Last week General Motors unveiled a new Pontiac sedan at the Chicago Auto Show. The new G8 will be available in both 3.6L six cylinder putting out 261 horsepower or a 6.0L eight cylinder putting out a whopping 362 horsepower, both in rear wheel drive.
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General Motors recently announced that it will now begin providing consumers with a fully transferable five year/100,000 mile powertrain limited warranty, on all GM Certified Used Vehicles. Just recently GM had introduced greater warranty coverage for their new cars and trucks, but this announcement takes it a step farther and moves into the used car market.
The new GM Certified 5-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty with no deductible applies only to GM Certified Used Vehicles (Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile and Pontiac) brands. Saturn Certified Pre-Owned vehicles are expected to announce a similar program later this year.
Cadillac Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles, Saab Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles and HUMMER Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles operate separate programs - each of those programs has a 6-year/100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper limited warranty effective from the vehicle’s in-service date.
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This past week Ford announced at the Chicago Auto Show that it is ditching the Ford Five Hundred name and going back to the Taurus as well as dropping the Mercury Montego to bring back the Sable. At the same time the Ford Freestyle crossover will now be called the Ford Taurus X.
The whole idea to drop the Taurus for the Five Hundred from the beginning was doomed. The Taurus is a name known all across the US to many generations. You have a product that is as well branded as lets say Coke and you drop it for a name that nobody recognizes. To this day I’d say maybe only 10-15% of consumers recognize the Five Hundred model, while 80% probably recognize the Taurus name.
Why spends hundreds of millions of dollars to brand a new name for virtually the same vehicle? In todays domestic auto market money can’t be thrown away like this, every dollar counts to keep Ford going. One piece of advice to Ford, drop the price of the new Taurus when you release it. Currently the Ford Five Hundred is in the range of $23-25k, while the Taurus should be debuted back into the market for under $20k.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Taurus can survive the comeback out of retirement.