as one can say that the Toyota Camry is different from the Nissan Altima.

I have seen several posters state that what is most important to the buyer is the actual product and less so the name that it carries. The recent success of Hyundai is proof that this is truly a law of business that somehow escaped the academics in American business schools when those institutions embraced the business philosophy of "brand management." A belief that brand identity in the minds of consumers is what drives purchasing behaviors. When this happened, all of a sudden GMs divisions where in the hands of messianic brand managers who had in their previous jobs marketed soaps and detergents for Proctor & Gamble and similar non-manufacturing corporations.

However, with little distinction between the brands, and more money diverted from manufacturing to the activities that would "grow the brand" like marketing and advertising, what was left for the consumer to choose from was a lot of under engineered mediocre American cars. If anyone remembers some of the stupid marketing gimmicks these MBAs dreamt up in the late 90s you would not be surprised that consumers ran to the imports.

I recall at the launch of the Lincoln LS I received in the mail a corrugated plastic envelop with little cards that had words like "calm" "powerful" etc etc on it. Mind you this is what came when I requested a product brochure. I guess I was supposed to conjure up a wonderful image of the Lincoln brand in my mind when all I really wanted to see was the specifications and some nice interior photos. I guess Lincoln's brand manager skipped class the day the business professor went over the near disastrous launch of the Infiniti Q45 when they too tried to fabricate a brand from scratch using zen imagery. Many blame that Zen campaign for Infiniti's poor sales relative to Lexus despite the fact the the motoring press often ranked the Q45 as a superior product to the LS.

However, even companies with a good product can get misdirected when brand management ideas infiltrate an organization. Acura sold lots of Legends and Integras because they were great cars at the time. Then all of a sudden Honda began to realize that when most owners of those cars were asked what they drove, the people would just say "I have a Legend" or an Integra without even uttering the word Acura. So to strengthen the marketing power of the "brand" Acura they moved from Legends that they sold to RLs that didn't sell as well. I recall when Cadillac was THE luxury brand all the owner had to say was "I drive an Eldorado" and it spoke volumes about their success in life. By the turn of this century would anyone even raise an eyebrow if one said "I drive an ETC." Probably they would wonder why anyone would call a car an Etcetera.

Of course ever to follow the leader toward stupid marketing decisions, Lincoln too abandoned memorable names like Continental, Mark, and Zephyr for the MK-alphabet soup titles.

Will they ever learn that the only way to compete with the imports is to do what Americans used to do very well which is to focus on product distinction through engineering, manufacturing, and styling. Recast the divisions from their present marketing and distribution channels to what they were when they owned they highways...actual individual Motorcar companies loosely tied together by a GM organization that wrote the checks. Let Buick engineers care about Buick again...put "motorheads" in the leadership positions and cast out the MBAs. If you really want to ensure their success, get them out of the RenCen GM building and send them to Flint. For example, Olds greatest years where when the division's headquarters were in Lansing next to the Oldsmobile manufacturing complex. At the time, they pretty much had everything they needed to be a stand alone car company like Volkswagen, or Nissan.

One can only wonder if we all would have been better off had the anti-trust lawyers brought about the breakup of GM before Roger Smith prevent that possibility through the restructuring that likely doomed it to its eventual collapse instead of salvation.

We are comparing engine outputs here, a topic started by 1487. More specifically, the better engineered engine IN terms of ouput, not the costfuel comsumption and all that crap. Read the damn comments again. I never said GM engines were junk. I was stating that it is moronic to compare truck engine outputs. If you are comparing outputs, compare the best.

"The Dodge Charger 370 hp 5.7 V8 gets 8!! mpg better highway than an Audi R8 4.2L V8 and 3 mpg better city. Plus again it's a lot cheaper to build."

And whats the difference between these two cars? Think about that before posting another comment.

"Make no mistake if you consider horserpower vs fuel milage, powerplant weight and cost, pushrod engines are a viable engineering solution, despite what a lot of snotty "more cams than thou" types on the internet (most who couldn't disassemble and assemble a lawnmower engine if their lives depended on it) would have you believe."

Pushrods are more viable? Cheaper engine to build? With only two valves, of course pushrods are cheaper. And even with them being cheap how many of GM products offer the same damn engines in the cars? You'd think with them being cheap and easy to build, GM would come up with a few more pushrods. Lots of manufacturers use the same engine but at least they have an excuse for having built a more expensive engine. So in conclusion, you pay the same or more for an engine and in general for a car that has a cheaply built engine(not that there is anything wrong with that, cheap interior and all that taken into account)by a manufacturer who is still going bankrupt EVEN though they made the so said cheaper to build engine?

So even with the cost cutting, GM is going down. You know what? Domestic lovers are definately the smartest people around.They know they are getting the better end of the deal with cars that cost less to build but is priced equally or higher than their German and Japanese competion.

Iam sorry to burst your bubble but there is a reason some of the other comment writers are saying that imports are the better deal. They are actually smart enough to think and then spend their money wisely on the better deal.

You wanna buy a pushrod? Domestic? Go right ahead. Just stop deluding yourself that what you drive is better than everything else. Some GM cars may be good but majority of their vehicles are crap. The Germans and Japanese are far from perfect but they are still milestones ahead of domestic crap that some like to call cars.

I just went on Consumer Reports and GM and Chrysler rated as have the lowest scores on the Testing and Reliability matrix. Honda Co. Scored a 78 while GM Scored a 57.

"...the better engineered engine IN terms of ouput..."

GM and Chrysler could no doubt build high specific output engines. But that would make cars like the G8 V8 and LX 5.7/6.1L a lot more expensive, but not a lot faster or more fuel efficient. They've done a great job at engineering cars that beat the crap performance wise out of the Japanese and German competition in their price range.

Let do another comparison to test Detroits engineering ability. The highway mileage of these cars is rated no better than a Chrysler 300C 5.7L 5 speed auto:

Lexus IS 250 2.5L 6spd manual
Acura RL 3.5L 5 speed auto
Infiniti G37 3.7L 7 speed auto
Mercedes Benz C300 3L 7 speed auto

Why, if Detroit is so inept, is it capable of engineering 370 horsepower v8's capable of equivalent highway mileage and within 2 mpg city mileage of German and Japanese luxury car 6 cylinder sedans?

