The point is, that the first 10 years of Saturn broke those rules, and their cars, customers, employees and dealers were better off for it. That did not contribute to GM’s bankruptcy, as you suggested.

Depends on the vehicle.

The people who do have the cash to buy a car for $50k still take the 0% loan, because they understand the cost of money and can take that $50k and invest it while the loan runs.

All the S series cars (SL, SC & SW) were essentially the same, and the S series cars were all that Saturn sold from 1991 to 1999, after which GM forced rebranded corporate crap like the L series (2000) and the Relay (2005) on them. At least the Vue and Sky were decent efforts.

It wasn’t because of those early saturns, oil burning or no. Our customers absolutely loved the cars and loved the sales and service experience at our dealership and others’ - far more than the local Toyota and Honda dealers.

No doubt some of them were fine. I'm sure GM didn't think they were designing them to burn oil.

Ex -Saturn dealer master tech here. Oil consumption was a problem to some extent from brand new with all the S series cars from at least 1993-1997. Virtually every one we sold burned a quart per thousand miles from delivery onward, and that was considered “commercially acceptable” according to corporate. A quart per…

$5500 for a 30 year old beater and an 18 second 0-60 time?

Nope!

17,000,000+ people bought a new vehicle this year that wasn't a tesla. SoCal isn’t representative of the greater U.S. market, when we’re referring to pure electric cars. Tesla hasn’t made a dime on their cars, ever, and unlike Amazon, Tesla has a bunch of competitors who can roll out competing vehicles when sales…

My bad, I thought it was one of the new 8 speed/9speed/godknowshowmanyspeeds automatics

Depends on where you’re at. When I lived in Orange County (California) there were usually at least 6 starter Lamborghinis in a row at the local weekend car meet at the strip mall. Different owners, different colors, but still common enough so that nobody was fawning over them.

How long will that fancy, complex, expensive transmission last behind that kind of tune?

Starring this to ungrey you, because you're spot on

Meh. Do you seriously believe that the rich guys who buy Teslas don’t have a second car, and probably more?

Also, was it Lee Iacocca who said “they can force us to build those little shitboxes, but they can’t force people to buy them.” ?

The original clean-sheet compliance vehicle: the GM EV-1.

Not unless the manufacturer has a loaner program, and even then it generally doesn’t cover used cars in my experience. If the dealer needs to goodwill a loaner for an exceptional customer or situation it’s cheaper for them - and a lot less risky - to call Enterprise and put them in a $25/day car than put miles on a…

I think it’s more a money thing. Manufacturers with new car service loaner programs cover the cost of those loaners, within limits. Individual dealerships may offer a limited number of loaners themselves for predictable big ticket jobs like major services, but not for repair work (especially on cars like this one)…

Excellent! If it does rack up a lot of out-of-service time due to parts unavailability, be sure to ask for a warranty extension that matches the number of days the car was down waiting for parts.