mr00jimbo, your arguements are starting to fall apart. You started out this thread trying to bring facts into it, but when someone has brought in more recent and substantiated facts, and not magazine reviews, your arguement has turned into nothing more than opinions and beliefs. Don't buy a GM car if you don't want. I could really care less if GM sells another crappy Cobalt or Ion, but don't go telling everyone else how badly their vehicles suck, especially in light of recent evidence that shows otherwise.

Many GM vehicles were garbage, but recently it seems to be turning around for them. Sorry that I am not convinced American vehicles suck now, because your dad's Thunderbird was trash.

On another note, my friend's family has 2 Camrys, you know, Toyota's bread and butter vehicle. Although there haven't been any major problems, there have been plenty of small annoying ones, and one is a freaking 2004. The damn car wasn't even 2 months old when the dash lights went out, and trying to figure it out was a pain, since there weren't any blown fuses. Shortly after that the driver's side window motor stopped working. I guess now I should think all Toyota's are garbage, huh? Hell, this was a recent one to boot.

 

HEY JIMBO! Care to respond to this?

 

In his post # 37, after someone else points out some of yota's troubles all of the sudden its, Yeah things happen! Cars do fall apart! If only ppl were as forgiving of the American manufacturers!

 

Woops , don't know what I was thinking about when I wrote that. Though, I'm sure that Toyota makes no comments about this to potential buyers. I would think that if this happened to one of the Big 3, that it would be all over every paper in America. As far as I know it only hit CNBC and a few automotive mags. Did CR make any comments on this "problem"?

 

At least we know why he bought his corolla. The toyota dealer told him that it was the same as an avalon. Toyota dealers aren't like GM or ford dealers, they don't lie to customers and they will repair anything that goes wrong with the car under warranty no matter what it is. Just bring it in. It only takes a toyo tech 1 hour to do any repair. And they never have a wait, because not that much goes wrong on toyotas.

And on a side note, my cousin just sold her 02 corolla for $4300 because it was such a POS and had so many things wrong with it. In the shop monthly and nothing ever got fixed right. I know this is 1 example, but it is an example. But then she bought a new camry.

 

When I drive to lunch today, I will likely see at least one of each Scion car. They're incredibly popular in So Cal, and xBs are gaining more and more momentum amongst the crowd that likes to customize their cars. I know 2 people with xBs who are both in their early 20s.

This forum isn't the target demo for the cars, and they rolled out to urban areas before they did the midwest. But just because they're not selling great in the middle of Ohio, doesn't mean they're not selling great. I see a tC at least every day now, which sucks because I had a unique car for all of 6 months.


Wow. Racist much? "LAWLS LIKE A NIP COULD MAKE A CAR THAT RUNS FOR A WHILE!" Ignorant attitudes like yours make the rest of us Americans look bad.

 

Let's not get carried away. I don't think it is or was meant to be racist.

 

Been there, done that. I'm 23 years old, and was smart enough not to buy a Cavalier. Cobalt is closer to being competition, but still is more expensive to get one comparably equipped before rebates.

As for quality? The interior is worlds ahead of my old Z28.

You and your logic. That's not welcome here, take that back to the damned *** boards!!! It's amazing how ignorant some people on here can be.

"Scions do seem to be doing pretty well. They're not my type of car though, I wouldn't buy one" That didn't seem too hard, but apparently all the posts on here are "OH YEAH WELL CADDY CTS IS OUTSELLING SCION!!!" "DAMNED *** CRAP IS GONNA FALL APART!"

My tC has 25000 trouble free miles on it in the last year. Can't speak for the future, but it's run great so far. The interior gets compliments from everyone who sits in it, same with the exterior looks. Always get compliments on my stock wheels, or the way the dash looks. Oddly people I know with Cavaliers don't have the same thing to say.

Never met a Cobalt owner, they don't seem too popular around these parts (the cars, not the owners). I tried to test drive a Cobalt SS recently and the dealer was a ghost town for the 10 minutes I was there. I saw a salesman walking past me to some couple looking to buy a truck, and then hung around twiddling my thumbs and left.

 

I own a Cavalier, among quite a few other vehicles.

35,000 miles so far. Only issue was a broken front seat back suspension wire - fixed under warranty.

My payment, with 0 down and 0% interest is $175/mth.

Since I view it as an appliance and will drive the wheels off it, I think it performs that function adequately.

Last one clocked over just 198,000 miles, had an accident, and was sold with the only major repair being a replaced transmission - which failed due to the accident at about 150,000 miles.

Now, if I expect this machine to perform like that one did, which is reasonable since they're almost identical (the current one is an M5, the previous was an A4), then I'm going to clock about 198,000 miles for a total of payments at $10,500... which works out to a HAIR over $.053 per mile.