I must say it has been interesting and somewhat entertaining reading the two opinions as to the engineering prowess of imports versus domestics. What hasn't been as enjoyable, however is to read how the discussion sometimes becomes less than civil discourse.

What I have taken away from this discussion is that instead of one position proving superiority over the other, they have effectively proven that domestics and imports are markedly different. Those differences historically evolved based on the driving conditions and driver priorities in the nations in which they were developed. I see that clearly by owning two cars, one 4 cylinder 4 speed automatic domestic, and one V6 6 speed manual of German manufacture. Is one better than the other? YES Can I tell you which one? NO because it literally depends on my driving priorities when I am choosing which keys to grab as I exit the house.

What I have noticed is that, on a whole, import brands have been successful in changing the consumer's opinion which driving priorities are most important. For much of the development of the automobile in the US, the mark of quality and engineering superiority was based upon the notion of isolating the driver from the experience of getting from point A to point B. In a nation as vast as the US, enjoying/surviving a 3 day drive from coast to coast was best accomplished when sitting in a car was more similar to setting in a living room than in an involved driver's environment. Conversely, a 3 hour drive coast to coast in Italy dictates different engineering principles for cars meant for that market. This is seen in my two cars. The German V6 quite frankly cannot get out of its own way until the engine is spinning at least 2500 rpm. This can make for rather embarrassing launches from a traffic light when a 2.4 liter PT Cruiser zooms ahead. However, which car would I rather be driving if I were trying to pass at 65 mph...the German because once that engine's sweet spot is reached, the car literally comes alive. In the land of Autobahns it is not surprising that a German would be engineered to be most satisfying at speeds upwards of 60 mph. But I would fear taking my V6 manual German into NYC whereas the PT Cruiser with automatic does just fine.

Arguably starting with the BMW 2002 and the original Datsun 510 there has been a shift in what constitutes a better engineered car in the consumer's mind. Effective marketing and an automotive press gradually raised the expectation of driver involvement over that of driver isolation when deciding which is superior.

Proof of these shifts can be seen also in the rise of Leather as the mark of luxury. Back in the day, the mark of a quality automobile was the use of 100% wool broadcloth in the interior. Leather was typically only chosen when there was a concern for durability or weather exposure. Look at old limousines and it was the hired help who sat on the black leather in the driver's compartment while the rich owner enjoyed the comfort of cloth in the back. Somehow in the 1990's the leather interior became the standard for luxury while cloth interiors migrated downward toward entry level status. However, if you live in South Florida in August those black/charcoal leather interiors don't feel too luxurious after sitting in the Mall parking lot all afternoon. Oh to have the green velour of a 1982 Buick Regal on that day...LOL

Prior to the automatic transmission, one of the defining traits of a quality automobile was to have an understressed engine with a lusty torque curve that would limit the need to actually shift the manual transmission. For example, auto journalists in the 1940s would find most impressive the fact that the nine-bearing straight 8 under the hood of a Packard could smoothly accelerate from 25mph in high gear without lugging or stalling. Today put any import manual in high gear at 25mph and try to pull away. You'll probably only attempt it once for fear of leaving a trail of parts behind you. Now if this ability were still considered a mark of quality and engineering superiority, I suppose a 1947 flat head straight 8 Packard would reign over a Nissan GT-R. But the reality is that what constitutes engineering superiority is based upon what the consumer perceives it to be and not on what an engineer tells us it to be. That is clearly seen in the opinions recently thrown around in here as gospel.

I guess my bottom line is to caution readers not to confuse "different" with "better" because it all depends on the priorities of the driver. Because truthfully if I had to drive from Boston to Los Angeles I'd rather be loping down the highway in a Mint 1971 Fleetwood Sixty-Special than a 2009 BMW M3, but once I arrive throw me the keys to the Bimmer as I plot the Pacific Coast Highway into the drive up to San Francisco. In my opinion both vehicles are the best at what I would be expecting them to do.

"Why, if Detroit is so inept, is it capable of engineering 370 horsepower v8's capable of equivalent highway mileage and within 2 mpg city mileage of German and Japanese luxury car 6 cylinder sedans?"

Yoiu are still not getting it. Quit beating around the bush, you are only confusing yourself. The engines you stated above refined luxury engines. Look at the VQ37 and see just how much more the torque is spread through the entire range.

"...the better engineered engine IN terms of ouput..."

You copied my statement but came up with an answer that didn't have anything to do with said topic. Fueal efficency? Wasn't it just some time ago that you people were crowding these forums, saying that your gas guzzler V8s were mans cars? This was just a little before the gas crises. Funny how your standards change with the Big 3.

And is your Detroit can built high output engines, where are they? Name me one engine that has at least a 100hp/L. All your engines have is torque which is no engineering feat in a big displacement engine. If they can improve the output hp, then they can consider themselves to be in the same league as Germans and Japanese.

cadetgray, yes the discussion has become less civil for which I do apologize for my share of the .

But like you said, the ability of an engine to shift from a lower gear to a high one without any fuss is more to do with the torque than anything else. Iam pretty sure the GT-R could pull it off with its 430lb-ft torque. If only only had a proper manual. The NA IS-F could have also puled it off with a manual transmission. Quite a few German V8s and V6 turbos can pull it off easily. Import diesel engines are unmatched in this area where they can pull up at revs way lower than what you might have needed for the Packard. However nowadays it is considered more important to better distribute the torque curves among the gears so you would reguire less shifting. The IS-F is a great example of this. Even with 8 gears you only need a couple to comfortably move around town and the sixth is more than enough for high way cruising. Another example is the new STI. You can leave it in sixth gear on any road that offers a little breathing space and you won't get any shuddering or juddering with the 295lb-ft of torque.

"...Yoiu (sic) are still not getting it..."

(ace47)

Really? Let's do one final comparison which hopefully will put your anti-Detroit prejudices to rest.

