Toyota prices the GR Corolla hot hatch, GM offers to buy out Buick dealers, Ford recalls full-size SUVs due to a fire risk. All this and more in today’s issue of The Morning Dump.
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
The Toyota GR Corolla Seems Very Reasonably Priced
While the Toyota GR Corolla has always looked absolutely wicked, pricing is key in the hot hatch segment and nobody really knew if Toyota would aim high or shoot low. Would the GR Corolla carry a price tag well north of $40,000, or would Toyota keep things cheap-ish and set the base price to compete well with a loaded Subaru WRX? Finally, we have answers. Pricing is out, and this all-wheel-drive hot hatch is cheaper than you might’ve expected.
The base Core model starts at $36,995 including a $1,095 freight charge. That’s extremely reasonable compared to the Volkswagen Golf R’s starting price of $45,185 including a $1,095 freight charge, and package pricing also seems reasonable. The Performance package adds Torsen differentials and bigger brakes for just $1,180, which sounds absolutely worth every penny. If you want heated seats and a heated steering wheel, the cold weather package is just $500, while a JBL premium audio system and wireless charging come with the $770 Technology package. Add it all up, and a fully-loaded GR Corolla Core comes to $39,445.
Should you desire a little more exclusivity, the Circuit Edition stickers for $43,995, a $4,550 premium over a loaded Core model. That’s a lot of money for suede upholstery, some cosmetic bits, special paint, and a signed shift knob, but in fairness, the cosmetic tweaks do look sick. Topping the range is the stripped-out, Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2-shod Morizo Edition. It’ll cost $50,995 if you can find one at MSRP, and features shorter axle ratios and an extra 22 lb-ft of torque to go with the sticky tires and lower curb weight. Expect the Core trim to arrive this autumn with the Circuit Edition and Morizo Edition to follow next year.
How bad will the markups be? We’re taking guesses below.
GM Offers To Buy Out Buick Dealers
Add dealership owners to the long list of people who may be left behind in the switch to EVs. The Wall Street Journal reports that General Motors is offering to buy out Buick owners who aren’t feeling too great about plans for the brand to go all-electric by 2030.
Global Buick chief Duncan Aldred confirmed in an interview that all of Buick’s roughly 2,000 U.S. franchise dealers will be given the opportunity to take a buyout. A dealer who takes a buyout would give up the Buick franchise and no longer sell the brand, although nearly all Buick dealers also sell other GM models. Mr. Aldred is scheduled to outline the plan during a virtual dealer meeting Friday.
“Not everyone necessarily wants to make that journey, depending on where they’re located or the level of expenditure that the transition will demand,” he said. “So if they want to exit the Buick franchise, then we will give them monetary assistance to do so.”
While it’s easy to write off some franchise owners who take buyouts as EV skeptics, there may be real financial sense in taking a buyout. Between installing charging stations, buying specialty tools needed to repair EVs, training technicians and sales staff on EV sales, and possible imaging updates, an electric transition may cost franchise owners a small fortune. For owners of small dealerships, the cost just might not be worth it.
[Ed Note: I spend too much time on Twitter and there was some discussion of this being a prelude to Buick going full direct-to-consumer a la Tesla. Do I think that’s the case? I’m skeptical, but it’s a fun question. – MH]
August Car Sales Are Up In Germany
Even in the worst economic situations, there are still one or two bright spots that crop up. Case in point, Automotive News Europe reports that German year-over-year monthly new car sales rose 3 percent in August after six months of decline.
Registrations for the month were 199,183, data from the KBA motor transport authority showed on Monday.
Stellantis’ DS premium brand was the biggest monthly winner with registrations up 177 percent for a 0.1 percent market share.
Total sales of full-electric vehicles rose 11 percent for a 16.1 percent market share.
While it’s too early to say conclusively that these sales numbers are early indicators of production recovery, they’re certainly promising. There’s still a long way to go to reach pre-pandemic sales levels, but a 3 percent year-over-year sales rise in the face of war and a pandemic really isn’t bad at all.