When you unload your Scion, take what you've paid and divide it by the number of miles and let's see who's smarter... because anyone who considers a Scion anything but an appliance needs to stop smoking crack.

If you want impressive, I'll crack off a 9 for ya on the Busa... not show you a car's interior.

 

You should check the sheet they give you. I bet that they would charge you more then 1hr worth of work. It is how the mechanic "industry" works. The more work you can get done in less time the more money you make. I'm sure that the dealer didn't tell here it was the same as an Avalon, but I bet they would be quick to deny the fact that the Matrix is the Vibe.

Some of you should get out of California, it is not all there is to see. I for one can count the number of Scions I have seen in the whole state of KS and some of MO on one hand with some fingers left over. I have seen more 300s, Magnums, or Cobalts then I have seen of all of the Scions. FWIW, there is such a thing as a Toyota Cavalier, should look it up.

 

Trust me, I bought my car because I wanted something I wouldn't feel bad about putting 100000 miles on in 4 years, I have a long commute and drive a lot. But there were a lot of complaints in this thread that the car was garbage inside etc, and I was rebutting that my interior has gotten a lot of positive comments. If I want to impress someone, I'll show them the 408 stroker that's about to drop into my Cougar.

As for the Cavy, you'd be hard pressed to convince me to part with a penny for one. I've seen people own them and have **** like transmissions go out before 50,000 miles. They have a horrible horrible reputation and I believe it's well earned.

 

Ask BMW and Rolls-Royce what they think of GM transmissions some time... since they both happen to buy those in many of their cars from GM.

Opinions vs. facts.

See the above comment regarding transmissions. Now, you can either pay attention to the facts, or spew your uninformed opinions - choice is yours, but be prepared to be called on the carpet when you provide "evidence" as ignorant as the above...

... and I'll stack a Cavalier up against a Scion in the cost of ownership department any day of the week, and the Scion will lose... badly.



PS - I wouldn't bet that your 408 will get me to swoon.

 

Honda is slipping in quality. See, Honda of Japan said "Hmm, you know something, let's build our cars in the Southern United States"
I think the CRV got built in Alabama. Now, I don't know WHAT happened but illiterate people were hired. Actually (not making this up) were trained by seeing PICTURES of how the machines work cause they couldn't read!
Like dealing with a monkey!
Toyota had quality problems in the South so they moved more plants to Ontario, Canada, where they have the award-winning cambridge plant. The model that's built side by side with GM's Vibe (Matrix) has the most problems and lowest quality of any Toyota in the current lineup. Then when the Corolla was moved from being built alongside the Geo,and having a new, Toyota-only plant in Canada, it skyrocketed in quality.
As for the F-body, when french people build American cars...well you know the rest!

But I really wanted a Cadillac STS, and I could've got one for the price of a brand new Corolla. But they were so expensive new, why did they drop like a rock when it came time to sell them?
Remember GM's employee discount is tempting, but I'm reminded of the whole concept of Supply and Demand.
All GM ads now tell you how cheap you can get the car for, how much MONEY you can save, etc.
It doesn't say anything about the car.

And FYI I don't "love" every Japanese car. I think Mazda, Mitsu, Nissan, some Subies, are junks. Toyota went the extra mile. That's why they're getting business. Yet people turn this into an America VS Japan thing.
Watching the market, what depreciates quickly, what depreciates slowly, is a good indication of what cars are solid contenders. You may not think so but resale value plays an important role. Why does a Cavalier drop so much in value after a couple months but a comparable Civic drops a lot less in value? Must be ignorance, right ?

Another Supply and Demand type thing.

 

This has been pointed out here before, but here it goes again....when you speak of depreciation are you referring to the fall from MSRP to what it's worth in 6 months to a year or from what you actually pay to what it's worth over time? There is a difference, and when you look at what one actually ends up buying the GM car for, the resale value doesn't look so bad.

 

First, the CR-V is currently produced in Japan and England. Both of those are pretty far from Alabama. It is being moved to East Liberty, Ohio for the 2006 model year due to exchange rate concerns between the dollar and foreign currencies.

Second, those "PICTURES" you speak of are part of what we intelligent people call "visual work instructions". This is a required part of modern quality-control standards and are a part of any world-class manufacturing process. They contain pictures not because workers are illiterate, but because it's easier to describe how an assembly should or shouldn't look with a picture than with words. I hope that you don't plan on going into the manufacturing industry if this isn't self-evident.

That's probably how your boss feels.

That's why Toyota is building a huge new truck plant in Texas, right?

I'm curious to see your explanation of why the Japanese-built Scion models do so poorly in quality surveys.

I respectfully suggest you're in over your head on this topic.