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Cobalt To Get Accessorized

4K views 22 replies 18 participants last post by  Darc Requiem 
#1 ·
Cobalt to get Accessorized
By: NSAP
www.gminsidenews.com



The all-new Chevrolet Cobalt is set to arrive in dealers within the next few weeks. The Delta-based car is going to have several GM Accessories available after the launch. Products will range from chrome wheels, to ground effects.

Because the Cobalt is in a market that consists of buyers that like to accessorize their cars, it only seems natural that it get a wide variety of accessories so the Cobalt stays on top of the ’Ricers’.

The new accessories range from about $10.00 to $400. The accessories, along with the 5yr./60,000mi powertrain warranty are going to make this new sub-compact a true import fighter. All of the Cobalt accessories will be Cobalt-only items and can be bought from Chevrolet, or your local dealer.

Some of the major accessories include; Chrome Wheels, Chrome Body Moldings, Color-Keyed Side Mirrors, Ground Effects, and much more.




Pics Soon!
 
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#2 ·
Good, great, fine... not the kinda thing that interests me, but whatever moves the Cobalt is good. What DOES interest me is the 5/60 warranty. It's great that they offer it on the Cobalt, but how can they justify not extending this warranty to ALL new GMs? Talk about a vote of no confidence in the rest of the fleet. They really should make it the same across the board. But yay Cobalt anyways!
 
#6 ·
IMPALAon20s said:
i'd like to see the cobalt ss get another 25+ hp, then any crappy accessory. accessories are just a way for car makers, to compete with after market companies.
So would I but its nice to see GM starting early on accessories. This will help the Cobalts sales. I sure you will see GMPD performance parts for the Cobalt as well. Well the Cobalt's engine is tuned very conservatively. The redline is tool low, the rev limiter kicks in while its still building power, etc. The wanted to avoid the reliability issues that the SRT-4 has had. The Cobalt's engine is capable of making more power with the current boost levels. Like the SRT-4, I expect the Cobalt to receive incremental power increases via engine tweaks and various performance upgrades.

Darc Requiem
 
#7 ·
Question

Does anyone know if the Cobalt is based on the Opel Astra?
I dont know why GM dont sell the Opel line on the USA? It could be a great import figther. In Mexico the Corsa, Astra, Vectra lines are sold as Chevrolet and their are a big hit. As a matter of fact, these cars give the 1st place on sales to Chevrolet.
It would be great to have the Opel Speedster, a little convertible based on the Lotus Elise.
I think that those folks at Chevrolet have a lot to learn on Opel design.
 
#8 ·
I particularly like the idea of GM-based accessories: it's a good marketing tool; it will serve to increase revenue (albeit in relatively small numbers compared to overall corporate revenue); and there's most likely a higher profit margin on accessories. Applied across all the brands, and I think it's a great idea.
 
#9 ·
mk1700 said:
Does anyone know if the Cobalt is based on the Opel Astra?
I dont know why GM dont sell the Opel line on the USA? It could be a great import figther. In Mexico the Corsa, Astra, Vectra lines are sold as Chevrolet and their are a big hit. As a matter of fact, these cars give the 1st place on sales to Chevrolet.
It would be great to have the Opel Speedster, a little convertible based on the Lotus Elise.
I think that those folks at Chevrolet have a lot to learn on Opel design.
The Opel Astra is on the precursor to the Delta platform. So the Cobalt has some elements of the Astra but its not really based on it. I like the Astra a lot but I like the Cobalt as well. The Cobalt actually has more powerful powerplant options although I wish the Cobalt has the Astra's diesel as an option. The Astra is supposedly coming to the US. GM is rumored to be bringing 20,000 Astra's to the US. My guess is that they will be sold as a Cobalt hatchback model or as a Sunfire replacement.

