This is a car that belongs to a colleague of mine in the office.
He took it as a partial trade towards his 3-Series so he would have something to boot around in before he got into his next real car.
cert / e-test, only 5 years old…
he listed at $4900… dropped to $3950… hasnt got a single call… he cant even get $2500 wholesale for it…
how the shit is a car like this soooooo worthless?
a rusty 12 year old S14 is worth more and will sell faster.
I just cant get my head around it, and from a few perspectives.
If these kind of cars are worth that little then the manufacturer would have to account for it in it’s approved lease rates… basically factoring in the fact that after your 5 year lease the car is worth next to nothing… meaning your 5 year lease cannot be much cheaper than it is to actually buy the car outright.
the mileage is obviously all highway, unless it was used as a taxi cab…
for reference after the car is removed from Trader:
DESCRIPTION
6-cyl,auto,CERT.& E-Tested, 4dr,pwr driver seat height adjustment,pwr windows,pwr locks,cold A/C,keyless entry,black with grey interior,very reliable car & good gas mileage. 214,000 km. $3,950
It’s more of the overall implications of owning a car like this. If you are not a car enthusiast and gauging the worthiness of a car on how awesome it is then why do you even think of buying something like this?
If the new Pontiac G6 will be worth dick fuck all after your lease is up that means you have to make up for that lost value in the price of the lease. Or the manufacturer factors it in anyways.
If the car is worth nothing when the lease is done it means the price cannot be different between leasing and buying… but it is… and manufacturers have lost their shirts on under pricing the lease in the past, with Ford trucks in particular…
Which is why domestic auto makers are losing billions every year. Nobody wants their shit. When you want a car, you go buy Japanese, German, etc… when you want a beater, you lease a domestic.
Yea, Hyundai/Kia are living proof that American auto makers are retards. There’s a saying that reputations take years to make and seconds to break, but Hyundai came from having a really bad rap as the stereotypical shit car, to their latest gen being actually competitive with Japanese auto makers. At the same time, GM, what was a household name, well respected, biggest company in the world, managed to run themselves into the shitter.
I know that many will blame the unions, blame this and that, but at the end of the day, they tried to compete on price, and in today’s world there is no place for that. You either compete on quality/value, or you get labeled as the company that makes shit, and you get snubbed by the market. The time of cheap stuff is long gone, people want GOOD stuff now.
a friend of mine has one of those 03-06 tiburons with the v6 motor… and man… is it ever nice…
its quick, sounds wicked, has decent aftermarket support, a fantastic interior… and isnt that expencive!
as for that grand prix… ask mikeness what he thinks of those cars…
his brothers been going through hell with a similar 2002 model…
all in all… its a piece of shit… hell even the new solstice is a pos… peopel having issues with leaky roofs, trannys that make funny sounds… and the fact that its just a gay car…
however, greg i think you should remove your praise for the Tiburon entirely. Your credibility is at stake.
One of the new guys in the office here is from Chrysler, spent 9 years there in all kinds of positions… the stories are awesome.
He was in the PR dept. in charge of what the company let journalists write about their cars…lol… he was telling me how they write reviews of the cars having never actually been in or driven them.
He also had no idea what Top Gear was… i gave him some youtube homework that day.
It’s incredible how out of touch alot of the executives are for these companies and it shows through as the long term plays out.
Solarian, every word out of your mouth on this is EXACTLY how I feel.
Oh, and GT, you forgot to mention the every 5-10,000km brake rotor warping, vibrating brake pedal, sticking brake pedal (brake lights stay on on the highway and dealer cannot diagnose etc) and what not. GM’s do this, their brake are known bad news. I know 3 new Cobalt owners (2006-2007’s) and 3 for 3 have had at least 2 costly brake overhauls, amongst other greivances including a collapsed clutch pressure plate after < 5,000kms.
I’ve driven my friend in my 240 to the Chevy dealer to “fix” his Cobalt so many times…terribly ironic considering i’m the one “turbo’ing an 1993 NA car” and wintering it while he’s the one with the “new car”. Feel bad though…
In summary, most domestic car-makers’ bad practices, dishonour and corner-cutting are finally surfacing to the general public.
Another guy in the office used to work for Nitrin, a company that manufactures brake lines and other hosing for Honda, Yamaha etc. etc.
Apparently the domestics use was is call PPS, pure-price-shopping, and basically procure their compenents based purely on unit costs and not lifetime costs. Transport, warranty and service arrangements have a huge affect on the lifetime costs of a component over thousands of pieces anyways. It’s pretty funny to see it biting people in the ass.
Unfortunately, some asian manufacturers are also looking at PPS procurement. This guy was handling the Honda account and they were leveraging lower cost chinese or taiwanese made products with simialr quality. In the end the reason for staying was that opening a new supplier and ordering an individual component from a new supplier as opposed to from an existing supplier of other components made the 3-5% unit cost difference dissappear.
The fact that Hemi is not a technology or a feature of a motor but is in fact just a brand. He was the brand manager of “Hemi” for a while, and anything attached to a Hemi. I told him about that Hemi video i did at the toronto Auto show, he knew the people running it.
Then you run into people… “pfff, my dad’s truck has a Hemi, he’ll whoop you”
Fiiiirst of all, that car pictured is not a gran prix, that would be a grand am.
Grand am’s have never been able to keep there value for longer then 3 years after warrenty is up, because of what dfj said. And it looks to be the base modle v6 too. if it were a gt im sure it would get alittle more.
02 Grand Prix.
