WomanOnWheels.ca

Oh, please ...

In the news today: Lexus is coming out with an all-wheel-drive version of its top-line LS 460 model.

In his comment on the vehicle, a Lexus spokesman said, "The all-wheel-drive system is designed to ensure excellent traction performance and driving stability for our Lexus guests, regardless of the climate and road conditions."

Lexus guests.

Okay, here's how it works. When you invite me to your house, tell me to pull up a chair, bring me a drink and maybe offer me some nibbles, I'm a guest.

When I walk into a dealership, sign the paperwork, and pull a minimum of eighty thousand clams out of my pocket to purchase a car, I am a customer.

When you invite me into the dealership, bring me a drink and some nibbles, and then you give me the car ... then, and only then, will I be your guest.

Where the money goes ...

In today's news: Toyota USA's charitable foundation has given over $317,000 to a school environmental program, part of the $100 million it earmarks for charitable donations to education.

Thus begins my rant for today: people who won't buy import cars because "they send all that money back to Japan".

I just got back from a tour of the Subaru plant in Lafayette, Indiana, where the company builds the Outback, Legacy, Tribeca and the Toyota Camry. The president was obviously from Japan, but none of the hundreds of workers I saw appeared to be. Rather, they all looked like local, corn-fed Indiana men and women. When it was quitting time, they went out to the parking lot and got into their vehicles (which were overwhelmingly Chevrolet trucks), which I'm guessing they bought with their Subaru wages. They were probably going home to houses bought with their pay. Maybe they'd stop on the way and do some shopping with money they'd received in return for their labor at Subaru, too.

Last week I drove along Ontario's Highway 401, past the massive Toyota plant that's being built in Woodstock. The construction workers didn't look like they'd been imported from Japan. I doubt the truckloads of construction materials came from overseas, either. And once the plant is operational, I don't believe the workers screwing the cars together will be brought over from the land of the rising sun. Instead, Toyota will be paying Canadian wages, supporting Canadian suppliers, paying Canadian taxes, and signing local contracts for everything from the toilet paper in the bathroom to the food in the cafeteria. And I'll go out on a limb and say that the almost inconceivable mountain of money it took to build that plant came from Canadian sales of Toyota products. Who knows? Maybe some of it even came in from Japan.

Hate the imports if you like; that's your prerogative. Just don't hide it behind this crap about none of that money being spent here.

And for that matter, don't forget to use your favorite line when you buy your GM, Ford or Chrysler vehicle. Using the prevailing logic, the Big Three take the profits of every vehicle sold in Canada and immediately ship them back to their head offices in Michigan -- sending your money back to a foreign country.

Mustang: Pony up for 2010!

Ford won't show us pictures of the restyled 2010 Mustang yet, but they have sent out renderings of the new badge. According to the company, the new, chiseled and "more realistic" look should give a clue as to how the car's design will go. It looks pretty good to me so far.

Corporate-Speak Translation: Dodge

The original text, from Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli:

"We have been approached by third parties who are interested in exploring future possibilities for Viper. As the company evaluates strategic options to maximize core operations and leverage its assets, we have agreed to listen to these parties. We will do so, keeping in mind the best interests of those who have shown tremendous support for the vehicle, including employees, suppliers, dealers and a worldwide group of loyal Viper owners and enthusiasts. Viper is an integral part of this company's heritage. While this is a strategic review, our intent would be to offer strong operational and financial support during any potential transaction, in order to ensure a future for the Viper business and perpetuate the legacy of this great vehicle."

What he really said, in plain English:

Someone wants to buy it. We might sell it.

Did you ever think ...

... that we'd ever have to advertise this?

What's next? People willing to pay money for water?

Chrysler TC: Oh, lord, what we used to think was luxury!

 In 1986, Chrysler unveiled a new vehicle at the Los Angeles Auto Show: the TC. It was the result of a friendship between Chrysler chief Lee Iacocca and Maserati's Alejandro de Tomaso. The cars were a joint project of the two automakers, and made in Italy.

