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Automotive News & Views What Will It Take to Save GM? 
11674 messages, Last post on Oct 12, 2006 at 10:06 AM
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Discuss all topics related to General Motors.
| The question in the title sets this one up. Will good looks be the difference maker in turning GM around? What would you like to see coming off the drawing board from GM? What do you think they need to do to enhance the image of the GM brand? | |
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The current GM cars are the best looking cars that GM has ever made. Will it help? Yes, to a degree—but it's far from the solution. The problems affecting GM are much more involved, as has been elaborated here many times and in many areas at Edmunds. Styling is perhaps 10% (if that) of the solution. Bob
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Replying to: rsholland (Dec 05, 2005 4:12 am) Well... it's different Is that the new PT Cruiser? Looks like they put big wheels on a PT Cruiser. Not that my wife and kids are a good sample of the market, nor is the HHR completely representative of GM's styling direction, but the feeling in the car was along the lines of "I don't get it. What are they trying to do? I don't think I'd buy THAT". |
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| Well the most stand out styling for GM recently has been the Solstice. At least that's getting people's attention about GM and especially getting some people into Pontiac showrooms. I think GM should start developing more distinct cars, on the outside AND inside. Granted their cars right now, such as the update impala are great but they're bland and if you want a bland car most people will go with the Japanese for that. If GM can steal some potential or current Japanese car owners and bring them to GM, then you know GM is doing something right. Although...who knows when that'll be. | |
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Check out Sunday's NY Times-interesting article on pushrod engines. Apparently, GM sees a big future for this engine technology-especially as pushrod engines are easier to fit with variable displacement sytems 9turn-off of unneeded cylinders). I also think that pushrod engines may actuallly be the next technology for ultra-low emissions vehicles, as the concept of a relatively low-revving , variable displacement makes controlling No2 emissions easier (rather than using multiple cat converters and preheating converters. I also wonder is a variable displacement pushrod engine is more reliable than variable valve timing with OHCs? Of course, the pushrod engines save manufacturing costs-fewer parts count. Something to think about. |
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| ...have fewer moving parts? Any machine with fewer moving parts is usually more reliable. Is Toyota developing a pushrod engine for NASCAR? | |
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Replying to: pf_flyer (Dec 05, 2005 4:02 am)
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Replying to: pf_flyer (Dec 05, 2005 4:30 am) I have a friend that just bought an HHR, and I have driven it several times. I know what they paid for theirs, and it is a very nice vehicle, with a lot of featues for the money - and very quiet. It makes a nice alternative to the PT cruiser, but it should have hit the market closer to the time that the PT cruiser hit.
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I think styling, inside and out, is a big reason for GM's loss of market share. Even if their cars were reliable in the 90s, they looked so much behind. Chevies were less elegant and more bland than anything else. Pontiacs... well I don't know how they sold in such high numbers. Lots of Batman fans out there I guess. I could go on. Now they're getting a lot better. But they don't have enough styling home runs that I'm going to say I'm convinced. They're still behind, sometimes. Look at the Cobalt; looks good, but you know those big eye-like headlights? Well, the competition has started to move away from them. (Honda steered everybody towards that kind of headlight, and after everyone else has followed, they're changing the game to narrow headlights.) The G6 is transitionary... a clean-up of the old Pontiac look, but nothing new yet. Worse, the facelifted Vue is scary and the Torrent looks like a pig. And if GM decides to join the domestic retro craze, they'll have cars that look good, but don't look modern. They'll get old people buying their cars again... Their sports cars and their European-designed cars look great. Modern, too. Everything else is "okay" to "good," but not quite "the Messiah." |
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I think the biggest advantage to a pushrod engine is that you only have one camshaft for the whole engine. The only OHC engine that would only hae a single camshaft would be an SOHC inline engine. Any V-block is going to need two camshafts if it's SOHC, and four camshafts if it's DOHC (2 for each bank of cylinders) Also, on a pushrod the camshaft is closer to the cranshaft, so you can get by with a shorter timing chain. As for moving parts, well, an OHC engine would actually eliminate some moving parts. First off, the pushrods would be eliminated. And since the camshaft is in the head, and opening and closing the valves directly, wouldn't that also eliminate the rocker shafts and rocker arms? IIRC, the OHC engine was actually developed before the pushrod. I'm wondering if one reason OHC engines didn't catch on sooner was because the technology just wasn't there yet to make a timing belt that would last. And the advantages of a chain are reduced as you go to a longer chain, as a chain can stretch out. They've figured out how to work with belts and long chains nowadays, but I'm sure back in the old days it was quite a stumbling block. |
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