Ah, there's that "initial quality" thingy again.

If Michael Jordan misses a 3 pointer, you shrug it off and say "oh well." You pretty much would expect me to miss (and I wouldn't disappoint you.)

Let's make a note to discuss this subject again when Porsche surpasses the 30-year crap mark.

Toyota did that in their own advertising. It said in fine print "special advertising section." They have very good PR.

Anyone who's not smart enough to figure out that the glossy section with the smaller pages that is glued into your magazines in an ad, then you have bigger problems. I ignore those, so I didn't see it, but I find it hard to believe that Toyota claims that a Prius is faster than a Vette or Viper. That's not even their target audience, the Prius is about gas mileage, and feeling warm and fuzzy that you're doing your part to save the manatees.

Re: Re: GM's CEO, Rick Wagoner, writes WSJ Editorial
 

The Big Three automakers were very invested in a national health plan, because it could move the cost of taking care of their workers off their books and onto the taxpayers' backs. Much like WalMart currently does -- paying some workers so little that they can qualify for food stamps and other forms of assistance.

Corporations do not have a 'moral imperative.' They operate solely in self-interest.

And perhaps a minimal health care 'safety net' is not a right. But we're paying for it anyway, unofficially through health care costs that have to compensate for those who cannot pay. I haven't seen an unbiased analysis yet that shows the difference in net cost between a government program of subsidized health care and what we have now.

Why do mid-70s 911 engines last about 50k miles before needing a rebuild? Why do 911 engines have problems with head studs? 928s with electronics and synchros? 944s with timing belts, oil cooler seals, and 20 other things?

If Porsches were within the range of the average car owner, they would've been junked for the 915 tranny long ago.

The difference is that we're different people. We like the cars we have. They have some semblance of collectible value. We care enough to rebuild them when things go wrong. It's a labor of love in many cases, rather than a headache.

The average American car owner owning a Camry or Accord or Impala doesn't care about rebuilding a mere form of transportation. They'll junk it and move on. They don't want to have the same car 30 years later. Modern car companies build accordingly, all of them. Do you see the same quality and thickness of sheet metal, even on German cars?

You're half right, but the consequences are not as you describe.

When a GM buyer (working man, used to standing in line, shopping at Wal-mart, getting pushed around in life) has low expectations, and discounts many of the small problems with his new car, GM does better in the J.D. Power survey than it should.

When a Cayenne buyer (executive, demands perfection, no tolerance for quality problems or parts outages) sees any little thing wrong he raises a huge stink, screams at anyone and everyone and trashes Porsche in the J.D. Power survey. This pushes the Cayenne down to a much worse position than it should.

I saw a report regarding exactly this, that a GM or Hyundai buyer will tend to live with little stuff, while a BMW or Porsche buyer will raise hell for every squeak and rattle, driving their ratings down.

Porsches are kept around because they're worth keeping, and have an enthusiast base that supports them that you don't find with a Grand Prix. Now compare an '80s Porsche with an '80s Camaro, another car that has enthusiast support to keep it around. Have you ever ridden in an '80s F-body? You spend your entire ride with your hands out, waiting to catch the interior bits that sound as if they're going to fall off with every bump. Somehow I also doubt that most 305s can make it 2-300k without a rebuilt like a 3.0 or 3.2.

I agree with Rick. The fed needs to step up the the plate and do what's right. If the fed can justify subsidized health care for its employees, congress, the president, the military, native Americans and everyone else in between why can't it help big business, and small, with controls and subsidies for healthcare in the private sector? It seems to me that road building, defense, education and healthcare are just some of the essential elements necessary for a prosperous nation.

I'm a unionist and not going to even try to hide this fact. But, Rick did mention that GM has several issues and one wasn't concessions from UAW. I thought the part about a level playing field is something that needs a serious look.

FWIW, there are no Z06's in Alaska to test, but hopefully, I will have an opportunity in Feb when I'm so Calif.

You entirely ignored all of the flaws I mentioned. Also, I'm not defending what GM did in the 80s. I'm defending them in the here and now.

And for the statistical reports, what about the average Japanese car owner? If they have a few problems, they may say "Eh, it'd be worse with a domestic" and artifically boost their company's rating. Also, I doubt a Toyota owner is significantly better off than a GM owner.

GM can certainly work on vehicle dynamics, I'm not arguing there. But as everyday transportation. I think they're approaching Toyota or Honda. I've driven relatively new examples of each car, as a valet. Blindfold me and I couldn't tell you which was which. Making some sort of positive distinction and eclipsing them should be GM's goal, not just building select lines of high-end vehicles to chase people who never will give them a fair chance.

But you did bring forth the problems that older Porsches have, I was just coming up with a GM corollary. I can't claim to have test driven a new GM sedan vs a Japanese one, but I have been out recently helping my inlaws shop for a new small car, and from a fit and finish standpoint GM has improved, but Honda, Toyota, and even Mazda have the edge in materials and interior design, with VW beating them all.

