pissies me off when people get excited about buying a KIA
I get more excited to drive our Diesel Sorento than my VE.
Better equipped, better build quality, better road feel, better brakes, more comfortable interior.....I could go on
If Holden/GM jumped on the bandwagon and built a properly equipped Diesel SUV that actually worked I'd have bought one of those long ago, but the Koreans beat them to it did it better in just about every single way, at that point they became the prominent SUV manufacturers.
In fact in 220,000km doing loads of km's per day it's the only car I've ever owned thats never had a single fault even a minor one in all that time, hell it's still on it's original rotors/pads and and suspension it tows often etc.
I'm not brand loyal these days by any means now Holden is gone, I buy cars I like....not cars that are locally manufacturered or badge specific.....I give zero fks if it costs jobs etc. If the cars were built to suit the market demand then they'd still be around, unfortunately GM has had a nasty habit for the last 80 or so years of a board of outdated execs telling the consumer what they want, rather than asking what they want.
To quote a GM Exec from Detroit in their hay day in the 60s/70s "We are General Motors, people will drive what we tell them to drive".
The market for 4 door sedans died 15 odd years ago.....it wasn't sustainable, if they had a proper SUV option (not a captiva etc) that was locally built to local conditions I personally feel they'd still be around.
My next daily will be a Ranger or a Dodge Ram, probably 3x the size of my VE Ute but also 3x the towing capacity which I need......I couldn't care less if people can't see past it or thinks it's too big, not my problem.
