And not go through hoops to get the repairs covered.
My father has a 2001 or so Grand Prix. My dad a lot of engine rebuilding and head repair work for the dealer over maybe 40 years. When there was a problem with the transmission, most of the costumes got a replacement transmission, but had to pay for the labor. However, because my father knew the people in shop, they got GM to pay for the whole thing. All the costumers, not just my dad, should have gotten the whole thing done without cost. After all, they paid for a working transmission when they bought the car.
Considering that the next version of the engine or transmission has this problem fixed, I doubt it is a design feature, as you suggest.
The other thing is that the automaker who made the faulty vehicle is less likely to get repeat business, whether it is to buy a car for the owner's kid or replace the fault vehicle.
One thing is clear, there are fewer new cars on the American road than last year. Auto sales are down like 2.6% from the previous year. They were down in 2005, too. And Americans are driving more each year. Cars are more durable than ever before. It used to be that car engine would last maybe
100,000 mi, if the owner was lucky. Now engines regularly go to 150,000 or
200,000 mi or more.
This was good for my dad and my college education. Dad owned a machine shop that rebuilt engines. He also made lots of money selling tail-pipes, shocks, carburetors, spark plugs and ignition parts. With fuel injection, electronic ignitions, longer-lasting shocks and stainless steel tailpipes, they rarely sell these parts, now. And there is far less engine-rebuilding work now than
20 or 30 years ago. In fact, one of the five machine shops in town closed completely, the staff at his shop is down 75% (from 6 to about 1 1/2), two of the remaining shops have much small staffs, too.
The market also changed with a lot of the tailpipe and shock business going to chain stores that don't go local independent warehouses; a lot of garages put on new rotors rather than have them resurfaced because the cost of new rotors is better. In addition, dealerships will often get new short blocks or engines for in-warranty work rather than send out to work to a machine shop.
So the loss of business is due to both the increased longevity of engines and the changing market.
Actually, they can pull the dealership from a dealer if they don't make quality standards. One Caddy dealership closed up near where I used to live (Crea Caddy - maybe Mike knows these people). The new dealer was required to increase the size of the showroom within a certain amount of time.
If a McDonald's gets a lot of complaints about a particular independent francise, they will investigate. If there are problems with the way the restaurant is run (other than the restaurant sells lots of unhealthful food), McDonalds will either pull the francise or take over the restaurant if the problems aren't fixed. Likewise, if a dealer refuses to repair cars with complicated problems (I know of one dealer who was known to try to get complicated problems sent to another dealer) or gives a really poor costumer service experience, the car makers should be able to step in.
My dad used to sell and repair Kohler, Tecomsah and B&S engines. If he didn't meet the quality standards (mostly for training), he would not have been a dealer for them.
I would be surprised to learn that if a dealer doesn't do an adeqaute job, that the maker can't pull the francise. I think the Japanese excercise these rights more often than the big 3.
It is not as easy to pull a franchise as you might think. Remember Ford and the "Blue Oval Certified Dealer" fiasco? Ford wanted to identify dealers that met certain minimal standards. A group of dealers in Texas sued Ford saying this wasn't fair - and won. States have very restrictive laws that favor the automobile franchise owners over the manufacturers. State legislatures are a lot more likely to favor local dealers than far off manufacturers. The Japanese manufacturers often have better franchise agreements (from the manufacturer's standpoint) than US manufacturers. They arrived much later and avoided many of the bad ideas in the much older US manufacturer's franchise agreements. The newer brands (Acura, Lexus, even Saturn) have even more restrictive agreements. I was surprised that GM got away with creating the Saturn brand. If I had been running a Chevrolet dealership when Saturn was created, I'd have been very upset if GM granted a Saturn franchise that competed with me. I suppose this is why GM originally set Saturn up as a completely different (but wholly owned) corporation.
I had to go to the Buick zone representative a few years ago when I encountered a dealership that couldnt seem to repair the serious problem, wasnt interested, and wouldnt listen.
After 5-6 visits to the dealership, with the service manager telling me he couldnt find the problem if is it intermittent, I asked him to let me ride with the mechanic and I would show him what was happening. No dice.
