Motor Trend 2009 Car Review [censored]

[MrCritical]

Pontiac Vibe 2.5 stars.

Toyota Matrix 4 stars.

What the [censored]? Every magazine I've read likes the Vibe look better than the Matrix.

Guys, there the same car!!!

Except the Vibe has longer powertrain warranty. And costs less.

 

[XS650]

You have to go to a GM dealer to get a Vibe.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Toyota dealers are any better? The same scummy chain-smoking guys will try to sell you something at either place.

 

[glennc]

That is interesting, I wonder what their reasoning is for it. Personally I do not like the look of the Vibe, and for that reason alone I'd rather have a Matrix. It's like Pontiac took an interesting little car and tried to make it boring. Like taking a Frank Lloyd Wright house and putting clapboard siding on it.

I looked through all those MT ratings and I have to admit, they mostly matched my perception of the overall appeal of most new cars. Very few five stars.

 

[XS650]

For new cars and their warranty service, my experience with Toyota dealers has been considerably better than my experience with GM dealers. That is partially because I didn't need to see the Toyota dealers as often.

There are exceptions to everything, my present GM product has been nearly flawless and I found a Chevy dealer that is neither incompetent or a sleaze bag in a nearby small town. The local Chevy dealer is a loser.

OTOH, the nearest Toyota dealer is a sleaze bag, but I have only shopped there, not bought from them. We went in there fully intending to by a car but left without buying one. The local Toyota dealer is owned by the same person who owns the local Chevy dealership. Maybe it got contaminated.

 

[MrCritical]

There's no siding on the '09 Vibe. And since they're basically the same car, you shouldn't need to see either GM or Toyota dealers very often.

Hence my question about the review.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: MrCritical
There's no siding on the '09 Vibe. And since they're basically the same car, you shouldn't need to see either GM or Toyota dealers very often.

Hence my question about the review.


Uh oh, I think people might be catching on to the media perception phenomenon........!!!

 

[The Critic]

Originally Posted By: XS650
OTOH, the nearest Toyota dealer is a sleaze bag, but I have only shopped there, not bought from them. We went in there fully intending to by a car but left without buying one. The local Toyota dealer is owned by the same person who owns the local Chevy dealership. Maybe it got contaminated.

Is it John L. Sullivan by any chance?

 

[XS650]

Originally Posted By: The Critic
Originally Posted By: XS650
OTOH, the nearest Toyota dealer is a sleaze bag, but I have only shopped there, not bought from them. We went in there fully intending to by a car but left without buying one. The local Toyota dealer is owned by the same person who owns the local Chevy dealership. Maybe it got contaminated.

Is it John L. Sullivan by any chance?

I wouldn't want to go naming names

, but the dealer also owns the Saturn dealership in the same area. We eliminated the Saturn Aura from our list partially because of their sales staff.

 

[Bob The Builder]

Man...you guys are in the wrong part of Calif....check out this link...


John L. Sullivan Dodge Chrysler

Looks like ol John owns just about everything up there. No wonder you're all having a tough time with the dealers there.

 

[XS650]

It's not as bad as it looks. He has Chevy, Saturn and Toyota in the Roseville Automall in Roseville and the Dodge dealership in Marysville about 40 miles North of there. There are lots of other dealerships in the area.

He is very successful and I read he has plans to buy 4 more unspecified dealerships in the area.

 

[glennc]

Originally Posted By: MrCritical
There's no siding on the '09 Vibe.

Ha! I didn't mean the comment about siding literally, but it's actually pretty funny when you think about it since some of the older Pontiacs did actually look like they had siding plastered all over them.

I just meant it as an analogy for taking something that is sort of novel and interesting and making it less novel and less interesting, at least visually.

 

[BrianWC]

I personally like the looks of the new Vibe better. Although, the Matrix looks a bit like the old SAABaru 9-2x to me. Yeah, this is a head scratcher to me as to why they'd rate so different. The big car mags haven't been that down on GM as of late. Matter of fact, Car and Driver has a nice little right up (I think it's Csaba Csere's) column, hailing all the car tech GM developed since its inception.

 

[dwendt44]

Then Chrysler head, Lee Iacocca complained about the exact same thing.

Mitsubishi had a Chrysler twin that was rated much below the Mitz.
Same vehicle under the name plate.
Toyota and Geo had a set of twins also, and the Geo was rated lower than the Toyota.
Go figure.

 

[rpn453]

Originally Posted By: MrCritical
What the [censored]? Every magazine I've read likes the Vibe look better than the Matrix.


That is a pretty big difference for cars that are mechanically identical. How do they justify it?

On TTAC the '08 Vibe got 3 stars and the '09 Matrix got two, but that was from two separate reviewers:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009-toyota-matrix-review/

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/pontiac-vibe-review/

 

[Spector]

Unfortunatly, in any given city multiple dealerships of different brends are owned by the same group so the philosophy of sales and sleazyness just filters down whether it is a Toyota, Ford, Nissan Gm etc.

I find that if the overall ownership is the same one can expect the same type of service in all of their brands. When times get tougher for some reason salesmen believe they need to get sleazier rather then be honest and give the customer the best deal out there

 

[Cutehumor]

I'm not into car reviews, kinda like movie reviews. I take them with a grain of salt.

 

[Bamaro]

I remember the same sort of thing in the early 90's with the Plymouth Laser, Eagle Talon & Mitsubishi Eclipse.

 

[BrianWC]

Well, that may be a bit different story b/c they really did manage to make the laser look a bit cheaper looking, in my personal opinion. But yeah, mechanically, those were the same, too. Well, unless they didn't offer the turbo in the laser....

 

[JohnBrowning]

Well their are a few difference's. For instance on the GM Prism the chasis,suspension and power train where all Toyota but the dash board and interanl wireing was all done to GM specifications not Toyota. The Prisms came with DexCool and often AC/Delco battery and Harrison radator when ever production allowed for it. While it's almost identical Carolla brother had Toyota Long Life Coolant, a different battery and sometimes had a denso sometimes a Harrison radiator and the radio and wireing in the interior was stadard Toyota.

So their are some differences beside the ugly front clip on the Pontiac I am sure. I am not an expert though on the Vibe/Matrix what about the seats and controls and radio and stuff like that are they identical? What about the dash?What about the glass supplier? These things sound minor but they could make a huge difference if the Toyota has thicker glass with more insulation it could make for a quiter interior or at the very least a shift in the freq. heard inside the vechile. Same thing about the carpet and insulation under it......I do not know I am just tossing out some often neglected details even when vechiles are 80% identical. Look at GM with their badge engineering you can have two identical vechiles one sold under the Chevy name and the other under the Cadalac name and the satifaction from customers and reviews it gets from car mags will often differ. The opinion and judgeing parameters are not always the same. For instance something that is expected from a Toyota would be pleasant suprise to find in a Chevy or vice versa. The Cadilac might be held to a higher set of standards due to it's branding and marketing etc.....