BAH-HA-HA!!

(again this thread made me laugh!!)

@ Ion

wow, that sounds terrible;
did you buy it used?
do you know much of the vehicle history?

What you're going through for sure sounds like alot of headache - which imho is far from typical for a non-lemon GM...

A little known fact is that all auto manufacturers have been (for lack of better terminology) engineering their cars to pretty much self destruct after XXX,XXX miles ~ I have understood that this number is normally around 300k km's or 200k miles.

 

half of them are built in the US...

 

it's not where the car is built, it's moreover where the parent company is;
in the case of Mazda's they have many north american plants, and the workers of the plant make money, but any profits that Mazda sees, is mos assuredly not staying here, it's going overseas.

You'ld better believe that a certain chunk of the profit from any Nissan, Hyundai, Mazda, Toyota, Honda ect built and sold in north america is sent overseas;
then again that's essentially the backbone of the whole "buy american" movement.

 

I'm not arguing your point, I was just stating a fact. Its a point some people like to point out when saying, buy american. ie. kia has manufacturing plants in the US, toyota, subaru. But when told to buy american, if the american version of the sub compact is a pos compared to a japanese version...why should we be forced to buy the sub par model only because it was made in america? Also most of the parts on our ford/chevy are made in other countries. Look at my stage 1 sensors for my lnf, they were made out side of the US. So technically the only reason to buy US made car is to support a company based in the US correct? I agree to that. I'm a huge ford fan. I'd love to buy ford, but if the car was crap vs a honda. Id go to the better car. Its taken the big 3 sooo freaking long to realize this and they are now finally making better US spec cars...damn euros have had them forever.

 

Yea I bought it with 38k miles on it. It had no warranty from GM but had a dealer warranty, which I blew through in 2 weeks. It was a canadian car, thus was not required to have a vehicle history report. I was so desperate for a car at the time that I saw 5 gears and jumped on it. It was only 8k for a 3 year old car, so i should have known something was up. Forgot to mention my wheel/hub bearing went out earlier this week, so it sets right now til AutoZone decided to actually ship one out to me.

Doesn't surprise me car companies do that. They do little to no R&D as we all see. Due to their lack of building quality cars, i am stuck driving a 4x4 Jeep that accelerates, brakes, and turns like the tank that it is. I went through 35 dollars in gas driving back and forth to work. In my car, I can do it on about 6 or 7, so I'm paying 5 times as much to drive to work as normal. Agh.

In all honesty, this country has me so angry, I won't give it my money. As much as is possible anyway. They waste our money, but expect us to pay them regardless. GM is the same way. They build these terrible cars, can't sell them, and expect the citizens to foot the bill so they can keep shoving plastic econoboxes down our throats. This whole country is a feel-good nanny state, from the automakers to the dude in the White House (who I refuse to acknowledge is my president). Just so fed up with the idiots in the parties telling us to buy American and to conserve our resources and drive smaller, more efficient cars, when they take private jets wherever they feel led, have cavalcades of cars to flank them, and won't listen to a single constituent.

 

no offense to anyone, but the crappiness of the cobalt overall in my eyes (2006 SS/SC) is the reason i got rid of it. the performance, value retention, and overall feel of the car wasnt what i expected 6 months out of the lot. it started falling apart, and having mechanical issues. wtf did i pay $20,000+ for??? the car looks great, the whine of the SC, and the car just running without issues was great (when it did run without issues), but it wasnt enough for what i paid.

such a naive thing to say. get your head out of your ass.

 

I own a 2.4 SS with a stick shift, its fantastic!

I'm in Univ right now I barely have any money and this thing is a cheap good lookin pocket rocket and I couldnt as for more for the price.

Girls love them to for whatever reason (sans 4 doors lmao) and the 5spd 2.4 gives MORE than enough kick

my parents own a 4dr Lt2 and its not a bad car either fit and finnish is what it is, its not a $30,000 car its a 20 thousand dollar shuttle and I think people need to stop thinking that any car they buy no matter the price is going to be clad in cows asses and oak veneer.

 

I won't say it's horrible, but even the interior of my 01 Tracker was more comfortable and had less hard plastic. It's definitely not up to snuff with what they're building now, and I would venture to say that even the interior materials of the sunfire/cavalier were better after working on a few of those. I have never seen another car with so much plastic. Now it drove better than my Tracker, got hell of a lot better gas mileage and I beat the hell out of that 2.2 and I have every confidence my dad will take it to 100k like every other car he's had. The engine is by far the best part of the car as far as quality goes. The front bumper can't stay put, the seats are horrendously uncomfortable on long drives, the speakers were made out of cardboard, the rear shelf rattled like crazy, and it torque steered like no other. All in all, if I had to buy another tiny car, I'd probably get one a little higher up than LS because I really did beat the crap out of it and it loved me for some reason, but I don't like so much plastic (I mean even the steering wheel is). The transmission though, don't even get me started on that....

