GM Reveals 2013 Chevrolet TrailBlazer

[Captain Awesome]

Chevrolet Trailblazer Sales for first 6 years of Production


2002
249,568

2003
261,334

2004
283,484

2005
244,150

2006
174,797

2007
134,626


Checrolet Camaro Sales Figures (First 2 years of Production)
2010
129,405

2011
106,987


As we can plainly see, there's MORE justification for bringing a new midsize SUV to the market than there is for continuing to produce the Camaro. Yet the Camaro is considered a great success.

So, it's pretty clear that by not delivering a midsize SUV to the US that GM is intentionally inducing FAILURE.


Note: The above figures are listed for the trailblazer ONLY. There were about 10 different vehicles built on this platform, only Trailblazer figures were listed.

2004–2005 GMC Envoy XUV
2002–2009 GMC Envoy
2002–2004 Oldsmobile Bravada
2003–2007 Isuzu Ascender
2004–2007 Buick Rainier
2005–2009 Saab 9-7X
2003–2006 Chevrolet SSR
2002–2006 Chevrolet TrailBlazer EXT
2002–2006 GMC Envoy XL

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by fielderLS3

Just like the 70s and 80s. History always repeats itself.

How long before the car magazines start hearing rumors of a FWD Camaro with only a V6 option? Remember those days?

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by fielderLS3

Just like the 70s and 80s. History always repeats itself.

Actually, now that I think about it, the pattern for the 6th Generation Camaro is this:

Base Model = Turbo 4: $25K range
SS Model = V6 or Supercharged V6: $30K range
ZL1 Model = Supercharged V8 with every costly gadget/gizmo: $60K range

This way they bow to the beaurocrats and still get to make a "Halo" car which only a select few will ever enjoy.

[Number 3]

You guys are something else. Just bash away because there is a product you like and can't have.

You see the name trailblazer and assume its a direct replacement and criticize GM for not brining it here.

This is not a competitor for the Jeep Grand Chreokee. Now that's a segment I would like to see GM compete in.

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by Number 3

You guys are something else. Just bash away because there is a product you like and can't have.

You see the name trailblazer and assume its a direct replacement and criticize GM for not brining it here.

This is not a competitor for the Jeep Grand Chreokee. Now that's a segment I would like to see GM compete in.

You guys are something else.... just defend away every move that GM makes no matter how silly or inconsiderate to loyal customers.

You see the name GM and immideiately pounce on anyone who has a legitimate issue.

I don't WANT a competitor with the Grand Cherokee. That defeats the purpose of having a rugged SUV that more people can afford. We want a replacement for the GMT360 and this is the closest thing anyone currently makes to that, so your "this wasn't designed for the USA" argument holds less water than cheesecloth.

The only thing about this vehicle that makes it not designed for the USA is the fact that someone is scared that it is too affordable and too appealing and will lower the average fuel economy.

Instead of capitulating to these shortsighted regulations, they should be fighting them like they did in the 70's, 80's and 90's.

When are the rest of you guys going to figure out that there is NO limit to how high these CAFE numbers will go. Every time they are raised, the NEXT higher limits are already being hammered out by a bunch of pencil pushers. Every time you give in, you simply get closer to the point where GM will have to discontinue a vehicle that YOU want to have. One day in the forseeable future there will only be 4 cylinder and hybrid Camaros and a 15 second quarter mile will be considered great acceleration. Just look what happend to cars in the 70's and 80's.

When will you guys wake up?

[Number 3]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

You guys are something else.... just defend away every move that GM makes no matter how silly or inconsiderate to loyal customers.

You see the name GM and immideiately pounce on anyone who has a legitimate issue.

I don't WANT a competitor with the Grand Cherokee. That defeats the purpose of having a rugged SUV that more people can afford. We want a replacement for the GMT360 and this is the closest thing anyone currently makes to that, so your "this wasn't designed for the USA" argument holds less water than cheesecloth.

The only thing about this vehicle that makes it not designed for the USA is the fact that someone is scared that it is too affordable and too appealing and will lower the average fuel economy.

Instead of capitulating to these shortsighted regulations, they should be fighting them like they did in the 70's, 80's and 90's.