BMW M3 V8: 420 hp
295 ft.lb. peak torque
445 lbs engine weight
GM LS3 V8: 430 hp
424 ft.lb peak torque
418 lbs crate engine weight, likely
450-460lbs with exhaust

I couldn't find engine dimensions but I suspect the GM LS series V8 would be as narrow and just slightly longer than the BMW V8. As noted above the M3 gets mediocre mileage for its power. The corvette LS3 gets a stunning 6!! mpg more highway and 2 mpg more city. Couple with that the fact that the GM LS3 is cheaper to build.

If you gave a choice to people as to which high performance engine they wanted in their car, without them knowing the brand, displacement and valvetrain layout, and knowing these engines are roughly equal in size and weight, they would all pick the LS3 for it's lower cost, superior fuel economy and greatly superior torque.

Both the GM LS1's and Chrysler Gen3 hemis are engines that show world class engineering from Detroit.

cadetgray, that was a great commentary on what started GM's demise. All of that reorganization was supposedly going to make them a leaner and more flexible organization and reduce costs. What it did instead was to dismantle the formula that had made them successful all those decades before.

It makes me realize why the last GM car I bought happened to have been built in the mid 1980s and designed in the late '70s (and I still own it). That is from the era before Roger Smith's restructuring and before all that brand malarchy had infected the organization. I think Roger Smith did a lot of long term damage to GM that they've just not been able to recover from. Not all of what they face now has been their fault, but they would have been able to weather the storm much better had they not taken away the divisional autonomy. I know the reasons given at the time would have included things like eliminating redundancy, avoiding duplication of efforts, and preventing GM from competing with itself. But a bit of inter-divisional competition resulted in each division putting forth its best effort which meant that their products were much more competitive in the market and had more distinction amongst themselves. Did it matter to GM much that a consumer bought an Oldsmobile instead of a Pontiac, or a Chevrolet instead of a Buick? GM still got the sale either way, and its products overall tended to be better developed and more refined compared to Ford and Chrysler.

The "marketing can sell anything" strategy that was expected to make up for the corporate one-size-fits-all approach to product resulted in more generic cars from GM by the '90s. Although a few of their cars managed to avoid this, most of their volume products did not. It is what Bob Lutz was brought in to fix, and I think there has been much improvement. It just seems to have been too late. Without the economic downturn, GM would have survived longer, but whether or not it would have been long enough for a return to profitability before their cash ran out is uncertain.

I like GM and would consider some of their current offerings were I in the market. And I want them to survive. But I sure don't think that losing their soul to Washington bureaucrats is the way to go. A managed bankruptcy could have eventually resulted in a stronger company, instead of one that's going to need a lot more government guaranteed loans and still may not survive.

seriously these comments are making me mad, especially for those who are ANTI-GM'S!!!! seriously if Toyota or Honda or Nissan think that their quality is so excelent then how come J.D. power and associates never named them for best quality in their cars? and why is it Buick? haven't you guys think about it? second are the camrys, accords, and Altimas are they North American Car of the year for two years? NO!! And a Prius are just about not clean as a Ferrari according to Yahoo.com. Or can a Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot and others can it hold 20 toilet paper bags like how the GM Lambdas do? NO!! and the last thing is that Japanese vehicles are not safe as the American cars does (so that's why American cars are heavy because of Safety) for example, my friend has a yota prius and it just barely hit the Ford Ranger and the right front of the prius is totaled where the ranger only blew out a tire by the prius and the brake light is broken.....

^ P.S. the prius just only touch the ranger only a lil bitty bit n the front was ruined n he has to pay $4000 to $5000 of his damage

"Really? Let's do one final comparison which hopefully will put your anti-Detroit prejudices to rest."

OUTPUT dumbass, OUTPUT! And like I said, you moron, less valves mean less weight. Anti Detroit? Your comments are of the typical GM fanboy. Can't come up with what is relevant and come up with a load of bull making an a$$ of yourself in the process. Again, ENGINE OUTPUT, you moron. Not fuel efficiency, not weight but output.

And you still haven't named the high output engine that your Detroit idols have come up with, which was the whole point of the discussion. Someone probably klapped your brain too hard.

Hey Vic, Car of the Year is awarded for innovation. J.D. Power is not a judgment of reliability.
Also I notice no one is bringing up Chrysler. Can we at least agree that the Ram is the only quality automobile they make and that the company should be put out to pasture?

"...OUTPUT dumbass,...." etc.

(ace47)

Let review the GM LS3 vs BMW 4.0L V8 list again:

Horsepower: a tie
Torque:LS3 wins by a lot over BMW M3 V8
Cost: LS3 wins by a lot over BMW M3 V8
Engine Weight: a tie
Engine Size: a tie
Fuel Economy: LS3 wins over BMW M3 V8
Specific Output: a irrelevant variable compared to the above metrics, but BMW M3 V8 wins, this is the only win in their column

There is one major metric missing but I suspect the LS3 would at least tie maybe beat the BMW on reliability.

So there you have it, BMW and GM both set out to design a high performance engine and GM came up with a solution that has way more torque, better fuel economy, lower cost and the same horsepower, reliability, weight and size. A significant engineering achievement in eye of all but the most hidebound Detroit haters.

The only downside to the GM LS3 is perception and it is for that reason they will probably chose overhead cams for their next series of V8s.

"...Also I notice no one is bringing up Chrysler..."

(dbostondriver)

You clearly didn't been read my post comparing assorted European and Japanese luxury cars to the Chrysler 300C (10:38 AM yesterday).

You're wrong about the Ram being the only competitive vehicle from Chrysler (which is very competive in the latest 2009 iteration). There's also the excellent performing LX cars (300C, Charger, Challenger), the Grand Cherokee, the Wrangler, the Minivans, and the Viper.

The LX cars "cheat" to the degree they use Mercedes suspension components, but the MDS Hemi is an excellent piece of engineering, and I believe on Wards 10 Best Engines list in it's latest variable cam timing iteration.

Chrysler's problem cars are the small ones, on which hopefully the tie in with Fiat will help.

GM does not need all those divisions. Chevrolet and Cadillac is all they need. If they continue to import Opels and rebadge them as Saturns, add Saturn to the mix.

Pontiac and Buick have a tarnished reputation which the American Auto Buyers have spoken.

GM is perceived now as a company on life support teetering towards bankruptcy.