I would bet that if the truth were truly known, the Japanese would lead by a wide margin when it comes to fewest problems per new vehicle. Really, why is it only initial quality they tout, why not quality years down the road? Of course, my inlaw's Expedition has been recalled something like 13 times, their F250 SD not far behind, along with several each for their kid's Grand Prix, Grand Am, Sable, and Dakota. Perhaps I should mention that they purchased a Mazda 3, their first foreign car ever. Losing customers like them out of frustration is why the domestics are in trouble.

If you think more high-level, GM and the unions have to negotiate defined-contribution health insurance and retirement benefits. I'm not sure what's more foolish: management promising to pay all the health insurance and retirement benefits indefinitely, or the unions believing that they will do it.

As for national health insurance, I think that many people from both sides can see the wisdom in a lowest common denominator barebones health system paid for the government. An arrangement like this would help convey the appropriate message that basic healthcare is a right, but premium healthcare commands a premium. This would be a huge boon to employers who could be sure that the basic needs of their employees would be met, and could then include upgraded health insurance as a true benefit.

I think I missed the ammendment making basic healthcare a right.

I see rights as guarantees that the government will stay out of my business, not promises that they will give me stuff.

It's demonstrably a right even now. Stick a knife through your arm and walk into an emergency room with no ID and no money. Suprisingly, they usually won't have security toss you out into the parking lot.

What's incredibly inefficient is that many people get very sick and go to the emergency room, costing billions of dollars a year, when a quick and inexpensive check up from a nurse-practicioner and a $5 prescription for a generic drug would have prevented the whole problem.

We pay either way. :(

But that's another thread. Suffice it to say that many staunchly Republican CEOs would love to have a plan like I describe.

Level playing field? Ha! "I'm losing on my home court, so I should be able to ask the referee to give me an advantage."

Not asking for a bailout? Ha! The last sentence sure sounds like someone is asking for a bailout.


Most of the comments against GM are right on. I laughed out loud at the comment about SUV sales versus small car sales. For the past 5 to 10 years, they've been pushing the big SUV and trucks. Hell, when I think GM I think Corvette and trucks. Did they really push other models?

Yeah...overseas sales is breaking records alright...they sold 2 cars in a foreign country that never knew GM existed before this year. Ha!

The commentary is a cry for sympathy and it's full of BS. Lets blame everything but the damn company! He sure can write a good piece. There'll be a lot of people who will feel sorry for GM.

I've had plenty of GM product and they all sucked. I was at a Chevrolet dealership not too long ago to pick up my rental car at the Enterprise counter w/in the showroom. While I was waiting, I looked at the cars on the floor. All of them, over priced POS that I wouldn't buy if they gave me a 2 for 1 deal.

While not specific to GM, here is my take on domestic:foreign products.

We bought a zero mile Subaru Outback in 1999. Daily driver, gets no love as it is our "drive it into the ground" car. We took it in for its' 60k mile service recently and rang up a $600 bill for general service, tune up, brake pads, turn the rotors and a new instrument pod ($200 alone). Other than regular oil changes that is the total cost of maintenance for 6 years.

We bought a zero mile Chrysler Pacifica in 2002. The family car. It has been in the shop for rattles and poorly installed external trim (never fixed) as well as for air in the power steering system. Rattles, creaks and other noises are becomming more frequent as time goes by. Had a few pieces of trim inside fall off to boot. I honestly think that in a couple of years I am hosed when the warranty runs out.

WOW ground breaking news here import owners say all American cars are crap. American car fans say all imort cars are crap. Id say our impressions of our cars can be skewed by our likes. We tend to forgive problems with cars we like and overstate problems with ones we despise. No suprise to me that import lovers outnumber American car fans on this board.

Hey gary I bet if the instruments had to be replaced on a chevy at 60000 miles people would be screaming bloody hell about the crap product it was.

What's sad though Craig, is that I WANT to like American cars, but every time I'm in one, I can't make myself. They're the home team, I have to root for them, but thus far they're pulling a Buckner and letting the ball roll between their legs. If some of them, especially Ford, would bring some of their European market cars to the US, it would do wonders. The Mondeo and new Focus compete well with the best European cars in their segment, while we get the Fusion and the Focus gets new headlights. Of all things, why would an American company sell their best products only overseas? Do they just think they can sell us crap and get away with it? Obviously not, as Ford is cutting a good chunk of their workforce too.

Ya know, there was a time when almost everyone was an American car owner. I'll never forget when my best friends dad--an Oldsmobile man through and through who bought a new one like clockwork every two years--got his first foreign car back in the late 70s. It was some little weird looking Toyota wagon. You should have heard this old guy rave about it.