When are the rest of you guys going to figure out that there is NO limit to how high these CAFE numbers will go. Every time they are raised, the NEXT higher limits are already being hammered out by a bunch of pencil pushers. Every time you give in, you simply get closer to the point where GM will have to discontinue a vehicle that YOU want to have. One day in the forseeable future there will only be 4 cylinder and hybrid Camaros and a 15 second quarter mile will be considered great acceleration. Just look what happend to cars in the 70's and 80's.

When will you guys wake up?

Well you forget I worked there and was privy to a lot of things I can't talk about. I don't expect you to care about that I'm merely suggesting that uess you know much of this bashing is really unfounded.

It's awesome that you love this product. It's great that you are trying a ground swell of support to convince GM 100s of millions of dollars to bring this product here. That is great and I mean that.

But when I say it wasn't engineered to come here you simply said that was the fail. You assume GM didnt consider it. You assume you can simply just bring it here and you assume there are hundreds of thousands of customers like you that would pay for one. You dont give credit to GM for understanding its customer base and it's overall business globally not just here.

It's ok to want it and even based on your personal tastes to think and say GM has made a bad decision. You've just taken a level higher than that hence my defense.

Heck I think GM should have a lot of products they don't have. Not worth bashing people over it though.

And for all we know, and I don't, GM might eventually bring this product here down the road in response to a ground swell of support. But it sure won't be because some people call them idiots.

By the way if this product were to come here how many fewer Equinox and Traverse and Tahoes would you sell? Without that answer your arguments on this being a GM fail are very incomplete.

[Rock36]

I was seriously considering a used Trailblazer SS until I started reading about the transmission problems, so then I started looking at the Jeep Cherokee SRT8s.

At first, I was excited at first to see this, then realized it probably isn't coming to the US market, so you can definitely forget about a new Trailblazer SS if that is the case... so back to looking at Cherokee SRT8s for me.

[CamaroSkooter]

GM, as a whole, has to design this new Trailblazer to a slew of regulations for wherever it will be sold. Are the regulations and restrictions really so vastly different between these two worlds that it would cost that inordinate amount of money to make it work for both locations?

As an engineer, I understand that going from one set of rules and regulations to another is a serious pain. But does that mean any of the calculations and designs are performed in a different way? Absolutely not.

I think, as a car company, if you set forth customer safety and happiness as the number 1 and 2 priorities, then the rest should be pretty easy to meet. Set your own standards that are more stringent than any of the rules and regulations found anywhere in the world, and you can then design any upcoming vehicle to pass every country's standards at once.

Then, to take it from Europe or Taiwan to the US, all you have to do is change where the steering wheel goes.

Sure, maybe you'd be overdesigning the vehicle that makes it to market in Taiwan, but you wouldn't have to design the car twice, or three or four times just so you can send different variants to different markets.

Obviously, not all people want the same thing in a vehicle, but as far as the engineering for safety goes, that would be completely taken care of in a global manner. The rest of the "fluff" can be mixed and matched or customized to suit the market.

Or maybe I'm just being "unrealistic."

[monstertodd]

GM you stupid morons (collective we, not directed an any individual)

I would put a deposit down for a 4 cyl turbo diesel 4x4 trailblazer TODAY. Engineer this for the US market for god's sake!

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by Number 3

Well you forget I worked there and was privy to a lot of things I can't talk about. I don't expect you to care about that I'm merely suggesting that uess you know much of this bashing is really unfounded.

The fact of your employment just gives reason to suspect you have a bias to defending them regardless of whether the decisions are good or bad, okay? Your privvyness to inside information is cancelled by the potential for bias.

It's awesome that you love this product. It's great that you are trying a ground swell of support to convince GM 100s of millions of dollars to bring this product here. That is great and I mean that.

It sounds to me like you are trying to marginalize my support of this product by implying that I am tilting at windmills to get attention for this type of vehicle. Believe me I am not trying to create a groundswell of anything. I can read with my own two eyes what is going on. Google 2014 Trailblazer and look at the various blogs which reported this press release. Almost universially the title of the blog is something like "2014 Trailblazer Revealed. (No, it's not coming to the US market)" Why would that even be a question if there was no perceived demand for the vehicle???

