so wait let me get this strait were gona handy cap a truck because one truck has a wide variety of engine and options and the other come with one motor and one tranny?. comparing orange to apples would be comparing the titan to a 2500 but both trucks are a half ton class truck so i would surmise that its more then a fare comparison. im sure if the titan came with a bigger motor you would be jumping on the fact that it could stomp the sierra. the point is that the sierra can pack the punch if you want it to. ill bet more people tow with there trucks then you think and ill bet even more care about towing capacity and hauling capacity. the people your talking about mostly buy dakotas tacomas canyons frontiers. people who buy decked out trucks would usually go for denali, mark lt,ext. when people buy trucks they buy them for hauling thats what there design to do and that there purpose you can say what u want but that doesn’t change what they are and do and when you compare a truck you compare them for what they were intended to do.

Also all the stats were taken off of both companies web pages.

 

Well, I guess in your and GRNCamaro’s world it’s perfectly legitimate to compare ¼ times between a stock six banger Camaro to a stock Cobra; after all, they are both pony cars….right? Or perhaps we should compare payload and towing capacity between the six banger Silverado to the Titan since they are both “half-tons”; I mean, just because Nissan doesn't put a six cylinder in the Titan doesn't mean we shouldn't compare and declare the Titan the winner.

You are right of course, the Titan isn’t offered in three dozen configurations like Ford, GM and Dodge. Perhaps that’s because Nissan wasn’t stupid enough to try and build a configuration to serve every conceivable niche market for pick-ups…and maybe that’s why Nissan has been the most profitable vehicle manufacturer in the world for he past two years while GM, Ford and Chrysler are hemorrhaging billions.

As for how many trucks actually tow something I don't know how one would figure that except perhaps to look at stats of how many new trucks are actually ordered with towing packages. But I still say vey few every tow anything.

What has kept GM and Ford and Dodge afloat the past 20 years has been light truck sales and they haven't been for "towing"...those sales have been hot because light trucks have been used to replace cars as primary vehicles. If towing were the market the (former) big 3 were depending all three would be closed for business by now. Look around on the street and see how many pickups are actually towing something heavier than a utility trailer...I'd venture to say that for evey one you see with a real payload you'll see 200 not towing a thing/that never tow anything.

 

Are you kidding me? I could care less how much you guys bicker over this and that, but to say GM/Ford/Dodge are stupid for having so many configurations is nonsense. That is one of the reasons that the Big 3 have not slipped at all in the truck market.
Plain and simple, compare Titan sales to any of the Big 3 competitors. The Japanese are having the hardest time breaking into the truck market just because of what the Big 3 have done.
I can understand trying to win an argument, but please, let's use some facts next time to back up our assessments before you go spreading useless drivel.

 

They've not "slipped" in the truck market because the battle for the light truck market is only just begining; the big three own it for the moment because they've had no competition at all but the foreign nameplates didn't win the car market overnight and they won't win the truck market overnight either.

Ford, GM and Dodge may always be the big three players as far as light trucks but I predict their days of total dominance is coming to an end.

Having all those configurations does make Detroit very competitive but it's also very expensive. However, I didn't say the big three were stupid; my point was that Nissan isn't.

It would have been very stupid for Nisan to have spent billions to be able to build a dozen configurations of the same vehicle with their first full-sized truck - to do so would have taken a lot of capital best spent on other vehicles and other plants. Nissan can sell a Titan for less money than the comparable Silverado and make more profit than GM while it does so - it couldn't do that if it had to support five or six different engines, four transmissions, three cab sizes and four bed sizes and all the hundreds of little changes necessary in a vehicle to make all that work.

 

How does this make sense? Pickups offer one of the highest profit-margins of any vehicle segment. So, by following your logic, Nissan will offer only 1 pickup truck configuration and limit their sales in the process.