 

Oh, you are so right. I mean afterall the parent company for Toyota is in the US right? No? How about Nissan? Subaru? Honda? Oh wait, none of them are.

Our economy will keep shrinking so long as ******** like you are buying this foreign ****. Your attitude is indicative of a duped public. I have been to the orient and seen there is nothing at all special about their cars or the way they build them.

You don't like Chevy? Fine, buy Ford, buy Chrysler. Just go buy a little piece of this...

Sorry yall, but I really hate retards.

 

who gives a **** where the parent company is, the fact that they are sold in the US stimulates the economy none the less, taxed by americans for americans. they have built factories in the US on US soil giving americans jobs. not to mention the fact that more than half the parts on your car or any american car for that matter are made where? outside the US *******. like i said earlier, pull your head out of your ass. we import more products for use in the united states than are made in the united states. getting the point? failboat is boarding, i dont want you to miss it.

 

im amazed how many of you think the cobalt is really that great....
i love the motor, and love the car, but damn, all of you complain about rattling inside, its got cheap plastic everywhere, and honesty, the ride quality sucks....especially on the SS models. the super soft spring rates and struts on the LS/LT make for a much more comfortable ride, which is what 90% of america really cares about. The seats arent bad, could be slightly better...but its really just mostly the quality of materials used, and the squeaks/rattles that are ridiculous.

 

i guess i SHOULD hate plastic interiors.. but as a 21 y/o guy i really dont give a **** what the inside is like, as long as it goes like stink, and thats what the cobalt does best

oh and my steering wheel si wrapped in Pleather

the pleather seats are comfy so I cant complain there

I guess if you were stupid/too cheap and bought a base model of an economy car you fucked YOURSELF over

 

at the end of the day, every foreign car sold entails a chunk of cash sent over seas. This isnt so much the case with domestic cars... Its still there, but a lesser extent, as usually the only money going over seas on a domestic sale is for cheap labor rates, and not research/development/corporate/production costs, etc.

i understand the argument...

 

You do realize that any profits go back to the home country right? So they employ a few Americans at a unskilled factory job? GM, Ford, and even Chrysler all employ way more Americans than any of the Japanese, Germans, and Koreans. What about the high paying jobs that require a degree like engineering, marketing, and stuff like that? Those jobs are mostly in the home country too.

They also got billions in tax breaks to build those plants in the US.

 

so your telling me their is no profit in foreign car sales being made in the US by american business'?

money is being spent in the US, and it is still being taxed for american use. foreign car companies arent the only manufacturers in the world that export vehicles. thats like europeans, canadians, australians bitching about american car companies selling cars in their countries... it happens all over the world in every country. it's nothing new, yet people still fail to see the benefit for anyone.

 

At the end of the day, I'd rather buy a car from overseas just because of the build quality. I don't care where the hell its made, whether Baron Von Douchebag or Bobby-Joe Jensen built it. If you can't produce a quality auto, why the hell would you expect to sell it? the people they market economy cars to are the lower middle class, and 2/3 of them buy used cuz they can't afford new cars. Its a losing battle. And for the record, the build quality would improve if they brought back the chevy racing program. Racing is a big part of R&D, and gives opportunity for better products on all fronts, from gripping seats to gripping tires.

 

It benefits them way more than us.

 

Your stupidity amazes me. Yes, the profit is sent overseas or they would not build factories here to begin with. I mean come on, what are you 13? I see plenty of benefit in buying imports, for those companies. You talk about imports like they are American cars. They are not. The big issue why they caught on so much is that GM and Ford were so busy competing with each other that they overlooked the import brand until it's too late. Now enter the Cobalt with the highest mpg AND hp in it's class. Do a little research stupid. No import has ever done that. In fact no one has.

You really should just move to Japan. I am sure the average American IQ number would rise a little with your departure.

 

I feel the TC is a good car much better than my old base model but the interior is no where near that of my 2001 Escape. I bought the SS cause I wanted a fast car I did not care about the interior.