Wow, you repeated my words and still didn't get it. Sorry to have disturbed your summer school classes. Detroit hater? Sorry but the clowns of Detroit are not worth hating.

Reliability? Sorry, again.. but you really are a moron. The German automobiles are often unreliable but their engines are hardly ever at fault, especially not the M3s powerplant. It your pushrod crap you should be more worried about.

And please when you get away from your special school, name me your high performance engine that GM has produced.

Kudos to the mechanic for another good article, quite evident from the number of GM fanboys getting mad.

"...Sorry but the clowns of Detroit are not worth hating...."

(ace47)

I can see you're having a difficult time adjusting to the concept that the LS3 might be a superior engineering solution to the M3 v8. Bluster and name calling won't hide that fact.

One final comparison. Let's say you have jet boat and need a new powerplant. Which would you chose? Let's assume the M3 v8 is about $16K and the LS3 is about $9K (just guessing at the BMW cost, GM makes an LS3 crate engine so we know the cost).

Choosing the BMW would be senseless. It has high cost, higher fuel consumption and a weak torque curve. You could choose the BMW if you wanted exclusivity, but at the expense of being beat all summer long by Chevies with fatter torque curves.

"There's also the excellent performing LX cars (300C, Charger, Challenger), the Grand Cherokee, the Wrangler, the Minivans, and the Viper."
Hahahahahaha.
You haven't heard that Chrysler is putting out the Viper to pasture (check Durango and Asspen). The 300C was a nice car about 6 years ago. Grand Cherokee looks nice but it can't compete for soccer mom's affection like the Highlander and X5 (sales numbers prove it).
Also; I don't know if you have seen the diagram of Chrysler's future plans, but those LX cars are scheduled to be replace by Fiats. Have you have been to the Fiat web page; those are some ugly cars.
We can argue all we want, but numbers speak volumes. GM and Chrysler wouldn't be here if a portion of our tax money wasn't keeping them afloat. Personally I would much rather see that money go to the troops in Afghanistan. And what is going to impress the ladies more; an M3 or G8?
Kudos to Ford for making reliable/safe cars and quality global platforms.

Major automotive media outlets have speculated the Viper will be discontinued after the 2011 model year[14] and that Chrysler will close Conner Avenue Assembly.[15] Though Chrysler had not yet officially commented on the issue, the 25,000th Viper is owned by Kurt Busch and the milestone was commemorated by Bob Nardelli, Chrysler LLC Chairman, in a ceremony at the Conner plant in March 2008.

On 29th of December 2008 Dodge has pulled the plug on the Viper sports car, unless a buyer for that model can be found.

"...Major automotive media outlets have speculated the Viper will be discontinued after the 2011 model year..."

(dbostondriver)

Obviously I already know that being an car guy. I brought it up as evidence of Chryslers engineering prowess. I take it you are aware the Viper ACR holds some kind of street car lap record at the Nurburgrig?

You are wrong about the LX cars. They were and still are outstanding performers, as evidenced by the ongoing accolades from assorted automotive magazines for the Challenger, the newest iteration of the LX. I'm not sure where you get the LXs are due for replacement by Fiat. Perhaps you can give me a link.

It could be you're an automotive writer with lot's of experience to back up your opinions but that's hardly likely. So as to opinions on cars I trust you'll excuse me if I take the more experienced opinions and not yours.

Given by your "ladies...M3 or G8" comment I take it you're a bit stung by my GM LS3 vs BMW 4.0L v8 technical comparison (like ace47).

"Choosing the BMW would be senseless. It has high cost, higher fuel consumption and a weak torque curve. You could choose the BMW if you wanted exclusivity, but at the expense of being beat all summer long by Chevies with fatter torque curves."

The Chevy gets better mileage because the Vette is lighter and has a low drag coefficient. The M3 on the other hand is a saloon with a higher drag and more weight. If you put the LS3 in the M3 and the 4L V8 of the M3 in the Vette, you would get better or equal mileage from the M3 engine simply because it has less weight and better aerodynamics.Car guy, seriously, my sides are aching from laughter. If you were one, you would have taken them into account before coming up with your "technical" comparison.

Fatter torque curves? You define the term 'idiot', which is no surprise, considering the way you are worshipping the LS3 like a blind puppy. If you really were a car guy, you would know that you don't need nowhere near the torque produced by either engines for ordinary driving.

If your pushrods are really that cheap and cost effective, explain to me why GM is going down and needing loans from the goverment to stay afloat? Do you see BMW doing that? (you will probably ignore it and come up with another whiny comparison of the engines, forgetting what the actual topic had been all along i.e engine output)

Oh, and you still haven't named your GM made high output engine. Answer this and the question above and I shall at least respect you for having the smallest grain of common sense. Or just go and bang your LS3 muffler, whatever suits you.

"...You define the term 'idiot'..."

I couldn't find the 6.2L in the G8 but I suspect it gets 4 to 5 mpg highway better than the "saloon" M3. The reason being is that the 6.2L in the vette gets better slightly better mileage than the 6.0L and the 6.0L in the G8 gets 4 mpg better highway and 1 mpg better city than the M3 and this is in a heavier car (by over 400lbs no less). No doubt when the EPA lists the mileage on the G8 6.2L it will be better than the rather atrocious mileage on the M3, even in a heavier car. In any case the bottom line is that the LS3 has lower fuel consumption in a similar car as the similar horsepower BM3 M3 engine.

As for fatter torque curve definition, that would of course be the area under the curve. And really this is where the addition cubic inches of the GM engine shines. Smaller engines like the BMW v8 realistically can't hope to match the torque of engines like the LS3. If they at least were lighter and more fuel efficient then you might have an argument about superior BMW engineering but alas such is not the case.

GM's problems stem in no small part from perception. It's been turning around it's quality for some time now, but a lot of prejudice dies hard.

As for the topic being about specific output, you said that not I (and stop using "high output" as your metric, I know what you mean but your confusing any other readers). What good is high specific output if it doesn't gain you anything in engine size or weight or fuel consumption? (in this case it is actually worse).