Look closer at GM's strategy for their half-tons: Besides the dinosaur-like V6, the V8's (4.8/5.3/6.0) are of the same family. They have different bore/stroke, but are basically the same engine from the heads on up. A flexible-plant could *easily* accomodate building all of these engines. GM's not quite there yet because of them phasing out the iron-blocks, phasing in the aluminum blocks and the active cyl. mgmt.. As you've said, most people only haul groceries and bags of mulch.. and for those people, Nissan will saddle them with a 300hp+/380trq behemouth.. in today's climate of record high gas prices.. yeah, real smart. Care to check ly's pu sales figures again? Didn't Nissan have $4k rebates on their truck in the first year of existance? Am I missing something on how much smarter Nissan is than Ford/Chev/Dodge? Personally, I think the Nissan's got a wonderful powertrain. I think all of the big3 (esp. GM) have taken the threat seriously and have raised the bar on everything from interiors to hp to gas mileage. It isn't going to be easy for a Nissan or a Toyota to gain ground in the full-size pickup segment, especially when you consider that pickup truck owners have fierce loyalty to their favorite brands.

 

I hate to admit it, but I've never used my truck to tow anything. My sister's 01 Trailblazer has the tow package, but also has never even had a hitch mounted.

The main reason I have a truck is because nobody offers a large V8 RWD car that looks good and has power for a decent price. The Hemi cars are very nice, but priced a bit high.

 

I don’t know off hand if there has ever been a $4K rebate on the Titan but I don’t know where to go to prove that one way or the other…there is a current rebate of $2,750/$2,250 on the King Cap/Crew Cab (by the way, current rebates on the Silverado 1500 range from $1,500 to $4,500).

There was no need to offer a V6 in the Titan (or to spend the money for tooling to do so)…if someone wants a V6, the Frontier, which in most measurements and capacities is as large as a “full-sized” pickup of 10 years ago will do nicely.

I’m not saying that being able to offer lot’s of different choices in a pickup is a bad thing; clearly all of the Big three have a huge line-up of choices and the Titan (and finally the Tundra) are only trying to compete with a few of those configurations right now.

The downside with offering lots of configurations is that it all costs a lot of money. Nissan’s engine plant is already at capacity; to offer two or three different truck V8s would require either a lot of expansion or another plant. Same with the assembly plant in Mississippi; you can only have so many configurations off the same line.

What Nissan didn’t want to do is expand capabilities before it was justified…if you are planning to run a marathon but aren’t able to walk around the block without being winded, you don’t start out by trying to run three miles; you start slow.

No, it won’t be easy for Nissan or Toyota or any other nameplate to gain ground in the pickup market but it is a marathon, not a sprint and the race is just getting started.

I can’t tell you what is coming from Nissan but suffice it to say that there IS more to come.

 

so your gona take the lowest class of one truck and compare it to the titan when your going to buy a truck. i think when consumers buy a truck they compare top model to top model.

you right what a stupid idea dont build the truck to fit the consumer, find a consumer to fit the truck.

i have read other articals to saying the sales on the titan arnt great but not tanking either

you couldn't possibly use that to messure how many people tow with there truck. im guessing since you see people using there dd that u assume they dont tow? and you cant use the how many trucks were order with towing packages becuase a lot of people could have them installed after purchasing the truck.

.
when you say light truck im gona guess when you say light truck you mean a truck like the canyon which is exactly what your talking about. wich that calss of truck is designed for people who want a truck just to say they have a truck but want to use it for geting grocieres and driving around. just cuase you becuase you see a truck towing a utillity trailer around doesnt mean on the weekends it isnt hualing around a 24ft boat or a 24 ft camper.


i think your just sore that the sierra is at the very least a better work truck. also explain to me why it isnt any fairer to compare the 6.0 the biggest gm offers to the 5.6 the biggest nissan offers. and if thats not fair then why is it any fairer because the 5.6 is smaller the then the 6.0 then why is it any fairer to compare the 5.6 to the 5.3.






the engines used in thechevy trucks are also used in other chevy cars and suvs really its not costing them that much more then you think to put and engine in a truck that they also have to build to use in another vehical

 

No…I’m saying compare the models that are the most comparable. Using your logic; comparing “half ton to half ton”, which was the initial argument, you would have to agree that a comparisons between a six cylinder Camaro and an eight cylinder Mustang would be "fair" simply because they are both pony cars.