Ford Recalls An Assload Of Full-Size SUVs Due To Fire Risk
Ford has recalled 198,482 examples of its 2015-2017 Expedition and its Lincoln Navigator counterpart for risk of fiery death. It’ll be a slightly tricky one to complete seeing as affected models don’t have sequential VINs, but Ford seems to have narrowed down a likely cause in the recall report.
Ford Motor Company has not identified the cause of this condition; however, it is believed to originate inside the front blower motor, which is located on the passenger side interior behind the glovebox.
So why does Ford believe the blower motors are faulty? Well, according to the recall report, “Some customers have reported an inoperative fan, burning smell and/or smoke from the instrument panel vents while the vehicle is on.” Of course, there is a chance that the blower motor itself may not be the culprit here. It could be the blower motor resistor, or a pigtail harness, but Ford seems to be certain enough to replace blower motors on all affected vehicles once the part is redesigned. Owners should be notified of this recall by Sept. 16, with a fix possibly available as soon as Ford redesigns the blower motors.
The Flush
Whelp, time to drop the lid on today’s edition of The Morning Dump. Happy Tuesday, everyone. As this week’s a short week, let’s talk about short cars. While few new subcompact cars remain on the American car market, we used to be absolutely spoiled for choice. I’d love to know what your favorite subcompact car is. Maybe you owned an absolutely indestructible Toyota Echo, rented a surprisingly pleasant Chevrolet Sonic, or dream of the incredible fuel mileage offered by the Geo Metro. Whatever the case, let’s hear it for small cars.
Lead photo credit: Toyota
My favorite modern (I’m defining modern here as ‘the last 25 years’j was a base model Echo a buddy owned. Even almost new, it was clearly a cheap car. You could feel when the compressor kicked on. The narrow tires were nigh unstoppable in the snow, though, and it had decent clearance for a little commuter. As it was saddled with an auto, you quickly learned to treat the accelerator as an on/off switch —mostly on. I was truly impressed by how much it was capable of: he followed me on a couple of trails when I was in one of my Subaru 4wd wagons and never got stuck.
I really miss cheerfully cheap cars
Seeing “Corolla,” “reasonable,” and “$36,995” in the same headline is making me twitch.
Personally I’d rather buy a Subaru Impreza sedan than one of these. That being said if I was in the market for a Subaru WRX hatchback I’d definitely seriously look at getting the GR Corolla instead.
I haven’t owned many cars that would fall into the category presented but did own a feisty little Honda N600 two door while stationed in Germany. Did a lot of amazing things with it to include transporting four adults to a Mardi Gras ball in full costume.
I worked as a surveyor for the Army and on several occasions used my N600 to conduct land surveys. It worked well as it blended in well with the civilian traffic and drew much less attention than an M561 Gamma Goat, especially when we wore civvies while we worked. Side note; on very steep hills you had to back up the hill due to fuel delivery issues. Slightly annoying!
Interestingly enough the military/civilian license plate I was issued for it began with the letters “SGM” indicating the owner was a Sergeant Major, which I wad decidedly not. The battalion SGM was quite annoyed at this and gave me a lot of grief. All I could say was “hey, USAEUR issued them!”
Would love to have another.
I hear you on the Mazda2 Yaris. The manual makes it fun, and you can throw it around corners. Slow car fast means always having fun. And the cops don’t notice you are doing it.
On the subject of subcompacts:
For sheer practicality nothing has beaten our family’s 2011 Honda Fit. The only two problems it has are that it’s an autotragic and that Honda never saw fit (pun intended) to make an Si version. But in terms of basic automotive usefulness it’s one of the greatest cars ever made.
Then there’s my 2018 Fiesta ST. While it is severely compromised in terms of rear seat and cargo space compared to the Fit it is also the most fun car I’ve ever owned. While it’s not particularly fast the thing corners like a go cart. The interior has echoed with many a cackle of sheer glee.
Both cars were well put together and have been utterly reliable with nothing more than proper maintenance.