Then I asked if he had checked TSBs on this car. He said he had.
As soon as I called the rep, he knew immediately what was wrong, said that a bulletin had been issued, and contacted the dealership.
Within minutes the service manager called me, all upset, asking why I called zone, that it could get them in trouble. Tough shit!
The owner called me and apologized.
Yes, the manufacturer can demand quality if they want to.
And the big 3 surely have had the oppurtunity to read the Japanese aggreements. They could have failed to renew the francises or put in new terms. The francise aggreements are not for ever.
Funny, I think its just the opposite. Car durability peaked in the late '60s. A car from that era (such as the '66 I drive every day) is EXTREMELY rugged. My wife's 93, by comparison, has all the plastic interior bits and exterior trim falling apart. The drivetrain on the '66 went well over 200,000 miles, no problems, until a transmission rebuild. The engine continued well over 270k. I also have a '73 with 450,000 miles. The engine on the '93 so far has 240,000 miles, no problem, but its been through 2 transmissions. Cars used to not last very long because a) they were much cheaper to replace than they are now, and b) things like lubricants have come a LONG way. Much further than the cars themselves. If Mobil 1 had been around in its current form in 1966, things would have been drastically different.
I am specifically referring to the plastic plenum problem which continued for about
10 years.
The old rusty rot under the rear window problem continued for a number of years too. GM knew about it, chose not to fix it. It was a simple fix which they found more convenient (and perhaps profitable) to avoid, according to people on the inside.
The price of a car, as a percentage of income, has not changed theat much over the last 40 years.
and b)
And today's cars are much better. They are more fuel efficient, more reliable, are much safer and pollute far less.
And cars are on the road a lot longer than they used to be, which is way cars sales are going down, even though there are more cars on the road every year.
You're correct that lubricants have improved, but I don' think that explains the longevity of the cars.
GM originally set Saturn up as a completely different corporation determine if a small vehicle could be built in the US at a completive price, rather than relying on GM economies of scale to subsides the selling price.
Saturn and the workers at the plant had their own contract that supposedly let management and workers collaborate to solve problems. Now, Saturn and UAW have gone to the standard GM/UAW contract.
How do GM economies of scale subsidize the selling price, I wonder? They might lower the cost of making a new car by building engines at a plant that is more efficient, but subsidize means to pay part of the cost, like the cost of riding on NYC subways is subsidized by grants from the Department of Transportation. But that is not the same as subsidize.
Thinking back to all the cars I owned in the 60's and 70's, I can't agree. Not one of my cars from that era lasted as long or ran as well as my cars from the 90's. Of course, there will always be exceptions.
I agree. Looser tolerances, fuel, lubricants and other stuff contributed to low mileage back then. My grandpa was a mechanic back then and he's told me stories about vehicles lasting around 100,000 miles. Anything more was something to talk about. Nowadays, with with proper servicing, it's not odd to see 250,000 or more..
My experience has been increasing durability over the years. As Jeff says SS exhausts don't need replacement, unless you break them. I used to replace the rear muffler every 2 years, the pipe in front of it every 3 years. My wife's '87 Daytona (first year they had SS exhaust) had it's original exhaust when she traded it at 14 years. Shocks last a very long time, those on my Concord are fine at 90k miles, whereas in the 60s they lasted about 40-50k miles max. The interiors look fine at 10+ years, in fact my 12 yr old Concord's drivers seat looks as new. Upholstery seems to last forever, who now bothers with seat covers. Dashboards now stand our summer sun. Exterior paint lasts well over 10 years looking very good. With clear coat I haven't waxed my cars since pre '86, just use a wash and wax- Turtle wax. Body rust is a thing of the past due to galvanized steel, unless driving is on gravel roads. My previous '86 Chrysler also stood up very well, but not as well as my current '95 Concord. Our engines seem to go forever, not even burning more oil than when new at over 90k miles. We haven't kept one longer than that.
I've read that GM didn't correct that nasty failing intake gasket problem because most were failing after the guarantee period. Unfortunately when they failed the engine was often toast. Great for new car sales if their customers are stuck on GM in spite of having big problems with their cars.
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