That is not what I said and you know it. There is no need for Nissan or anyone one else to venture into the full-sized market with a dozen configurations; it’s not about finding a consumer to fit the truck, it’s about choosing the specific customers you want to market your truck to.


I didn’t say it would be a good measure; I just suggested it would one possible way to get an idea of how many people buy a truck intending to tow something. If you’ve got an accurate measure of how many pickups actually get used to tow something then share it. In the meantime, based on observation, I say a very small percentage ever tow a thing.


No; I’m not referring to the canyon…the ”light truck” segment includes half-ton pickups.


I’m not “sore” about anything and you are free to hold your opinion about which is the better “work truck”.

It’s fair to compare the 5.6 to the 5.3 because those are the engines closest in size; it’s fair because that’s the segment the Titan was designed to compete in. Using your logic, I suppose if Nissan came out with a 7.0L and can tow 15,000lbs it would be a “fair” comparison to the 6.0L because it’s biggest engine to biggest engine?

 

again your taking a top dog and puting it against the lowest model. i dont know how many times i can repeat that . but if the 5thgen camaro came out now and the top model was 430 and the gt500 and the gt500 had a better 1/4 mile time would you not say the gt 500 was a faster car?
again you cant use that measurement to how many people use there truck tow its just and in acurate as you observation. you cant honestly expect some one to drive all over the place with a boat in tow. people are gona use there trucks for ever day task and tow with it to. just becuase you dont see a hitch in the truck and the moment you see it, or its not in tow doesnt mean people dont tow with it. hell i didnt drive around with my boat hooked to my truck all the time. i used my truck to go back and forth to work all time becuase you didnt see me with a trailer at that moment means i dont tow? your kiding right i mean if that your messure of how many people tow with there truck. you not gona get an accurate assesment of how many trucks tow. but the vehical was designed to haul and tow so under that assesment we could all assume that what the purchaser is going to do with it.

there is a .3 litter differance when comparing it to the 5.3 and a .4 litter diffrance when comparing it to the 6.0 so your gona say we cant compare it to the 6.0 becuase of a .1 litter diffrance from going the other way? comparing a 6.0 to a 7.0 is a whole litter in differance. but to behonest if the titan ran a 7.0 in there half ton and it alowed for better hauling and better towing i would would say it superior in the towing and hauling deparment.

the segment the titan was designed to compete with is the HALF TON CLASS and engine is not a class of truck just a option well except in the case of the titan.
and for offering only one engine you sure dont save that much money on a titan.

 

.

I just read that last years sales for the sutpid tItAn were just 79K and change. Have any specific info to back up this statement as being the most profitable??

Hemorrhaging??? Not as bad at Gm as you think. But, I just bet that you are tickled pink that the domestics are not doing well at this point in time as your foreign invader company, which you WORK for so we know according to you that they are the best thing since D-Bol! And we should be lucky they did not get into the full size market 20 years ago or the Big 3 would not exist today! We should thank them for that.

I bet that if someone looked at your last 100 posts you would find that 95% of them contain phrases of you orgasming over nissan.
FWIW, 5.7 to 6.0 is only .3 difference.

 

No, I am not happy with GM's or Ford's or Chrysler's situation and I'm the last person who wants to see any of them fail. That said, the majority of their problems are of their own making and when you make mistakes in business you have to expect to pay the price just as you should expect to reap the rewards when you do things right.

Are they hemoraging? I'd say an $11.2Billion loss for 2005 and a ROI of NEGATIVE 5.73% is a hemorage...if you want to call it a scratch go ahead.

