28/34 isn’t bad until I compare it to other cars…

Why does the Aveo get such miserable mileage for it’s size? In other parts of the world a 1.6L would get at least 40 mpg. Heck the little Toyotas with carburetors my family had in the early 80s got better mileage than that!!!

Didn’t the Neon get better mileage than that?

On the Saturn front we’ve had about 6 Saturns in the extended family with so-so durability. We’ve got friends with two Saturns. One with nearly 200K miles and one that blew an engine at 100K miles. Identical age and engines.

We were recently offered a Saturn Vue that was otherwise going to be traded in on a Saturn Outlook. I was so close to buying it from my in-laws until an evening on the ‘net revealed that the whirlling noise that the CVT tranny was making at 70K miles was the beginning of the end and that repairs cost the moon and part of the sky. No, I’ll keep my CR-V with twice the miles (150K+) and a 5 speed with the original clutch disc even. It’s been flawless.

I WANT to like GM and Ford, even Chrysler but I’m a small car guy (always have been) and these three either won’t make a small car worth a damn or they won’t import the ones they do make in the rest of the world. Saturn is the exception and the Astra has my attention.

If GM and Ford (and Chrysler) would put as much effort into their small cars as they have their SUVs and trucks they’d have something I’d feel good about buying. The way it is now however is that they are either ugly or not durable or lack features that the imported small cars commonly offer.

The Astra = good, the Zafira = good, the retractable hardtops = good, the smallest of their cars like the Corsa = I’d give them a look. The Aveo – I’d look were I buying a car today. And I’d look at the used examples first.

What I really want is a plug-in hybrid.

You are right about the Aura accord comparison.
One car has more torque, larger wheels and tires, a longer wheelbase and a much better warranty. And it’s not the honda!

GM does not have the engineering or marketing wherewithal to support more than two lineups in the US. There isn’t a single Buick, Pontiac, Saturn or GMC product which isn’t already a direct competitor to a Chevy or Cadillac or which couldn’t easily be sold as one. The Solstice/Sky niche vehicle could easily have been a Chevrolet to go with the Corvette and New Camaro. That would have given Chevrolet small, medium and large sport(y) cars. All of the current Pontiacs are don’t care vehicles. Ditto the US Buick lineup. In 1972 a Caprice Classic was as well appointed as an entry level Cadillac Calais.

There simply isn’t a definable market for all of GM’s also-ran brands which is large enough to feed the beast.

Give ‘em each one model and let the dealers starve off. See Isuzu for the how-to plan.

The most recent news is that Toyota wants to spend roughly 13.8 Billion a year on R&D and new facilities.

There is simply no way GM can compete with that. As you said, Toyota seems determined to invest in future products and invest in quality.

Then again, maybe not, maybe they will just increase the taxes on those that are left working so that the starving former autoworkers don’t starve and maintain either a war in Iraq or Universal Health Care

Your argument brings up one of the big problems facing these companies (and our goevernment). The leaders can claim things are improving FOREVER. By the time the truth is known, they have changed jobs, changed the subject, or retired.

Would I be naive to use the idiom “Rome wasn’t built in a day” when discussing GM’s progress?
If GM was doing everything right from this day forward it would still take a few years at minimum to shine . Nissan is a great example . Brought back from near death,now with lots of great product and I am still not sure I would want to hold that franchise…

Nor did the Roman empire collapse all at once. It took centuries for the barbarians to get to the gates of the city.

Comedy gold! Good name for the three.

Steve K:
Aura > Camry, Accord, Altima
VUE > RAV4, CRV
Astra > Civic, Yaris, Versa

You’re kidding right? The Vue over the Rav-4 and CR-V? What does the Vue beat them at? Higher Curb weight? Higher MSRP?

And the Astra over the Civic? Again, what does the Astra beat it at? The amount of money GM loses on each Astra sold here in North America?

And I won’t even go into your Aura comparison as that’s just silly.

oboylepr, that was a very interesting post by Buickman that you linked to. That explains quite a bit.

I wonder, how many promises has GM failed to fulfill?

For instance, incentives are up and that is a fact. GM cannot afford to increase incentives but it looks like it’s doing so just to prop up sales numbers which is pointless and futile.

People like to talk about Toyota’s incentives on the Tundra but fact is that is the ONLY Toyota model with a significant amount of incentives. On average, GM still offers over three times the amount of incentives per vehicle than Toyota does.

Quite shocking that Toyota is holding incentives steady while GM increases them.

I think GM is just trying to get to January 09 with a Dem president / congress. Then they can beg for tax dollars.

But GM? Wake me when the bondholders are finally in charge.

This is the real issue they face right now

No one ever wakes up any day of the week and says “I want a new Malibu so bad I’m going to buy one right now! That car does everything for me. It’s as fast a Corvette, gets fifty miles per gallon, and only costs eight thousand dollars!”

Nope. The reality is it’s that piece of junk car I got stuck with last time I rented a car at the airport. It’s got four doors, weighs almost thirty five hundred pounds. It doesn’t matter if it’s got a four or a six in it as the power level feels nearly the same in both. They both get nearly the same fuel mileage as the hybrid model. About twenty something city and highway.

Let’s say I go to the stealership this evening to buy a left over still new `07 Malistu. They stiff me real good for $23,495. I drive it off the lot and kelly blue book says my new used car is now only worth $12,920. What a deal!

Let’s see here. A waiting list for $90,000+ Tesla Roadsters, CNG models of the Civic are all sold out, a waiting list for Smart cars, petitions for bringing Mitsubishi and Subaru electrics to the states..

Has the Aveo ever sold well? How about the Cobalt? Is the Impala any different then a Malibu? I think an electric Cobalt would sell better then any gas model. Offer performance and economy models with various range offerings.

Silverado’s, Suburban’s, and Tahoe’s; now that’s GM.

They need to get their finances lined out. Inefficiencies and waste across the board. Not spending their money in the most effective ways.

If GM thought Saturn would do better with more dealerships, I wonder if they would consider scrapping the Buick, Pontiac, GMC brands and converting their dealers to Saturn? I know it would be costly and difficult, but if they really thought they had the goods with Saturn do you think they would attempt that kind of bold move?

Even if Saturn sells some stuff, the dearth of dealers makes it very hard to sell any volume, so it seems to me that GM must surely lose money on Saturn. Thus why not dump it? Especially why steer decent product to Saturn when that product might/would sell at higher volume as a Pontiac, Buick, GMC or Chevy?

but they are controlled by the Ford family which stands to lose big time. I kinda suspect thats why they appear to be at least trying very hard to change their bad past ways.