Here’s a storyline I have heard before. The Big Three are narrowing the gap on quality. J.D. Power and Associates have just released their annual Initial Quality Study, which measures problem per 100 cars in the first 90 days of ownership. Detroit’s carmakers reduced problems by 10%. Their foreign foes reduced problems by just 8%. When measuring problems per 100 cars sold, no one will notice the difference. And here’s the frustrating part. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler have been improving quality for years. But they rarely beat Honda or Toyota in a brand-wide measure. And they don’t beat them in model-by-model comparisons often enough. Every year, they inch closer. But that doesn’t send the loyal Toyota Camry or Honda Accord owner to a Chevrolet dealer. The top 10 went like this. Lexus was number one with just 84 problems per 100 vehicles and Porsche was No. 2 with 90 problems per 100. Cadillac was third with 91 problems. From there it went: Hyundai: 95 Honda: 99 Mercedes-Benz: 101 Toyota: 101 Ford: 102 Chevrolet: 103 Suzuki: 103 Infiniti: 106 Mercury: 106 The industry average was 108 problems per 100 cars. Every brand not mentioned above did worse. That means all of the new Chrysler’s brands are below average. GM, for its part, did quite well. Cadillac was third among 37 brands. Chevrolet ranked ninth, but was close enough to Ford and Toyota that difference is just about meaningless. Mini finished last. The problem for Detroit is that those overall numbers don’t mean so much. If car buyers compare models, they would find that 10 of Toyota’s cars rank in the top their in their segment, more than any carmaker. Ford had three models getting awards in their vehicle segments while GM had two and Chrysler had one, the slow-selling PT Cruiser. That’s the difference in quality that consumers will see. They will shop for a mid-sized luxury car, for example, and see that the Lexus IS was best-in-class for quality. The Infiniti G-series and Cadillac CTS tied for second, but the Lexus won. To win buyers, that Cadillac needs to leap frog the Lexus. And the American carmakers need to start recording wins, not narrow defeats.

Chevy Cruze - Click above for high-res image gallery To compete with Ford’s new global compact car, the Fiesta , other compact vehicles and for the higher-mpg car market in America in gereral, GM will be bringing out the Chevrolet Cruze next year . Over on the GM Fastlane blog, CEO Fritz Henderson has addressed GM’s small-car strategy. For a company long associated with SUVs and muscle cars, the new GM will have its work cut out for it to convince people that they no longer want/need all those gas-guzzlers tGM promoted in years past and should consider a compact GM car instead. Henderson wrote: If you haven’t heard, next year we’ll roll out an all-new compact that will surprise most customers with its terrific fuel efficiency (approaching 40 mpg highway), appealing interior design and spacious five-passenger cabin. This new car, our Chevrolet Cruze, will feature a small but very powerful 1.4 liter direct-injection turbo-charged gasoline engine in an attractive and affordable package. Now, we recognize that small-car buyers have long held Asian imports to be best-in-class in this segment, and we know that simply fielding a competitive car won’t cut it. That’s why we’re out to beat the competition . Is that going to be enough? Gallery: Paris 2008: Chevrolet Cruze [Source: GM Fastlane ] Filed under: MPG , Chevrolet , GM , USA GM CEO; the Chevy Cruze “will surprise most customers” originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Mine are: subcompact: honda fit compact: mazda 3 midsize car: chevy malibu full-size car: pontiac G8 pony car: chevy camaro compact suv: chevy equinox small crossover: ford taurus X midsize suv: kia borrego midsize crossover:subaru forrester full-size suv: chevy tahoe full-size crossover: buick enclave midsize truck: chevy colorado full-size truck: chevy silverado sports car: chevy corvette luxury small car: BMW 3 series luxury midsize car: cadillac CTS luxury full-size car: BMW 7 series luxury sport coupe: audi S5 luxury crossover: cadillac SRX Luxury full-size SUV: cadillac escalade luxury full-size truck: GMC sierra denali luxury sports sedan: cadillac CTS-V supercar: chevy corvette ZR-1 Now tell me your favorite

