GM's Colorado/Canyon Pickups' Lackluster Sales: Down 7% as Tacoma is up 7%

[Ming]

GM’s light pickups don’t excite buyers
By Fred O. Williams
The Buffalo News
08/12/07



GM’s Colorado/Canyon Sold under Chevrolet and GMC brands has a motor, rear axle, radiator, A/C condenser and other parts from Tonawanda, Lockport and Buffalo.

The bad news is, the hometown product is having a rough ride.

“The category itself is seeing declining sales,” General Motors spokesman John McDonald said of small pickups. Cut-rate deals on full-size trucks have eroded the compact truck market he said.

“The segment is hurting, but that particular vehicle is hurting,” said Jim Hossack of AutoPacific, a Los Angeles industry consultant.

Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon sales totaled a mere 52,511 units in the first half, according to figures tracked by Automotive News, down 7 percent from a year ago.

GM’s small truck edges out Ford’s Ranger, but is perennially behind Toyota’s compact Tacoma, Hossack said. The Toyota sold 92,000 units in the first half, up 7 percent.

The Colorado/Canyon gets a tepid reception from reviewers as well as buyers. Its seats and interior trim are frequent targets.

“They have the wrong powertrain and the wrong package,” Hossack said. Truck buyers want a six- or eight-cylinder engine option, he said, not the five-banger available as an alternative to the Tonawanda made four.

The weak sales are contributing to hard times for at least one area GM supplier.

American Axle and Manufacturing makes the truck’s rear axle assembly at its Buffalo plant on East Delavan Avenue. The company plans to close the plant by spring, affecting about 700 jobs. Sister plants in Michigan and Mexico can make up Buffalo’s output, company officials have said.

Luckily, the vehicle’s unpopularity isn’t much of a blow to other area suppliers. Delphi Corp.’s factory in Lockport makes radiators for most GM vehicles, including its more popular full-size trucks. With an output of more than 3 million radiators a year plus other parts, Lockport doesn’t rely heavily on the compact truck.

Likewise, the truck’s motor is a relatively small product for GM’s Tonawanda engine plant. The plant made 191,000 four- and five-cylinder engines, both of which go to the truck, in 2006, less than 20 percent of its total volume.

Production of in-line five-cylinder motors — an option on the Colorado/Canyon — has shifted to Flint, Mich., freeing up space at Tonawanda for new products. The local plant still makes the 2.9 liter motor that’s standard equipment.

“Certainly the volume potential of some of the products Tonawanda has on the horizon — such as the high output diesel — are much more viable than the Colorado/ Canyon,” GM Powertrain spokeswoman Sharon Basel said. The full-size pickup that the diesel will go into as an option is GM’s biggest seller.

Source: http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/139353.html

[camaro_freak]

no brainer... they simply under-delivered on this truck redesign... but I'll give GM more gusto then Ford who continues to let the Ranger wither on the vine.

Perhaps it isn't too late for GM to save this segment instead of abandoning ship.

[Ming]

Problem with these trucks as I see it is not the engines many people whine about. A friend and I (he's a compact truck guy, not a full-size V8 type like some of the critics who'd never buy a compact truck anyway) on a recent test drive agreed the coolest part of the Canyon was the Inline-5. Plenty of young "sport truck" guys around this part of Texas bought the gutless wonder 2.2L OHV in the S-10 without complaining (much). It's that when you get inside the Colorado/Canyon you're treated to a plastic cheap-fest that makes it hard to justify the price on the sticker. If these trucks were selling for S-10 fire-sale prices, they'd be doing a heck of a lot better. But since they're not, one has to wonder why GM has ignored the interior appointments for years now and not given them a significant upgrade. Ask the Koreans at Daewoo to design an inexpensive but attractive interior for them, since Detroit's GM and Isuzu couldn't get it right. Heck, the Aveo's interior looks 10 times better, and you can get two Aveos (@ $12,130 MSRP) for the price of one of GM's compact pickups ($25,365 MSRP)! The only answer can be that GM isn't particularly motivated to sell many of them because they don't make GM a huge profit. And that's unfortunate, because Toyota is more than willing to take up the slack as the Tacoma's percentage gain this year is the GM pickups' loss. Someday GM will wake up and find that the only markets it still holds a respectable place in are big trucks, crossovers and SUVs. And they'd better hope that gas prices and CAFE leave them alone, or they'll follow Isuzu's truck & SUV-focused decline into obscurity.

[tntwit]

Drop a 4 cylinder diesel between the frame rails and watch the sales spike.

