Lets see here:

1) G6 – In bad need of either a refreshing or a complete redesign. When it first debuted, it was a game changing car for Pontiac and its amazing the car still looks good (IMHO) to this day. GM shouldn’t let a good product like the G6 go to waste.

2) G5 – OK, if they’re going to market this Cobalt clone, at least give it more than plastic surgery. Alter the suspension points, give it more power, PLEASE give it the turbo 2.0 four pot so it can at least live up to the divisions “Excitement” tag line

3) G3 – You’ve got to be kidding. Needs to be axed ASAP. A Pontiac version of the Chevy Beat would’ve done wonders for Pontiac, especially if it could be equipped with the new 1.4l turbo engine.

4) G8 – Keep it coming.

Sadly, this seems to be part of GM culture. Cobble together a product (Fiero, or “Twin Dual Cam” engines) from existing stuff, introduce to market, have customers do some free Beta testing, cement reputation in customers mind for said product being crap, then spend money to fix, reintroduce product as it should have been from day one, watch product languish in market place and pull the plug. One can’t help but wonder how much healthier GM would be if the last iterations of each product were actually what GM introduced first.

Something to note about many GM products: I like to work on my family’s vehicles, so I have a perspective that many here MAY not have, as this seems to be a distinctly “clean hands” site. When you work on GM products, you discover quite the dichotomy of design and material choices. Much of what you find under the hood is actually quite well made and is thoughtfully laid out. Service for many components is reasonably straightforward (ok, Northstar starter location sucks). Yet, go to remove a door panel and you end up with a bunch of broken one-use fasteners…same thing for many interior trim parts. It seems that two distinct groups are at work here…

But it’s the entry-level car that hooks the customer and identifies a company’s commitment to quality. The people who bought the first tiny Civic in the 70s pretty much stuck with Honda for 30 yrs. Because Honda figured out what GM used to know: that the best customers are repeat customers. And repeat customers are the best advertisements….

GM’s problems started when it couldn’t build a decent entry-level car. (Remember the Vega and Chevette??) The entry-level car determines brand loyalty, certainly for a decade or so; perhaps even for life.

I’ll never leave the GM family. As for where I am on the GM consumer “hierarchy”….I’m stuck at Olds. Not the best place to be.

Whether or not the Cobalt is awful, underwhelming or sort-of-ok, it’s simply not good enough to be a sales leader – which is what GM needs right now. GM’s product portfolio is awash with vehicles like the Cobalt: from me-too stuff that is as boring as Belgium on wheels (if somebody can explain to me the unique selling point of the Pontiac G5, for instance, go ahead) right down to absolutely appalling clonkers like the Chevrowoo Aveo or the Pontiac Grand Prix.

It seems the GM shareholders are perfectly happy with an executive board that just keeps on making one grotesque decision after another. With the amount of cash that Rick Wagoner’s management skills have cost GM over the last few years, you could run two dozen small countries for a decacde. Why this gigantic loser and his cronies haven’t been tarred, feathered, quartered and then dragged into a courtroom is beyond me – so you couldn’t foresee a sharp rise in gas prices when everyone else on the planet could? Well, of course, that would be too much to ask from a 15-million-a-year executive, wouldn’t it?

Eight years into his tenure as CEO, GM still has too many brands, too many models competing for the same customer, too many employess, and too much bureaucracy. Since 2000, GM has lost market share, customer loyalty, sales volume, and bilions and billions of dollars. There is no coherent product strategy, no coherent branding, and simply no idea of how to deal quickly with a very drastic change in the market. Examples?
There is lots of small car expertise in GM Europe but apparently no one knows how to use this knowledge in the US. Or this priceless bit of sheer idiocy: GM – finally! – presents a cool small car with great fanfare (the Beat) – only to admit to the same people later that they won’t ever be able to buy it because, hey, it’s not good enough for US crash regulations. Or Cadillac, which builds sporty sedans now while Pontiac, the “excitement” division, gets rebadged crap that is as exciting as, well, rebadged crap. Robert Farago has cited countless other examples in the GM Death Watch series, so I basically think there is only one “solution”:

GM stockholders have allowed a bunch of overpaid, good-for-nothing executives to run the company into the ground for many years – so the only thing they deserve is losing everything. With this in mind, the debate about the Chevy Cobalt’s qualities seems to lose some of its relevance.

So if he wasn’t talking about small cars, does anyone really know what he WAS talking about? Should I even be asking this question?

But back to the point – nourishment of Pontiac by Lutz or Waggy could mean a simple IV feed to a comatose patient – is that their idea?

Chevy’s .4 extra liters of displacement nets all of 8 extra horsepower, and when you go with an automatic transmission, Honda’s is 5-speed compared to an ancient 4-speed in the Chevy.

I don’t know what message boards you’re getting your info from, but it certainly isn’t ToV…really? great dissastifaction across the board with mileage on the Civic? And there’s the happy dance going on everywhere with the Cobalt’s real-world mileage?