Every import car fan had a moment of epiphany when they first realized domestic cars are crap. American car fans just aren't there yet.

Maybe GM should hold a contest and see if they can find a former Accord owner who'll go on record as prefering a Malibu. Better strap him to a lie detector though.

As a Porsche driver (even if it's a 944, it's a vaunted German car - does that one up the Accord?), I'll go on record as saying that I fully intend to make my first new car purchase one from an American-headquartered company. Should be in approximately 7-10 years. That is, if America doesn't put them out of existence first.

With a new Camaro potentially coming based on an entirely new RWD architecture, this might be interesting. Might shake the mullet image, who knows.

Interesting news:

http://www.jdpower.com/news/releases/pressrelease.asp?ID=2005249

JD Power announced (Dec 8, 2005) their latest 'customer retention' numbers. Lexus (63%) and Toyota (62.6%) topped the list, to no big surprise.

What may be a surprise to some of you:
CHEVROLET was 4th on the list at 57.3% retention.

Ford was 6th with 54%
Cadillac was 7th with 53%

Industry average was 49.6%

Acura was 15th with 45.7%
Porsche was 17th with 44.4%
Mazda was 35th with 23.4%

What do you think?

E

FWIW, I would bet that the employee pricing fiasco had a lot to do with that. According to this month's C&D, thanks to the big 3's employee pricing July was the largest volume sales month ever, and GM's July sales were up 47% from July '04. That's going to skew the statistics for quite some time, it doesn't take into account that many of the cars were sold at, or in some cases below cost.

Even so, they obviously need to attract some new customers too, because they're not doing too hot.

I thought we'd already established the JD Power was a marketing shill.

Great, but who is benefitting? Why manipulate the data?

Does Toyota pay J.D Power? Does GM?

E

Toyota owns everybody, didn't you get the memo?

Jeeze folks.....This is like a discussion on religion.

I guess that GM didn't watch 60 minutes last night when Andy Rooney stated the market statictics on the Auto industry. The American car industry did not fare well.

GM knew it was/is producing crap cars way back when, and hoped amnesia would keep the buyers coming back.

The American Car Market was GM's to lose...and they lost it many years ago. But....I HATE to see workers lose their jobs because of executive incompetence, arrogance and short sightedness.

Have I owned GM cars? yes, would I like to have continued owning GM, yes, did I and my family get burned by GM? yes. Were the next cars (several) we purchased manufactured by GM? no. Will the next car we purchase (and my children purchase) be a GM product? no.

What GM may or may not have realized is that the generation of customers they turned off, carried over into the next generation(s) of car buyers and they will not buy domestic.

How do you think children learned curse words?

They kept hearing their parents yell... "What the Fuch is wrong with that Damn car now? Wasn't it just in the GD shop last month?" Or "Whaddya mean the $800.00 repair isn't covered under warranty?"...or:

Buy top of the line GM model, take it in for service and the loaner car is the absolute bottom of the line tin can....

Oh well, I truely hope like hell GM and the other domestic automakers stay in business unfortunetly, it make take a few generations of consumers for that to happen.

Not starting a new thread for this......................GM related.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051213/ap_on_bi_ge/gm_india
GM to Nearly Triple India Production
If the link does not work, just look for the headline - it's around.

General Motors Corp. said Tuesday it plans to nearly triple the number of cars it produces in India to meet growing demand in the South Asian country.

($suckers) += ($hours / 60)

OTOH, GM cars might be marginally better than a rickshaw.

You make a good point about the US market being GM, Ford, Chrysler's market to lose. Just talk to most old timers, especially in the central US. They're still faithful to their American cars, regardless of their problems, and don't like the cars made by the Japs and Krauts.:) The US companies had to overcome this passed down national pride with pure crap, and years of it. They had to overcome national pride with horrible products and inferior customer service, so much so that people began to wonder, what else is out there?

A couple great cases in point, my inlaws just bought a new Mazda 3. They live in a small town in central KS, often buy new cars, and between them and their kids own a Expedition, F250 SD, Grand Am, Grand Prix, Ranger, HD Ford Diesel, Dakota, and an old F100. They have never purchased a foreign car, but are fed up with the problems and recalls they have had on their current ones. Also, after looking at small American sedans they realized that they weren't as nice, didn't get as good of MPG, and didn't drive as nice. They came to these conclusions on their own, I didn't even have to help them. Now they're happy as can be, and will probably consider more foreign cars in the future.

Another is my parents. My dad is a lifetime Chrysler man. He grew up in Richard Petty's home town in NC, his dad had a garage that specialized in Hemis, and his pride an joy when he was my age was a '69 Roadrunner. He also at one point was the service manager for a Chrysler dealership. Always owned a Chrysler. After years of problematic cars, their Stratus and Sebring finally did them in when they started eating head gaskets and waterpumps. The frustrations that he had trying to repair them probably didn't help, what a joke. They now have a Hyundai and a Toyota, and are happy as can be. Say goodbye to two more loyal customers.

