Mallard

There's no such thing. The 2003+ 9-3 "shares" a platform with the previous gen Malibu...although the only common part between them is the rear lower control arms. I don't see any reason why Saab, Saturn, or Pontiac needs to go away. Saab should be Audi and Volvo competition, Saturn is commonizing everything with Opal (although I could see a case to combine that with Chevy), and Pontiac should be an American BMW. Each has their niche, and each has thier customer base. The number of vehicles they produce isn't the major problem, it's the number of dealerships. Combining dealerships is #1. Getting rid of brands would be secondary, because it's not going to be cheap. (It supposedly cost over $1 billion to get rid of Oldsmobile)

That was one of her shorter posts. I didn't take the time to find some of her longer ones.

You ain't seen nothin! Look what I have to deal with on the Solstice Forum http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f93/lnf-le5-turbo-retrofit-50657/#post770990 This is one of her more tame posts.

Buy a kart. End of story.

It's on eBay now Item # 150311429316 eBay Motors: Saturn : Sky (item 150311429316 end time Nov-28-08 16:21:57 PST)

That's because they're not American companies! Why would the US government help a company whose profits go overseas. This is not an American only problem! It's effecting every auto maker, and they are all calling their respective governments asking for money.

The problem is, if you lay off a UAW employee they still get 95% of their pay. So it's in their favor to continue to build cars and sell them for a loss/have excessive inventory/etc. sometimes. It also means that the cuts that save the most money come from the engineering staff. The buyouts going on at Chrysler right now are ridiculous! They're buying out so many people they're either going to have to re-hire them, or go out of business. There are a lot of suppliers that will go bankrupt if one of the "big 3" file for Ch. 11. My fiance just lost her job this morning, along with a lot of other engineers at her company.

No thanks. I'm looking for a cash deal, if possible.

Yes, it's specifically for the sky, as far as I know. The dealer cracked the side panel during prep for delivery so they gave me a free car cover while I waited for the part to come in.

Price Lowered to the KBB trade-in value before I take it into the dealer for a trade: $17,500 OBO

Where were they recieving millions of dollars for fuel efficient vehicles? They got money for fuel cell research, but that money was specifically for fuel cells and could not be used elsewhere. On top of that, the systems developed on the fuel cell programs are being used on the Volt, so there is a pay off. Is it GM's fault that they built trucks and SUV's when people were uying them in droves? It's a supply and demand driven market. They have/had fuel efficient developments, but they also weren't anticipating gas prices to hit $4 for a year or two...that's why a lot of these smaller cars you see scheduled to come out around 2010. They were in the next product cycle. Also, GM makes trucks and SUV's that are more fuel efficient than those of Toyota, Nissan, etc. So it's not like they're behind the times when you could go to your Chevy dealer today and buy a Traverse that seats 7, has a ~280HP direct injected V6, and get 24 mpg. Are their small cars lacking? Maybe, but the interior of the Cobalt is no less offensive than the Corolla I was in the other week, and the SS kicks ass. Honestly, I think some people are way too critical of GM. I think Rick Wagoner and Bob Lutz are doing a great job with the company and the future product, but a lot of the problems they face are legacy's from the leaders before them. GM is a big ship that needs time to right itself, but they have been taking the right steps to do that. This industry isn't something that can turn on a dime. If there is a "bailout" I hope it does not include language to remove those two from their leadership positions. They're doing a good job and understand the problems and what needs to be done.

In October Honda was -25% year-over-year, Toyota was -23%, and GM was -45%. I September Honda was -24%, Toyota -32%, and GM was -15%. It's an industry wide problem. GM's problems are being compounded/accelerated by GMAC refusing to finance people under a 700 FICO score. They're blaming a good portion of the lost Oct sales on GMAC.

All companies are in trouble with vehicle sales. It has nothing to do with their product being inferior or costing more. In May of this year Honda sold over 50,000 Civic's. Last month they sold under 20,000. The problem is industry wide.

