mrraider

Like all companies they have good and bad. The good includes the Sonic, Cruze, Verano 2.0, Regal AWD, ATS and CTS. I also like the Volt.

The bad? XTS, Encore/Trax, and the Equinox.

Infra

iTrader: (1)

I dislike the Chevrolet brand itself, as well as Cadillac.

They still have too many poorly engineering cars in their portfolio for me to be a proud owner of a car with their faux-gold badge on it. (I obviously don't like the color of their badge, either. It just simply looks cheap.) The Camaro is a terrible car from a functionality stand point. It's a giant hunk of metal that was originally intended as an art piece. The new Corvette is garrish and looks like something my son races around on his Hot Wheels tracks. Both are still filled with cheap plastic, but such is the purpose - performance for the sake of comfort.

Cadillac, to me, has no youthful image. The design of their cars represent what a middle-aged man thinks a guy in his 20's would like. They also still reek of terrible badge-engineered designs. (SRX, XTS, Escalade).

Look at the new ad for the ELR. A 50+ year old smug "1%'er" bragging about material possessions being the reward of "only taking 2 weeks off in August". This is a perfect ad for Baby Boomers, but fills anyone younger with disdain for the brand. They are saying that their cars are not something to aspire to, but rather, something to simply show off.

Buick is the brand I would be most likely to purchase, but their cars aren't enough performance oriented for me. I require something RWD, or RWD-based. I don't think Buick has any plans to build anything RWD, however, as their product portfolio seems to be a slightly upscale Chevrolet.

mmarshall

There are strong rumors of an upcoming V8 RWD Buick (Grand National) version of the current Chevy SS, though the Buick people are tight-lipped about it. Also, before you completely write off a FWD Buick product for performance reasons, check out the Regal GS. Not only do Car & Driver/Road & Track magazines feel that it is the best Buick product (for their tastes) they have ever driven, but AWD is now also an option.

doge

CTS is almost there not a fan of the cue and the dash layout

I would however consider a Volt and a Vette. I've heard nothing but great things about the volt from actual owners. It's really only the armchair car reviewers that have never stepped in and given it a bad rep. You can lease one for $269...

mmarshall

Well, call me an armchair reviewer if you want, but I see, review, and test-drive a lot of cars. Though I don't expect everyone to agree with me, there are reasons why I say what I do. When the Volt first came out a couple of years ago, there were legitimate reasons why I thought it was overpriced, and with poor ergonomics on the dash and console I stood behind those reasons. Most of the available samples on dealer-lots (when the car was available at all) started at 41K (base price), added 3-5K in options, ad then another 3-4K in ADM (Additional Dealer Markup), which, of course, is pure profit. So, in effect, you had a compact Chevy sedan (even if it was one that used very little gas and could go 30-40 miles on its electric motor), that the dealers were asking more than TWICE what even a loaded Chevy Cruze, a conventional gas-powered compact of about the same size, was going for. This, IMO, was outrageous...even considering the Volt's compex gas/electric powertrain and advanced lithium-ion battery pack. At the time, there was a Federal $7500 tax credit on the Volt (which has since expired), and some credits which varied by state....but, even if you took them, you were till paying 40K or more...twice what a typical Cruze would cost. GM, later, was forced to drop the Volt's base price several thousand dollars (tacitly admitting that it was too high) when the Toyota Prius Plug-in debuted at a markedly lower price and gave the Volt some serious competition. It can be argued, to some extent, that the Prius Plug-in is also a questionable value (its price is significantly higher than other Prius versions), but it clearly was not the kind of money that Chevy (and its dealers) asked for the original Volt.

That $269 lease-figure you come up with, BTW, is probably a reflection of the car's low potential depreciation rate. The Volt has been hyped so much in the press that people are willing to buy it, even as a used car/CPO, like they did as a new car at inflated prices. The more a used car is worth, and the less the depreciation, in general, the lower the lease-rate is likely to be.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

be sure to thank the taxpayers for taking a bath on the Volt so you can lease one so cheap.

doge

The comment wasn't directed towards you, you actually do your homework and take a look and test drive the car. My comment is to those that haven't driven it and are forming opinions based off of internet perceptions.

stlgrym3

iTrader: (4)

of course, Caddy ATS, Escalade, Chevy SS, Camaro, Vett. but the problem is GM's pricing on newer model really not very competitive. for the similar amount of $$$, most people would pick a Japanese or German counterpart.

