GM Bankruptcy
I've been keeping an eye on the General Motors bankruptcy thing, since we have a somewhat personal stake in it.
Our main commuting car is a 1996 Saturn SL1 named Dexter*.
Dexter has about 97000 miles on him, give or take a thousand. (And yes, that's MILES. The Saturn came with me from Ohio.) He is not yet at 100,000. Now, most of those miles are city driving: he's gone the past 10,000 miles on only city roads.
I obviously don't expect him to last forever, but at the very least we need him to last for two more years. In two years the VW will be paid off, and I would prefer for Dexter to last beyond that unless there is a really compelling reason to replace him (like, a $10,000,000,000 tax credit for buying a new car or something). So, we'll continue to keep up on his maintenance and repairs...
...which means he will probably need parts at some point.
Now, I'm not too worried. GM isn't going anywhere just yet. But they are going to try to unload the Saturn brand, which raises just a few questions in my mind. So I was reassured to read a post by Consumer Reports explaining what a GM in bankruptcy protection means to the average consumer.
I'm going to be waiting to see what becomes of the Saturn brand: whether it's sold off (although, why bother... the Saturn I have is one of the last good cars that Saturn made before they revamped them into the L series crap) or just phased out like Pontiac.
* He was named long, long before that show. In fact, the original inspiration for his name came from this show.
Our main commuting car is a 1996 Saturn SL1 named Dexter*.
Dexter has about 97000 miles on him, give or take a thousand. (And yes, that's MILES. The Saturn came with me from Ohio.) He is not yet at 100,000. Now, most of those miles are city driving: he's gone the past 10,000 miles on only city roads.
I obviously don't expect him to last forever, but at the very least we need him to last for two more years. In two years the VW will be paid off, and I would prefer for Dexter to last beyond that unless there is a really compelling reason to replace him (like, a $10,000,000,000 tax credit for buying a new car or something). So, we'll continue to keep up on his maintenance and repairs...
...which means he will probably need parts at some point.
Now, I'm not too worried. GM isn't going anywhere just yet. But they are going to try to unload the Saturn brand, which raises just a few questions in my mind. So I was reassured to read a post by Consumer Reports explaining what a GM in bankruptcy protection means to the average consumer.
I'm going to be waiting to see what becomes of the Saturn brand: whether it's sold off (although, why bother... the Saturn I have is one of the last good cars that Saturn made before they revamped them into the L series crap) or just phased out like Pontiac.
* He was named long, long before that show. In fact, the original inspiration for his name came from this show.