Keeping it ALIVE!

Ok well I checked and the blog is official. michaelscottdelossantos.blogspot.com is a real thing. I love it. Well being true to myselff I have to write about cars. MMM mmm. as Sir Charles would say. Alot of buzz about this new Cadillac XTS. whaaa whannnn.......I think the wait and anticipation of this car caused people to really follow it but after seeing it, there is nothing about it that makes you want to run and get one. i basically see a CTS thats a little bit bigger and longer. Gm has made a huge mistake by not actually replacing the DTS. There was much hype stating that the XTS would replace the DTS, when in all actuallity the DTS was discontinued with nothing to replace and compare it to. Big mistake. Another mistake from those boys up in detroit. The DTS should have stayed untill a replacement/flagship cadillac came out. Its kinda like when the deville died in 2005, cadillac put out the DTS for 2006. I know the DTS had been out awhile and needed a refresher. Gm should have kept the car, gave it a few tweaks to the exterior. Added a few techs gadgets inside and called it a day, ( as natasha would say!) They could have easily changed the tail lights, and perhaps on the front end of the car make it look more like an Escalade. This would have garnered respect and grabbed attention. But to just kill a car, and instead of replacing it, you just introduce a smaller car on an extended wheelbase is not going to cut it. Cadillac rushed the XTS out and they know it!
           The car has been out for a few weeks if not a month now and i have yet to see one on the road. Says something about a brand new model, that had tons of buzz before it was available. I went to see one the day the car arrived at the car dealership. The snooty cadillac dealer came out before i could even get out of the car. Those men sure are quick. I told him we were there to see the new xts. he said it was there but not available. I was proud of my quick thinking and told him we had driven far, my friend has a bad hip, and i will just drive to down town houston to see one. He said let me see what i can do, before I could get back to the car he said drive around and meet me out back. The car was there, still had the plastic covers strategically stuck to the car. Was kinda kewl firing it up for the first time. Sure would be funny if it didnt start. As we discussed the car I saw one pass us and go straight for the garage at the dealers. I was interested to know that as all new cars arrive, a few mechanics check the baby out. You know make sure she has oil, and power steering fluid. I wonder if they do that at the lexus dealership next door.
     So i was sitting in the car. AC didnt wana cool. I closed the door and still no air. stepped out to keep looking at the car then the dealer said airs on now. I guess when its a new car it takes a few mins for everything to get online and the a/c work like it should. No harm no foul. One biggie was this new touch screen and buttons for ac controls....radio.....ect. The a/c buttons really arent buttons but a flat piece of plastic that has sensors that know you are touching it. Sure is fancy but how long before that blows. I think the technology is to new and should have been tested longer before putting it in a car, but then again this car was spit out of the GM machine like a lodged penny in a toddlers throat! The big aggrevation was the area of plastic you touched that miraculously opens the glove box. I noticed you had to touch it several times to open. Sometimes just one time. Soon as i expierenced this faulty sensor that opens the glove box, i thought to myself, all the controls on the center dash other than the touchscreen use the same method of touching the plastic and a sensor being activated. Its a forward move on gm's part to compete with other luxury brands but if its not well tested with time it will turn off people. And when its little things on a new production model that are failing, people really start to wonder about the integrity of the entire car.
     The Escalade is up for a makeover. Been a while. I sure hope Cadillac does not F*ck up that beautiful suv. The escalade has been the bread and butter for cadillac. I cant imagine gm doing anything drastic to that suv. every model has been better than the previous one. Just compare the first Escalade to the 2013 Escalade. That bad boy has come a long way. In the past 6 years i think the escalade has been sold more than all other cadillac models combined. Its a great suv, only wish they would concentrate on the flagship car like they did on the escalade. Its almost like every step forward that GM/Cadillac does they take a few back.
      Just look at the cars from the late 90s early 2000s. from the cavalier/cobalt/aveo to the ugliest silverado ever made. Its almost as if they made ugly cars on purpose. Not only were they ugly they were shitty. Lets not even get into the Saturn makes and models. Thats a whole nother topic. Gm and the others in detroit started to panic once they realized that the asian auto makers werent going away. Instead of trying to build better cars than the asians, the big heads in detroit started making cheaper cars. They wanted to keep profits and were greedy. Instead of rethinking they took the easy way out and just made cheaper cars. They didnt make money on volume, instead made money on making cheaper cars and charged more for them. Kind of a f*cked up business model and they payed big time. Back in the 70s and 80s they were able to do what they wanted to and there were not many options in terms of asian cars. If they would have reinvented themselves, like they have dont in the past 4years, they would not have needed thier bailouts.
     The big three got a lot of blame for concentrating on large suv's and trucks. Where the asians were making great, compacts, that got great gas mileage. Part of the reason that the asian companies have been able to dominate the smaller car segments is because thats what they started making first. If you remember the first nissian sentra, or even the first camry, they were small cars. They had to fit as many as they could on barges. This gave them an edge by starting with smaller cars and working up to suv's and trucks. They had to make a good impression and build a base with brand loyalty. I remember being a kid, and everytime a friend or relative had a foreign car, it seemed that the asian car was doing things that werent found on entry american models. I can remember mazda cars of the 1990's having everything power. They were fast, good looking, and had options that the americans would charge an arm and a leg for. I remember a grl friends mazda coupe. i think it was the mx-6. could be wrong. but man was that a sweet ride. Black. looked good. interior was cloth but the seats were still gorgeous. Being 15 i loved that when she would race she had an ECT button she would push. I always thought of it as a turbo. All it controlled was the electric controlled throttle. So when deactivated her foot would give her more speed. Now these lil things were never seen on the chevy cavalier. By the way when was the last time you saw an old cavalier. most are gone and in a graveyard or crushed by now..
     Its not hard to see why the big three almost failed and went bankrupt. Its almost to clear to see why they failed. Is it possible that GM purposely did certain things knowing that they would recieve a bail out one day. Kinda scary to think that shit like that goes on in our country. I have also heard stories about toyota in the past recent years. It refers to the fiasco that toyota had with there cars speeding up full throttle. Toyota knew about this flaw. Thier slogan was MOVING FORWARD. this was in place long before the cars started taking off. Things at that level do not happen by coincidence. They knew about it and waited. i cant be certain if it was purposely done or not but do know that the phrase they still use at the end of commercials is Moving Forward. About ten years ago i heard that gm had some kind of hydrogen patent. This patent was going to take them over the top and set them apart from all other cars. This was so long about i could be wrong about the hydrogen but i think thats what it was. Anyways toyota made a deal with GM. They would increase the price of thier cars which in turn would cause people to buy american/gm cars. Now one has to wonder if the scarry issue of gas pedals sticks was kept under wraps to cause a bigger scare and in return people started buying gm cars. It was about that time that gm reinvented themselves and actually had cars that could compete with toyota. Alot of thinkgs to think about. Gonna nap.....I shall return!

All Right Here I GO.

This is my first blog ever! I first thought of a blog to discuss, express, and vent my passion for cars. Especially new ones. I often find that a lot of people say they love talking about cars but when talking with me, I usually want to keep talking but the other person stops or changes the subject. I guess its the addiction in my blood that keeps wanting to discuss cars.
     So I started this blog. In creating this blog I discovered I was able to use my name, michaelscottdelossantos.blogspot.com. I am now going to see if it comes up. I shall return. 10:50am