As to Nissan's profitability; below is data that's available on most financial sites; these two stories covering 2004 and 2005 fiscal years came from Money/CNN.

2004: "TOKYO – Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., today announced record operating profits of 825 billion yen (US $7.29 billion, euro 6.29 billion), up 11.9% for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004. The operating profit margin came to 11.1%, reaffirming Nissan’s position as one of the most profitable automakers in the world. Despite a negative foreign exchange rate outlook, operating profits for fiscal year 2004 are forecast to continue to grow to a new record level."

2005: "TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Nissan Motor Co. (7201.TO), announcing record earnings for its fiscal year ended March 31, disclosed an ambitious new three-year plan that seeks to boost growth while establishing Nissan as one of the world's most financially disciplined car producers.

Nissan said net profit rose 1.7% to Y512.3 billion in the fiscal year, up from Y504 billion a year earlier. Net revenue jumped 15% to Y8.58 trillion as operating profit grew 4.4% to Y861.2 billion. The numbers, which were roughly in line with analysts' expectations, stand in sharp contrast to dismal earnings reports from General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. last week.

For the current fiscal year through March 2006, Nissan said it expects a group net profit of Y517 billion, a group operating profit of Y870 billion and group sales of Y9 trillion.

Nissan maintained an operating margin of 10% for the year. That means that before taxes, Nissan makes 10 cents in profit for every $1 in sales. That number is currently the highest in the automobile industry, even beating its other Japanese competitors. Toyota Motor Corp.'s (7203.TO) profit margins are currently roughly 9% while Honda Motor Co. (7267.TO) weighs in at just under 8%."

One more thing, I don't try to bolster my arguments by incorrectly writing the name of Silverado as you decided to do with "tItAn"...that may be the norm on the third-grade playground but it's not very persuasive here.

 

What I would say is that if there is a significant difference in displacement/HP/Tq/Curb weights then it’s not a fair comparison.

It’s you and PacerX who seem to feel that any comparions of half tons is fair so by extension, any comparison of pony cars is fair as well.

And
By your and PacerX’s reasoning, any comparison between half ton pickups is “fair”, at least as long as GM wins the comparison because the comparison is half ton to half ton…but I say if I choose to compare the Titan with the 5.6L (which happens to be the smallest engine it offers) with the Silverado and its smallest engine that should be a “fair” comparison too. They are both half tons and smallest engine to smallest engine? Oh, I get it, it isn’t fair if the Titan wins the comparison.

Tell you what, I’m going to concede the argument and say that in about two configurations of half ton pickups the Silverado has a greater towing capacity than that Titan and in about five other configurations, the Titan wins the comparrison.

As to how many trucks actually get used to tow anything ever during their lifespan I’ll stick to my argument that it’s very few...IMHO; "towing capacity" for most pickups, especially half ton pickups, has a lot more to do with bragging rights than any real, needed functionality. I admit; it’s just my opinion but that opinion is based on observation and reading an awful lot of industry publications over the years.

From that reading and following the industry I know that over the past 20 years or so, most pickup sales have been to replace the family car and daily driver; that’s why most of the equipment now standard on pickups wasn't even offered 20 years ago because trucks were used as trucks and not as the family station wagon. Somewhere I’m sure someone/some university has done a study on the issue and it’s just a matter of finding the data but until then; I’ll stick by my opinion and you can stick with your opinion.