The Flush – The best small car I owned was a ’78 Honda Civic 1200. Not the CVCC, but the 1200 with a 5spd and manual choke. I was the only one in my family that could start it on a cold morning (I didn’t tell anyone else about the choke). It only produced a bit over 60 HP, but weighed less that 1600 lbs. It really showed me how well a light car could handle, and made a great point for the fun of driving a slow car fast.
2nd Gen Civic
i was expecting 45k. good price on the core. even after you click every box its under 40. just get the core and strip it out add your own cup 2s and make your own morizo edition.
10 or so years ago I wrecked my Protege5 and had a manual Mitsubishi Mirage as an insurance rental.
I was like 22-23 years old so the name brand rental places wouldn’t rent to me. I was left with with a sort of weird, fly-by night, local used car lot that also had a couple of cars for rent. The car itself was the basest of base models, I don’t even remember if it had air conditioning, but man it was fun. I am a big believer in its more fun to drive slow cars fast than to never use the potential of a more powerful car, and man did I wring that thing out. That’s what makes it my favorite sub compact, and I would probably buy one “just for fun” if I had the space for it.
Favorite subcompact car is a Honda Fit. My better half had one. It was incredibly practical, got okay gas mileage, and handed like a large go-kart with 205mm wide tires. Working on it wasn’t bad either, except for the one time I popped out the drivers side inner CV joint replacing a blown strut. The cup didn’t want to separate or go back into the transmission. Fun times…
Favorite subcompact is hard to say. Probably the Honda Fit that’s outside right now.
I have to wonder if GM is looking to get down to a single dealer channel since Chevrolet and Buick-Cadillac-GMC often still have duplicate facilities.
My favorite sub-compact. Renault Alliance. I realize this will not be a popular opinion, but hear me out.
They were cheap, reliable, indestructible, and underpowered. You could fix it with a hammer and it got 40 mpg.
I bought my first one in high school for $25. An 8 year old car for $25! My neighbor had another one that had been sitting in his yard for years, I bought that one for $100. I figured I could put together a good car from the pair, but I managed to get both of them running right without much effort. They were identical, so I used to swap between driving the “nice one” and the “stunt double”. After you have two of something, people seek you out to give you more. I eventually had four of them, two coupes and two hatchbacks that I drove well into my college years. The engine was throttle body fuel injected. It was floating wet sleeve diesel block adapted with a gas head. The same engine was also used in Jakobson commercial lawn mowers. You could overheat it to the moon, it did not care. It would happily sit at redline and float the valves. There was literally nothing you could do to hurt this engine.
This is the car I learned to rally in, transiting between stages at LSPR as a stage marshal. I took it on the trails with the 4 wheeler club, exploring every inch of logging roads and trails in the region. This car delivered pizzas, sometimes 12 hours a day without ever shutting off the engine when I would take the snow-storm shifts that no one else wanted. I learned the beauty of oversized snow tires on a light front wheel drive car. I once got one stuck in a pond. The water was up to the hood and the back was floating, but it could still drag itself along the bottom with the front wheels, it just couldn’t climb the bank to get out. When winter came, the transmission had so much water in it, that it would slush up, stalling the engine if I let the clutch out too fast. I had one with over 300,000 miles, before the speedometer failed. After I retired my fleet, several of them collected at my parents farm. After sitting for 6 years my parents decided to send the scrappers in to clear out my automotive clutter. The “nice one” was sunk up to the body in muck and weeds, flat tires, rusty brakes…With only the aid of a jump start, it still fired right up. Of all the cars I have owned, I probably have the fondest memories of these cheap cars. I was “Gamblin” before it was a thing and the education I got was priceless. I was dropping my kid off at high school today, and I see kids with late model Wranglers and Teslas and I wonder if they’ll have as much fun. More importantly, I wonder what they will learn.
I was just slightly under driving age when the Alliance came out, but I devoured automotive magazines, and what people seem to forget these days was that the Alliance was a very well-reviewed car. Personally I was more enamored with its more stylish hatchback sibling, the Fuego. (In the same category I also really dug the Isuzu Impulse.) My mom briefly considered a Fuego when car shopping that year, as well as the introductory-year Mazda 626 liftback (a really nice car).
