The Big Two?
 

GM is in talks to buy Chrysler. I think this would be bad for the industry. Mergers stifle creativity, limit choice and drive up prices. Banks are buying each other at an unprecendented rate under the guise of "trying" to remain competitive.

Eventually we'll have one manufacturer to chose from, like the Russians did with their Trabant (actually re-badged Fiat) and we'll all get our paychecks from Rupert Murdoch.:mad:

Re: The Big Two?
 

Is there any left?

You're confusing Trabant (East German) which has no commonality with Fiat and Lada (Russian), which was a re-engineered Fiat.

I heard that GM and Chrysler were talking about jointly producing a couple of specific vehicles only (large SUV's).

Right is was the Lada...

Over the past decade Chrylers design department has put out a lot of interesting cars. I think the quality still lacks and still wouldn't buy any of them but they have pushed other manufacturers to be bolder.

didn't see your post cantdrive

GM isn't going to buy Chrysler. Nissan might, but not GM, that's a smokescreen...

...and Nissan is owned by Renault.

I agree not a good thing. GM is the worst of the three in terms of quality (IMO), originality and just all around soul. Crap, crap and crap coming out of those guys.

Okay, i'll give them the newest Vette and maybe the Saturn Sky.

I really feel for the employees who now have to worry not only about fixing the transmissions and window regulators on their Chrysler ***** products but now also need to fear losing their homes! Not a good thing at all.

I dunno what the problem is really. The designs are maybe a bit too over the top. I mean how hard is it to buy a new Accord and tear it apart to figure out what exactly makes it such a quality piece?!

I think the worst might be retired folks losing pensions. THAT would be super bad stuff as well!

Re: The Big Two?
 

I want some of what you're smoking. Would you rather a sick company be left alone to die on its own? How would that help the market? Ailing companies with sinking stock prices make themselves targets for buyouts. At least that way, some folks keep their jobs and the ailing company might get turned around. Letting it sink assures everyone loses their job.

And comparing this to eastern bloc cars is just insane. East Germany made two cars - Trabant and Wartburg and both state-owned and with 13 yr. waitlists for delivery. I've been in plenty of both and know plenty of folks who had to wait the full 13 yrs. for their cars. Somehow, I don't see auto quality and availability in the western world ever sinking to anything resembling that.

I don't normally drive American cars - but recently rented a Chevy Malibu for a week in California, and well, I was pleasantly surprised. Everything fit and was screwed together well. Nothing rattled. Handled fine for the roads we were on. Did everything it was supposed to.

Anyway I certainly couldn't call it "crap". Not a lot of character - but it certainly did the job well, and was almost fun in a gumboat sort of way.

Certainly no comparison to the junk that came out of Eastern Europe.

"....I don't see auto quality and availability in the western world ever sinking to anything resembling that."

I guess you haven't driven a Ford, lately...

If the design department of Chrysler gets swallowed up by GM's, their products will be assimilated. The cars will have to fit GM's platforms making them more homogenous looking.

Chrysler just axed 13,000 jobs in an effort to fix itself. Saying that GM's purchase of Chrysler is a good thing is the same logic that a lot of dysfunctional couples use to decide to get married. "Sure we've got problems but getting married will take care of that." BTW - I didn't say anything about wait lists.

The worst Ford ever built is light years better than the best Trabbi or Wartburg. You truly live in an alternate universe if you don't know that. The $400 beater pick-up I drove in college was solid as a rock compared to the many Trabbis I have personally helped push out of the road. And Ford is one of many, many car makers from which I can choose to buy on a whim. In East Germany you could buy Trabbi, Wartburg, Lada, Zil, Skoda, Dacia and the Polish Fiat Pandas. That was it and they all had over a decade wait to get. IIRC, those cars were around 13k Marks new. That was serious money to those folks.

Chrysler is already only a division of Daimler, so this wouldn't be a huge deal.

The problem isn't with design - they do make some innovative stuff, and are definately one of the more forward thinking companies in the automotive industry today.

As for quality, it has been on the rise for Chrysler for the past couple of years as well.

The big problem with Chrysler is simple: they just can't seem to be able to sell cars. And if they can't sell cars, perhaps they are in the wrong business...

And this isn't news -- Chrysler has always had problems - remember the Lee Iococa years in the 80's? The attempts by Kirk Kerkorian to infuse the company with financial backing? Jurgen Schremp's "merger" in 1998? Dieter Zetsche's attempts to get the Chrysler group back in order? They all provided a short term upswing, only to be followed by a miserable downturn.

So I guess it is GM's turn to have a try at it. (I guess they don't read car history books enough...)

Just my $0.42,
-Z-man.

Disclaimer: the views expressed above are my own personal views, and not the views of the company I work for.

Indeed monopolies are bad. In fact, the natural result of an unregulated market is that somebody becomes the Overall Winner. Emperor. Seriously. Wal-Mart is going to show us, again, why we cannot let one company, or one person, win.

Again, in a purely unregulated capitalist system, the market becomes a winner-take-all lottery. The "end game" is that somebody winds up owning everything. If you are a pure capitalist, this is your goal. If you are a pure socialist, then all resources are divided equally. If you don't like either of those two scenarios, then you are not a pure capitalist or a pure socialist.

Yeah, Wal-Mart is a real monopoly. Somehow they've managed to keep their prices lower than everyone else. That's the kind of monopoly I like! Still, I go to Target, which is right nextdoor to WM because it's less crowded and a nicer place, though a tad more expensive. Oh, and the other stores right next to that monopoly are Best Buy and BJ's.

"Indeed monopolies are bad..."

Thanks, Adam Smith...the rest of your post is pure bravo sierra. You may need to get out more.

Rental car. Probably had less than 20k on it right? Give it time. When i worked for the big E the worst cars i ever drove (and being stuffed in a cuby all day counting #'s i voluntered a LOT) were mazdas & nissans. Those cars aged a lot quicker than the rest. You need about 4-5 yrs to see the crap come to the surface on a GM product.

"I don't normally drive American cars - but recently rented a Chevy Malibu for a week in California, and well, I was pleasantly surprised. Everything fit and was screwed together well. Nothing rattled. Handled fine for the roads we were on. Did everything it was supposed to.

Anyway I certainly couldn't call it "crap". Not a lot of character - but it certainly did the job well, and was almost fun in a gumboat sort of way.

Certainly no comparison to the junk that came out of Eastern Europe."

I kind of felt the same way. Then I drove my Mother's two year old Camry with 25,000 miles on it. It reeked of quality and competence- not just getting by on chrome coated plastic and the cheapest tires, brakes and other components available.

A real shame- the company that produced some of the most distinctive cars on the planet and entered the sixties with the Corvair, a compact lightweight Tempest/Skylark with IRS and an aluminum V-8 that Rover still uses is reduced to Azteks, Trail Blazers and a "new" GTO that's really a five year old Holden Monaro.

Let's face it, their weedy ball-less "Impala" is a far cry from it's glory days- and is nowhere near a two year old Camry or Accord.

A friend of mine owns a rental car biz and told me he never keeps a domestic car for more than 9K miles.