Seeking WF's opinion on buying a new car

I also looked at the Saturn Aura's, they have a 3.6 L V6 version that is around $26,000, and it's got the bells and whistles that the Nissan's have. Anybody have an opinion on the Saturn Aura?

Chris, I'd be more than happy to take a long, hard look at the G8's, but there aren't any right now in Tulsa. Nothing I can do about that.

 

That's entirely fair. I'm really not trying to pressure you, I just think it's the best vehicle in the market at that price range.

Saturn's are alright. The Aura is on the same platform of the new Malibu. I'd rather get the Malibu, I prefer its looks. XR > XE

 

My Titan has suicide doors.

Making getting people and gear in and out much, much easier. The upcoming modification I'm planning is only possible because of the suicide doors.

 

My Nissan was built in Mississippi.

My Honda was built in Ohio.

My Chevrolet was built in Canada.

 

Truth be told, as much as I loved my "Dodge" Avenger, it was really just a stretched Mitsubishi Eclipse. Shit, the damned thing literally had more Mitsubishi "diamonds" on it than Mopar ones.

 

That's a rather simplistic view of the process.

http://www.levelfieldinstitute.org/scorecards.html

Personally, I don't care, but I find it funny when people pretend that foreign assembly plants are little more than end around tariffs that the UAW lobbied for.

 

So I'm supposed to just take the word of an organization that admits to being founded and run by current and retired employees of GM, Ford, and Chrysler? An organization that instructs dealers in how to steer their customers in the "right direction" by buying American instead of foreign?

When they release hard figures and how they collected the data (to disprove any doubt of a very probable bias) instead of trying to dazzle me with simple sound bites and colorful flash animation graphs, I'll take them seriously.

 

I just talked to my next door neighbor, who has worked in the car business for umpteen years. He's an older fellow, probably in his late 50's to early 60's I asked him what he would buy if he were in the market for a new car, and he said he wouldn't even look at anything other than a Honda or a Toyota. He bluntly said he wouldn't buy a Saturn. He rejected Dodge. He said the Toyota Camry is the same basic car as the Lexus something-or-other. He said those are the only two cars that you can hope to have any decent resale value. He also said that he would research dealerships in Dallas, TX to see what you could get a car down there for, then confront the local dealerships with that information to see if they'll bargain with you. He also suggested calling states like Wisconsin or dealerships in Chicago, where the weather is terrible and they aren't selling many cars, to get price quotes.

So it looks like maybe I'll start looking seriously at the Camry or the Avalon.

 

Oh, and just to restate the obvious. I've been a GM man all of my life.

In the past 20 years, I've had a mix of 20 Chevrolet K10's, K20, C10's, G30's, K5's, Suburbans, S10's, S10 Blazers, Monte Carlo's, Chevelle's, Nova's, Camaro's, and Corvettes, two Buicks, and one Pontiac stretching over nearly 40 model years.

In the same period, I've had three Toyota pick-up trucks, two Nissan pick-up trucks, and one Honda Accord.

I acknowledge that it's anecdotal, but my experience has been that the foreign made cars are far superior, on average, than the GM products I've owned. I've been tinkering under the hoods of cars longer than you've been alive and no amount of spin will change what I've observed, Chris.

 

You could do the research yourself...

http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&story=amMade1207&subject=ami
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&story=amMadeParts&subject=ami

 

See, I'm not like this. I take a car and basically drive it into the ground. I don't want to be out there every six months or every year looking for a new car. I drove my 2-door Saturn coupe for 11 years before donating it to the Salvation Army. Our 4-door Saturn SL-1 is now 8 years old with 125,000 miles.

 

So what are you looking for exactly?

 

Oh, don't get me wrong. It was all hobby for me. I bought a new Chevrolet K10 in 1996 and it served as my daily driver until 2006. Before that, my daily driver was the first car I ever bought new, a 1992 Camaro RS. Before that, I drove a 1984 K10.

I just like to tinker and horse trade. I'm a single man living by myself right now and I still own three vehicles. 2005 Nissan Titan 4x4 (50% of the time as daily driver, towing the boat, camping, hunting, etc.), 1996 Chevrolet S10 (just beating around town, hauling plywood, bags of sand, garden stuff, etc.), and a 2006 Honda Accord (50% daily driver and long distance car).

 

Genius!

Oh wait, I thought you were trying to argue the Nips fucked up?!?!