Darc Requiem
 
#10 ·
IMPALAon20s said:
i'd like to see the cobalt ss get another 25+ hp, then any crappy accessory. accessories are just a way for car makers, to compete with after market companies.

remember that a lot of bargain hunting young buyers aren't going to buy the SS. they will buy the cheaper model and spend every extra dime they get to make it faster and handle better. the factory hot rods aren't always the best sellers because they come out at a price point too high for a lot of people. when the tuning is left to the individual then they can spend the money when they have it, and they don't have a higher car payment. i think GM offering accessories is a smart move, and following in the footsteps of TRD and Mugen is the best way to battle the imports for both car sales and customer retention in the sport compact crowd. GM seems to be getting it. this can only be good for them.
 
#11 ·
This makes a lot of sense, stay one step ahead of the competition. By keeping the powertrain conservative, and one step ahead of Honda (Civic Si), you give a compelling reason to check it out, and enable a 5 yr warranty to be a possibility. Leave it to the performace division to offer aftermarket, non warranty parts. Then, as the competitiors match it, you can tweak that very conservative engine to make more, with very little investment. Look at the warranty mess Mistu got themselves into with the Evo, they are scouring the net looking for racers to cancel their warranties. Make the racer do something to violate the warranty, (such as add an aftermarket turbo, or increase boost) then the rest of us can have 5 yr powertrain coverage. Brilliant.
 
#12 ·
goblue said:
This makes a lot of sense, stay one step ahead of the competition. By keeping the powertrain conservative, and one step ahead of Honda (Civic Si), you give a compelling reason to check it out, and enable a 5 yr warranty to be a possibility. Leave it to the performace division to offer aftermarket, non warranty parts. Then, as the competitiors match it, you can tweak that very conservative engine to make more, with very little investment. Look at the warranty mess Mistu got themselves into with the Evo, they are scouring the net looking for racers to cancel their warranties. Make the racer do something to violate the warranty, (such as add an aftermarket turbo, or increase boost) then the rest of us can have 5 yr powertrain coverage. Brilliant.
Yep my point exactly Go Blue. You have the figure that once Honda shows its cards with the Civic, GM will respond. They will be able to do it very easily given how they set themselves up with the Cobalt. I mean Honda is gonna have to do better than the 197hp/145lb-ft of torque the current gen Civic R churns out to compete with the Cobalt SS, Ion RL, and the SRT-4. Given that its a known fact that all three of the aforementioned cars have underrated their true power output. I mean the Cobalt/Ion RL dyno at 200whp and the SRT-4 dynos around 230whp. The Cobalt SS/Ion RL probably have around 225hp at the crank and the SRT-4 probably has 250+ at the crank. The current gen Civic R has 197 crank horspower and only 145lbs-ft of torque.

With the RSX price range starting out where the SRT-4/Ion RL/Cobalt SS price range ends, Honda has balance upping the Civic's HP to remain competitive with the RSX's engine out put. My guess is that Honda will mimic its Acura TL strategy and offer only one engine. They'd probably get the Honda Integra R's(thats the RSX's name in Japan) 220hp powerplant as sole RSX powerplant and stuff the 2.4 200hp/166lb-ft of torque engine from the TSX in the next generation Civic R. Even that scenario leaves the Civic underpowered....especially at the low end. The only other option I see for them is to bump the RSX's engine output to 240hp like the S2000 and give the Civic R the current RSX's 210hp/143lbs-ft of torque engine. Sure it will be killed off the line because it doens't reach peak torque until 7000rpms(and even then it still only 143lbs of it), but it seems Honda owners like reving there engines to insane levels for minimal torque :rice:

Darc Requiem
 
#15 ·
Darc Requiem said:
it seems Honda owners like reving there engines to insane levels for minimal torque :rice:

Darc Requiem
Peak torque is a useless value. Horsepower and torque spread say it all.

Two examples:

Engine A: 150hp, 150 lb-ft from 2000 to 5000 RPM

Engine B: 150hp, 100 lb-ft from 2000 to 7500 RPM

Which one will win a drag race, everything else being equal?

