The headline on the WashingtonPost website today says

“ GM Plans to Lower Prices on Most Vehicles“
“General Motors Corp., the world’s biggest automaker, said Tuesday that it will lower the prices on 57 of its 76 models in North America in an effort to boost its sliding market share and wean buyers off expensive incentives.”
(quote from AP News on the WaPo site).

Of course – that didn’t help me. I WANTED to buy GM. After my car was stolen in November I was in the market for a new small wagon. I’d seen pictures of the Chevy HHR and I’d heard that GM had really improved since the bad cars they churned out in the 70s (Vega, Monza, etc) .. I wanted to give them a fair chance – so I went to Jim McKay Chevrolet to test drive a new HHR with the bigger 2.4l 4 cyl.

It had good pickup – but it felt claustrophobic – visibility seemed poor and it felt very plasticky.
The A pillars were too thick and hard to see around, the rearview mirror was in the way – the windshield seemed too low – it just didn’t seem like a comfortable car to me. It didn’t feel like a car I would still enjoy driving in 10 years – or even in 2 years. The “red Tag sale” promotional discount of $1500 or whatever it was didn’t matter if I didn’t like the car.

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Latest updates –

1. We bought a nice used (2004) CRV from CarMax in early December. On a pre-Christmas trip to visit the inlaws it got 22 mpg – not too shabby for a sportUte – but not the 34mpg we got on our trip to Roanoke in the 200 Civic SI
2. Allstate has plans to rebuild the 2000 Civic SI – the Honda dealer says this may take quite a while .
3. Christmas was great – many days off with my honey, Emma! Movies were watched, cookies were baked and eaten! Steaks! 15 year old Scotch …
4. After Christmas special – I bought a nice set of JBL 4312A Studio Monitors off Craigs list – these are a great replacement for the JBL L36 Decade speakers I’ve had since I bought them back in ’76 …