Fiat-Chrysler Model Plan:
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=142367#3

You can argue all you want, but GM and Chrylser continue to score the LOWEST reliability ratings. Get a membership to consumer reports and find out for yourself. Honda ranks the best, and Ford is the best American make (and makes the best truck.
Look I love the Corvette. The Z06 is one of the best sports cars for the buck. But the G8 is ugly and a Pontiac. The sales numbers should speak for themselves.
I have had the privilege of sitting in an M5, a Porsche Boxter S, and a newest Gen Corvette Convertible. The fact is that the interior of the Corvette looks like a Cobalt on steroids. The Porsche and BMW meanwhile look other worldly. So luxurious you could just sit in them while they are parked.
Help GM with a structured bankruptcy and send the bailout money to soldier in Afghanistan.

"...You can argue all you want..."

(dbostondriver)

Thanks for the link. I note that Fiat will be the source for medium not full-sized sedans according to that article. So I don't believe the next gen (assuming there is one) LX cars will be engineered by other than Chrysler.

I like Fords but don't agree that the F150 is the best truck, simply because the engine is the weakest of any make (Nissan, Dodge, Toyota, Chevrolet). And that is a long standing issue for Ford.

As for reliability GM and Chrysler engines score well and I think even Consumer Reports would agree that their overall reliability has been improving in the last 3 years.

Weren't the LX's engineered by Daimler?

"The Chrysler 300 is based on the rear-wheel drive Chrysler LX platform which features components derived from the discontinued W210 Mercedes-Benz E-Class of 1996 to 2002. Such components include the suspension design, front seat frames, wiring harnesses, steering column, the 5-speed automatic's design, and a derivative of the 4Matic all-wheel drive system."

klapper, get the fact straight before you make an assumption. Also, I don't think horsepower is the only way to judge any car. Looks, interior feel, handling, safety, reliability, value all way into my judgments. I do like the Ram though.

"...Weren't the LX's engineered by Daimler?..."

Perhaps you didn't read my post at March 1 8:04 AM where I admit the LXs "cheat" (at being great driving cars) by using Mercedes suspension components. Actually in addition to the list above they also use a Mercedes steering rack.

Your right. The G8 is a great car. It is going to save Pontiac.
http://rumors.automobilemag.com/6430175/news/pontiac-g8-production-cut-by-97-percent/index.html

The news today (GM down 53%, Ford down 48%, Chrysler down 44%) highlighted what I posted a while ago: putting the brand aside, what would people buy? In other words, what are people buying when the tough gets going? Hyundai.

Hyundai (only down by 1.5%) has the products (that's the #1 thing) and the marketing (that's the #2 thing): lose your job, we buy back your car. Just the idea is shaking the industry. That's how poweful they are. Think of Hyundai for cars as the iPhone is for mobile phones. That's if you can and if you can afford an iPhone.

If you think the American car industry meltdown is a matter of pushrods and torque (i.e. previous boring insult-filled posts for the past few days), well you deserve to go down the drain like the Big 3 because you are as clueless as them about what people want.

Oh yeah, this post is about GM. Well, GM is "looking" at the Hyundai buy-back marketing model. True to itself, it will try to copy it, only to make a bland, cheap and unreliable copy of it. The sooner GM falls (and Chrysler and Ford), the sooner (naturalized?) American entrepreneurs will fill up the void with better cars that people actually want to buy. Can't wait for these better days.

"...If you think the American car industry meltdown is a matter of pushrods and torque..."

(mexibec)

As you note, the car business is ultimately about product. And product is ultimately about design, engineering and execution.

And my posts were about the little appreciated engineering prowess of GM, one of the three legs of product. It might be boring to you, but it's at the heart of a companies ability to produce leading edge product. I think if more Americans saw the example of the technical comparison of the LS3 vs M3 V8, their perceptions of GM might change. And G8 sales might be better.

As for being clueless about what people want, why would it be that GM sold 4 times as many cars as Hyundai, despite a staggering 53% drop in sales compared to last Feb. That would mean 4 times as many people "wanted" a GM compared to those that "wanted" the incentivized Hyundai. Any bets on when Hyundai will overtake GM?

what does OUTPUT have to do with this? this have NOTHIN to do with OUTPUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and about the hyundai taking over GM now that might be possible but i would doubt it because the government will probably just like say this is the american brand so you can't just let a asian brand take over just like how Toyota wanted to buy ford how the strategy was you know......

Enough about the LS3 engine. Yes it is a great engine, but GM only sells 5,000 G8's a year and the Corvette is a supercar. G8's and Corvettes won't make GM profitable. One engine can't save the company.
GM has to be aggressive and offer a 100,000 mile/5 year warranty on all their cars. The layoff buy back program is a great idea for a car company that is being kept afloat by taxpayers; GM should try it.
I drive Honda's, but I might try a Ford Fusion if they give me a free 5 year warranty.

dboston;

GM sells LS series engines in many vehicles including their full size trucks and SUVs. Such a V8 will be in the Camaro as well. The LS3 is only one version of that engine but there are enough commmon components in these engines to keep the costs of the high performance versions reasonable.

"Oh yeah, this post is about GM. Well, GM is "looking" at the Hyundai buy-back marketing model. True to itself, it will try to copy it, only to make a bland, cheap and unreliable copy of it. The sooner GM falls (and Chrysler and Ford), the sooner (naturalized?) American entrepreneurs will fill up the void with better cars that people actually want to buy. Can't wait for these better days."

I think that may have been the silliest thing you have written so far. I like how you dismissed in depth, fact filled posts as "boring". When you are in over your head in a discussion I can see how you would be bored though.

"And is your Detroit can built high output engines, where are they? Name me one engine that has at least a 100hp/L. All your engines have is torque which is no engineering feat in a big displacement engine. If they can improve the output hp, then they can consider themselves to be in the same league as Germans and Japanese."

How dumb are you?

The GM 2L makes 130hp/L. Fords new 3.5L Ecoboost makes over 100hp/L. The reason why American automakers dont make NA engines with more than 100hp/l is because such engines make no torque and such engines are not practical for most drivers. Also, to say that anyone who doesnt make an engine with more than 100hp/L doesnt know how to build a high tech engine is just absurd. Name one MB engine that makes 100hp/L. Name one Toyota engine. NAme one Hyundai engine. NAme one VW engine. Do I need to go on? There are only a handful of engines on the market that makes 100hp/L and many of them used forced induction.