They'll both be geared to hit the same terminal speed in each gear, meaning the higher-revving engine will be geared lower for 150% torque multiplication. Thus, the torque at the axle will be identical for both. Why? Because they have the same horsepower.

Again, the underlying consideration is that both engines have a strong torque spread throughout the RPM range. Just becuase an engine redlines high, and has a low peak torque value, doesn't mean it's peaky. With variable valve timing, quite the opposite.

The only real virtues of the lower-revving engine is that the docile crowd won't have to rev it as much, and it might last longer as a result. But these are sporty cars, right? Motorcycles run to 16K these days. And tradeoff for the lower-revving engine is, barring supercharging, to achieve the same power output it's likely a larger, heavier engine.
 
#16 ·
Pictures please!!! Can't wait!!!
 
#17 ·
mk1700 said:
Does anyone know if the Cobalt is based on the Opel Astra?
I dont know why GM dont sell the Opel line on the USA? It could be a great import figther. In Mexico the Corsa, Astra, Vectra lines are sold as Chevrolet and their are a big hit. As a matter of fact, these cars give the 1st place on sales to Chevrolet.
It would be great to have the Opel Speedster, a little convertible based on the Lotus Elise.
I think that those folks at Chevrolet have a lot to learn on Opel design.

I think saturn is going to get rebadged Opels.
 
#18 ·
Darc Requiem said:
So would I but its nice to see GM starting early on accessories. This will help the Cobalts sales. I sure you will see GMPD performance parts for the Cobalt as well. Well the Cobalt's engine is tuned very conservatively. The redline is tool low, the rev limiter kicks in while its still building power, etc. The wanted to avoid the reliability issues that the SRT-4 has had. The Cobalt's engine is capable of making more power with the current boost levels. Like the SRT-4, I expect the Cobalt to receive incremental power increases via engine tweaks and various performance upgrades.

Darc Requiem
the only issues the SRT-4 has had is clutch issues on '03's (to many people doing burnouts more so then cheap clutches and a cheap TPIS that ocassionally goes on the fritz but is easy to fix...

i hope the cobalt is more aggressive then the anemic ion redline
 
#19 ·
thehemi said:
Examples please?
Well lets put it this way it used have a 7/70,000 mile warranty. The 05's have went back to the 3/36,000 mile warranty. I don't if its because of misuse or poor build quality but with the except of this one guy I know. Every SRT-4 owner I know usually has some serious engine problem before they hit 100k. My guess is that it has something to do with the Mistu powerplant. Reminds me of the transmissions on the Ford Probe, the manuals were decent but the auto's were a ticking timebomb.

Darc Requiem
 
#20 ·
Great news! What better way to capture the youth market than accessories?
 
#21 ·
Not only should GM be offering aftermarket parts but they should also be working with the aftermarket companies so that there isn't a problem in developing superchargers, intakes headers, ect expecially for the SS. Look in any tuner magazine and probably 90% of the ads show that they will work on a Civic of one kind or another. Now if you were a young kid who wanted to trick out your car, what car is the easiest to do it with?
 
#22 ·
Darc Requiem said:
Well lets put it this way it used have a 7/70,000 mile warranty. The 05's have went back to the 3/36,000 mile warranty. I don't if its because of misuse or poor build quality but with the except of this one guy I know. Every SRT-4 owner I know usually has some serious engine problem before they hit 100k. My guess is that it has something to do with the Mistu powerplant. Reminds me of the transmissions on the Ford Probe, the manuals were decent but the auto's were a ticking timebomb.

Darc Requiem
it's actually all dodge powerplant with a mitsu turbo


www.srtforums.com go there and you'll get a better idea of what the car can and can't do
 
#23 ·
barcodedorganic said:
it's actually all dodge powerplant with a mitsu turbo


www.srtforums.com go there and you'll get a better idea of what the car can and can't do
I'll have to check it out when I get home. I'm at work right now and the filter here is retarded. I can go to some forums while others are blocked. I actually tried to go the Cartoon Network site and its blocked :blink: Oh yes I watch cartoons.
 
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