DETROIT - Some of the stories tug at the heart. One Birmingham, Alabama, car dealer whose family has owned the business since 1908 lost his Chrysler-Jeep dealership Thursday, when Chrysler LLC announced 789 dealers will close down “on or about June 9.” He told The New York Times he was anxiously awaiting word on Friday about the fate of his Buick dealership — given the age of that brand, likely the one his great-grandfather started with 101 years ago. General Motors said Friday that roughly 1100 “underperforming” dealers out of its surviving 5969 would get letters informing them they will stop getting shipments of cars and trucks by the end of 2010. It’s up to the dealers to name themselves, GM said. The automaker will not release a list. So as of today, we can feel sorry for about 1900 small business-people across the nation, plus their salespeople, mechanics and other personnel who will lose their livelihoods in the next 18 months or so. Many of those “small businesspeople” — perhaps most — are (or were) millionaires. Many of them own other dealerships; say the 1400 operated under the Toyota banner, or another 280 Lexus dealerships in the U.S. At least a few must be like the Studebaker dealership operating in my childhood neighborhood, which switched to Fiat shortly after Studebaker went away in 1966. That Fiat dealership is long gone, so it can’t take advantage of that brand’s impending return to the U.S. You’ll notice that our friend, the Birmingham Chrysler-Jeep dealer is not Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep. Much of the 789 that Chrysler cut the other day are smaller dealerships that failed to keep up with the “Genesis Program,” which sought to triple all Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealers. This gives Chrysler, now in Chapter 11, the opportunity to cut duplicate, badge-engineered cars like the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger. If the Birmingham dealer hasn’t combined his Buick store with GMC, he’s more likely to be among GM’s 1100 eliminated. Meanwhile, Chrysler placed perhaps the most entertainingly transparent “positive spin” on its cuts announced Thursday . “Chrysler files papers to retain majority of dealer network,” its release read. This glass-half-full take is that 2392 of its 3181 dealers get to stay in business…assuming, of course, the automaker emerges from the other side of the 30- to 60-day bankruptcy. After that, Chrysler will be much smaller and leaner, with Fiats and Alfa Romeos rebadged as small Dodges and maybe Chryslers. Probably not Jeeps: Fiat could do to Chrysler what Chrysler did to AMC. About 1986, Chrysler Corporation bought American Motors and eventually stripped down that automaker (remember the AMC-Renault Eagle Medallion?) to Jeep. Across town, GM seems to be racing the economy in closing down its dealerships. It had about 6280 dealers by the end of 2008, already down some 400 from the previous year. Now, it has 5969, and its viability plan to the U.S. Treasury plans on 3600 dealerships by the end of 2010. GM dealers about to get notices make up 1100 of that nearly 2400. Another 470 Saturn, Hummer and Saab dealers soon won’t be part of the GM family, one way or another. The New York Times reported in April that Saturn lost 45 of its 420 stores after GM announced it would end support of the brand. By the time CEO and President Fritz Henderson announced Pontiac will go away, there were only 35 standalone Pontiac dealerships in the U.S. (It has traditionally been a big brand in Canada, sometimes selling at Chevrolet levels, but Canadian franchise laws make it easier for GM to close those contracts than in each of our 50 states.) That leaves about 800 dealers that GM figures will close due to attrition by the end of ‘10, unless it needs to make another cut after the initial 1100. There’s one other aspect to the problem of American-brand auto dealers. Ford Motor Company today has 3723 Ford and Lincoln-Mercury dealerships in the U.S., more than GM plans to have by the end of next year. Ford began cutting dealers in 2005, when it had 4393 in the U.S.A Ford spokeswoman notes that the company has worked with dealers to rationalize coverage in places like Buffalo, New York, which had 17 dealers in the metro area in ‘05 and has 11 now. Each dealer sells more cars and trucks, on average, and is more profitable, both because of the higher volume and because there’s less inter-brand competition. Ford will need to cut more dealers to keep up with GM, assuming that GM’s market share in the U.S. remains higher than Ford’s (and Toyota’s). Neither GM nor Ford will get down to the 1680 Toyota and Lexus dealers in the U.S., because both companies still have loyal customers in rural areas where Toyota, so far, has much fewer dealerships. (That explains as much as anything why the Tundra has been a sales failure, so far.) GM and Chrysler’s actions this past week will put longtime family dealerships out of business, while contributing to the nation’s soaring unemployment rate. In the long run, it should make GM, Chrysler and their dealerships more profitable. Fewer dealerships will make it easier to cut production to rational levels. Which brings up one drawback: it’ll be harder to get a killer deal on your 2011 GM or Chrysler vehicle.

