About
Guy Gordon is morning anchor and automotive reporter for WDIV-TV. He has spent 30 years as a broadcast journalist, and 20+ years covering the automotive industry. He has been one of the leading reporters from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit since 1995.
You can contact Guy at guyg@wdiv.com
Car Guy 
This message is for Guy Gordon.
On this morning’s broadcast, you reported on “Green” cars–two (2) VW’s (Jetta TDI’s), a Honda, and a Toyota. There were no domestic vehicles. I am working on construction project at the GM Tech Center in Warren and get funny looks when I pull in driving my 2005 Jetta TDI Wagon. They can look funny all they want, but the domestic car companies cannot currently come close to touching the mileage that I get with this vehicle. Have you driven the Jetta TDI? If you haven’t, I would suggest that you do. Try to get the car for a weekend and take a trip. When I picked up my car at Williams VW in Lansing, the saleslady told me to try and keep it below 90 mph on my drive home to Detroit. I have to believe that there is where the EPA is running these cars to establish the fuel economy. My car is rated for 38 mpg on the highway. In the middle of winter, driving through snow and slush, with the low ground clearance (Which is plowing the snow with my tires in the ruts.), I get at least 42 mpg. I have gotten a high of 54 mpg in the summer doing mostly city driving. The worst that I have gotten is with four (4) bikes on my roof and the mileage dropped to 33 mpg. Have you ever driven to Mackinac or Niagara Falls and back on a single tank of fuel? I have. The domestic automakers should be ashamed of themselves for not selling the cars here that they have available in Europe. There are 1.7 liter Opel turbo-diesels lined up here on campus. Why aren’t they selling them? If you can line up a TDI you can take mine. A couple of things about my 4 1/2 year old car: It has never had the brakes, clutch, or suspension worked on.
Thanks for your time.
Dan
Dan-
I’ve driven the TDI as well as Mercedes Diesels. I’m a huge diesel fan and of the efficiency they offer. It is beyond me why this country hasn’t made diesel a more important component in its energy policy as Europe has. Of course that presumes we have had any energy policy. To you point: all of the domestics have announced diesel programs, but the price of diesel fuel has been 30% higher than gasoline for the past two years. Even though consumers may experience a net gain at those prices, they can’t overcome the psychological impact of paying a price higher than the fuel to which they are accustomed. Check my blog today. There’s good news on that front.
Guy
luis at suburban cadillac in troy e-me any time for perspective from battle field or inside in fo.
my comment is on carbon motors not seen story on plymouth being picked as 1 of 5 cities in running for new head quarters and factory im sure you will do story to get our governor and all possiable on board to help capture the 10.000 + jobs that are badly needed here cant imagine a better state for the next generation of great auto motive achivemant ! thank you for all u do to support our industry in a positive way LUIS
Thanks Luis,
We have reported about Plymouth being in the running for the E-7 engineering and production work. There are also 4 other communities. I’m pals with the CFO of the company and hopefully we’ll be kept in the loop as we get closer to making a decision. I anticipate we’ll do something about the governor’s response. I can tell you from past experience with Aquada Motors, the company trying to market an amphibious car, that Michigan was not nearly as agressive as other states in the running. We still got that engineering center, but I would hope Jen G would bring more troops to the effort for Carbon Motors.
Hi Car Guy,
Recently traded my clunker for another clunker. Anyway this all started months and months ago in a FPU (Dave Ramsey) class that was hosted in my home. I was waiting and waiting for things to go thru. Around the end of June went into dealership A and did some networking, dealership A never called me back when the Clunker Cash was there. When in dealership A they (2 salesmen) had no idea what was going on with CARS. They both had deer in headlight looks and one even trashed the program as being too complicated. I asked him to give me a question and he couldn’t. Everyone had plenty of time to study the bill online at any time, why didn’t they do that? I did. I don’t get it. Dealership B…. when I was told the deal was all set my wife and I went to pick up our new truck. We had all our ducks in a row and was told to come on up at 5PM to pick up the new truck. Dealership B upon our arrival had good news and bad news. We could have the truck but would have to leave my clunker AND a check for $3000.00. Wow that adds up to $4500.00. I don’t think that was even legal. We drove off the lot with new truck to get checkbook, but just made it off lot and turned around because the knot in my stomach was telling me something was wrong. We switched plates yet again and keys. We drove away with our beloved clunker with over 200,000 miles on her. I should have caught on in dealership B as when I was killing time I chatted with the appraiser of the dealership. I thought it strange but did not grill him about his presence. Who cares what they are worth; the dealer was getting $4500.00 for them. A simple blue book check can give you an appraisal. That evening ended up for fun at dealership C, and yes a deal was made and the new truck sits in our driveway as I write this.
My point is this…. dealerships need to get there act together and do THEIR PART in representing American car dealerships. More importantly the American Car!!!! No wonder many people hate buying or even going into new car dealerships……they are full of snakes.
Thank you for taking my comments. I also thank the many dealerships I have visited in the last month and for the lessons learned in each.
Mike from Macomb
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!