March 18, 2006

Luxury sports utilities are becoming decidedly less desirable than just three years ago, when they were hottest things on wheels and dealers had long waiting lists for most popular models; fewer than half people who bought luxury SUV's are going back for another one; incentives for vehicles are at record levels and for first time, luxury automakers are paying out more for rebates and lease deals to entice consumers to buy luxury SUV's than to buy cars; higher cost of gasoline plays big role; wealthy buyers, who used to shrug off expense, are shifting gears, as excessive energy consumption is becoming socially embarrassing; average incentives on luxury sport utilities hit $4,046 in February, or nearly $1,500 per vehicle more than what automakers doled out on luxury cars; luxury sport utilities are not going away; Cadillac, Lincoln and Mercedes-Benz all have new high-ticket models coming out in next few months; graphs; photos (L)

Market Place column; General Motors Corp's announcement that it will revise profit figures for every year of decade, and will have to restate 2005 earnings it already reported, shows how far icon has fallen; less than year after it lost its investment-grade bond rating, its bonds are viewed as middling even among junk bonds; restatements indicate GM used some highly questionable accounting techniques in 2000, when it seemed to be flying high, and later when profits fell sharply; GM's stock and bonds fall sharply, but end above recent lows; Moody's Investors Service also warns that it might again cut GM's bond rating; negotiators for GM, United Automobile Workers union and Delphi plan to work into weekend in talks on buyout packages for thousands of union members at Delphi; graph (M)

New York Knicks defeat Detroit Pistons, 105-103; photos (M)6

Dan Barry About New York column on Rosemary Cosgrove, Scottish woman suffering from form of dementia known as Pick's disease, who came to New York City to see St Patrick's Day Parade in 2003 and has been missing ever since; photo (M)

College Board is racing to score final 1,600 exams from its problem-ridden Oct SAT test; college and high school officials, testing experts and parents and students have expressed concern about string of recent testing errors around country; states, spurred by No Child Left Behind law, are administering about 45 million tests this school year; educators say volume is stretching $2 billion-a-year education testing industry, taxing its ability to draw up enough tests and score them quickly and reliably; resulting errors have educators and lawmakers calling for better disclosure and oversight; some are proposing national agency like Food and Drug Administration to regulate testing (M)