Location 1: Carolina Motorsports Park, Camden, South Carolina Distance Traveled: 2310 miles “I told my co-driver I was going to get all I could.  I wasn’t planning on getting that much.”                                                      - Dan Corcoran on “The Slide” at CMP Camden, South Carolina, is famous for nothing but a gem of a race track known as Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP). Located an hour away from the racing mecca that is Charlotte, North Carolina, CMP is the only road course in the Carolinas and has quietly become the de facto circuit testing facility for a number of top spec teams. From Joe Gibbs to JPM, Jimmy Johnson to Junior, every major NASCAR team has tested in some form or another at CMP. Other fans of this tidy, Alan Wilson-designed circuit include everyone from ALMS teams to AMA superbike squads. Even though the track is only 10 years old, recent improvements to the configuration have made it smoother and tighter. Unfortunately, showers last night make it slippery this morning. “I might have used full throttle only for a bit on the front straight,” says Ian Stewart of the front running Porsche team. “It was just too slippery.” Dan Corcoran can attest to that; conservative estimates put the length of his epic first session slide at three football fields (that’s American football, not Canadian, eh ).  “On the reconnaissance lap I was trying the traction and thought it was pretty good,” he says afterward. “At the kink, I thought it was planted when I got back on throttle but then — nothing .” Well, except for a lurid 900-foot slide in trackside turf that sent spectators and fellow competitors hootin’ and hollerin’. Not to be outdone, fellow Canadian Bill Unwin executes his own sphincter-clencher almost immediately after Corcoran — in the exact same spot. “I just went in too hot. I’ve been here in the dry, but when I slowed down for the kink in the wet, it wasn’t enough,” says Unwin. “I normally go 110 mph, but I slowed down to 100 mph. Guess I was about 5 mph too fast when I lifted,” he concludes with a sheepish grin. As the rest of the run groups tackle the 2.23-mile course, the skies clear. The combination of the hot laps and sunshine dry out the track, a development that is met with furrowed brows instead of relieved smiles. This is the nightmare the front runners have been hoping to avoid; as track dries out, traction improves, which means off track excursions are less frequent and dramatic. But better traction also means faster lap times, and the possibility of interlopers jumping between the points hungry front runners. That is exactly what happens. The Team Cannonball Nissan GT-R and Team Cannonball Fodder Porsche GT2 have been trading a five point lead up until now. In the rapidly drying first session of hot laps, the Clark ‘n’ Clark Corvette Z06 manages to sneak in between the two frenemies . The Porsche team improves their lot in the second round, coming in second to the GT-R, but the damage is already done . Can they make up ground at our next stop? Location 2: BMW Performance Center, Greer, South Carolina Distance traveled: 2454 miles We’ve seen a lot so crazy stuff so far, but after a 120 mile hike up to Greer, South Carolina, it is hard to tell which is more impossible to believe — the course BMW has laid out for us or that teams actually stay long enough to run it. This is a magical event — which means if you blink, you’ll miss it. We’d love to explore BMW’s groovy visitor center, fondle items in the gift shop and take some tire-smoking laps with the M Performance Driving School pros, but there just isn’t time. Teams are rolling out just as fast as they roll in; anxious to drive this tight and twisty track, but even more eager to begin knocking down some of the monster mileage between Greer and our next track in Wampum, Pennsylvania. Though this brief event calls for one session of two hot laps, it is not to be overlooked or underestimated. It is the Napoleon of One Lap; short, difficult, and extremely dangerous. The upper portion is straightforward connect-the-dots racing, but to get to the back section, drivers must dive into BMW’s homage to the corkscrew — an eighth scale version of Laguna Seca’s infamous, stomach dropping, left-right free fall. If the prospect of launching Dukes-of-Hazard style doesn’t seem so scary, consider this: there is essentially no run-off here, just shiny Armco abutting the track, and the entry is blind. The pavement simply moves a bit up, then quickly left and down. Do it wrong and things could get really ugly, really fast. Which is why Yates Jr. and the Performance Driving School folks have tweaked the 1.4-mile course in the name of safety. A string of cones — each worth a score trashing 10-seconds — alters the line into the corkscrew, lowering entry speeds and chances of an impromptu airshow. Another set of cones