Thursday, March 22, 2012

Cutest Baby Contest 2012!


We are hosting our first ever ‘cutest baby contest’ starting this coming Monday, March 26, 2012! We are looking for the cutest baby in the Bay County and Saginaw County areas – could this be your child? They could win a $200, $150, or $100 Meijer Gift Card! Send us one adorable photo of your child to graffbaycity@gmail.com starting on Monday the 26th at noon.


The contest is open to children who are three and under at the time of the contest and the photo must be submitted by the parent or legal guardian. We will take the pic’s sent to our email and upload them into a Facebook photo album starting Monday at noon and we will continue posting photos until the following Monday, April 2nd at noon. Then for one more week until April 9th at noon, you, friends, and family can continue to ‘like’ pictures of all of the super cute kids. At noon on the 9th we will tally up the ‘likes’ and the photos with the 3 most ‘likes’ will win the gift cards. Official rules can be found on our Facebook Notes.

We ask that you please be courteous when commenting on these photos. These kids are providing everyone with the ability to go “Awwwww” for hours. So tell your friends and family to enter their kids in what we expect to be a wonderful and fun contest. Make sure to tell them to ‘like’ our page too so they can keep up with the contest!

Graff Chevrolet is proud to serve the auto dealership needs of cities such as Bay City, Midland, Saginaw, Mount Pleasant, Essexville, Pinconning, Coleman, Sanford, Carrollton, Frankenmuth, St. Charles, Birch Run, and Zilwaukee. We provide exceptional customer service, a warm and friendly environment, auto financing options to fit your budget, and an inventory of great new and used cars, trucks, SUV’s, and crossovers. Our ASE certified technicians at the Graff Chevrolet Service Center service and repair all makes and models both foreign and domestic. Call us at (989) 684-4411 or stop in at 3636 Wilder Road, Bay City, MI, 48706 and check out our great GM inventory selection.

Visit our website at www.graffbaycity.com

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Friday, March 16, 2012

Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Sonic – Two Safe Rides For Grads


It’s almost graduation season again, and if you’re like many parents your son or daughter is spreading their wings and heading off to college or off to start a new career. We often provide our children with their first vehicle to start their new journey into life or to get the safely off to college and back home. The 2012 Chevrolet Cruze and the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic are both great cars for grads as a way to commemorate all of their hard work and accomplishments - and both of them made Forbes’ “Safest Small Cars for under $20,000.” In an article called, “Cruze, Sonic Among Forbes’ Safest under $20,000” from Chevrolet In The News explains why these two Chevy’s merited a spot on this list.

The 2012 Chevrolet Cruze is an excellent vehicle to get your grad safely off to college and back home for plenty of visits to thank you for their great new ride.
Chevrolet was the best-selling passenger-car brand in the country last year, and one look at its lineup helps explain why: The brand is in the midst of introducing a new generation of vehicles that offer high value, dynamic style, an engaging driving experience and award-winning safety. In fact, two of the newest cars in the Chevrolet stable—the new Chevy Sonic and Chevy Cruze—recently added to that roll call of honors when they were named to the list of “Safest Small Cars for under $20,000” by Forbes magazine.
It’s an important recognition because, as the publication points out, “a vehicle-related fatality occurs an average of once every 16 minutes” in this country.
But both the Sonic and Cruze help protect their occupants with a wealth of standard safety features, such as electronic stability control, traction control, anti-lock brakes, body structures that incorporate plenty of high-strength steel, the LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) child-seat attachment system, and 10 airbags, including side-curtain airbags designed to help keep outboard passengers safe in rollover crashes. Each also comes with GM’s OnStar service, which can leverage GPS and cellular phone technology to automatically reach first responders in case of an emergency—even if the vehicle occupants are unable to activate the system themselves.
In addition, the Cruze showcases a collapsible pedal assembly that can help guard against injuries to the driver’s lower body.
The 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Cruze both grabbed top safety picks from IIHS and the NHSTA
Unsurprisingly, both vehicles also were named Top Safety Picks by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and received overall 5-star safety scores from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Your grad will be a ‘Happy Grad’ driving to campus or off to their job in a new Cruze or Sonic. Come into Graff Chevrolet Bay City to see our great selection of both of these vehicles and many others.
Graff Chevrolet is proud to serve the auto dealership needs of cities such as Bay City, Midland, Saginaw, Mount Pleasant, Essexville, Pinconning, Coleman, Sanford, Carrollton, Frankenmuth, St. Charles, Birch Run, and Zilwaukee. We provide exceptional customer service, a warm and friendly environment, auto financing options to fit your budget, and an inventory of great new and used cars, trucks, SUV’s, and crossovers. Our ASE certified technicians at the Graff Chevrolet Service Center service and repair all makes and models both foreign and domestic. Call us at (989) 684-4411 or stop in at 3636 Wilder Road, Bay City, MI, 48706 and check out our great GM inventory selection.