I’d love to see an options list to get to a $4k difference between a Civic and a Cobalt that would be a better value. I’m betting the $18k Civic would be a trim level up from the Cobalt at $14k. The real-world price difference is $1800-2500. And with that you get much much more in the way of standard features, as i outlined in my previous post. The facts are out there, regardless of if you choose to ignore them in your argument.

****A similarly equipped Cobalt can be had for many thousands less than a Civic/Corolla. We can compare equipment levels all day, but in the end, the Cobalt wins.

****The Cobalt’s ecotec4 takes at least 1500 miles to “break in” for optimum acceleration and mileage. My car has the ecotec and its performance improved dramatically after a few months. Maybe that’s why the CR tests showed a big mileage disparity.

****The Asian 1.8L mills are ostensibly more fuel efficient than the Cobalt’s 2.2L–under ideal conditions. However, I’ve been on message boards and the 1.8L mileage drops like a lead zeppelin with accessory use (a/c) and more passengers. In particular, I’m seeing great dissatisfaction with the real-world Civic mileage.

The Cobalt has weaknesses. Its seats are inferior to its rivals. (The Civic front seats are magnificent.) And the Cobalt’s 4sp automatic is ancient and inexcusable.

But in the end, the Cobalt is a better value. Honda has every right to charge $18K for a Civic. That doesn’t mean they should. A college kid looking for cheap wheels would rather pay $14k for a Cobalt and pocket the difference for books and booze.

(Assuming it wants to, of course)

Agreed, agreed, and, most sadly agreed. :) That last bit is key. A fit-fighter would be well-within GM’s reach, if only they’d build the damn thing.

Whether the Aveo is replaced, or so thoroughly re-engineered that it’s basically replaced anyway, the insurmountable obstacle is GM’s tradition of punishing people who like small cars. Hence my pronouncement of “unfixable” refers to both the defective car and the defective management. :)

I don’t hold the Fit in any special regard, btw – I drive a Scion. :)

They’re named “Forenza” and “Reno” and sold as Suzukis. Poor acceleration, poor handling, and embarrassing fuel economy. You can buy Cobalts and Aveos that will approach 34/36mpg (XFE version), but you can’t buy either Suzuki and expect a reliable 30mpg. So why do they exist?

Plenty of people are happy to buy Cobalts in spite of their shortcomings. Their money, their choice. They aren’t automatically stupid for not buying Civics, which seems to be the implied notion of Cobalt detractors.

(And yes, I do own one. Nice deal from a friendly local dealer. And it’s a happy reward for putting up with my problematic ‘93 Altima I had lived with since college.)

And fix the economy and the housing crisis while you’re at it! And to borrow a phrase from Bill Watterson, “as long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a pony.”

The Aveo is, in a word, unfixable.
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Look, Honda doesn’t own any magic pixie dust. The Fit has an engine, chassis, and suspension that is in no way rocket science. GM still has good engineers and manufacturing capabilities.

There isn’t anything about a Fit that can’t be replicated. Even if it’s not “fix the Aveo”, there’s no reason GM can’t build a legitimate Fit fighter.

(Assuming it wants to, of course)

And fix the economy and the housing crisis while you’re at it! And to borrow a phrase from Bill Watterson, “as long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a pony.”

The Aveo is, in a word, unfixable. The only measure to be taken on the way to unseating the King of the Subcompact Class would be to execute the Aveo and replace it with something that doesn’t suck.

In that vein, and as long as we’re dreaming, GM should carpet-bomb the Aveo plant and start manufacturing 1st-gen Scion xB’s [which Toyota stupidly abandoned], and solve two idiot decisions at the same time! :)

If someone was looking to purchase a small car in 2001, I don’t know why they would all the sudden decide to purchase a SUV upon seeing one. The small car market has certainly grown since the early 2000’s, but it still doesn’t make much sense to sell what is more or less the same car right next to each other. I have a feeling Pontiac is also going to want a G4 version of the Craze, which with the G5, means that GM will have four vehicles that are ostensibly the same. Each will hurt the sales, both in terms of volume and dollars, of the others.

I have to ask you — when you shopped for your car, what other cars did you compare it to? Did you test only other domestics, or did you also test drive the transplants and foreign competition?

Wow…let’s play feed the troll.

Considering the rundown I gave was from a skimming of a edmunds comparo, it’s actual fact. And apparently you didn’t bother to read, where I said base v base, which the base civic is a manual. Are you actually trying to say that the gm manuals are slicker than the hondas? HAHAHAHAH

By the way, I’ve driven both several times, chief. The base cobalt, which my parents had as a rental, had interior plastics that looked and felt like a fuckin’ Lego blocks. So I’d love to know how it’s ignorance…

In short, for the money, I would be in a Honda Fit way before I’d ever punish myself with a Cobalt. It was an absolute joy firing up my 07 GTI after a week w/ the ‘balk.