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From the Wall Street Journal:  Mark LaNeve, General Motors sales chief and a longtime executive, will leave the company Oct. 15 for a job with a company in another industry. LaNeve headed sales and marketing until GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson restructured the management team and put former product head Bob Lutz in charge of marketing...

DETROIT — Auto parts maker Delphi ended four years in bankruptcy court Tuesday, emerging as a private company and removing a major uncertainty for former parent General Motors. The group acquiring the now much smaller Delphi will forgive nearly $3.5 billion of bankruptcy loans and will invest $900 million in capital. It may remove some uncertainty from GM's situation, but that doesn't mean GM should plan on being the big dog in town any time soon.

In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks. ~ Scott Adams...

AR Index     572.45  -39.10  (-6.39%) Stocks of individual interest Toyota  75.07  -5.56 GM        0.64    -0.07 Ford      7.05   -0.44 Dow 9599.75  -189.61   (-1.94%) So you wonder why the "imports" (you can hardly call them that anymore) are so attractive to people? Check out "Saturn and Me: GM Loses a Customer" by Allan Sloan in the Washington Post. Once a customer loses trust in a brand, it's very difficult to get it back, and GM has managed to do that with so many customers who used to be loyal buyers that it's hard to envision them regaining even a shred of their former status in the automotive world.

Seems like the demise of Saturn might have been an iceberg waiting to be hit. Part of what happened when Saturn was born was an attempt to change the relationship between GM and the UAW. Saturn sales peaked at 286,000 cars in 1995.  But that year saw another, more menacing development...

I have been an automotive service consultant since 2001. I have seen this business change over the years, yet sadly many of the people who are in this business have not changed. This is a profession with not enough professionals; perhaps we can change that...

September sales figures for the auto manufacturers were not anything to write home about. The letdown after the "government crack" that was the Cash For Clunkers program has turned into withdrawal symptoms. (Gee, who saw that coming?) U.S...

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Co. will shut down Saturn now that a deal with former race car driver and auto dealer magnate Roger Penske has collapsed, marking the end of a brand that was supposed to revolutionize the way small cars were built and sold in America. The deal with Penske was supposed to be finalized Wednesday...

WASHINGTON — Opening a government meeting on auto safety, the Obama administration reported Wednesday that nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in vehicle crashes connected to driver distraction, a striking indication of the dangers of using mobile devices behind the wheel. The Transportation Department was bringing together experts over two days for what it's calling a "distracted driving summit" to take a hard look at the highway hazards caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting from behind the wheel. Secretary Ray LaHood was expected to offer recommendations Thursday that could lead to new restrictions on using the devices while driving...

AR Index     611.54  +21.94  (+3.72%) Stocks of individual interest Toyota  80.63  -2.06 GM        0.71    -0.05 Ford      7.49   +0.66 Dow 9789.36  +10.50   (+0.11%) First the "or not"... What a shock. They're talking about September auto sales being way down again...