creates a nasty chicane along the front straight, which reduces speeds into the start/finish area. Naturally, all of these conical joy-killers are front of mind, especially for the teams in overall contention. “If we hit a cone here or do something stupid, they’re right back in it,” says Team Cannonball’s Will Taylor of his chief rival, the GT2 of Lier and Stewart. Taylor’s words turn out to be prophetic, though backwards. After the first session nightmare at CMP, Stewart needs to put the hurt on Taylor’s GT-R — and he does, coming in at a blistering 2:39.048 for first place. But wait, he clipped two cones in the chicane for a crushing 20-second penalty. That drops the GT2 from 1st to 19th position for the event, and gives a 90 point advantage to the GT-R on top of the 15 points they picked up in morning. Lier and Stewart will need more than a miracle at one of the last two venues. Will they get it? Whether they coned it or ran clean, teams quickly say goodbye to the BMW course and face the most grueling part of day 6. From Greer, SC, One Lappers now must cross three states and 550 miles through rain, fog and the dead of night. Wampum, Pennsylvania’s BeaveRun beckons at 8 a.m. tomorrow. See you there or at www.MotorTrend.com/onelap. -Photos by Brian Vance, click on any image to view the photo gallery

General Motors is expected to announce Monday that it plans to kill its Pontiac brand, rather than maintain it as a niche brand with one or two models into the future as had been previously announced by company officials. The company will also announce further plant closing and job cuts as it tries to meet a May 31 deadline to show the Obama Administration that it has a solid plan for financial viability. If it succeeds, the White House will grant GM additional government loans to operate. If GM faces bankruptcy, the government will provide financing for the automaker to re-emerge from Chapter 11 smaller and leaner. The move to shutter Pontiac comes as GM is being forced to make a lot of hard decisions to restructure itself. The automaker has until May 31 to demonstrate to the White House that it has a viable comeback plan that will justify further taxpayer loans. Most Pontiac showrooms have been combined with GM’s GMC and Buick brands. But there are about 40 stand-alone Pontiac stores. The company killed the Oldsmobile brand in 2000. It currently is in process of closing off its Saab brand, waiting to see if investors want to buy it and keep it going. It is also trying to sell its Hummer and Saturn brands. In Europe, it is in negotiations to possibly sell its Opel and Vauxhall brands. Pontiac has been almost a lost brand at GM. It once was positioned as the company’s performance brand. “We Build Excitement” was a long-standing ad slogan. It’s twin-kidney grille design was taken from BMW’s. The high-water mark for Pontiac’s brand clarity, most agree, was the 1964 Pontiac GTO, which many point to as the start of the muscle car era. In the 1970s and 80s Pontiac offered the Firebird as a legitimate street rod. But GM got lazy, and began dumping “badge engineered” cars into the showrooms. That meant, for example, Pontiac Grand Ams, Grand Prixes, and Sunfires were nothing more than Pontiac-badged versions of the cars that could also be bought at Chevy, Buick and Olds dealerships.

“Flat is the new up.” Hyundai CEO John Krafcik was only half joking as we sat down to dinner on the eve of the first day of the New York Show. Hyundai’s year on year sales figures are lineball with 2008. In the brutal new car market that is recession-ravaged 2009, that’s something to brag about. There’s going to be a lot of deft rationalization from automakers over the next couple of days as they attempt to put the best spin on what is shaping up to be one of the worst sales years in a long, long time. The desperate plight of GM and Chrysler is now mainstream news in America; less clearly acknowledged is the fact that both are now spiraling rapidly towards bankruptcy mainly because they were the two weakest automakers on the planet when the meltdown on Wall Street plunged the world into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. “This one’s gonna leave scars,” says Ford sales and marketing chief Jim Farley (pictured at left) of the recession. And not just among consumers — automakers, too. GM and Chrysler are in the most serious trouble, but they’re not alone. Farley’s company has so far escaped much of the censure heaped on its Detroit rivals by pundits and politicians because it has not taken any taxpayer money. But Ford’s own submission to the Senate Banking Committee last December pointed out that if the U.S. auto market slumped to 10.5 million units in 2009, it would need $13 billion in federal loans. With sales at 11 million units, Ford said it would need up to $9 billion. U.S sales are currently running under 10 million