Visit our website at www.graffbaycity.com

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Thursday, March 8, 2012

New Performance Vehicles – Same Chevy Small-Block Engine


There have been many drastic changes to the automobile in the more than 100 years they have been around. One element in the automotive world that has stood the test of time is the Chevrolet small-block engine. The Chevy small-block was first introduced in 1955 and continues to be produced over 55 years later. We wanted to share an article from Corvette Online called, “Mighty Chevy Small-Block, A Survivor of More Than 50 Years,” with our readers, which shares the history of Chevrolet’s small-block.

The Chevy small-block engine is one of the most widely known and used engines across the board when it comes to performance cars, racers and even family sedans. But did you know that the small-block has truly stood the test of time? First introduced to the Chevy lineup in 1955, the small V8 engine continues to be produced today, and as we found out from The Globe and Mail, the history behind the iconic engine is quite an extensive one.

The Chevrolet Small-Block Engine
Although Chevrolet created their first V8, a 55-horsepower 288ci. engine, of which only 3,000 were made, in 1917, the Chevy small-block didn’t really get its start until four decades later. In wasn’t until 1952 with the arrival of Ed Cole as Chevy’s chief engineer that the iconic engine came to be.
Fresh from supervising the creation of Cadillac’s new V8 engine, Cole pulled the plug on Chevrolet’s new V8 design after seeing the plans. Instead of working with what Chevy already had in the works, Cole assembled a team of GM engineers to create his vision of a lightweight, compact and powerful V8 engine. The result was the overhead valve V8 introduced in the 1955 Chevys and still produced today for marine and industrial use, as well as in “crate engine” varieties .
Cole and the GM engineering dream team were able to create an engine block at the heart of the V8 that was more compact than any other engine. Thanks to new casting techniques, the new engine was strong but small, measuring only 21.75 inches long and nine inches tall. The engine was also more cost-effective to make and weighed less than other engines at just 531 pounds (the Chevy “Stovebolt” six engine weighed 41 pounds more than the fully dressed newly-created V8 at the time).
The newly-designed V8 featured a new oil metering system that used hollow pushrods and lubricated new lightweight stamped steel rocker arms. These rocker arms not only allowed the engine to achieve high RPMs, they were also cheap to make. To help the engine to reach high RPM without damaging the engine, the V8 had wedge combustion chambers, as well as a forged steel crank and connecting rods. The engine also came equipped with a one-piece intake casting complete with a cooling water outlet, distributor mount, oil filter, exhaust heat riser, and lifter valley covers.
The compact engine block eventually became known as the small-block after the “big-block” engine was introduced in 1958, giving any engine built on the compact platform the Chevy small-block nickname.
The Chevy small-block was featured in classic muscle cars...
The first small-block V8 offered in the ‘55 Chevys had a displacement of 265ci. This engine was capable of producing 162hp. Compare this to the first Corvette Stovebolt engines that produced only 150hp, and there is a noticeable difference.
In 1957, the small-block grew to 283ci. and was one of the first engines to produce over one horsepower per cubic inch with the help of Rochester fuel injection. The 283ci. engine also won the NASCAR championship in 1957, but was banned the following year.
Many small-block varieties followed, including the 327ci. V8 in 1962, the 302ci. and 350ci. V8s used in Trans Am racing, the 307ci. and 400ci. V8s in 1970, a 305ci. in 1976, and a 110-horsepower 265ci. V8 produced shortly in the mid 1970s. The small 265ci. engine had the lowest horsepower rating of all the small-blocks.
... And in today's performance vehicles
The small-block is still being produced today in Mexico, Canada and the United States. With its fourth-generation engines, Chevy recently celebrated their one-millionth small-block build with the most powerful variety to date, the 638-horsepower LS9 V8.

Plans for a fifth-generation small-block engine are currently in the works for Chevrolet and we look forward to seeing just how powerful the beloved small-block platform can get.

If you have any questions about the latest Chevy small-block engine or which of our vehicles have them, feel free to Contact Us here and we’ll be happy to field all of your questions.

Graff Chevrolet is proud to serve the auto dealership needs of cities such as Bay City, Midland, Saginaw, Mount Pleasant, Essexville, Pinconning, Coleman, Sanford, Carrollton, Frankenmuth, St. Charles, Birch Run, and Zilwaukee. We provide exceptional customer service, a warm and friendly environment, auto financing options to fit your budget, and an inventory of great new and used cars, trucks, SUV’s, and crossovers. Our ASE certified technicians at the Graff Chevrolet Service Center service and repair all makes and models both foreign and domestic. Call us at (989) 684-4411 or stop in at 3636 Wilder Road, Bay City, MI, 48706 and check out our great GM inventory selection.

Visit our website at www.graffbaycity.com

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Friday, March 2, 2012

GM Backs Enevia Battery to Reduce Electric Vehicle Sticker Price


BAY CITY, Mich. March 2, 2012 – With gas prices on the rise again everyone is looking for ways to save at the pump.  Hybrids and electric vehicles are a great way to drastically improve fuel economy. However, some drivers don’t plan driving their driving a particular vehicle long enough to recoup the additional costs from their fuel savings. Envia Systems saw this challenge and stepped up to the plate to try and bring the electric vehicle sticker price down.

