Petra

Some interesting differences there; obvious Avalon influences. To my eyes, it's much less garish than ours, but a lot more conservative and, well, boring. I think the trouble with the N.A Camry is, Toyota got too caught up trying to make the car look "sportier", and, instead, it ended up looking like a melted piece of plastic. MESSAGE TO TOYOTA: No matter how sporty a car looks, if you make 400,000+ of them, the public will get bored of them, and they will start to see the car as bland. So, why not just stick to what you do best, and make the car look bland in the first place?

Refresh my memory: When does the Avalanche start production? Is it lumped in with the SUV production schedule?

Ditto. It seems to me like GM designs their interiors based on the current-generation interiors of their competitors. Then the competitors come out with their next-gen. model, and GM is 5 years behind the times, again. What GM needs to do, instead of benchmarking the interiors of current competitors, is round up their interior designers, force them to study the interiors of the competing models at length, then ask them, "If you were working for <insert competitor here>, how would you improve this?" Another thing: All this talk about who has the prettiest gauges and LED readouts is not getting anybody anywhere. Everybody has their own idea of what looks good, and you're not going to change anybody's mind by continuing to argue over it with them. Just agree to dissagree, or something.

That's exactly what I was thinking, although, of all those platform-mates, it reminds me the most of the Isuzu Ascender: ...Then again, maybe the camo is just playing tricks on me... It's happened before. The Acadia looks to be shaping up to be an excellent new crossover. I especially like the interior with those chrome-surround vents... classy! Take a close look at the steering column, though; it appears to be coming apart in one place. Hopefully the production versions will display higher levels of quality control.

Good catch there! IIRC, the Teana pre-dates the Five Hundred. Still...

I don't know about that silver car in the middle, but the big black car in the foreground screams Ford Five Hundred to me.

I noticed at least one new Camry (there may have been more) at the Toyota dealer in Sarnia this afternoon, but I didn't bother to check it out. Maybe next week. I'll be sure to bring my Camera! From what I recall from checking out the Camry at the Autoshow, I thought that the Camry interior was of poorer quality than the current-gen. Accord. It reminds me of these modern LCD TV's and PCs with all the drives and USB ports hidden behind covers. Sure, they look good now, but, in a couple years, they'll be yesterday's news and will be falling apart. For people who are mesmerized by knobs that glow with a soft blue hue and a centre stack with asymmetrical ease-of-use, the Camry will delight. But I just didn't feel the quality was there.

Perhaps Toyota has taken to calling the RAV-4 a truck to bump up their truck line's CAFE ratings, just like how Chrysler did with the PT Cruiser.

I think our 1996 Grand Caravan has got this, too. The wipers aren't broken completely, but sometimes they sort of miss a skip.

Ouch, man... I know the feeling.

Do Svidanya from a long-time fan.

All these cuts, saving a few hundred million here and another few hundred million there... I guess it all adds up, but it seems terribly ineffective when weighed against GM's multi-billion dollar quarterly loses. It just seems like too little, too late.

Yes... The Boomers will elect a President who will bring Socialized Heathcare.

...And the C&G readers rejoiced at the news...

IIRC, Edmunds was the only reviewer who found in favour of the GS. Virtually everybody else, even Consumer Reports, liked the Infiniti better. It was at that line that I stopped reading, because I knew then that the rest of the article would just be a huge fellatio of the GS430h. From a quick skim, it looks as though I was right.

:rotflmao: I love how they try here to gingerly step around the fact that NASCAR is stuck in the '60's.

Intriguing...

Yup, I mostly used Google. It's amazing what you can find if you type in something like "disappointing Hybrid mileage"... Of course, there is always plenty of information to be found from sites like edmunds.com, thecarconnection.com, autoweek.com, etc., etc. Sites like those would be more helpful with finding spec sheet information, like curb weight, EPA fuel economy ratings, base price, and so on.

Nothing wrong with writing your opinions. It just isn't very productive, especially on a site like this. You're not going to "open the eyes of the auto consumer" talking about how CR sucks on cheersandgears.com.

That's me in the picture. I know I was there on the same day, but I think I was probably long gone by the time you guys would've been there. Still, kinda curious that we both had the same idea!

Sure, the new Yaris Sedan has a pretty interior and performs well in crash tests and all that. But I think the real question we're all asking is: How many bodies can you fit in the trunk?

I did a paper much like this a few months ago. Granted, it was an arguementative essay, and my position was against Hybrids. However, here are a few things I did that you can use: - Mention the fact that disposal of the very environmentally un-friendly batteries that Hybrids use is a problem that has not yet been solved, and, furthermore, nobody knows how long the batteries will last before they need to be replaced, likely at great expense. - State that Hybrids do create much fewer emissions than regular cars. - Find some anecdotal evidence that Hybrids do not live up to the EPA fuel mileage claims; Google is your friend. However, to be fair, note that most cars do not meet their EPA standards (though they don't fall short by as huge a margin as Hybrids do), and that the EPA is redesigning their outdated testing methods because of this. - Point out that Hybrid technology adds a lot of weight to a car. Higher weight is bad for fuel economy, handling, durability of components (puts more stress on them), and a variety of other things. - If possible, make a graph or chart that illustrates how long it would take to "earn" back the extra money you'd spend on a Hybrid, as opposed to buying a non-Hybrid car. Use a flat rate for fuel economy and the EPA fuel economy ratings, and calculate how much money you would spend on gas every year. Then figure out how years it would take to earn back the difference between the Hybrid's sticker price and the non-Hybrids from saving gas. FYI, I used the Accord Hybrid vs. the Accord EX V6.

How long do you plan on keeping your car? I wouldn't trust the Jetta any longer than the warranty lasts. The Hyundai, IMO, would be kind of murky as far as reliability goes, and the Buick is probably the most trustworthy and/or easy to repair, since it uses lots of "Tried & tested" parts. Also, if you don't plan on keeping your car for very long, consider resale value. The Buick and Hyundai will drop like a rock, the Jetta will probably be pretty stable. My advice: There are lots more cars out there in the $30,000-ish price range. Just off the top of my head, I can think of the Cadillac CTS, Infiniti G35, Acura TSX & TL, SAAB 9-3 & 9-5, the Audi A3 and lower-end A4 models, lower-end BMW 3-Series models, Impala SS, the Chrysler LX models, or even loaded-up versions of the Mazda6, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Mercury Milan... and the list goes on. Unless you have already considered all the alternatives and made up your mind on these three, I'd urge you to take a second look at some of the other cars on the market. You could get pretty much all the features you want and even save a few thousand bucks on many of them!

...The world's biggest game of "Chicken".

Want to change how the CR results look? Why not subscribe to the magazine, and, when the reliability survey comes in, fill it in with nothing but the "Bullseye" dots. If, as Balthazar says, there may be as little as two or three people responding for each car, then you might be able to bring about an astonishing change in the ratings for some models (obviously, models that sell a lot like the Impala or Tahoe would need a more co-ordinated sabotage effort). All I'm saying is: If you don't like the way things are, make an effort to change them... because writing long-winded, whiny messages on here about how much CR sucks isn't going to change a damn thing.