JonyyB

Sent some emails via GMbuypoer. Still no SS's in my area


---------------
Jonel,

The Cobalt SS is available at some PA dealers in red only. We are waiting
for our first Cobalt SS models. We can take orders on your choice of colors
and options. MSRP on the Cobalt SS is $23,810. There is a bonus of $1,000
and 5.9% financing up to 60 months. When can you stop in for a drive ? Be
sure to ask for Henry, Thank you.
---------------

PenguinPIE

iTrader: (5)

wow...might as well go for the supercharged.... ......o wait....is that the SS S/C?

tiny

supply and demand

the srt4 is under 22k, and it runs 13.9 stock

zinner

SS/SC is under $21,995 MSRP. Last time I checked thats is less than 22k as well.
I paid less than $20k for mine. I don't think I have ever paid MSRP for a car.

The SS/SC being compared to the SRT-4 in every thread is getting old.

DanJHartman

wow living in Ney York sucks lol. all the dealerships that are getting supercharged Cobalts are asking $2,000 over sticker price. gota love the big apple

o by the way, i also looked into the MSRP and its up to $22,600 fully loaded Cobalt SS/SC
the MSRP for a LS coupe is up to $19,900 fully loaded....pretty crazy stuff

mken

If you think that is a joke, you should get a giggle out of what was on the window of my SS with MP3 and a sunroof as the only options.

And a person that claimed to be a Chevy rep and not with Bill Heard Chevy insisted that the car's msrp was $25k despite what the sticker itself said. But then he also swore up and down it had 235 hp, also

zinner

whats that $1793 for ? I could quite read the first word?

zinner

If you ordered one would that sell it to you for MSRP or less? I can understand if you wanna go buy the one off the lot that they might be able to hike up the price. But if you ordered and waited for one and then try to jack up the price that would suck.

Yaj

According to the Chevrolet website....

MSRP for a no-option Cobalt SS is 21,995
The G85 performance package MSRPs for 1500
Front and side air bags - MSRP 395
Digital Audio system - MSRP 325
Sunroof - MSRP 725
Onstar - MSRP 695

So yea, a max option Cobalt SS could MSRP for $25k

Vendian

That sucks. Maybe there were options on it already. I would never pay that much for a base SS S/C.

mken

I mentioned the lack of options, and this Chevy rep insisted that it was $25k without options. Didn't matter to me, I wasn't going to pay that much anyways, although it did take 3 hours of haggling just to get it down to $24k (I know, I still paid to much, but I didn't want to wait God only knows how long to get one)

And Zinner, that says "Simoniz Environmental Protection Package". The salesman didn't know what it was either, and never did get around to telling me. My best guess would be that it is the standard undercoating/clearcoat sealer BS the dealers always try to sell everyone.

DarthDalla

wow I feel like I got a great deal now... side curtain airbags, sunroof, and G85 perf. package and I paid only invoice for it. No hassles for me to but BS undercoating or clearcoating either... just what I wanted to add

rm25x

Yep the one I test drove was $23,500 firm.

DarthDalla

23,500 with what options? XM On-Star? Sunroof ? G85... or was it as base as an SS can get?

Vooduguru

Dealers are free to charge whatever they want for a car. When the SRT was released some dealers were asking (and getting) up to 8,000 over sticker. I have a friend that bought a black 2003 that WORKED AT THE DEALER and they were asking 6k over. They cut him a deal and only charged him 2k over. I worked at a competing dealer and I got mine for 300 back of invoice. I bought my 04 which retailed for a grand more than the 03 for 2k less than he did for an 03. It really does boil down to supply and demand. However the dealer that he worked for had a harder time selling the SRT's because they added MVA's and customers quickly knew that dealer was being greedy.

mcz34man

dont foget the 15 dollar ash tray and lighter

Vooduguru

Uhm, didn't you know that smoking is expensive?

zinner

Wow 1793 bux for undercoating and clearcoat sealer. Thats rediculous, suprised they didn't tack on the extended warrenty too ....

Vooduguru

You may want to actually check to see if you even got the undercoating. I know of numerous dealers that "accidentally" forgot to apply the under sealant. Also, I don't know if the Cobalt has some undersealant from the factory (a lot of cars already do) but you may want to look underneath a few to see if they have a factory coating. If they do, then you'll know not to buy the undersealent. Also why would you want the added weight? As far as the clearcoat sealant, I had that applied on my car, and I like the results. Mine was "A touch of class" and it's been around for many years. The only step UP I would say is Ziebart.

tiny

added weight?
it barely weighs anything
a gallon of gas weighs 6 lbs, so whats more important, a couple pounds of undercoating, or a couple years of undercarriage rust?

Vooduguru

The average vehicle uses about 1.5 5lb bottles of the rubberized undercoating which costs the dealer about 9 dollars per bottle and takes less than an hour to apply. Total cost to the dealer 14 bucks per bottle. Avearage cost to customer, over $1,000. ALL modern vehicles manufactured in the last 15 years have vastly improved the metals rustproofing abilities making the undercoating not really that necessary (and especially not for $1,000 +) If anything the undercoating makes the car a little bit quieter but call it what it is. Many brands of cars even shoot key spots on the underside of the body with a rubberized undercoating right at the factory. So why would you pay MORE for stuff that's already there anyway? The dealers fill you full of crap like "if you don't get it your car will rust away in 3 years". In all seriousness, how long do you expect to keep the car?
Not worth getting undercoating. Clearcoat protection with the warranty is good. Undercoat, not worth it. If they sold it to you for 50 bucks, that'd be fine but not sometimes 100x the dealers cost.