The California battery start-up company, Envia Systems, says that has achieved a tremendous breakthrough that could cut the price of electric vehicle batteries in half. Last year General Motors invested $7 million into Envia Systems. What makes the breakthrough announcement particularly interesting is that Envia says that it has verified with a U.S. Navy test center that the cells in their batteries have hit the highest energy density in any lithium-ion battery ever, about 400 Watt-hours per kilogram. That’s nearly 10 times as much energy weight as the 2012 Volt’s competitor, the Toyota Prius. 

With the Envia battery, the Chevy Volt's sticker price could be comparable to a regular midsized sedan
At 400 Watt-hours per kilogram, the price of a 300-mile range battery could be reduced by half. Envia says the science behind these batteries is ready for production and could be road ready in as little as three years. There are still a few bumps in the road to work out for Envia, but this breakthrough puts GM ahead of the curve.

Graff Chevrolet is proud to serve the auto dealership needs of cities such as Bay City, Midland, Saginaw, Mount Pleasant, Essexville, Pinconning, Coleman, Sanford, Carrollton, Frankenmuth, St. Charles, Birch Run, and Zilwaukee. We provide exceptional customer service, a warm and friendly environment, auto financing options to fit your budget, and an inventory of great new and used cars, trucks, SUV’s, and crossovers. Our ASE certified technicians at the Graff Chevrolet Service Center service and repair all makes and models both foreign and domestic. Call us at (989) 684-4411 or stop in at 3636 Wilder Road, Bay City, MI, 48706 and check out our great GM inventory selection.

Visit our website at www.graffbaycity.com

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Thursday, March 1, 2012

The 2012 Chevrolet Sonic – Success From Stress Tests


It seems like ever since the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic’s performance at this years Super Bowl, people just can’t get enough. This little car has been doing some pretty big and daring stunts. The Sonic has been busting out kick-flips, bungee jumping over a kiddy pool, and even skydiving! There has been a lot of extreme testing that has attributed this mini-Evil Kenevil mobile. In an article from Chevrolet News called, “Grueling Road Stress Fuels Chevy Sonic Success” discusses the testing done to the 2012 Chevy Sonic that has helped shape it into the successful small car it is today. Take a look:

DETROIT – There are miles and then there are “Seth miles.” Both measure 5,280 feet, but a “Seth mile” is different. More extreme. More grueling. More punishing. All that rigor is part of the durability story of the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic.   

“Seth miles” are named for Chevrolet Sonic Quality Manager Seth Valentine. Each mile Valentine puts on a test vehicle is called a “Seth mile” by Sonic engineers because of his reputation for extreme testing on long road trips. Valentine’s duty: Make the   Sonic the most reliable and durable small car in North America.

The efforts are paying off as Sonic more than doubled the sales of its predecessor, the Aveo, in January. Sonic is the only subcompact built in the United States.
Over one six-week period, Valentine drove more than 14,000 miles in the first Sonic to leave the General Motors Orion (Mich.) Assembly Plant. Valentine drove Sonic Vehicle Identification No. 1 from north to south and east to west, across subtropical Florida, the arid deserts of Arizona, the mountains of Colorado, and the South Carolina low country.

In addition to amassing miles with other Sonic team members, Valentine would play typical consumer and pack the Sonic to the hilt for a family vacation.  
During work trips, Valentine and his colleagues identified quality issues that needed fixed before Sonics were shipped to Chevrolet dealers. One lengthy journey from the assembly plant outside Detroit to Phoenix revealed an intense wind noise while traveling through a 40 mph crosswind in Texas. The wind noise was not a factor during testing at the GM Proving Ground in Milford, Mich. Valentine called the assembly plant from the road and had the problem fixed before VIN No. 2 left the factory. He took the same approach with other issues found on the road.

 “I do test drives because I want to experience everything a customer could: low altitude, high altitude, high temperatures and low temperatures,” said Valentine.  “In the course of one week I can go from below sea level at 120 degrees F to below freezing temperatures at 12,000 feet above sea level.  We can experience everything the customer might experience.”

The 2012 Chevrolet Sonic has been tested over and over before hitting the production line
The Sonic comes with a 100,000-mile powertrain warranty, 40,000 miles more than most competing small car powertrain warranties. It is the only small car manufactured in the United States. 

If you have any questions about the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic or would like to test drive one Contact Us and we will gladly get you behind the wheel or field any questions you have.

Graff Chevrolet is proud to serve the auto dealership needs of cities such as Bay City, Midland, Saginaw, Mount Pleasant, Essexville, Pinconning, Coleman, Sanford, Carrollton, Frankenmuth, St. Charles, Birch Run, and Zilwaukee. We provide exceptional customer service, a warm and friendly environment, auto financing options to fit your budget, and an inventory of great new and used cars, trucks, SUV’s, and crossovers. Our ASE certified technicians at the Graff Chevrolet Service Center service and repair all makes and models both foreign and domestic. Call us at (989) 684-4411 or stop in at 3636 Wilder Road, Bay City, MI, 48706 and check out our great GM inventory selection.

Visit our website at www.graffbaycity.com

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