Then you read the comments, which are basically saying the same things I am only with a lot more harsh words to GM, and some politics thrown in as well. I can assure you that the "groundswell" is already there. Just look at the sales of the GMT360. 10 different vehicles from 6 different brands totalling close to 1/2 a million sales yearly for a number of years.

If you build it, they will come.

But when I say it wasn't engineered to come here you simply said that was the fail.

That is a fail in my book. You never said WHY it was so impossible to sell in the USA, you just said it was not designed for the US market. I don't understand, so, cars in Thailand all have 3 wheels? Do they not have steering wheels and pedals over there? Maybe they all run on Algae or colf fusion reactors? Do the people have 3 legs or 5 arms? Seems to me like a lot of cars are imported to the USA from such places with few incompatibilities.

Facts further erode your argument arise when it is pointed out that the new Trailblazer is based upon the new Colorado, which IS coming to the USA. How can it be so completely incompatible with US drivers/roads if it is built on a platform that we know works here?

You assume GM didnt consider it. You assume you can simply just bring it here and you assume there are hundreds of thousands of customers like you that would pay for one. You dont give credit to GM for understanding its customer base and it's overall business globally not just here.

I don't have much faith in GM understanding their customer base very well at all. If they were so great at that how do you explain the bailouts and bankruptcy?

It's ok to want it and even based on your personal tastes to think and say GM has made a bad decision. You've just taken a level higher than that hence my defense. Heck I think GM should have a lot of products they don't have. Not worth bashing people over it though.

I can bash corporations. They are not people. Corporation bashing is trendy nowadays. I could end up with a show on Comedy Central for my corporation bashing!

And for all we know, and I don't, GM might eventually bring this product here down the road in response to a ground swell of support. But it sure won't be because some people call them idiots.

The neat thing about my position is that I can call them idiots for doing idiotic things and if they correct themselves down the road then I will have been proven right. If they don't correct their mistakes down the road because I hurt their feewings then they are hurting themselves. Calling them out now only helps my point.

By the way if this product were to come here how many fewer Equinox and Traverse and Tahoes would you sell? Without that answer your arguments on this being a GM fail are very incomplete.

All I can say for certain is that:
I personally do not want a Tahoe because it is too big and too pricey. $36K for a 2WD version??? No thanks! If they had a $27K-30K AWD variant I might be able to justify the extra gas it uses.

The Traverse is closer to the right price range but since it is a FWD platform with a front biased AWD version, it just isn't a good fit. It's a compromise design which is more of a passenger car than a truck.

The Equinox is much more affordable and has the best interior, but is the least capable, since is also is a FWD car platform with AWD optional. Another car-like vehicle.

So, the answer is that I would NOT buy ANY of these vehicles as they are now, so I would be most likely shopping for a used GMT360 or a GMT345 or looking at SUVs from competitors. If I bought a new Trailblazer, GM would NOT be losing a sale, they would be gaining a sale that they never had.

I'm sure you might find some people cross-shopping the overlapping areas of the three vehicles you mentioned, but perhaps instead of doing focus groups and guessing which vehicles to sell and which to hold off so they don't cut into others that you should let the customers choose which cars to buy and if they sell less equinoxes or traverses or tahoes because of it then perhaps there's something wrong with those platforms that needs to be fixed.

[Number 3]

From an engineering perspective you are correct. From a global automotive business point of view it is much more difficult.

It's not just that for some markets you want low cost it's also that in some cases you have very stringent but diverse requirements. And add to that some markets just have different customer needs.

Did you know for example the small pickup Toyota sells around the world has very little to do with the Tacoma sold here? Different trucks for the most part.

[Number 3]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

The fact of your employment just gives reason to suspect you have a bias to defending them regardless of whether the decisions are good or bad, okay? Your privvyness to inside information is cancelled by the potential for bias.



It sounds to me like you are trying to marginalize my support of this product by implying that I am tilting at windmills to get attention for this type of vehicle. Believe me I am not trying to create a groundswell of anything. I can read with my own two eyes what is going on. Google 2014 Trailblazer and look at the various blogs which reported this press release. Almost universially the title of the blog is something like "2014 Trailblazer Revealed. (No, it's not coming to the US market)" Why would that even be a question if there was no perceived demand for the vehicle???

