Chevrolet Malibu sales jump 51.5%; dealers pleased

Depends on front or rear.

Camry Sedan

1996: 43.5/35.0 2005: 41.6/37.8

Not all that different from a 2005 Ford Fusion, which has 0.7" more front legroom, and 0.8" less rear legroom.

2005 Ford Fusion. 42.3/37.0

the Malibu is an example of what GM can do, its not perfect but what is ?

One would think that the replaceable bulb non-sealed headlight housing would mean changing a burnt-out bulb easy as pie. Not in this crazy world. I just replaced my son's bulb in his Nissan and it involved removing the headlight housing secured by 3 nuts that required undoing the fender liner. What a drag.

OTOH, people don't buy or not buy cars based on headlights. Or do they? :-)

Some 50% of the people buy based on the cup holder ;>)

Well, there's a couple things that would be deal killers for me...

1) high beam DRLs (unfortunately, this excludes a LOT of GM cars) 2) headlights as simply awful as, say, those originally fitted to a US-market Corrado

Extra consideration would be given to vehicles with

1) "harmonized" ECE/DOT approved headlights 2) standard-sized sealed beams, which are easily replaced with E-codes

nate

Forgot to mention, an acceptable alternative would be a vehicle that might not be factory equipped with particularly good headlights but is sold in identical form in European markets, so decent headlights could be somewhat readily obtained (e.g. aforementioned VW Corrado...) was reminded of this as I do have a set of Corrado E-codes and a friend just offered to buy them

nate

That's the way many guys pick their women--- holder size...

Yeah, those are horrible, though mostly for other drivers!

In any case, I'd disconnect DRLs on any car I bought, there are just way too many issues with them.

The other 50% take the advice of Consumer Reports, like they do when they buy a TV or leaf blower ;)

posters top by posted statistics up made about care don't 50% other the and

That's nutty as hell but cup holders probably has swayed a few folks to buy one car over another. I'm not picky at all and any car is just fine with me - just as long as they have spring loaded change compartments under the dash on the driver's side...

OK, so some folks will not buy a car based on headlights. I'm feeling kind of dumb now cause the only thing I understand is that you don't like daytime running lights. This is ok - just as long as you know what you know what you're talking about.

I recall when cup holders first started to appear and the Camry lacked them and the Accord had them, or vice-versa. It apparently _was_ the deciding factor between two vehicles, very similar in other regards.

One has to wonder how many accidents have been caused because of the presence of cup holders. I don't recall having a bottle of water or coffee in the car all that often 20 years ago.

I used to commute at night on a completely unlit 2-lane road; the benefit of good headlights was immediately apparent. Fortunately my daily back then was a Porsche 944 so replacing the old non-halogen sealed beams with Cibie H4s was easy.

My objection to the high beam DRLs is based on having to share the road with vehicles so equipped. It's painful to have one coming at you when it's overcast or near sundown, unless the driver has manually turned his low beam headlights on. Old saturns are especially awful.

nate

I must like to live dangerously; I've logged lots of miles in various German cars with a cup of coffee jammed between my legs.

nate

That says a LOT about the folks that buy Camrys and Accords LOL

I don't recall this happening but, if it says anything, it says that there are a lot of car buyers who will switch between Honda and Toyota but don't trust anything from the American companies. We call them rational consumers.

The problem is that most of those buyers were burned by the big 3 at some time in the past and simply don't trust them anymore. When you have a big 3 vehicle that fails catastrophically after five years, then have a Honda or Toyota that runs without any problems for ten years, it tends to create these trust issues.