Ford is getting by with the live axle because they absolutely nailed every other aspect of the car. It looks like a Mustang. It sounds like a Mustang. It's priced like a Mustang. It's very competent and pretty well built, especially in its price class. If Ford came up short in one or two areas, the car would have been panned and critics would hone in on the solid rear axle as an example of why Detroit still can't get it right.

If your saying you'll happily settle for yet another GM car that is 5 years late to the party and at best "competitive" with outgoing competitor's models then start saving your ducats. I'd like to see GM survive in the long term, however.

 

Is this Colorado suspension setup truly as bad as it sounds? I mean the new Mustang's live axle works well (seeing as they pretty much cribbed it from the 4th gen f-body ). Are we talking about a truck based setup that is gonna be heavy and clunky and well, crap so that it makes the 4th gen / new Mustang live axle setups look positively great by comparison? If so, why even bother making such a car... it will be dead at birth for all practical purposes.

 

I agree. If Ford hadn't done everything else right, than they would have been criticized. But they got the package right, and that's what's important. Ford produced a fun to drive, good looking Mustang, and people are more than willing to overlook its flaws and rough edges.
This is what a Camaro will need to do. No matter how you choose to look at it, GM is going to have to cut corners somewhere in order to make a $23-24,000 V8 RWD car feasible, just like Ford did. The key will be not in what specific components they put in, but rather in how good the overall product is. I don't think this is a matter of "settling" at all. It's about recognizing what is realistic to expect from this car.

 

Ford got it all right and they are getting a free pass because there is NO DIRECT COMPETITION! Once again, even though it sounds like a broken record, If there was a car out there that for all intents and purpose was exactly like the Mustang except it had a good IRS underneath it, and cost say $500 more, which do you think would be selling more? Which do you think the auto magazines would like more? Personally, i think the IRS would sell more and the live axle would no longer be acceptable. And the way its looking at least with this thread, it looks like by the time the Camaro may come out, with a live axle, the Mustang may have already moved on to an IRS and I wonder how everyone would respond to that???

 

Camaro sales figures were declining every year since 1987 - save 89, 94 and 95. During this same time, Mustang sales figures bounced around with not much of a pattern. reference.

There was no clear-cut winner between the two cars any of these years in terms of the overall picture, but the Mustang still managed to sell better - in most cases much better. The Camaro will not sell on name alone except to us die-hards, the 4th gen proves that, so it has to do something better than the Mustang.

Styling: Will it be styled better? Perhaps, but that's subjective and, while I disagree, most people would opt for the Mustang in that category unless GM really nails the styling. Im not going to hold my breath on that one unless GM can weasel some Cadillac and Corvette guys onto the team.

Transmission: I can assume they'll both have A4 / 6-speeds available.

Roof options: Both should have hard tops and verts, so a t-top or targa option would give the Camaro the advantage here.

Interior: GM should be able to do the interior on the Camaro better than the Mustang. There's no excuse for this not to happen.

Engines: The LS2 is the logical choice and should make the standard V8 Camaro faster than the GT. The Mustang will at least have one (or more) special editions by then with more than 400 HP. Evidently it's going to take an act of God to get a 450 HP Camaro at this point if they're looking to save $200 on a rear end.

Suspension: toss up, could land in GM's lap if they want it.

Advertising: I dont expect to see nearly as many Camaro ads as I did Mustang ads. I dont expect them to be as good, either. I hope GM proves me wrong.

I really dont want GM to stick the Camaro name out there vs. a similar or superior Mustang just to create a buzz which will go away once it gets slaughtered in the rags' Mustang vs. Camaro articles. If a rag can give the Mustang the nod over the GTO on "gotta have it" points alone, while last year they compared the GTO to a Mercedes, the Camaro is going to have a heafty hill to climb in the media. At least give it some firepower to go into war with.

 

OK.....so I ripped this from Scott's 3 page article on the bird cage liner, LA Times.....

