DominoKeys.com

Dear GM,

I recently purchased a new Buick Enclave from you and LOVE it! I’ve owned many (MANY!) cars and this one easily makes it into my “top 3″ favorite cars of all time. You really did an outstanding job on the vehicle. Oh, and you’ll be happy to note that this vehicle replaced a Lexus RX, which we opted to not re-purchase in lieu of getting the Enclave. So your ad campaign targeting the Buick brand against Lexus is working (and in my estimation, accurate).

I have only two complaints about the vehicle:
1. The side-view mirrors are far too small for a vehicle that big
2. The range of the auto-start (even the “enhanced” one with the key fab larger than a Motorola Razr cell phone) sucks. A lot.

I’m not sure if you know this or not, but Viper has built a great iPhone app that allows people to start up their cars (among other things) by using their iPhone. Its a great app and I’m quite confident its translating into some nice sales.

That got me to thinking… why don’t YOU do it? You already have the infrastructure in place in the form of the OnStar system which can remotely do all sorts of stuff to a GM vehicle. Why not build an iPhone app that allows us, the owners of those cars, to remotely start/stop the vehicles? You could charge for the app (I suggest “free” but if you’d like to make some money, I’d pay as much as $29.99 for the app) and require an OnStar service contract to be in place (of which, I’m on the fence about anyway – this would throw me over that fence).

Beyond being a forward thinking product, this would also solve the problem of how poorly the range is on your key fabs, including the advanced one which I have purchased for the $200+ price and yet seen only a 3 foot range improvement (exaggeration – but not by a whole lot).

If you’re looking for someone to help test it, I humbly offer my services.

Sincerely,

Me.

Tags: buick, cars, gm, great ideas, iphone

One of these days, I’m going to start a blog about cars. In the mean time, you get the benefit of my random thoughts. (I know, lucky you.)

I had two rental cars recently. The first, a Chevrolet TrailBlazer; a car I guess I knew was still in production, but yet didn’t really remember was still being sold. Its undergone very few changes as of late, but one is quite unique … and odd. Note the circle just to the left of the stereo. Its a logo. For the TrailBlazer. – Really? Of all the cars that deserve a logo, I’m not sure this is one of them.

The next rental was a Pontiac GrandPrix, a car I wanted so badly I could taste it back in the day (that was the day they started with those “wide track” commercials). This is a fairly big 4 door car and yet it felt like a really bad use of all that space. I felt like stuff on the dashboard was competing for my attention. And yet, the digital displays (off to the side of the spedo) didn’t care if I paid attention to them or not.

When you start up the car, the top display you see below says “GP.” (Again, what’s with GM logos in cars these days?!) After that, it has a number of display functions, all of which aren’t that important – despite the fact that the display placement is in a highly visible area when you’re driving.

Below that is the stereo display, one that most people pay quite a bit of attention to when driving. I could barely see the station number I was on, had to stop and lean in to see the rest of what was on the screen, and found that I was spending far too much time trying to figure out what was on that thing vs. actually driving.

Finally, as you can see from the photo, there’s not really a good angle to be able to see either of these displays without at least one of them getting reflection from stuff outside.

No point, just random rental car commentary.

Tags: gm, grand prix, rental cars, trailblazer