Among its many problems were a too-long development time and a hefty price tag (this one was displayed with its sticker, showing that it cost $35,550 in 1990 dollars). It was also meant to come out before the LeBaron convertible, which would have given buyers the impression that the LeBaron was descended from the prestigious TC. But because it took so long to get the TC to market, the LeBaron hit the showrooms first, and the opposite happened: many people thought the TC was a gussied-up K-Car. Only about 7,300 were made over its three-year lifespan.

Still, it was the epitome of luxury for its day, and I suppose that's why I got such a kick out of the interior. It was the end of the 1980s, after all, with all the wretched excess that the decade embodied. If this doesn't make you shudder, I can't possibly imagine what will.

Cruise nights at Chrysler!

We slipped over the border last night into Michigan, to the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills. Throughout the summer, the museum's parking lot is the site of a series of six cruise nights, each with a special theme. Since last night's was Dodge Challenger night, we took the beast over to get in on the fun.

It really was quite a blast, with the front lot stuffed with all manner of cars -- every make is welcome -- in every configuration, from bone-stock to widely customized. There were also some very neat oddballs, including two Chrysler-Maserati TCs (perhaps the only two that were ever actually sold?) and these two cute little Metropolitans.

The cruise nights have wrapped up for the summer, but the museum is still worth a trip -- it contains a wealth of history, including all kinds of concept cars (there's even a Turbine), racing legends and some examples from the company's earliest days.

But the highlight of the evening wasn't even a car -- at least, not a full-size one. The big "O" sculpture outside the museum is actually made up of rings of channel steel, and on the far side, the end comes down to the base. And there was a little boy who looked up at the sculpture, looked down at his Hot Wheels car, looked up at the sculpture ... and then reached up as far as he could, set the toy on this ready-made track, and let it go ...

The Routan: Tell it like it is

Volkswagen Canada has announced the introduction of the 2009 Routan, following its unveiling at the auto show in Toronto earlier this year. (As for the name, all I can think of is Routan -- now available without a prescription! But I digress ...)

From the press release: It features a unique European-tuned suspension and steering matched for handling and improved driving dynamics in the tradition of Volkswagen's German engineering heritage ... Instantly recognizable as a member of the Volkswagen family, with its stylized front grille and exterior treatments ... Starting at $27,975, the 2009 Routan becomes the most affordable 7-seat import nameplate van in Canada.

Come on, guys. I know the folks at the top want you to play up the German engineering angle, but it's a Chrysler Town & Country with a different badge. We know it. You know we know it. Give us some credit here.

Come on, GM: this is the best you could do?

This is the new utility vehicle, based on the Pontiac G8, that General Motors will put on the market in 2009. It held a contest to name it, and 18,000 entries poured in.

The winner?

The G8 ST.

Really.

"We actually thought very long about El Camino," a GM spokesman said. "In the end, we felt it was more appropriate to honor the El Camino's unique place as part of Chevy's heritage, and not use that nameplate on a Pontiac."

Okay, fair enough. But why G8 ST, which rolls as smoothly off the tongue as gum off a hot sidewalk? "G8 ST was one of the most popular suggestions (in the contest), plus we noticed a far broader trend toward simple, easy-to-remember names," the company said.

Uh huh. Show me a car fan out there who doesn't easily remember, oh, say, Firebird. Or Trans Am. Or Bonneville, LeMans, Grand Prix or Catalina.

This is, after all, the company that once cast and chromed nameplates that read Fleetwood, Toronado, Skylark, Chevelle, Cutlass, and perhaps the finest name of all, Rocket Eighty-Eight.

Show me anyone who saw those cars 20, 30, 40 or more years ago and doesn't remember those names. G8 ST? When this car's actually on the street, I'll bet you'll be able to stop a hundred people and they'll know what the car looks like, but they'll be damned if they can remember what it's called.

Note to Volvo: Maybe you need better drivers for customers

Volvo sent out a press release today about the Weavers, a Kentucky family who "should be on a survival TV show". The company intended the release to emphasize that Volvo makes safe cars.