Could somone make sure the "cheap" engineers looking at GM's "Performance RWD's" get it?!?

 

Exactly why SLA front susp is far more important to me than the IRS v live axle debate. Since most driver feel, weight, and maneuvering is from the front wheels the front suspension is more critical in terms of performance and refinement IMO.

 

OK, the question I have for Charlie is this:

The IRS is only a steak dinner more expensive than the Colorado axle...

What IRS are we talking about? The standard Sigma IRS? Can it hold up to LS2 power levels? What about drag racing? How much more would costs be increased to beef this IRS up to support high HP levels?

The point I'm trying to get at is be careful what you wish for. This inexpensive IRS could be glass-jawed. Then everybody here that does any kind of performance stuff will be bellyaching at how flimsy the IRS is and wishing GM had beefed it up. Well how much does it change the equation when a robust IRS is compared to the Colorado axle?

I have to assume that this comparo is based off of the cheapest available IRS and not the one best suited to a low-cost, high power pony car.

You might say well then put cheap IRS in the V6 and the better IRS in the V8s. You could do that, but it increases costs even more since you loose an economy of scale and complicate the production process.

 

Chris,

I agree......I won't care about a live axle in the base models...as long as a good IRS is available to the performance models.

This would allow for easier interchangeability for the live axle users...best of both worlds!

 

I don't think you can hold your breath for an uplevel suspension because of what that does to the costs of production (unique processes for different models) and the loss of economy of scale for the purchase and tooling, etc. of the rears.

I think just like we've gotten one suspension for every model since 1982 I don't see any reason to expect the next car to change, thanks to the beancounters and the need to keep development and production costs dirt cheap on this car.

If we couldn't have a mid-level V8 for the past 15 years that is externally identical to the performance V8 and therefore would have had minimal increases in cost of production, what makes you think they'd give us two unique suspensions?

I think they are looking at not just cost but durability v cost. Its not just that IRS might be nearly as cheap as the live axle, but the IRS has to be able to reliably hold up to big power and do it just as cheaply as live axle. I think that's where GM's thought process is right now. That's what my decision matrix would be full of if I were them.

 

The Mustang will. We've been through this already. In case you forgot, the 4th gen Camaro was a much better pony car than the Mustang. It had more power and handled better. It cost a little bit more, and guess what, the Mustang sold more.
I'm not saying the Camaro needs to be no better than the Mustang, but I think you are really fooling yourself if you think having and IRS vs live rear axle will affect sales. The average customer will not pay $500 more if IRS is the only difference. WE ARE THE ONLY CUSTOMERS WHO CARE ABOUT THIS. Remember that.

 

I guess you might also want to ask about the strength of the Colorado rear end. Is it much stronger than a 4th gen? Honestly, I don't know....but my feeling is that it has roughly the same torque rating.

Getting back to IRS.....

GM would end up using some variation of Sigma or Kappa. These are well designed, well thought out....and I am assured.....whatever is used....the components will be there to handle lots of torque. This won't be some Rube Goldberg/reverse engineered Cobra IRS.

Getting back to front suspension......

Right now, a live axle is a good possibility....but getting an SLA front suspension, has nearly faded completely away. Maybe we'll get lucky...but unless we get some sort of rethink....it looks like struts in front.

Gee....I wonder if a 5th gen will be able to keep up with my 3rd gen.

 

I think a lot of people are missing the point on this.

The reason why I feel IRS is the way to go, is not because the Average Joe Buyer will shop specifically for IRS, but because they will notice the superior ride vs the compititon.

This is even more important in the V6 catagory, to be honest.

An added advantage should be the magazines praising an IRS setup over a solid axle in the comparos... especially after decades of them saying it is long overdue.

 

Good point. I would assume it would be easier (cheaper) to beef up the colorado rear vs beefing up an IRS though, but I have no basis in fact for that.

 

Yeah, but the IRS's components are already high torque ready.