vehicles, well below Ford’s worse case estimates, and unless demand for pickup trucks spikes dramatically in the fourth quarter as the federal stimulus money begins to kickstart a bunch of construction projects, it’s hard to see them improving much. So the math suggests it’s only a matter of time before Ford follows GM and Chrysler to Washington, cap in hand, asking for money to help stay in business. It will be fascinating to see what reception Ford gets. Will it be ordered to find a merger partner? Will Alan Mullaly be sacked? Will the Ford family be kicked off the board? The travails of 2009 are more than just the usual boom-and-bust we’ve seen in Motown over the past 40 years. Even the strongest automakers are hurting. Toyota’s contemplating its first full-year operating loss — nearly $4 billion — since 1937. Meanwhile, Daimler has just sold a 9.1 percent stake to Arab state Abu Dhabi to raise much-needed cash as it burns through an estimated $24 million a day. Audi marketing and sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer gave us a sense of the global dimension of the downturn at Audi’s chi-chi Park Ave showroom earlier yesterday. “The world market is down 25 percent compared with the first three months of 2008,” he said, “and we are estimating it will be down 15 to 20 percent through 2009.”   Schwarzenbauer said Audi expects to finish the year 10 percent down on 2008. Like Hyundai’s Krafcik, he sought to put the best spin on the situation: “I never thought I’d say a decline in sales was good, but that means we are gaining market share,” he smiled, noting that Audi had outsold both Mercedes-Benz and BMW in Europe for the first time in the opening months of 2009. On Schwarzenbauer’s numbers — and there are many industry insiders who would argue they are optimistic — there will be about 50 to 55 million cars and trucks sold worldwide in 2009. The global auto industry has the capacity to build at least 75 million. And that’s the core of the problem. Something’s gotta give. And it won’t just be GM and Chrysler.

Like its mechanical twin, the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox, the new GMC Terrain is getting an engine lineup that consists entirely of direct injected engines. The base 2.4-liter EcoTec four cylinder is expected to give the Terrain an EPA highway fuel economy of 30 mpg and get cleaner cold-start emissions. Cold starts are when engines produce the vast majority of emissions and GM is using a two pulse strategy with it’s direct injection system to help warm up the cylinder walls and catalytic converter faster. A richer primary pulse is injected allowing the spark plug to light it off faster. This is followed by a leaner secondary pulse. Once the engine warms up, only the second pulse is used. The optional engine in the Terrain will be the new 3.0-liter direct injected V6 that’s also going into the new Buick LaCrosse and Cadillac SRX. There are two videos and a press release after the jump. [Source: General Motors] Continue reading New York 2009: GMC Terrain gets all-DI engine lineup Filed under: MPG , GMC , New York Auto Show New York 2009: GMC Terrain gets all-DI engine lineup originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

DETROIT - Year-over-year percentage drops remain dismal, with General Motors again looking the worst with a 45-percent drop. Yet the automakers sounded a bit more upbeat, citing strong end-of-month sales as Ford Motor Company and GM announced Hyundai-like consumer protection programs and Chrysler and GM got reorganization plan deadline extensions from President Obama. Used car values are up and Chrysler LLC sold more than 100,000 cars and trucks for the first time since last September. “We saw some signs of life in March,” said Mark LaNeve, GM’s veep for North America vehicle sales, service and marketing. Jim Farley, Ford’s group veep for marketing and communications said March sales highlighted new products, like Fusion, F-150, Flex and Lincoln MKS. No Ford model gained sales in March ‘09 versus March ‘08, however. Chrysler had one, the Jeep Wrangler, up 16 percent to 10,000 even. Co-president Jim Press said it was selling to buyers who want a sport/utility that’s not too big. An especially snowy winter helped, he said. The four-door Unlimited accounted for about 60 percent of the mix. The Seasonably Adjusted Annual Rate reached 10-million even, including medium- and heavy-duty trucks, still on the rough low edge of estimates that GM and Chrysler used as assumptions for their loan guarantee plans. It’ll take a few months to see whether all this aw-shucks car salesman optimism is well placed, or not. The Detroit Three are hoping to see gains in the pickup truck market well into the second half of the year, when federal stimulus package-funded construction programs start to hire contractors/subcontractors. Chrysler expects the new