Then you read the comments, which are basically saying the same things I am only with a lot more harsh words to GM, and some politics thrown in as well. I can assure you that the "groundswell" is already there. Just look at the sales of the GMT360. 10 different vehicles from 6 different brands totalling close to 1/2 a million sales yearly for a number of years.

If you build it, they will come.



That is a fail in my book. You never said WHY it was so impossible to sell in the USA, you just said it was not designed for the US market. I don't understand, so, cars in Thailand all have 3 wheels? Do they not have steering wheels and pedals over there? Maybe they all run on Algae or colf fusion reactors? Do the people have 3 legs or 5 arms? Seems to me like a lot of cars are imported to the USA from such places with few incompatibilities.

Facts further erode your argument arise when it is pointed out that the new Trailblazer is based upon the new Colorado, which IS coming to the USA. How can it be so completely incompatible with US drivers/roads if it is built on a platform that we know works here?



I don't have much faith in GM understanding their customer base very well at all. If they were so great at that how do you explain the bailouts and bankruptcy?



I can bash corporations. They are not people. Corporation bashing is trendy nowadays. I could end up with a show on Comedy Central for my corporation bashing!



The neat thing about my position is that I can call them idiots for doing idiotic things and if they correct themselves down the road then I will have been proven right. If they don't correct their mistakes down the road because I hurt their feewings then they are hurting themselves. Calling them out now only helps my point.



All I can say for certain is that:
I personally do not want a Tahoe because it is too big and too pricey. $36K for a 2WD version??? No thanks! If they had a $27K-30K AWD variant I might be able to justify the extra gas it uses.

The Traverse is closer to the right price range but since it is a FWD platform with a front biased AWD version, it just isn't a good fit. It's a compromise design which is more of a passenger car than a truck.

The Equinox is much more affordable and has the best interior, but is the least capable, since is also is a FWD car platform with AWD optional. Another car-like vehicle.

So, the answer is that I would NOT buy ANY of these vehicles as they are now, so I would be most likely shopping for a used GMT360 or a GMT345 or looking at SUVs from competitors. If I bought a new Trailblazer, GM would NOT be losing a sale, they would be gaining a sale that they never had.

I'm sure you might find some people cross-shopping the overlapping areas of the three vehicles you mentioned, but perhaps instead of doing focus groups and guessing which vehicles to sell and which to hold off so they don't cut into others that you should let the customers choose which cars to buy and if they sell less equinoxes or traverses or tahoes because of it then perhaps there's something wrong with those platforms that needs to be fixed.

Captain, just a couple of comments.

You actually have more reason to defend GM than I do.

I just don't like seeing people getting all worked up to the point of calling people failures when they don't know "the rest of the story".

I wouldnt marginalized your opinion an if I did j sure didn't mean to.

I'm simply try to put some perspective to the conversation and in some cases that seems to make things worse not better.

If there is a business in that makes money GM would bring it.

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by Number 3

Captain, just a couple of comments.

You actually have more reason to defend GM than I do.

I just don't like seeing people getting all worked up to the point of calling people failures when they don't know "the rest of the story".

I wouldnt marginalized your opinion an if I did j sure didn't mean to.

I'm simply try to put some perspective to the conversation and in some cases that seems to make things worse not better.

If there is a business in that makes money GM would bring it.

It's really easy for people to say essentially "Don't pay any attention to all those piles of evidence you see in front of you because I happen to know stuff you don't and therefore you don't know what you're talking about."

What makes this type of argument so weak is that the missing critical bit of information which is suposedly lacking is never actually revealed. How can anyone weigh the information and make any decisions when the information is withheld.

I've had these sorts of discussions in the past where the missing clue was just a smokescreen used by someone who didn't want to admit that they could not offer any defense of my debate points, so I am skeptical whenever this is how the counterpoint is framed.

As much as I'd like to believe you, I am pessimistic because of some of the events in recent GM history which make me doubt what they say.

P.S. I don't understand why you feel I have more reasons to defend GM than you do. I assume there is some circumstance which I am not aware of behind this.

[GEEo]

Looks way better than the last one!

Hope GM makes an SS version.