Alas, our finances did not allow for even a reasonable car such as the Alliance, so my mom settled on a cheap-and-cheerful Mazda GLC wagon. Sadly I never did get to go to a Renault/AMC dealer to get a look at that Fuego.
Toyota eliminated the manual on the non-GR Corolla hatch for 2023 in order to protect the GR.
Now hopefully you’ll actually be able to get one for MSRP LOL
I somehow doubt that Toyota got rid of the manual in the regular hatch because of the GR. The GR will sell fine, and the GR might have actually moved a few more vanilla hatches with manuals. It was likely due to abysmal take rate.
I’m a bit torn on how much I’d expect (dare I say want, I’ll explain in a minute) the dealer markups to be on the GR Corolla. On one hand, I hope the markups are minimal so as not to strangle it in the cradle. On the other hand, I hope the markups are painful enough to discourage me from wanting to get one until it’s fully responsible for me to buy a new car…
I’ve always wanted a Fisher Fury kit car with a LeMans front end. A standard go-to build is to use a Hayabusa engine, ending up with a 900 lb car that can run 10-second 1/4 miles and corner like it’s on rails. Of course, my plan when I was considering one 20 years ago was to convert to electric, and not get performance nearly as fast, but with today’s tech, I could make something even lighter using electric motorcycle hub motors and ebike controllers, give it AWD, and make it go really fast…
It may have changed in today’s “MSRP + markup” pricing environment, but in years past the service department has typically been the biggest profit center for a dealer. With EVs, I imagine you lose a lot of that potential profit. I imagine that has a lot of franchisees wondering if it’s worth it to stay in.
Traded in one of those Expeditions this year. I had replaced the front blower motor once, and the rear twice, as well as the wiring harness and resistor in the front. The plug up front is in a place under the dash where everybody kicks it, an absolutely stupid design. I can’t believe there are any still out there with factory parts.
“How bad will the markups be? We’re taking guesses below.”
*MrTasClubberLangSayingPainGIF*
Unfortunately I expect a whole lot of salespeople crossing their arms and narrowing their eyes before saying words like “rare” and “demand”.
Regarding the Buick buyout offer, if it’s anything like the analogous Cadillac offer of a couple years ago, it will be quite low compared to the typical dealership’s revenue, and yet something like 20-25% of Caddy dealers took the money. If I were GM, this would be a warning light going off if even my dealers don’t have confidence in selling an all electric future.
If the buyout is low value, does it really speak to the prospect of selling EV’s if they don’t take the money? Or does it just mean they don’t rely on Buick to make their money? I.e. part of a larger dealer network that can pivot the dealer to something else gradually or sell it outright to someone else willing to make the switch?
Yeah I’ll be curious to see how it works with Buick. Cadillac has a lot more standalone dealers so the calculation was more straightforward.
Maybe since Buick is typically paired with GMC, the dealers will be quicker to cut the underperforming brand loose?
It was still pretty jarring to see how many dealers took the money from GM before. The payouts were only a few hundred thousand, which is less than a year’s income for most dealers. They were basically taking a buyout at a P/E of less than one, which is insane for any business that intends to be around for the long term.
I think that depends on what the investment was required of them. If they want a few mil of physical plant and dedicated staff and loaners it might be an effective P/E of over 10.
Or infinite P/E if the higher amortized cost of physical plant + recurring costs are higher than the expected increase in revenue.
So Buick service revenue is $0 then? No CPO Buicks are sold? Remember, giving up the new car franchise means you’re giving that up too.
Even if I accept your numbers, which I don’t (Encores were 20,000 of Buick’s 182,000 units sold in 2021), the dealers are still giving up a theoretical eternity of future revenue for a piddling $200K. That isn’t a sign of a healthy confidence in the future of the brand.
