It seems to me that American-flagged companies (happy Kaisen?) shoot themselves in the foot with rental car companies. Apparently each of the big three own significant portions of Hertz, Dollar, Avis, etc and so the rental companies have cars to rent in proportion to who owns the company. IE, Ford owns 35% of Hertz, so they get to supply 35% of Hertz' fleet. Except that they sell them the *****tiest low-end cars that come off the assembly line. For many people, that low-end Malibu they drive for a week on travel may be the only time they drive a Malibu. And chances are good they're going to walk away with a bad impression of that vehicle.

Then the double-whammy comes when all those crap-mobiles flood the market when sold to private buyers for cheap. Now the every Malibu or Focus takes a huge depreciation hit - another reason not to buy one new in the first place. (However, I'll contend that a 2-year old Taurus is probably the best deal to be found right now in the U.S.)

IMO, the big three would be better served by supplying higher-end cars and replacing them a lot less often and highering more mechanics (or even just jiffy-lube-trained greasemonkeys) to maintain the cars better and keep them more than 10k-20k miles. That way people have better experiences with rental cars, and the market isn't flooded with cheapos after only a few thousand miles.

I know this isn't going to make me very popular here. (ahem) If I spent $50000 on a new 2006 Vette Z51 and $70000 on a new 2006 Porsche 997, both would lap my favorite track with very similar times.

The Porsche I have to take to one of two Porsche dealers within 200 miles. The Vette I can take to one of HUNDREDS of GM dealers within 200 miles, and get it in the same day, with pretty good parts availability.

In my personal experience with Vettes, they are very reliable. My 2001 had tire pressure sensor errors, but that was because I switched to non-runflat Michelin Pilots. The locking pin in the steering column was recalled too. Drove that car to 55K miles with no other problems. Drove it on the track too. Hard.

IF the 2006 Vette broke out of warranty a few times, I'm still $20000 ahead from the start. I can fix a lot with $20K. I doubt I'd spend that much in 100K miles.

If I spent $10000 upgrading the Vette, or blew the whole wad on a Z06, the Vettes would show taillights to any 997 at any venue. Sorry, it's true.

E

Rather hard to do engineering and styling work when you're dumping $5b a year into healthcare and pension. When you have to keep factories open at half capacity because the union wants it. When sales slow down, you lay off workers, while still paying them full salary.

When you don't have the $, you can't build the product. It's a vicious circle.

And John, would you really rather have this?

http://new-cars.com/2004/honda/accor...d-ex-sedan.jpg

Mazda6 aside, midsize sedan styling is conservative and dated. People apparently like appliances for cars...

They're still doing style and engineering work, it's just *****ty work. They made beaucoup $^2 taking cheap truck bodies, bolting on oversized passenger cabins and turning them for $40k with 0% financing, 'employee discounts' and all sorts of other sales schemes. They passed out the windfall as executive bonuses, but when people stopped buying the crap, and now it's the UAW's fault?

If their business model really is that untenable, maybe it's time to hang it up.

That's what I mean by "doing work"...doing engineering and styling work that's worthwhile.

How is it easier to make money: sell candy to kids, or sell spinach to them? GM chose to sell candy, as most salesmen would. They followed the simple law of giving the consumer the choices they wanted: light trucks.

Like I said, the executives never deserved the bonuses, but I seriously doubt they add up to $5b a year.

Imagine the drain on companies everywhere if they had to deal with unionized, pay-almost-everything healthcare...in an era where the costs are astronomical and unforseen.

If the corporate world treated people fairly to begin with there wouldn't be a need for unions. The problem is that greedy executives and shareholders alike want to get rich off the hard labor of the line workers to the point of taking advantage of them. I'm all for making money but the executives need to show a little grattitude to their workers that work hard to make them rich. Given the opportunity the execs would cut benefits or even wipe out the pensions without thinking twice and then trun around and give themselves a few million dollars bonus. If you compare compensation between US executives and their European counterparts you will find that things are really out of whack over here and it's only getting worse. Executive compensation has almost doubled in the last 5 years, while employee compensation has remained nearly stagnate.

How about the compensation received by the union bosses?

It is difficult. You see nonunion Walmart workers having benefits slashed, and you see (far more important companies, like GM) unionized companies going down the tubes while paying out too many benefits, IMO, for the workers' services rendered.

I agree, management in too many corporations in this country have sticky fingers.

But surely GM could find a medium between the shady business practices of Japanese companies (firing workers just before they can collect a pension), and paying $2x/hr, almost full healthcare, and pension. If only the UAW would let them...they're only starting to realize GM doesn't have half the car market anymore and billions of dollars to play with.

FWIW, GM sold its entire stake in FHI to Toyota. Toyota gets AWD tech a bunch of new battery tech as a result.

You're absolutely correct about the Corvette, though. The single funnest drive I've ever experienced was the Z06 I took around the GM test track's "challenge course" here in AZ.

One thing I found out the hard way, though, is that if the back end breaks loose you need to let *off* the throttle--unlike my 911. :eek:

Oh, BTW:

http://www.autoextremist.com/page6.shtml#table

Could this be the answer for GM?
LOL!!!!!!http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1130977631.jpg

This guy had two spare tires in the bed, just in case!!!I forgot to get a picture of the home made cowl induction hood.:eek:

This is a pushrod V8 we're talking about--I'm pretty sure hammers and chisels are part of the assembly process.

If only GM didn't build the Corvette with a black box...

This is known as "being a victim of one's own success."

Happens all the time, believe it or not...just not often as spectacularly as it is going down at P-car Central.

I think that GM's two biggest downfalls were: 1) Their arrogance in the 50's and early sixties when they owned over 50% of the total market and was quoted "What's good for GM is good for America"

2) Handing out premium employee health and retirement benefits in that era instead of paying higher wages to attract workers. Problem is while they saved $$ on the short end GM never attched any real or projected cost for the future. They just completely ignored what would eventually happen as their workers aged and started to retire.

That corporate attitude led them down a very perilous path to the current problem.

I agree!

You could argue this problem is the same for the entire country, if only on a larger scale. For reference, study the American consumer.

Wait and watch...

GM and Ford will cease producing cars in America and Europe. After declaring bankruptcy and dumping their pension mess on the Government, they will move the vast majority of their production operations to China.

Republicans will have a field day claiming the Democratic Party is at fault for allowing the "Big Two" to shirk their responsibilities to the common man. President Hillary will blame Bush. Meanwhile, Bill’s "Interns Gone Wild" reality TV show becomes America’s top watched show.

(Okay, I couldn’t help but add the second paragraph. ;) )

Do ya think the folks at GM are worried a bit...

I'd like the Blue Light Special on a new Hummer Please--Hold the Toast

I bet the Hummer dealer is *****ting bricks right now.

"Built??" where did you see that?.

Controlling interest.