Vendian

??? How did you pull that off? That's almost $3000 worth of options! What kind of dealer would give you all that at just MSRP, let alone at Invoice. What is invoice on the car by the way?

rcatss396

AMR Review Of Cobalt
Bryan Falchuk – Editor


No Competition
Usually, that phrase is a good thing, but not here. The Cobalt is not a competitor for the great Corolla, Mazda3 (amazing car), the Sentra or anything else from any competitor, really. The closest might be the Dodge Neon, but I'd take the Neon over the Cobalt, and the Neon is like 6 years old. Why? It's roomier, looks better (in my opinion), and handles better. The same can be said for pretty much any competitor. The Cobalt just doesn't feel as good or as substantial. There is a fine interior when compared to the Cavalier and to other GM products (it's actually quite good for a GM vehicle), but it still isn't good enough. Fake wood has no place in this class. It looks fake as can be, and we all know its fake when used in this class of vehicle. The only time faux wood works is when it fools you. Even real wood would come off fake in this class, and especially in the Cobalt. I will say the Cobalt can possibly compete with the Koreans (Kia Spectra and Hyundai Elantra), but those cars are better values (amazing warranties), and there's a new Elantra on the horizon, so don't bet on the Cobalt staying competitive.

Where the Cobalt does well is in the pricing. It is more expensive than the Cavalier, but I can't say I felt it was unfairly priced when I saw it. The Coupe comes in three trim levels: Base, LS (both 1A and 1B), and SS Supercharged. They come in at $14,190, $16,485/$17.080 and $21,995 respectively. The sedan is the same with the Base and two LS versions, but currently has an LT version instead of the SS (an SS version is to follow for the sedan later in 2005). The LT runs at $18,760. For both cars, the base runs on 15" steel wheels, while the LS moves to 16" aluminum rims, with the 1B package adding a sports package. The SS runs on 18" aluminum rims, while the LT keeps the LS's 16" units, but adds leather. The SS also has a boost gauge to monitor the supercharger. I do think $500 or so off the sticker would have been more appropriate, but the car wasn't a bad value per se. Unfortunately, while GM hoped to avoid rebates on the Cobalt, they're giving them on all of their cars, so the Cobalt isn't safe. The result is that all the effort put into the new name and positioning is being hurt by brand-destroying rebates.

The Final Review
What can I say? The car is pretty well priced, pretty well packaged, and, well, that's about it. The interior is better, and good for GM, but that doesn't mean its good enough. The styling is bland, and has too many signs of inexperienced designers, engineers or stampers. I have a feeling none of the people working on the Cobalt were inexperienced, so this is inexcusable. I'm actually surprised Bob Lutz allowed this car to come out, though perhaps it was too late for him to do much.

What has come out is really a competitor for the Saturn Ion sedan and Quad Coupe. That's not a good thing. The Saturns really cannot compete with anything they're put up against (maybe in Red Line form against the vanilla versions of its competitors' cars). The last thing GM needs is for its struggling Saturn unit's volume car to be directly challenged by its platform-mate. And the same goes for the Cobalt. The only car that might honestly be considered in the same breath is the Ion. Sure, GM gets the money either way, but wouldn't it be better if they could get the sale at the expense of one of their competitors rather than themself?

I wish I could love this car, but I can't. It could have been different. GM, if you're listening, I'm available for consultations on the next Cobalt. That is, if you decide to make another one, and I don't think you should.

if you want the full review:

http://www.automarketreview.com/1122804.shtml

<<>>

Obviously GM is already rebating this car, and that's HORRIBLE news for anyone concerned one iota about maintaining value. In my opinion, you’ve got to be completely insane to pay one dollar over invoice for this car --- and borderline nuts to pay anything more than invoice +2% (which if you can’t negotiate now, you will be in a few months).

Vooduguru

Wow, that's a pretty scathing review. But overall GM has had lackluster sales for the last couple of years. I think the main reason is that GM is just too big of a corporation. The GM brands I think would do better, have better quality overall if each segment broke off from the GM parent and became their own car company. So Chevy, Pontiac, Buick, etc, all seperate companies. On some levels they're marketed as seperate companies (e.g. sales guys telling you the GMC diesel truck is BETTER than the diesel in the Chevy when they're the EXACT SAME VEHICLE with different badging) That coupled with their Hot Button program which didn't help increase sales (in fact I think sales even dropped lower DURING the promotion), the fact that they're doing it again (whats the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing and expecting a different result)
The massive rebates across their entire vehicle lineups, dealers having some of their vehicles as much as $10,000 off, and the buyout of Daewoo and honoring a warranty that dealers can't get parts for (what were they thinking?) and I think they laid off a bunch of people? I may be wrong on that one. But these are all bad signs of a company not making good decisions. It was a shame that Oldsmobile got cut but it had to go. The F Body, the Icon for GM for years, dropped. I would think Buick may be the next to go, but wouldn't it have made more sense to let Oldsmobile go out on their own?

hokman

Many cars are sold with a chip that can accept the worst possible grade of fuel (ie: 87 octane) and can withstand overdue maintainence. In the UK, the similar car Astra sports hatch has 240ps(about 235 bhp), because the chip took advantage to using the higher grade of fuel in europe (minimum 95 octane). But it's ok, because superchips can change the chip for you.