To me, the release told me that some people who drive Volvos should spend a little extra for some advanced driving control lessons. (Keep this in mind: driving lessons teach you how to drive. Driving control lessons teach you how to control the car, which is far more important.)

First up is son Jeremy, who was 17 years old and delivering pizzas in his first car, a Volvo 240. According to the release, "On his normal delivery round on one rainy evening he was unlucky enough to veer off the road. His car slid down a 10m slope and was brought to a halt by heavy trees."

Now, maybe Volvo operates in a different world, but on my planet, you're not "unlucky enough" to veer off the road. You veer off the road because you are no longer in control of the vehicle. I have driven on a lot of rainy evenings. Oddly enough, I've yet to be "unlucky enough" to veer off the road.

Next up is mother Nancy, who was giving her daughter's family a ride to the airport. "Enroute, traffic on the highway suddenly ground to a halt and Nancy lost control of the car; it flipped at approximately 100 km/h."

Okay, so Volvo got it right on this one: she lost control of the car. But flipping it because traffic stopped in front of her? How close was she following, and how far ahead was she looking?

I'll give them the final one: a storm blew down a tree that landed on their 1985 Volvo. Some things you just can't anticipate. But in this case, two out of three ... well, it's bad, and I'm guessing probably preventable. Remember, there are no accidents, only crashes.

Isn't that the whole idea?

In the news today: Ford has issued a press release stating that it has set an "aggressive new target": best-in-class initial quality for the compact cars it will launch in North America in 2010.

Well, okay, but this is newsworthy? Isn't the whole idea supposed to be that, since we're pulling a huge chunk of hard-earned money out of our pockets to pay for these things, every automaker should make every vehicle the very best possible example it can be?

Public transit: If you don't know, we won't tell you

Today's rant: why do so many public transit systems assume that you know all the inside information?

This time around, I'm aiming my dart at GO Transit, the provincial system that operates in the Greater Toronto Area. I had to return a press car in Toronto and get to my home 50 km away, and I needed to use the public system.

I took a Toronto Transit bus to the GO station in Toronto's east end, because I knew (thanks to the online schedule) there was a bus that would take me to within eight kilometres of my house.

First hurdle: how do I get in? To enter the GO, you walk out of the Toronto Transit station and into the GO terminal, where you are faced with numerous turnstiles, all of which say EXIT.

"How on earth do I get in there?" I asked a man on the other side.

He looked at me like I'd asked him how to breathe, pointed at the turnstile, and said, "You have to push through there." Which I did. So the turnstile which is labelled EXIT to people coming into the building is actually an ENTER. But you're supposed to know that.

The ticket seller is inside the variety store, and I missed her, because I thought she was strictly there to sell candy (she does both, actually). So I went out to the platform, and that's where I noticed the sign for a bus that would go express to the college that's within walking distance of my house. Bonus!

I looked over at the schedule, and it said that the bus would arrive in ten minutes. I'm on a roll, folks!

I went back inside, figured out the candy seller was also my ticket source, and asked for one ticket for Bus 93.

"That bus isn't running," she said.

But it's on the sign and on the schedule, I argued.

"It doesn't run in summer," she informed me.

So I bought the ticket for my original bus choice, which dropped me eight kilometres from my house. Okay, I fully understand that public transit isn't door-to-door. I don't have a problem with that. But why would there be a sign on the platform and a schedule pinned to the wall for a bus that doesn't run for at least two months of the year, with absolutely no indication that it's bus yesterday and bus tomorrow, but definitely not bus today?

Edited 08-20-08 to add: I sent an email to GO Transit's website, and eventually received a reply that said yes, this is a problem and we will be amending the sign and the schedule. So maybe the squeaky wheel does get the grease after all.

More on the fatal Ontario crash ...

A little while ago, I commented on a case here in Ontario where a 20-year-old driver put a car into a river, killing himself and two other passengers. Today, the paper speaks with the driver's father regarding the crash.

According to the man, his son and three friends consumed a total of 31 drinks in three hours at a restaurant. Speed was also cited as a factor in the crash; the driver already had several charges on his record and was in danger of losing his license due to speeding violations.