My car is a Chevy my truck is a Ford. The chevy is nearly dead at 75,000 miles with lotsa little issues but a majorly leaking head gasket. I can't keep coolant in it. The Ford has been great 180,000 miles, not entirely trouble free but I'd buy another IF I could afford it!

I'm looking at used Fords with 50,000 miles on them for $25K! A new F150 can run me $34K!!! But I can get a new 06 Tacoma 4WD big cab for $24K.

I am sorry for the UAW workers but i have to look out for me too. And no one is losing sleep over my industry's woes.

You notice that they price the trucks (which sell) high, while the cars (don't sell) are low. My father in law's F250 SD was a $40k+ truck new, now with a bit over 100k it has so many little problems he rarely drives it. The MPG doesn't help either. To it's credit, it is still good mechanically though.

I'm sorry, but I can't say I feel for the UAW workers either, they've been sucking their employers dry for years. When Boeing Wichita was recently bought out, the new owner had to negotiate new contracts with the various unions. The machinist's union rejected the offer of a MINIMUM of $25/ hr, with full health care, etc. The offer amounted to a 3% initial cut in pay, but they would get that back along with further raises within 5 years. A few people would have lost their jobs, but the majority would see no change. The union of course rejected the offer, greedy bastards, so Spirit Aerosystems essentially fired them all. They then sent offers to those that they wanted, offering them the opportunity to work, but they ended up offering less jobs than they would have if the union accepted the offer. So thanks to the union greed, people that would have had a job were now on the street.

I don't want to turn this into a union bashing thread, but they turned down $25/ hr! These are machinists, not engineers. Essentially skilled blue collar workers, with no formal edcation. When I graduate as an aerospace engineer, I will be happy as hell to make $25/hr, but these guys rejected it.:rolleyes: Shortly after this happened Spirit Aerosystems made the same offer to the union at another Boeing plant that was bought out in Oklahoma, this time they accepted it.

Got a flyer in yesterday's newspaper. "GM Red Tag Event". A 2006 Chevy pick-up, regular cab, 2WD for $14,504. Everyone needs a pick-up..

Good luck finding on like that on the lot. Zero options, V6, crank windows, vinyl bench seat, cheapie steel wheels, rarely do the dealers stock them that bare. It's good to suck in the customers though.

there's a good reason for them to be "red" tagged. besides, a 2WD pick up is limited in utility. May as well have an El Camino. Though an El Camino would be kinda cool.

That's weird, I've been reading for the last two years that the Ford Expedition was going to be canceled soon.

The longer Expedition had been known internally at Ford as "the Everest," but the company realized that name, in production, would connote monstrous size.

How about "effete" ? "effin' huge" ?

"The longer Expedition had been known internally at Ford (nyse: F - news - people ) as "the Everest," but the company realized that name, in production, would connote monstrous size. At a time when Americans are fleeing from large SUVs due to high gas prices, Ford wants to be more subtle about releasing and naming such an enormous model."

So despite the fact that it will be a huge SUV, if they give it a name not associated with monsterous size, we won't notice? "Honey look, I bought a new Ford Molecule! Can you believe you can fit 15 people in a Molecule!? Hey look, Nascar's on.........":rolleyes: Wow, I'm simply shocked that Ford is laying off employees, with such quality decision making (cue sarcasm). Looks like CEO Ford's noble gesture of not taking a salary until the company turns a profit might come back to bite him in the ass.

You're just the sort of new hire places like the Lazy-B are looking for.

Get five years under your belt at one of the big aerospace companies and see if this statement is still valid to you.

Oh, and BTW, everyone of those years the new hires will come in making more than you do, and every year you'll be asked to help train and mentor these same new hires....who are making more than your $25/hr.

Did I already mention that? ;)

I'm staying the hell away from that place, I've heard way too many bad things about Boeing. Obviously I'm going to shoot as high as possible, but really, $25/hr straight out of school is decent pay.

$25/hr in Wichita is probably great!

Not so great here.

All the big aero companies have their "issues". Some of the most rewarding work for me has been with the smaller shops. You get to do a lot more varied work, where as at one of the big boys you get one little part to play with for months on end. Boring.

Are you up in the Seattle area? I'm sure pay is probably way better up there, probably partially offset by the cost of living. I've been told that it's pretty easy to get an AE job in San Diego for $75k, but with the higher cost of living you actually end up worse off. $50k is pretty good to start out here in Wichita, everything here's dirt cheap.

I've had that thought too about big vs little, I'm sure in a smaller company you would have more of an opportunity to make a difference, and probably a more rewarding job. Burn that bridge when I get there I guess.