You keep talking about the VQ- the reason it makes so much hp without direct injection is because it redlines at 7600rpm (give or take). This is nice except for the fact that the engine is loud and slightly unrefined at this speed. Most reviews of the G37 note that there is still some unwanted vibration and driveline lash at high rpms. This is why Toyota and GM and others are using direct injection to acheive over 300hp from V6s.

ACE:

since you have no idea how an engine actually works I will say this: An engine with 4 valves per cylinder makes more power per liter than an engine with 2 valves per cylinder. Generally speaking of course because GM's small block V8s actually have better specific output than some competing OHC V8s. You wasted about 5000 characters in your previous rants arguing that GM doesnt know how to build good engines because their pushrod engines make less power per liter than some limited run DOHC engines that you carefully chose. That is a ridiculous argument because you are comparing two different engine types. The real test of the engines is HOW THEY PERFORM. PERIOD. I noticed you left out performance and fuel economy in your rants and that was very clever. You keep talking about the BMW 4L V8 as an example of BMWs superior engineering but you dont actually compare the M3s performance to the CTS-V or even the G8 GXP. Why is that? Oh, I know why- because you know GM's pushrod powered performance cars can match the performance and fuel economy of the best comparable DOHC powered vehicles in their respective classes. The M3 has a 4L engine and weighs about 3600lbs and gets 14/20 while getting from 0-60 in about 4.4secs. The 4000lb G8 GXP make about the same hp from a larger 6L V8 and gets 13/20 and gets to 60 in 4.7secs. If the G8 weighed as little as the smaller M3 it would be just as fast, if not faster. A normal person would say that the LS3 is one hell of an engine. A biased, technically ignorant BMW fanboy would say GM doesn't know how to build any competitive V8s and pushrods cannot compete in today's world.

BTW, how did the M5's high tech 40 valve V10 help it vs the CTS-V at the Ring? All that hp/L is great but if it doesnt produce a faster car there is no point. The M5 only makes 383 lb-ft of torque which is pathetic for a $90k super sedan. In a stop light race the M5 is liable to have trouble embarrasing a G8. In fact, the G6 GT has more torque with a price tag $55k south of the M5.

I cant believe you have the nerve to bring Toyota into this discussion when their most poweful engine makes only 416hp. Once again, the IS-F with its 32V V8 and reasonable curb weight is barely faster than the GXP and is definitely slower than the CTS-V. In fact, the last gen CTS-V with 400hp from its 6L V8 was about as fast as the IS-F. The IS is more efficient, but that is due to its 8 speed auto, not its engine.

Stop using low volume, high stress motors from sports cars and acting like they are mainstream. S2000s engine is nice but makes no low end torque and the car cant outrun a cheaper, FWD Cobalt SS.

Here are mainstream examples of OHC engines from the companies you are talking about:

BMW 3L: 225hp- GM 3L (SRX, Equninox)- 255-260hp.
BMW 3L turbo- 300hp- GM 2L turbo 260hp
Toyota 3.5L- 268hp- GM 3.6L 252-263hp with direct injectio- 281-288hp with direct injection
Honda 3.5L- 250-271hp hp- GM 3.6L in comprable products- 252-288hp

Lexus DI V6: 306hp- GM DI V6 for CTS: 304hp

MB 3.5 V6: 268hp- CTS 3.6 V6 na:263hp- CTS DI: 304hp.

Toyota 2.4L: 158hp- GM 2.4L: 169hp to 177hp- Honda 2.4L: 177hp

Toyota 1.8L: 132hp (73hp/l)- GM 2.2L: 155hp (70hp/L).

When GM uses DOHC heads they get comparable hp vs the industry leaders. When they use OHV engines they get great performance and respectable mileage which is what really countrs. The fact that GM's OHV engines dont get the same specific output as DOHC engines has no bearing on their performance. You fail once again. Not that its anything new to you around these parts.

The mechanic has once again inspired you to step out on a limb and reveal your lack of knowledge about the auto industry once again.

"OUTPUT dumbass, OUTPUT! And like I said, you moron, less valves mean less weight. Anti Detroit? Your comments are of the typical GM fanboy. Can't come up with what is relevant and come up with a load of bull making an a$$ of yourself in the process. Again, ENGINE OUTPUT, you moron. Not fuel efficiency, not weight but output.

And you still haven't named the high output engine that your Detroit idols have come up with, which was the whole point of the discussion. Someone probably klapped your brain too hard."

I think I addressed all the "points" in your rant above. Now you can go away and rest in peace. BTW, the term you should have been using is "spefici output" not "engine output". One reason you are having trouble getting people to understand your questions is that you don't even know the terminology. And then you have the nerve to call others "idiots". Pot, meet kettle. You have been called many things here, but knowledgable is not one of them.

"So even with the cost cutting, GM is going down. You know what? Domestic lovers are definately the smartest people around.They know they are getting the better end of the deal with cars that cost less to build but is priced equally or higher than their German and Japanese competion.

Iam sorry to burst your bubble but there is a reason some of the other comment writers are saying that imports are the better deal. They are actually smart enough to think and then spend their money wisely on the better deal"

what are you talking about? In what world (certainly not the real one) do the average Japanese and German cars cost LESS than a comparable American branded car? American cars typically offer more for less and its been that way for a long time. People like you ignore their products (even the good ones) and then go and get raked over the coals by some Honda dealer who tells you he is doing you a favor by slashing $200 off MSRP and then gives you higher financing than the domestics are offering. If you compare a closely matched American and Japanese car the American car is likely to cost less up front and offer better financing terms as well as lower maintenance costs and more infrequent maintenance intervals. Ignorance is bliss and your foolish rants indicate you must be one happy man.

BTW, compare a CTS or STS to a similarly equipped BMW or MB product and tell me how much money I would save by buying German.

The problems faced by Detroit have nothing to do with materials costs or the costs of engines. BTW, you do realize that ford doesnt use pushrods and GM has phased them out of the majorty of their non performance cars I hope. Aside from the HEMI Chrysler doesnt use pushrods in its cars at all.