[roteague]

I hate to say it, but the truck is a loser. Interior, exterior, all second rate. Hardly, representative of what GM is capable of building. Personally, if I was in the market for a compact truck, it would probably the the Frontier - the Tacoma, besides being built by a scum company, is also stunningly ugly.

[FStephenMasek]

I came very close to buying a Tacoma, but decided to cancel the order. The sport seats (they come with the Sport or Off-Road packages) are fantastic, and the entire interior is very good. The V6 is also downright excellent.

[slowinthefastlane]

It's underpowered and has a horrible interior. Of course it's sales are tanking. I would love to have a compact pickup. Out here in CA, it's a real drag to park anything larger than a Trailblazer. The Tacoma really is a nice truck for the money. You can even get a 5-speed auto - something that's not even available on the Silverado. Even the Nissan Frontier has the Canyon/Colorado beat.

I wish GM or Ford had a competitive offering. It seems like they're resigned to fleeting out their compact pickups. The only Colorados I see out here have "Comcast" painted on the side of them.

[tama z71]

The problem is in the details. At the core, the truck is perfect. Big and uncluttered interior that is deceptively large given the specs. At 6'3 I fit comfortably in that truck, which I cannot say of my father's Sierra. The 5 banger is much better than the stigma of an odd-number of cylinders leads people to believe. Its not too big to drive with the fear hitting everything around you, but big enough to do the work you need. Off road the thing is unstoppable. Give it the newfound GM detail treatment and people will suddenly love it.

[chakis24]

*sighs* a quick interior refresh shouldnt be difficult. get on the ball gm.

[bobojay]

The 5.3 engine with a complete interior redo would do wonders for this truck. Heck, put the 3.9 ohv in it too. Then it's got the modern 4cyl, a torquey V-6, and an excellent powerful fuel efficient V8.
Under the skin there's not that much they'd have to do except maybe also change the grille design and tweak the suspension settings somewhat.

[JazzyChef]

I wanted to buy one a few years back, a single cab black Z71. This truck was hot, and i wanted it so bad. The only thing that threw me off was that the price tag was $23k!!!! My current Mazda 3 that I bought last year cost me $22 after negative equity and TTL. I so wanted to buy one of these trucks but they just aren't worth the money you pay for them. Why would you buy a compact truck for 23 when you can buy a full size midlevel truck for the same price?

[AndrewGS]

The interior is truly horrid on these trucks. My dad said it best when he looked at them and said "the interior reminds me of our '76 Civic." The plastics are cheap, the seats are uncomfortable and the door-shut sound and feel on Extended Cab models is ridiculous.

The exterior design isn't all that bad, especially when equipped with the Z71 or ZQ8 suspensions (no longer available, dumb move), but the details are incohesive.

The drivetrains are mis-matched to the market. The 2.9L is powerful but relatively thirsty and the 3.7L lacks the torque that Nissan and Toyota provide with their V6s, and many people just don't like the idea of a 5cyl., kinda like all the 6-speed automatic sheeple hate the idea of a 4-speed. GM killed the manual option with the 3.7L but at least the 2.9L is available in many configurations.

There is also no Crew Cab Long Bed like Nissan and Toyota offer. On top of all that the 355s also suffer from a lower tow rating by at least a ton. The old S-Trucks were better at everything and did it in much better style.

I hope GM really work hard on the replacements and give us a mid-size truck with compact economy and maneuverability combined with near full-size capability. I think going into the future there should be a shift to mid-size trucks and less of a focus on full-size trucks, but the mid-size trucks have to be as equally world-class as the full-size models to succeed.

[TKR]

Why the .... don't they fit the 3.6 HF and the 3.0l Common Rail Diesel as Isuzu fit to the same chassis and sell over the rest of the planet except the good ol' US (see Holden Rodeo / Isuzu DMAX,)?

[PeterPuck]

The Colorado/Canyon is a FAR better vehicle than the S-10, and the 5-cylinder engine is just fine for this vehicle. Far better than the 4.3 dog they were using.

The problem with the truck is that it unfriendly to sit in and unpleasant to to look at.

The S-10 was more inviting, interior and exterior-wise. If GM was going to develop the Colorado but neglect what makes a vehicle appealing to the average buyer, they should have just refreshed the S-10 again. At least it was cheap...

[tama z71]

If you believe the S-10 was better, honestly and truely, go smash your head in a drawer for an hour, drive both trucks back to back for a change, then go tell people what you think. The S-series trucks were GARBAGE, and remain so, even compared to the colorado and canyon. Haters