 

How many 'American' cars are made in Alabama?

'American' is put in quotes as most are produced and/or assembled in Canada and Mexico. Not to mention they're produced by Unions.


No one buys Union unless he wants to watch the slow demise of the American Economy. Or continue to watch I guess I should say.

 

So your first link says that the Ford F-150 is the most "American" vehicle on the market, going by the use of parts made in the United States. But, your second article says that, with today's global economy, even the F-150 uses only 80% American made parts, down 10% just from last year, and that Chrysler isn't on their ratings list due to their use of so many foreign parts, yet I believe even you'd be hard pressed not to call Chrysler an "American" company.

I...fail to see the point you're trying to make.

 

Yup, using Detroit logic, segmenting your market so you can charge a premium for the same product because of the badge on the hood or sell at a discount without undercutting your main brand is retarded.

Figuring out what the customer wants before spending years and millions to design, tool up, and distribute is retarded.

This is why Asia has eaten their lunch. Detroit is the Elephant Graveyard.:bergma:

 

I didn't make a point, you and Nick did.

 

My God, you really are stupid. I mean, just wow. No wonder you can't find a job.

Do you have idea of what you're talking about? You just described the badging crisis GM went through in the 80s and claimed it as a "successful" marketing strategy.

 

Doesn't he have one while you got fired?

 

Who said I'm fired?

 

So you still work at GM? And by work, I actually mean go in, punch your clock, and do a shift, not just taking money.

 

They did, originally. They're still having a hard time getting younger customers into the "main"-Toyota line.

 

Um... so?

 

I still work for GM, yes. My duties have changed from making things to being idle.

It's a fascinating system.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if the Army used you for medical experiments...

 

And I'm begining to think you were born a retard.


1. Toyota is stupid b/c it has targeted itself at the fastest growing demographic which has more disposable income.

2. Toyota is stupid b/c it then created successful brands to target other demographics, without actually having to risk creating anything, it's from cars they already produce.

 

As I've mentioned before, I'm currently driving the 3.6L '95 Monte Carlo. Forget that it leaks oil like the Exxon Valdez. We'll chalk that up to poor maintenance on the part of the previous owner(s). That said...

1) For some bizarre reason the fuel filter is under the car, just in front of the back axle. Makes it easy to find, but all the water, road salt, tar, and assorted grit and grime that can attack it there makes it pretty hard to get out and change.

2) The spark plugs are buried in the engine. You need a 10" ratchet extension to get at them, which is a serious pain in the ass. Especially on the back three, where they are right against the firewall and it is nearly impossible to get the ratchet down in there.

3) Beyond that you have to take your car to the mechanic to change the spark plug wires. You know how normal cars have plugs along the top and a distributor sitting at the back of the intake manifold? Not the '95 Monte Carlo. That, the wires run to the front of the engine (on the passenger side), disappear behind the belts, hidden behind some plastic cladding, come out under the engine and run along the bottom of the engine again to the back (on the driver's side) to the "distributor cap", which is right behind the radiator, where water can splash all over it.

I don't want to know how much it would cost for me to have what should be a 5 minute job that you should be able to do without tools in the auto parts store parking lot.

4) To this day, I don't know where the PCV valve is. I don't think anyone does. The Chilton's Manual has a drawing that looks nothing like the actual engine and doesn't tell you anything about how to find it and the mechanic I showed it to spent 5-10 minutes scratching his head with me trying to locate it. We think it may be on the back of the engine, again, hidden behind some plastic cladding.

5) Instead of putting in normal vacuum hoses GM, in their wisdom, put in some brittle, hard plastic molded hoses that have all cracked and are useless.

and the crowning achievement, design-wise, is the battery.

6) To get at the battery you need to:
1) unbolt a metal cross-bracket and then
2) drain and remove the windshield washer fluid reservoir(!)

That's right, for whatever brilliant reasoning, the battery has the washer fluid reservoir not just above it but around it, making it completely impossible to get at the battery without removing it. And you can't remove the fluid reservoir without unbolting a structural bracket.

The fucking engine looks like it was designed by MC Escher and Salvador Dali in the depths of an acid binge and everyone involved with the development of that car should be tarred, feathered, and never allowed to work in industrial design again.

 

And they wonder why they're getting their asses handed to them.

Seriously, there are lots of people who hear about stupid, wasteful shit like that and it puts them right off of buying something from Detroit.