So what does his father think needs to be done? "Parents need to lobby the government to make changes," he said.

Apparently, father now wants "zero tolerance for speeding" and said that if "the licence was revoked for one speeding incident, then word would quickly get around that you can't speed and (keep) your license."

Now, keep in mind that we're talking about a young man with enough speeding violations that he was close to having his licence yanked. So how did father answer when asked what he would have done differently as a parent?

"I would not have bought him the car that I did ... When he asked me for the car I argued with him incessantly and I finally gave in and wish I hadn't."

The car he bought for his son wasn't just any run-of-the-mill sedan, but a 340-horsepower Audi S4. Given to a young man with relatively little driving experience and, apparently, enough speeding tickets to plaster his bedroom wall.

According to the article, father told his son "don't drink and drive and don't speed. I know that I have said this to Tyler over 100 times. Obviously that doesn't work."

Apparently, focusing on the speeding part didn't, either. "As I said, I told Tyler not to speed ... Just because his friends talked about speeding so much. I was just shocked at the amount that the boys discuss cars and how fast they are and how much they like racing."

But apparently not shocked enough to withhold payment on a 340-horsepower Audi S4, it seems.

And what do people need to do? "People need to take a stand against this with the government."

Well, yes, of course, when it's obvious that they can't take a stand right in their own garage.

Ya think?

There's a new study out by J.D. Power and Associates that looks at customer satisfaction with vehicles three years and older. The study examines how people feel about their cars in consideration of the number of problems they have with them.

From a press release by the company:

Those models with the largest increase in problem levels show the most pronounced declines in satisfaction and the likelihood of owners to recommend their vehicle models.

Yes, you read that right. We needed to fund a survey to find that the more problems you have with your vehicle, the less likely you are to be happy with it.

In my neck of the woods, we call that "no shit, Sherlock."

McLaughlin Day in Oshawa

It was McLaughlin Day in Oshawa today -- the city names the civic holiday for GM of Canada founder Sam McLaughlin, who set up his company in the city (and ironically, while many businesses were closed for the day, the GM factories toiled).

The McLaughlin-Buick Club of Canada hosts an annual meet that moves to various locations each year, but for the company's 100th anniversary, it came home to Parkwood, McLaughlin's home and now a museum. Some 95 cars paraded through Oshawa's streets and ended up at the estate for a show. I'll be writing a couple of stories on it, but for now, let me tell you, there were some magnificent cars there, including a 1937 model that was driven to the show from Indiana. This 1932 in the photo came in from Alberta, and there was one from Maine. Although they weren't sold in the US, they sometimes show up at auctions and sales there, and American collectors seem to love them for their rarity. We just love them up here 'cause they look so nice.

European drivers: Another view

Following my vacation in Munich, Germany, I wrote this article on my impression of drivers in that city, whom I found much better at the task than those in my neck of Canada.

The other day I was speaking with a man who lives in Munich and I discussed my thoughts. As with any situation, I only saw one side, and he gave me insights into the other. While he does agree that European drivers are more attentive than North American ones overall, he said that the city's public transportation network, while far superior to ours, could use some money spent on it, and that he much prefers the way that we can turn right on red lights here, rather than having to wait for a signal.

But one major difference he noted between Germans and Canadians is that, in his words, German drivers are "more aware of other drivers". This came about when we were turning left onto a multi-lane street, and a driver turning right from the opposite direction turned right across two lanes and into ours, cutting us off. His observation was that Canadian drivers are insulated from the rest of traffic; they only look ahead, they only think about themselves, and they don't think about the consequences of their actions. "Here, someone will sit in my blind spot for several kilometres," he said. "Drivers in Germany don't do that, because they know it isn't safe."

Paying heed to what he said, I observed traffic around me and discovered that he is indeed right. Drivers are looking straight ahead, instead of checking their mirrors and glancing out of their side windows. They turn corners without checking for pedestrians. They open doors without looking for bicycles. They blow their horns and flip the finger when another driver offends them, and then by the next block, they're performing the same mindless move and upsetting another driver. As Red Green used to say, we're all in this together. Keep your stick on the ice.