You've obviously never driven a new CTS.

Rick Wagoner has been doing a great job at GM. He's made all the right moves and made a deal with the UAW that will greatly help the company in the future...but it can't realize those gains until 2010. The position of the compnay right now is not the fault of Rick Wagoner, but of the mis-management of the people that came before him. http://www.leftlanenews.com/gm-chief-rick-wagoner-back-to-full-salary.html In 2007 Wagoner cut his own salery by 50% in 2007, and 25% in 2006. Your so-called "pay raise" was just the board taking away his self-imposed pay cuts and reinstating his original salery. I agree that the UAW needs reformed (which the new agreement does), but also the U.S. plants need to be more flexible in order to respond to demand quicker, and the dealer network needs to be shrunk. They also have the problem of the government mandating emissions and fuel economy regulations that require huge investments in a very short time. The government standards passed this year are already costing millions, if not billions, of dollars in engineering resources. Projects were delayed by a model year or two in order to re-engineer their powertrains to meet the new regs, and that was before the credit crunch caused problems in vehicle sales. So you guys think it's ok for the government to cost the automakers large sums of money, but they don't deserve low interest loans that will keep millions of jobs from being affected? Do you have any idea what would happen to the economy when millions of people are laid off? It's not only GM/Ford/Chryler either, it's thier supplier base. I believe the stat was for every one job at the automaker there were 3-4 people employed at suppliers. If a major automaker goes bankrupt, then many of their suppliers will too. These are the same suppliers that send parts to Toyota, Honda, BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, etc. Those suppliers would no longer be able to provide parts to those company's, meaning the entire industry grinds to a halt world wide. They need the bridge loans. End of story. You don't want to see the effects of one of them filing for bankruptcy.

It's more like 2-3 million workers in the industry that would be affected. Bankruptcy would not just hurt the big 2.5, but also all the suppliers. They'll fall like domino's. The government can't let them fail or else we'll be in another Great Depression.

Not true. It may be getting delayed a model year in the US, but it's not going to get cancelled. This car is going world wide. They just debuted it in Korea this week.

Yeah, this is more of a product of the new CAFE standards over GM not recognizing they built a class-leading vehicle. Also, I'm not so sure they have a following. Apparently G8's have been sitting on dealer lots too long.

Awesome!

I think it might be time for me to sell my baby. I have a wedding, honeymoon, and house to pay for and my daily driver Oldsmobile is starting to run rough. It's a completely stock 2007 Sky, black. Only options are the LSD and the Monsoon sound system. It's just under 16,000 miles. I'll sell it with the Kappasphere wind restrictor and a car cover. $17,500 OBO PM me or e-mail me at mallard1055 at gmail dot com Here's the Auto Trader listing with pictures. 2007 Sky http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h92/mallard1055/DSC02565.jpg http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h92/mallard1055/DSC02576.jpg http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h92/mallard1055/DSC02582.jpg

Well, actually Diamler still has a minority holding in Chrysler of 19.9%, but apparently Cerberus is trying to buy them out. Everyone needs to hope and pray that this merger does not go through. It would mean thousands of jobs lost and would drag GM down even more during a down market. This merger could be very bad news for the Detroit area.

All that money invested and the car looks like that?? It needs a new paint job. The rest is pimp.

It's more extensive than an upgrade in HP. It got new shocks, springs, swaybars, Brembo brakes, some new interior bits, and I think it also got better knuckes and more geometry changes to help negate torque steer. Crossle - The first scan was from Car and Driver. It's their "Lightning Lap" at VIR.

If you don't have an engineering degree then a 'test driver' position will be something where you're running durability (driving in circles over different surfaces). If you have your engineering degree then a 'test driver' position can be tuning suspension, electronic driving systems, tuning ECU's, etc, etc.

4.5 years. I went to a school that had a full-time co-op, so out of the year I was at school half the time and I worked half the time.