Also, since you worship Toyota/Honda, etc. I think we should acknowledge that they havent opposed government assistance for Detroit. In fact, they have said the support help because they feel that a collapse would only worsen the economy and hurt their prospects. Since import manufacturers are always right I suggest you listen to them and do less talking. The less you type, the smarte you look ACE.

1487, I'm glad you had time away from your union job to point out that GM makes competitive horsepower numbers. I will keep that in mind for my NASCAR gig and the race car I'm building.
Those horsepower number do not relate to the entire value of the car. GM is has recently came to this conclusion as well:
"Coinciding with the release of General Motors' Viability Plan, the automaker has disbanded its High Performance Vehicle Operations team, the crew responsible for the line V-series Cadillacs, the Chevrolet Cobalt SS, HHR SS and the V8 version of the Colorado. According to Vince Muniga, a spokesman for the General, "All high-performance projects are on indefinite hold. The engineers are moving into different areas of the organization, and they will work on Cadillacs, Buicks, Chevrolets and Pontiacs." Muniga went on to say that there are no plans for high-performance versions of upcoming plans."

db:

How many people that dont work white collar jobs have access to the net while at work? use common sense instead of lame insults. This concept that intelligence is linked to whether or not you have a union car is laughable when you consider the spurrious claims made here by some of the white collar American car haters here. If you are intelligent you make coherent, defensible arguments. I could get better arguments from any UAW line in middle America. The hp numbers I listed could be gathered after about 15 minutes of internet research. If any of that is news to me it only solidifies my suspisions that you know little about cars.

I already knew GMPD was disbanded, not new information to most of us. Most automakers are cutting projects in this economy. With the new CAFE standard looming high performance engines (especially large ones) are going to become increasingly rare.

"Those horsepower number do not relate to the entire value of the car. GM is has recently came to this conclusion as well:"

I really dont even know what those two sentences are supposed to mean. In most cases a car with an impressive high performance powertrain is worhty in the eyes of entusiasts. The GXP, Z06, ZR1 and CTS-V would be a few examples.

"In fact, the G6 GT has more torque with a price tag $55k south of the M5. "

My bad, meant G8 GT of course.

As usual, Ace is making a fool of himself yet again. Engines with high specific output are laden with many compromises that do not make sense in the real world. The M3's current V8 is a waste of resources. The twin turbo 3L is superior in just about every measureable way especially if BMW chose to deliver its full potential. The M3's engine is all about bragging rights and exotic noises. In 90% of driving circumstances, the 3L is superior.

As far as the entire pushrod vs OHC argument, that topic has been thoroughly discussed many times over the years (back when the forums were called TownHall). Ace47 was still in high school detention during those discussion so forgive him for being late to the party. The issue is 2 valves per cylinder versus 4. Displacement is really not of concern if a) the overall size of the engine is competitive with OHC engines of similar power and b) if the mass of the engine is competitive to OHC engines of similar power. A Gen IV 6.2L smallblock is about the same exterior size of a 4.2L Audi V8 and weighs less. It's has much better torque output and competitive to superior horsepower. Take the LS7 V8 versus the 6.2L AMG. Power and torque are essentially the same but the LS7 is physically smaller and lighter in weight.

A 2valve/cylinder engines's torque output allows tall transmission gearing which automatically yields higher fuel economy potentional. "Advanced" OCH multivalve engines have to employ numerous tricks to achieve the same mileage potention of this simple tried and true design. This is why you see throttleless running and variable valve lift and duration becoming more prevalent to existing designs (such as the VQ37 with VVEL and BMW valvetronic) and Porsche VarioCam Plus. Honda's VTEC pioneered this although with one discrete step so torque wasn't much improved- just ultra high RPM power. Anyone hating on the current GM pushrods knows little about engineering and is just reciting something they read in Car & Driver.

"...Aside from the HEMI Chrysler doesnt use pushrods in its cars at all..."

The Viper V10 is a pushrod engine. In any case it's good to know there are a few people out there besides me who don't slavishly worship OHC, with little or no knowledge of the subtle engineering advantages that pushrod engines have.

OK. The LS3 is a great engine. The Viper is a great handling car. And the Holden, I mean Pontiac GXP is a good deal. GM is still dead on arrival.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090305/ap_on_bi_ge/gm_annual_report

"GM is still dead on arrival."

Nice one. "I dont know what I am talking about so I will finish my post by offering a link stating that GM is finished!". I dont think there is one person posting here who isnt familiar with GM's state and the state of the industry as a whole. Do you have anything new to add?

Where is ACE?

Yeah I do. Rick Wagoner is incompetent and needs to be fired ASAP. How come Ford can renegotiate with unions and bondholders so quickly while GM can't get anything done even with their feet in the fire. No amount of LS3 engines is going to save GM. This is what they get for inflating demand with the employee pricing scheme, something they internally admitted was a mistake.
Furthermore I will say GM deserves this. Read the long-term test on the Saturn Aura and Chevy Silverado. The Aura continued to fall apart and the Silverado's transmission broke. They fed off American Patriotism for too long. Now they are asking for funds to be diverted for from troops and schools to save their tush.
The government should help GM go through bankruptcy, and thats it. We are just two months into the worst car sales year in decades and GM already needs billions.
Why does Saturn still exist? Where is the Cruz? Why are the Cobalt and G3s still around? Why not play hardball and let the unions strike while you are not selling cars? Where is the Volt?

And I'm not the only one that feels like that. The minds at Fortune magazine feels the same way.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/05/news/companies/breaking_views.breakingviews/index.htm?postversion=2009030510

I've been one of the biggest GM fans for most of my life. I think GM needs to drasticlly down size and revamp their game. They've finally got so many products right but it's really to little to late. Had they made moves twenty yers sgo to put out products like what they have now, 10 years ago, things would be much better for them. I wonder now if the same "bottom line" approach is still worth it now? You the approach they've had for the last 30 plus years.I would have to write an series of books to tell where GM cut corners thru the years. I will keep them in my prayers, because at this point, GOD is the only ONE who is capable of having that type of forgiviness and compassion in His heart.