Dodge Ram 2500/3500 to hit the market at just the right time. And in a few months, we should see smaller percentage sales losses because the auto industry took its hard hits beginning in the summer of ‘08 and intensifying in September. Year-to-year monthly sales probably will not fall that badly by late in the third quarter, but only in relation to the same months in the previous year. Single- or low two-digit percentage drops could help build consumer confidence, which the market still very desperately needs. To the numbers: GM: 156,380, off 45 percent Mix was cars, 42 percent; crossovers, 21 percent; trucks, 37 percent. Midsize cars and crossovers were stronger than other segments. Inventory was 108,000 fewer units than March ‘08. Chevy cars were off 38- to 56-percent, except Malibu, off 2.1 percent, to 14,772. Chevy Traverse, at 6,509, continues to beat Ford Flex (2,971), but Dodge Journey (5,987) is catching up. Hummer sold 831 units, off 75.9 percent. Saab fell 57.3 percent, to 1,265. Saturn fell 59.6 percent, to 7,333. Cadillac CTS was off 35.5 percent, to 3,899. GM estimates a 19.1 percent market share. Toyota-Scion-Lexus: 132,802, off 36.6 percent Toyota division accounted for 118,563, off 36.0 percent. Lexus fell 40.6 percent, to 14,239. Toyota and Lexus hybrid sales totaled 13,747. Corolla fell just 7.8 percent, to 22,257 Camry was off 33.8 percent, to 25,783. Scion xB fell 52.0 percent, tC fell 60.6 percent and xD fell 57.6 percent. Total for the three Scion models was 4,663. Toyota Tundra sales fell 59.7 percent, to 5,547 units. Ford-Lincoln-Mercury: 125,107, off 41 percent. Fusion slid past Focus (opposite February sales), 12,723 to 12,383. Clearing out ‘09 Mustangs is keeping ‘10 Mustangs off dealer lots. Mustang sales totaled just 3,711, off 63.5 percent. F-Series fell 39.9 percent to 32,728. That’s way better than last month’s 55.1-percent drop versus February ‘08. Mercury outsold Lincoln, 8,307 to 7,310 Ford Motor Company market share was an estimated 13 percent. Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep: 101,001, off 39 percent Chrysler Sebring sales fell 78 percent, to 2,245, better than last month’s 87 percent. Chrysler 300 sold 4,729, off 41 percent. Town & Country was off 34 percent to 8,099. Dodge Caravan was off 19 percent, to 11,358. This month’s special offer is a free DVD player for minivans, celebrating 25 years. Jeep Compass, off 71 percent to 1,405, Patriot off 72 percent to 2,128. Dodge Charger was off 31 percent, to 6,456; 2,359 Challengers sold. Ram was off just 27 percent to 19,328, thanks in part to free Hemi promotion. Jeep Wrangler was up 16 percent to a suspiciously round 10,000 units. Honda-Acura: 88,379, off 33.7 percent That’s 79,374 Hondas, off 34.2 percent, and 9,005 Acuras, off 29.5 percent. Accord was off 34.7 percent, to 22,722. Civic was off 34.4 percent, to 20,645. Fit was off 19.4 percent, to 5,300. TSX was the only gainer, up 16.6 percent, to 2,556. Honda sold 569 ‘10 Insights launched mid-month. Nissan-Infiniti: 66,634, off 37.7 percent Nissan division was off 36.2 percent, to 59,392. Infiniti was off 47.6 percent, to 7,242. Nissan sold 1,632 Zs, up 24.8 percent from the old model. Others… Hyundai off just 5 percent, to 40,721; BMW Group off 22.9 percent to 21,125; Jaguar/Land Rover up 13 percent to 3,422. Jaguar XK was up 29 percent and the new XF was up 5 percent over February, to 663. Land Rover was down 26 percent versus March ‘08.

Just when it looked like all hope was lost for us diesel fans when it comes to light duty vehicles in the US market, our buddy Mike Levine at Pickuptrucks.com has the scoop on a plan to revive GM’s 4.5-liter DuraMax. Several months back, Ford shelved plans to build a 4.4-liter diesel of its own design for the F-150 and more recently General Motors canceled its engine. The beleaguered Detroit automakers have now decided that there is still a market for such an engine even if it didn’t make sense to build several different examples. Thus GM’s innovative DuraMax will be renamed PowerMax (in honor of Ford’s PowerStroke) and used by both companies in the Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra and the F-150. Since the Duramax was designed to fit in the same package size as the GM small-block, there had been a lot of speculation since its announcement that it could be used in cars like the Cadillac CTS and Pontiac G8 as well. GM’s plans are still uncertain on that front given its near bankruptcy, but Ford is now expected to add the diesel to the new Taurus as an alternative to the EcoBoost V6. Continue reading after the jump. [Source: PickupTrucks.com ] Continue reading Ford and GM team up to save the light duty diesel V8 as the “PowerMax” Filed under: Diesel , Ford , GM Ford and GM team up to save the light duty diesel V8 as the “PowerMax” originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments