GM "Lost the Bet" on Lower Fuel Prices

[2002 Caddy]

Originally Posted by Get_ A_Clue

And stop with the Corolla/Cobalt comparison. GM's "small" car offerings are pathetic - embarrassing even. Have any of you actually been in a Cobalt? It's a complete POS, designed specifically for the rental car market. The Cobalt gets 1 mpg better than the new Corolla? Wow that's awesome and I'm glad they've finally made fuel efficiency a priority, but c'mon: the Cobalt was stillborn. Corollas sell because of their perceived quality, their better resale, and because that nameplate has been around forever. That's how you run a business: slowly update and improve a brand/model so that it gets cachet. You don't, as GM does, create a half-assed product (Cobalt, Aveo, G3, G5, etc), become disappointed because no one wants it, then instead of improving it, let it die. Then on the next product cycle, offer something new with a completely new name, that's still half-assed and think something will change. Fortunately GM has finally learned this.

Boy do you need some schooling...

I rented a G5 last time the wife and I were on vacation in Hawaii... I got one with 10 miles on the odo...

For comparison, the last Corrola that I drove in was in 1995, (a university buddy of mine had one) and I will tell you that the brand new 2006 G5 was as least as nice as a 1989 Corolla with almost 200,000 miles on it. Actually the cars were very similar, both had really cheap uncomfortable seats, both had noisy gutless engines, both rattled like bits were about to fall off. Both had lazy 4 speed automatic tranny's that were slow to shift and would cause the engine to drone and drone. To its credit, from memory, the 2006 G5 did smell nicer inside... and the 1989 Corolla lacked the intermittent passenger air bag warning light and I don't remember the check engine light on the Corolla flashing on and off every couple of miles like it did on the G5.

Next time I'll rent a Malibu.

Other then this oversight, it saddens me to report that the rest of your first post is bang on.
Free koolaid is available, lots of it gets sloshed around here.

[Get_ A_Clue]

Originally Posted by 2002 Caddy

Boy do you need some schooling...

Other then this oversight, it saddens me to report that the rest of your first post is bang on.

Unfortunately, my point may have been missed: the Cobalt is an unproven "brand" and therefore suffers in comparison to other cars in the segment. The Civic and Corolla names have been around for decades; the Cobalt, which replaced a dinosaur, has been around for 4. If they continue to update and upgrade it BUT KEEP THE COBALT NAME, they could slowly chip away at Toyota/Honda's perceived quality advantage. I still think the Cobalt is an unforgivable pile of *****.

I've never liked the Corolla and think it's been left to wither, which is why the Civic is eating its lunch... and dinner too. But Toyota doesn't stand around idly for long. Why GM is just now figuring this out, decades later, is really frustrating. If they had had a credible small car that hadn't had its reputation poisoned by poor decisions and lack of investment, we wouldn't be talking about plant closures, etc.

[DRTY]

Just wait for this bubble to burst. It'll make the dot-com and housing bubbles look like butterfly farts.