Foreign auto companies: where the money goes

In the news today: the Toyota USA Foundation has given over $317,000 to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania to support environmental literacy in U.S. schools.

Thus begins my rant for the day: the number of people who object to import automakers in North America because "they send all that money back to Japan."

I just got back from a tour of Subaru's plant in Lafayette, Indiana, which builds the Legacy, Outback, Tribeca and the Toyota Camry. The president of the company's American branch is very obviously from Japan. But when I went through the plant, I didn't see too many people who fit that bill. They all looked like local, corn-fed Indiana men and women to me. The parking lot was filled with vehicles they'd apparently bought with their Subaru wages (and they were overwhelmingly Chevrolet products, mostly trucks). At quitting time, they all got into those vehicles and seemed to be going home, presumably to houses bought or rented with money that I'm guessing is not going to Japan, but into their pockets.

Last week I drove out Ontario's Highway 401, past a giant new plant that Toyota is building in Woodstock. I'm not exactly sure, but I'm guessing that the hundreds of construction workers were not flown in from Japan. I'm also pretty sure that the mountains of building supplies didn't come from overseas, either. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the money to build this massive factory either came from Toyota's Canadian branch -- or hell, maybe some of it even came from Japan.

You can hate the import automakers if you like. For that matter, I think it's healthy to promote local industry -- heaven knows, Canada can use as many good-paying manufacturing jobs as it can get. But be honest about it. This crap about the money going "back to Japan" is just that -- crap. The automakers plow it back into Canadian wages, Canadian factories, and Canadian taxes.

And for that matter, what happens when you go down to your local GM or Chrysler or Ford store in Canada and buy a "domestic" car? Going by the "Japanese" argument, aren't those companies just sending your money back to Michigan -- back to a foreign country?

Where the money goes ...

In the news today: the Toyota USA Foundation has given over $317,000 to promote environmental literacy in U.S. schools. It's part of the foundation's $100 million charity to support education programs in the United States.

Thus begins my rant for the day: people who object to import automakers because "they send all that money back to Japan."

I just got back from a tour of Subaru's plant in Lafayette, Indiana, where it builds the Legacy, Outback, Tribeca and the Toyota Camry. The company president was obviously from Japan, but the hundreds of workers I saw weren't. They all looked like local, corn-fed Indiana men and women. At quitting time, they all went out to their vehicles -- overwhelmingly Chevrolet trucks, by the way. I'm guessing they bought them locally, with their Subaru wages. And they were probably going home, to houses paid for with money they'd received by working at the factory. Maybe they'd stop on the way to buy some things, with cash from their pay, too.

Last week, I drove down Ontario's Highway 401, past the huge new Toyota plant that's being built in Woodstock. I'm guessing most of the construction workers I saw were not imported from Japan. I'm also guessing the truckloads of construction material didn't come from overseas. And I seriously doubt that the workforce that finally ends up on the assembly lines will come exclusively from the land of the rising sun, either. That Toyota plant will pay Canadian wages, support local Canadian businesses and pay Canadian taxes. And I'm also guessing that the almost inconceivable mountain of money it took to build this enormous plant came from Toyota's sales in Canada. Hell, maybe some of that money came out of Japan.

The fact is, whenever I look at auto plants, they're shovelling money back into the economy. They're hiring local workers, getting stuff from local suppliers, and writing contracts with local companies to supply everything from construction equipment to the toilet paper in the bathrooms and the food in the cafeteria. And it doesn't matter what nameplate is over the door.

Hate the import automakers if you want. In fact, I think it's healthy to support home-grown Canadian industry.

Just don't hide behind this "they send all their money back to Japan" crap.

And for that matter, when you give your hard-earned Canadian money to GM and Ford and Chrysler, don't forget to repeat your favorite line. Because according to that logic, they're just shipping it straight to their head offices in Michigan -- sending your money back to a foreign country.