Orzel

iTrader: (1)

+1 on this. It has cost the taxpayers well over the quoted 10 billion in loses for the stock. The bondholders took a real bath, and the UAW got to donate more money to those that cater to their wishes. It's still Government Motors to me.

mmarshall

OK...I was also just bringing it up as a matter of principle, not just as a comment necessarily directed at me.

BTW, there are some excellent auto reviewers on the Internet....both in and out of CL. I've seen some that I thought were far better than I am. There are also some that I'd consider incompetent, particularly those who write about cars for some of the local newspapers.

mmarshall

Not really. Don't forget, us Baby Boomers grew up 40-50 years ago with REAL Cadillacs, which were 19 feet long, had wheelbases of 125-130", weighed 5000-lb. +, had 8 or 9-liter V8s, and had a silky Magic-Carpet ride where something was considered wrong if you could actually FEEL a bump or couldn't hear somebody whispering in the back seat. Those same Boomers, today, are the ones with the biggest chunks of disposable incomes to spend on a new car....in general, more so than ANY other age group in America. They had relatively good jobs, have been working most of their lives, saved up a good nest egg, and are ready for retirement. And many of them are not happy with what Cadillac is offering today....or Lincoln, for that matter. Now, of course, that is not to say that those two companies should necessarily be selling the same cars they did 50 years ago, but both companies have clearly forgotten who and what made them and kept them in buisness.

mmarshall

First, the loss the GM bondholders took are not to blame for the Volt's lease-rate, which I explained in an earlier post on Volt prices. Second, I'm sorry for the loss that some of those GM bondholders took.....but, to some extent, that is simply the nature of investing. Corporate bonds, traditionally, are not as safe as municipal bonds (often insured by private insurance companies), or government T-Bonds, insured not by FDIC but by the government itself, which has never defaulted on a T-Bond-payment even with a temporary government shutdown. Like with stocks, one invests in corporate bonds knowing the risks. If that investor did NOT know the risks, either that person did not do his or her simple homework beforehand, or that person's brokerage-firm did not adequately explain those risks. That is why, long ago, I myself decided that municipal bonds/bond-funds were the way to go...they are often privately-insured against a default, pay decent tax-free interest, and help support the community.

tex2670

And those folks with all that disposable income are smart enough not to fall for Caddy's "rah-rah America" ad campaign with no substance behind it, other than an overpriced Chevy Volt.

mmarshall

I'm not sure I quite follow you here. I agree that Cadillac's version of the Volt probably just makes an already overpriced car even more so. But what does that have to do with other Cadillacs? The ATS is a very well-done (though somewhat stiff-riding) sports sedan that is doing well in road tests against the BMW 3-series and the rest of its competition. The new CTS is also very well-done except for the CUE system and slide-finger controls. The SRX and Escalade both have their share of contented and loyal buyers. The biggest current problem at Cadillac I can see is the lack of a real flagship. The XTS, despite its nice interior (a major improvement over that of the now-discontinued DTS), is otherwise a joke....IMO, it rides like an econobox, and is simply not a properly luxury-oriented chassis, even with the MagnaRide system. The XTS's own cheaper brother 2014 Chevy Impala, for example, does the job MUCH better. THAT is where my comments in earlier posts about Cadillac forgetting what and who kept them in buisness all these years comes in.

84Cressida

I think they're one of the worst corporations on earth, the very definition of scum. Their shady business practices and arrogance has completely turned me off. Most of their cars have been shoddy quality and I've never been interested in most of them. They should've been left to die in 2009.

The few that I do like are the usual ones - Corvette, some of the newer Cadillacs. That's about it. I would never own one and aside from having a Corvette competitor, there is nothing that they make that Toyota doesn't do a better job at.