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Sedans Low End Sedans (under $16k)
3820 messages, Last post on Nov 24, 2008 at 9:45 AM
You are in the Sedans Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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The Japanese just don't make the money in the "lower" category anymore, or at least not as much as they would like to make. If the Toyota Echo doesn't do it this time Toyota will most likely give it up too and stick with the larger more profitable Corolla as their "entry-level" car. Nissan and Honda have left this segment and the Koreans are eating it up at moment. It's hard to build a car for 13K nowadays. M
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| also. Since they're enjoying success at this level and in the US the cars are selling I wouldn't expect a large MSRP jump. Can they turn a profit selling a car for $8,000-$12,000? With the won's value compared to their worker's wages and the fact that Kia is part of Hyundai I would say they can. To build factories in the U.S. with this level of sales I would think is a bit of a leap. I don't know though, Hyundai is not afraid to borrow money. At all. | |
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| The Japanese can't build good cars for cheap anymore. That's why they charge so much for cheap cars. Most of their profits went into real estate, not their factories. With GM buying Daewoo, you will only watch the Japanese cars disappear into the sunset, or be partially bought out by GM (the small part worth buying). For now GM has it's focus on Daewoo because of it's state of the art factories, all new. Daewoo currently owns the most productive plants in the world. They are setting next to the largest steel producer, have all the electronic expertise, top notch engineers and inexpensive highly skilled labor. | |
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Well they aren't able to do it as cost-effectively as they could before. The new Honda Civic is a good example, it's a nice car, but for the first time in the last 3-4 redesigns it now screams cheap. Yes the Koreans will gladly take this segment over and then over time they too will move upmarket as a whole. The XG300 is only the first baby step. M |
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| They will be in a good position to give the popular Japanese midsizes a run for the money. Not only does the new Leganza surpass both Accord and Camry but will be a good alternative to the Maxima and the Avalon. Look at the SUV sector, the new Hyunda already outperforms everybody on the crash test. Everybody else may want to start thinking about a fresh design. | |
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| How does the new Leganza surpass the Accord and Camry? And who said it? | |
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From what I understand in reading the Daewoo bankruptcy discussion here on Edmunds, it is not definite that GM will keep Daewoo open here in the United States. From what I understand, they want access to Asian markets and this is why they are contemplating the purchase. Given that the Prizm is going bye bye as is the Metro, perhaps GM will buy Daewoo and sell the current Daewoo lineup as Chevrolet badged vehicles. |
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| It is my understanding that a dealer sees about $300 profit (best case) when selling an Echo. Does anyone know how much profit Toyota sees from the sale of this model? | |
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I highly doubt the Koreans will push the Japanese off "into the sunset". And I don't believe GM has much interest in marketing Daewoo here in the U.S. GM is trying to expand its global market and streamline its domestic product. Geo was an expensive and poor attempt for GM to "battle the imports". Their next attempt was much better, Saturn, but it too appears to be falling rapidly downhill and probably will see the axe, just like Oldsmobile. The Koreans, particularly Hyundai, have made huge strides over the years to improve their reliability and quality. For the most part, they have succeeded. However, their vehicles still lack the sophistication and refinement of the Japanese vehicles. In a very recent Motor Trend comparison of the Hyundai XG300 against the Dodge Stratus and Honda Accord, it was mentioned that the XG300's road manners could use some tidying up. That goes for just about all of the Korean cars sold here today. It takes a lot of experience to refine a vehicle's driving dynamics. And that's where the expensive R&D starts driving up vehicle costs. Eventually, the Korean vehicles will near the Japanese in overall refinement, sophistication, and driveability, but they could very well lose their price advantage in the process. Right now, I think the Japanese make the best "low-end" cars on the market. They may not be the cheapest, but they are the best in terms of overall quality, reliability, and refinement. Cars such as the Corolla, Civic, Protege, and Sentra display such qualities much better than the Neon, Cavalier, Sunfire, Lanos, Elantra, and Sephia. The exception would be the Focus, which ranks with the Japanese cars. The Golf is impressive but is pushing the financial limits of "low-end" and still has some reliability issues to work out (they're good, but still not up to par with the Japanese). |
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| Excuse me, but the Focus does not rank up there with the Japanese in my opinion. It had too many recalls for your statement to be true. | |
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