Huh
When I first read up top about the buyouts, my reaction was an instant, ‘So, they’re gonna kill Buick now? Wait! Buick is booming in China; wth??’ But, it seems they aren’t anymore. Care to guess if/when GM will pull the plug?
Wow, I was all set to disagree with you until all your f bombs and personal insults convinced me you were right after all…..
Seriously, if you want to have an adult conversation, act like an adult.
It’s clear you have a very different opinion of the NPV of a Buick franchise than I do. Great. Enjoy your day.
“If I were GM, this would be a warning light going off if even my dealers don’t have confidence in selling an all electric future”
If the dealer network folds I’m sure Amazon will be happy to lean into an all electric future.
“Ford Recalls An Assload Of Full-Size SUVs Due To Fire Risk”
Ass sizes vary, but I suspect that most of us can’t keister a single full-size SUV. Almost 200,000 is well beyond medical issue territory.
36K is great if it’s XSE based, and not bad if it’s SE based. When the car was first rumored two years ago, C&D estimated it at 30K. Considering the market we’re in if you can get this at MSRP(HA!), this thing is a steal
The GR Corolla looks like a smokin’ deal if the dealers can somehow tamp down the urge to add an extra $20K for some dubious mandatory “service” or “protection,” or just for gits and shiggles. In time, they’ll build enough of them to put them on the “Toyotathon” parade with good financing and incentives….
Even though it has two doors too many, I’ll probably queue up at a dealer to check one out.
Not being anywhere near having either a want or need for a Gigant-O SUV, I’ll give the Burning Man Edition Fords a miss.
My first car was small, and most of the rest have been, too. Some were smaller than others (e.g. my Honda 600s) and most had two doors — three, if you count a rear hatch. I am one of the six or seven people in this country who would still love to have new small cars to choose between. Even better: simple small cars, sans touchscreens and computerized gimcracks, but with knobs, buttons, proper gauges and dials for the driver. And a manual transmission, of course.
Me too. Wonder what the other five or six are up to this week.
Pinin’ for the fjords?
In my case, it’s pinin’ for the Fords. As in: Fiesta ST.
If I only could understand find in two-door vehicles. We have a two-door currently (well, three-door, duh), and it causes all kinds of problems, from rear-sear accessibility (for cargo; you don’t want to sit in those seats) and parking space width. When (and if) we will look for another car, we’ll make sure it has two doors — per side of the vehicle — plus one (hatch) at the back.
Yeah, I like the style of two doors, but they are a bit of a pain to live with daily.
My favorite subcompact has to be my first car, an ’86 Honda CRX. They don’t get much smaller. Two seats, plastic lower body panels, 1803 lbs curb weight, and a whopping 76 bhp out of the 1.5l CVCC engine.
My favorite subcompact hatchback is the Dodge Viper.
“My favorite subcompact hatchback is the Dodge Viper”
Eh, too many cylinders and not enough tuuurbo.
You lost me at “too many cylinders.”
They absolutely nailed the price on the GR Corolla. Color me pleasantly surprised. A base one will be around the same price as a GTI SE, a mid spec WRX, and a little more than the N cars. Even if you option the performance package (and you should) it’s still a reasonable buy, and it will likely undercut the new Civic Type R. The Golf R looks like a worse buy every day, unfortunately.
The Corolla is going to give sporty compact buyers something to think about. Really my only gripes with the package are that it’s manual only and the interior is pretty drab…but I, and many buyers, are happy to sacrifice some luxury for performance (I own a damn Kona N, the interior is rental car spec lol). I’m sure it’ll be a nightmare trying to get one of these anywhere near MSRP over the next year, but in a few years from now I think they’ll be really good buys. Well done Toyota, I’m having a bit of FOMO after backing out of a GRC for an N…but that DCT is a godsend for traffic.
My favorite sub compact is the Fiat 500 Abarth, and I’m semi-seriously considering getting a convertible one as a weekend warrior. I think it would be a fun and slightly more useful alternative to something like a Miata.
“Really my only gripes with the package are that it’s manual only”
It’s an automatic rich world. Plenty of other choices if an auto is for you.