 

your observation is flawed you cant judge what a truck does because you see it driving down the road and it has nothing in tow. your observations im sorry to say are useless not to be mean or any thing. according to your Theory because you saw my truck going down the road and I wasn’t towing a trailer that means my truck doesn’t tow. also you care to share those industry publications that say that almost all trucks don’t tow!

why have trucks interior become more accommodating to a passengers? a) because customers demand it and because there is this little thing called competition and manufacturer look for any type of reason to draw in customers and to get people that all ready have the vehicle to come in and buy a new one. B) the interior in most trucks are shared with SUVs. SUVs do little towing and most people by them to drive around and use as daily drivers to keep cost down most interior parts and shared between the trucks because they are so similar.


now lets get into why I find it alright to compare the titan to the sierra the way I am. according to you there are two types of truck buyers those that use there truck for which it is intended and those that buy it just to go get groceries.

lets take the buyer that is buying a truck for which it was intended first.
he walks into the Nissan dealership and asks to see the a half ton truck. the sales man takes him to the truck and goes threw the hp rating trq, towing and hauling capacity. the sales man also tells him the limited options offered on the truck. he then goes to the gm dealer and say well I just have come from the Nissan dealer and I saw an impressive truck the Nissan titan. the gm dealer takes him out and shows him a similar truck and goes this has a 5.3 in it and goes threw the stats of the sierra. the buyer then goes well the titan has better states the dealer then tells the buyer that he can opt up to a 6.0 and better stats. that’s why you can compare the titan 5.6 to the 6.0 sierra. a purchaser is not just going to ignore the fact that the sierra has a 6.0 because the titan has a 5.6 and according to you its not fair.
it could also be said that the lack of a manual transmission could hurt the titan in this area because some buyer don’t like autos when hauling for a bunch of reasons.

now take your theory that a purchaser buys it as a grocery go getter. well he isnt going to give a rat's a** about how the titans 5.6 is more power full then the 5.3 . not unless he or she is looking for bragging rights like you said and yet again he can get the 6.0 and say he has more power then his buddies titan. I don’t thing a grocery getter is gona be about bragging rights. but in the battle of the grocery getter the truck that appeals more to the purchaser in terms of options and style is going to win out not horse power.


So lets recap now why is it okay to compare the 6.0 to the 5.6. because some one walking into a dealership doesn’t go can I get a 5.6 litter truck. They will walk in looking for a half ton truck though and because the biggest the titan offers is a 5.6 doesnt mean that a person looking for a truck is gona go well the titan only has a 5.6 so it would only be fair of me to get the 5.3. no thats just stupid of course they are gona take the 6.0 into consideration and all that goes along with it.
See you keep referring to me and my world and in my world (the real world) . People purchasing a half ton truck are going to look into the 6.0 if they need that extra emmph in truck and they will compare the 6.0 half ton sierra to the 5.6 half ton tittan.

 

GRNcamaro,

I already said that out of seven or eight different configurations; GM wins two of them for towing capacity…what more do you want?

If you feel the only fair comparison is the Titan 5.6L to the Silverado 6.0L and ignore every other GM configuration then you are free to do so. However, I suspect the real basis for you not wanting to include any other comparisons is because GM doesn’t win them, not because the 5.6L to 6.0L is more “fair”.

As to how many trucks are actually used for towing; my opinion is based on almost five decades of being a car nut and many of those years actually working in the industry. I read dozens of publications every month; I can’t share them with you…people can do their own research if they want to know. The point is, my opinion isn't just based on what I see on the road and is, at a minimum, as valid as yours. That fact that you hold a different opinion doesn’t make it any more correct.

One source that may be of some benefit in this discussion is the US Census Bureau Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey (conducted every five years) last conducted in 2002 (http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/vius/2002.html ). On page 62 of that publication there is data concerning “Truck Miles Distribution by Operational Characteristics” and one of the characteristics is the number of miles driven while pulling a trailer. Of the total survey miles driven, a trailer of some kind was pulled 11% of the time.

Now, that doesn’t mean 11% of all trucks pull trailers and 91% don’t but at the very least, the data gives some idea of the relative importance towing capacity might be in a truck buyer’s buying decision.

Give me some independent figures to back up your contention about how many pickups are actually used for towing in their lifetime or that towing capacity is even an important consideration in most half ton pickup truck sales and then we’ll have something to talk about; until then, continuing to tell you are right and I’m wrong is pointless.