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Filed under: Car Buying , Buick , Cadillac , Chevrolet , GM , HUMMER , Pontiac , Saab , Saturn Wow, there are some great deals to be had at the moment from General Motors. Not the least of which is on the Corvette, specifically the Z06 model, which we've had nothing but good things to say about, even at its $72K asking price. Now that GM is offering all of its models at employee prices, that cost drops by about ten grand! A Z06 for $62,653? Yes please... if only our meager blogging budgets would allow it. Similarly, a Caddy XLR-V can be had for $84,771.80 -- about a $15,000 discount. Need an SUV? May we suggest a Hummer H3 for about $23K? Those in the market for a luxury sedan could certainly do worse than a Cadillac STS-V for $66,640.88 after some $14K in savings. Of course, practical shoppers can take five-grand off their Saturn Aura XR sedan and end up paying just $21,634.28 for the privilege. We're having way too much fun with this and there is plenty of other news we need to...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Marketing/Advertising , Buick , Cadillac , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , HUMMER , Saab , Saturn It is no secret that the automotive industry is hurting for sales to close out 2008. Over the past few months incentives have been thrown out left and right to draw in more buyers. The deals have not done enough to bring folks into the showroom, though. With all the media talk of bleeding Detroit, consumers know that the domestic manufacturers have been holding out on their best offers. Perhaps the memory of 2005's employee pricing incentives has kept many waiting on the fence. With 2009 models heading to dealerships as we speak, General Motors is hoping to end the stalemate. It will be testing the waters of employee pricing yet again beginning Wednesday, August 20th and running through September 2nd. The employee discount program will apply across all 8 GM brands. Buick, Pontiac and GMC dealers will mark down 91 percent of their inventory on all 2008 models, along with...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Buick , Cadillac , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , Pontiac , Saturn During a dealer teleconference today, General Motors announced it would be launching a zero-percent financing sale beginning tomorrow, while simultaneously raising the prices of its 2009 vehicles. The "72-hour sale" will run from June 24th through the 30th, and will offer customers 0-percent interest rates for 72 months on most Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs and GMC vehicles. So far, there's no word on whether the offer will extend to Cadillac and Saturn. GM will also offer $500 in "bonus cash" to buyers who opt to purchase GM products outright rather than leasing them. At the same time, the General is going to be raising the prices of 2009 models by an average of 3.5-percent "across the board," something that was bound to happen, according to Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president of vehicles sales, service and marketing. On the production front, GM will be adding a third shift...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Buick , Cadillac , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , Pontiac , Saab We don't normally cover every little change an automaker makes to its lineup as the model year clicks over, but General Motors has some significant features its adding for 2009 that shouldn't fall through the cracks. For one, Bluetooth will finally become on nearly all of GM's cars and trucks. For the longest time, only the Cadillac STS was available with Bluetooth phone integration, which ends with MY2009. Second, the six-speed automatic transmission that before was not widely available in the General's half-ton trucks and SUVs has spread like wildfire across the GMT900 lineup and will now be standard or optional in such vehicles as the Avalanche, Silverado and Sierra 1500, Suburban, Yukon and Yukon XL. Curiously, though, it's still not available on the Tahoe. Other items of note include a new 6-speed automatic for the Pontiac G6 to replace its underwhelming 4-speed, the replacement of...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Sedans/Saloons , Buick Click above for high-res gallery of the Lucerne CXL Special Edition Who knows what took so long, but the Buick Lucerne Super that was first shown over a year ago at the 2007 New York Auto Show is arriving in dealerships this month, and it's brought a friend in the form of a the new Lucerne CXL Special Edition. To refresh your memory, the Lucerne Super is the super duper counterpart to the LaCrosse Super , which we've already tested in the Autoblog Garage. The Super features the venerable 4.6L Northstar V8 tuned to produce 292 horsepower and 288 pound-feet of torque. It's also equipped with higher-grade steering components, high-rate front and rear coil springs, a larger front stabilizer bar, 18-inch aluminum wheels and Magnetic Ride Control. The Lucerne Super also features a base price of $39,395 sans destination charges, so go easy on those options if you want to keep the price as low as possible. Arriving with the Lucerne Super...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Sedans/Saloons , Buick click above for more high-res pics of the Buick Lucerne Super We generally liked the Buick Lucerne CXS model we reviewed in 2006, and we genuinely liked the Buick LaCrosse Super that we tested last year. Unfortunately, we're not big fans of the Lucerne Super that takes Buick's slightly above average large sedan and marries it with a 4.6L Northstar V8 producing 292 horsepower. Our main gripe is that the less expensive, smaller and lighter LaCrosse Super is powered by a more powerful 5.3L small-block V8 making 300 horsepower (both are unfortunately front-wheel-drive, and will remain that way ). What's more, the Super version of the Lucerne's baby brother stickered for $33,750. General Motors announced today that the 2008 Buick Lucerne Super, however, will start at $39,995 (including $765 for destination). For over $6,000 more, you're getting a less powerful but larger sedan than you would if you bought the LaCrosse Super...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Buick , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , HUMMER , Pontiac , Saab , Earnings/Financials Yesterday we wrote about GM's intent to shrink its 14,118-strong dealer network , with one idea to combine Pontiac, Buick, and GMC dealers into larger, more modern flagship outlets. Turns out that was only part of the plan: according to Automotive News , "General Motors is preparing to make public a plan to encourage the creation of superstores in major metro areas that would carry every GM brand." These superstores, which would be called GM Collections, are being evaluated for major metropolitan markets where the real estate itself is more valuable than the dealer franchise. For dealers interested in such an outlet, GM's idea is to move service and parts centers off-site to make room for all of the brands. Some dealers think that's a turn-off for consumers, others report good results. In LA, this has been standard practice for a while, with some service departments...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Buick , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , Pontiac , Toyota , Earnings/Financials At the end of World War II, GM "put a dealership in every little hamlet" to keep up with the postwar boom. Sixty years later, in 2005, long after that boom had ended and every domestic maker was losing market share, GM had 15,094 dealerships. By 2007 GM had reduced that to 14,118 dealers. But if GM plans to compete financially with its overseas competition, it will need to shrink that number a great deal further. Chevrolet has 4,000 dealerships. Toyota, to sell the same amount of cars, has just 1,244 dealers. Put another way, the typical Toyota dealer moves 1,766 cars per year. The typical Chevrolet dealer moves 554. And the other domestics fare about the same: the usual Ford dealership rolls 556 vehicles off the lot every year, while a Dodge dealer does 374 per year. GM is looking at consolidating Pontiac, Buick, and GMC shops into one. However, state franchise laws don't make...
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Filed under: Car Buying , China , Buick , GM GM is in a market share dogfight here in the States, but in emerging markets like China, the General is quickly gaining a strong foothold. Rick Wagoner and company are progressing so splendidly in the world's fastest-growing market that the automaker became the first manufacturer to sell one million units within a calender year. That millionth vehicle was a Buick Park Avenue , which is fitting since Buick is hugely popular in the land of the Great Wall. The speed with which the General attained this level of success is impressive as well, as GM sold 100,000 units five years earlier. With a population of 1.6 billion and an insatiable appetite for automobiles, China seems like as good a place as any for GM to increase its global automotive presence. With more and more automakers turning their attention (and funding) to China, however, GM's exponential growth since 2002 will likely begin to stabilize. For now, however, China is to GM what...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Maintenance , Etc. , Buick , Cadillac , GM , GMC , Lexus , Pontiac , Saturn The General's chief product guru, Bob Lutz, responded to questions regarding GM's reliability in the company's FastLane Blog's most recent video Q&A...
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