 

goddamn you belong at sylvan. obviously you know nothing about import/ export taxing or profit from sales. a foreign car can be bought from the manufacturer for the manufacturers profit yes, but then it is imported into the US sold with a marked up price including taxes stimulating the US economy. i fail to see what your point is? please tell me where the US fails to make any money off imported products??? talking to you about anything is like talking to a brick wall. profit is made on both sides of the pond on any product sold in the US. i really hope your getting this... i doubt i'm typing to fast for you to comprehend.

nice sig BTW redneck.

 

blah blah blah

 

I'm starting to wonder if you're having your own argument...

of course selling an 'import' nets financial gain inside the USA, but that's not what's being talked about here;

the the end of the day, it's neither the manufacturing plant (or it's employees), or the shipper, or the dealer, or the salesman that nets the largest share of profit from car sales - it's the parent company.

What's being talked about, is that simply put, buying import cars sends north American money overseas.

granted parts in domestic cars do come from overseas, but proportionally the car maker (GM, Nissan ect) nets the largest profit from each car sold.

although it's not normally my place, I'm wondering what you're on, because that last quoted section has me dumbfounded...

Europeans complaining about USA cars??
~ you do realize that GM-USA cars don't even make a dent on European sales right?
(there are some Corvette and Cadillac's sold in Europe, but not enough for any European to complain about it)
~ you do realize that although Opel is a GM affiliate company (of which GM is the parent), but Opel is, and has been almost completely autonomous from it's north American parent company. LINK

Canadian's complaining about USA cars??
Are you serious?
Our economy's have been so intertwined for the last hundred or so years that you actually need to know how to discern where the differences are.

Australian's complaining about USA cars??
Now you cannot be serious...
To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single north american car being sold in Australia.
Although Holden is a GM affiliate company (of which GM is the parent), but Holden has been largely independant of their north american affiliate, only of late adopting many of GM-USA's engines, and GM's 'global' vehicle platforms.

 

Sorry, but laughing at you is about all I can manage at this point. I never said that buying imports does not help the US economy at all, just that buying domestic helps the economy more. For me buying USA brands is all about being a good American.

Thanks for the compliment on the sig. That's for certain individuals who believe when they saw the SS badge on the cobalt they were buying a real sports car. Oh, and the car in that pic is my wife's 2003 Buick Century. It has 170,000 miles on the clock. It has NEVER seen the inside of a shop, aside from regular maintenance, and gets right at 31 mpg on the open road. It also rides very well. That's the build quality you just do not find in imports, brought to you by GM.

Oh, and while we are talking about sigs please tell me that white thing with the big rice wing on it is not yours....

 

GM's big issue is the amount of plastic it uses and how the panels are held together. My 95 Grand AM barely rattled in comparison to the Cobalt primarily since the panels were held together using a ton of screws. The Cobalt on the other hand is purely clips aside from the two in the a pillars and the ones directly underneath the silver trim. These clips tend to get loose and then rattle around in their sockets. This is why the car is quieted down heavily when you use gasket tack on these clips.

Anyways, the fact that the SS is a 21-25K car isn't much of an excuse for the exclusively plastic dash and door panels. The Hyundai Tiburon I'm driving as a rental is comparable in the price range, but has an interior that is multitudes superior to the interiors of many GM cars. Its hard to describe the material the Hundai's dash is made of, but it feels similar to that of the Urethane steering wheels of the cobalt... a foam rubber type material. It just feels that much more solid.

And the Cobalt isn't the only offender, it is actually a sizable chunk of GM vehicles produced in the last few years. My friend has a 1999 F body with under 15,000 miles on it, but it rattles like hell with the radio on.

That being said, the Cobalt does have the performance upside for its price, and I admire that... but GM isn't helping their image by having a poor fit and finish. The panel gaps on the average GM car is almost like the grand canyon in size compared to Toyota and Honda cars I've seen.

 

Go look at a Equinox, Terrain, Lacrosse, CTS, 08+ Malibu, Acadia, Enclave, Regal...or in 2 months: Cruze or end of year: Volt or next year Aveo (2011 AVEO for people who didn't get the next year part, see this picture: http://www.drivearabia.com/news/wp-c...oncept-450.jpg)

Every newly designed vehicle since the 07 Aura has been globally competitive if not at the top of its class. GM 'gets it'. There is already a MCE planned for the Cruze so when the 9th generation Civic is released, the Cruze is updated appropriately to out-class it and not just remain competitive but ****benchmark beyond where the competition will be with their future models****

....I feel very similar about my 09 SS TC...our chassis and suspension setup and powertrain in a cruze body = heaven