I think what we are witnessing here are the final days of GM. Their business model had been outdated since the late 70's amid rising competition from the Germans and Japanese. Big Labor coupled with dinosaur management have basically brought down this industrial giant. They were incapable of a vision and mostly interested in churning out vehicle after vehicle without any consideration to quality or competition. They believed they were too large to collapse.

I'm hopeful of a return to profitblity for GM in the future, but i think that a resturcturing is what is needed. Not a government assisted restructuring, but a "cut throat" only the best survive free market resturcturing is what is needed. GM built what AMERICAN'S wanted until the brand managment reorganization that Cadetgray spoke of. I'm no expert, but i think if GM goes through a bankruptcy, and refocuses it energy on what made it great in the first place, its varied offering which WERE the standard of the world, they can regain some of the ground that has been lost. The need to adapt Hyundai's model of of producing the best possible product at the lowest possible price. The only way they will ever be able to compete in today world economic enviroment, is by unsaddling the exrta cost of health care, unions, and the retirement fund cost the have amassed over the decades. Takes those things away now and GM would problably stay afloat for at lest another year with out gov. assistance.
I don't think GM disbanding of its performance division is a good idea. They should be allowed to help in the production of new concepts infusing them with that performance edge that will help the to stand out in todays world.

I agree. GM should stick to focusing on reliability and low price; period.
Declaring bankruptcy allows them to cut the fat, ie bad union contracts, over ambitious bonds, and bad credit arrangements.
Change the name to Chevy Motors (you cant even buy a GM) and focus on Chevy, Cadillac, and Buick. Maybe keep one care called a Pontiac like the G8 and sell it in Chevy dealerships.
Fire Rick Wagoner.

The Solution is simple in theory: Consistently produce a lineup of vehicles from ultra-compact to full-size cars and trucks that are superior in every way to the competition at a lower cost.
That's all GM has to do... and if they can't do that file for Chapter 11.

That's the approach Toyota, and now Hyundai have taken. Part of Toyota's principles, which led to their success was the idea of thinking long-term, even at the expense of short-term gain. GM needs to learn this. That means taking the time to engineer cars that are better than the competition in every way, even if it means in the short-term you're hemorrhaging money on every sale. I think we see that now with cars like the Malibu. However, it may be too late into the game to finally start making the right decisions.

I say we just throw our money behind Ford who seems to be in the best condition out of the Big 3. At least then we have better odds of not losing billions...

Ah, well we both know 1487 and chavis the 10th idiot are the same people, hence the reason for the same GM worshipping . Newsflash! to you two morons. Do you really think BMW owner gives a hoot about gas mileage?

And yes, I was the one in high school detention which explains why chavis drives a Mazda 3 and 1487 drives an Aura. Yes, you two are definately the smart ones here which explains why you two have such radical expensive rides. The luxury Aura and the performance icon Mazda 3 compact.

"Take the LS7 V8 versus the 6.2L AMG. Power and torque are essentially the same but the LS7 is physically smaller and lighter in weight."

What school did you go to? I have stated a few times that without the extra valves, the LS versions are bound to have less weight.

1487, seriously, you GM humping cretin. You probably "forgot" that you were the one to come up with the whole output comment and comparing truck! engine outputs while doing that. You are just too smart.

"I think I addressed all the "points" in your rant above. Now you can go away and rest in peace. BTW, the term you should have been using is "spefici output" not "engine output". One reason you are having trouble getting people to understand your questions is that you don't even know the terminology. And then you have the nerve to call others "idiots". Pot, meet kettle. You have been called many things here, but knowledgable is not one of them."

You know what? I honestly did not know that the term was "spefici out". Damn my ignorance and the time I spent in high school detention while you two geniuses were reading ten year old porn magazines and maturbating in your beds.

The GM 2L makes 130hp/L. Thats only with turbos, you moron, I doubt GM idiots would get anywhere near the output levels naturally aspirated without direct injection.

"The M3's current V8 is a waste of resources."

So why is it that you two GM lovers can't come up with a reason why GM is the one going down while BMW is the one making waste of your resources?

How many high strung cars with high engine outputs like the M3 and Ferraris and S2000s do you see on the road with engine failure? Or how many times do you even hear of the above cars having engine failure? Oh, thats right, they are high strung and unreliable just because they have superior engineering. Thats dumb even by the standards of you two idiots.

Better torque would be an obvious product of big displacements, it has nothing to do with GM engineers being any good. And who the F**K do you think cares that a BMW or a Ferrari gives shitty mileage? Mileage is the least of concerns for people buying BMWs and Ferraris. Maybe when the three of you(klapper included) ever win a lottery, you can get near a BMW and worry about the mileage. You will be the only idiots doing so.

"I will keep that in mind for my NASCAR gig and the race car I'm building."

dbostondriver- Thats the problem with these people. They don't even own cars worth mentioning and probably don't even know how to drive a manual properly. All they do is spend all day on the internet, google just about everything, do a little bit of cut and paste and think they know cars in the process.

No wonder GM is going down. They spend the money intended for development on clowns like 1487 who have fantasies of their own limitless intelligence, to closely monitor these forums and defend GM junk. Pity they don't pay enough for 1487 to upgrade to a better GM car than his current Aura.

1487 sniffs his own pooh. I can't find a single review saying that the current model Pilot of Fit broke down. I did see on the latest long term test that he wasn't impressed by the Fit's cupholders or innovative wind shield wiper.
Maybe his opinion will change when he takes his POS Aura to the dealer to get it fixed and it costs him $$$$. If the Aura is such a great car why is Saturn being put out to pasture?
And the Corvette is a nice care, but I wouldn't pay $120,000 for a car with a Cobalt steering wheel.

Also, the G8 doesn't have a manual transmission. Another example of the cheapness that is GM.

@dbostondriver

"And the Corvette is a nice care, but I wouldn't pay $120,000 for a car with a Cobalt steering wheel."

Think of it as the Cobalt having a steering wheel from the Corvette!

1487 is on Edmunds defending a 1998 Oldsmobile Intrigue that was bashed in an Edmunds long term review. He is definitely biased or working for general motors.