Denting Toyota's sales?

The Dodge Dart and Plymout Valiant were great cars until around 1974 when the indestructible slant 6 just couldn't be tuned to run properly with the pollution mandates and Chrysler shipped it anyway. That was the beginning of the end.

Buying a car to benefit the 'workers' is like trying to drink the water out of a pool to save someone who's drowning. Is that the most creative thing you can do with 20k..?

In addition to the higher labor rates, pension obligations, and health care costs mentioned by Ron Peterson and Bruce L. Bergman, GM needs more time to build each vehicle because their factories aren't as modern and maybe also their vehicles aren't designed as well for easy assembly. I don't know if the latter is still much of a factor, but when GM started building Saturns, they each needed a few hours more final assembly time than Japanese cars already in production

If the workers aren't treated well, can we trust that they will put their best effort into the product?

-- Ron

Perception is everything, and, rightly or wrongly, more new car buyers perceive GM as a loser and Toyota as a winner.

Bad reasoning because the car market consists of much more than just then ten best vehicles, and there's a lot more variation than in your example. And while I don't care much about styling, GM's "furniture on wheels" look didn't make me want to buy their cars.

Sober up, Mike. GM is coasting on its past greatness. How much have their sales been increasing, compared to Toyota's? And how did GM manage to cut its US market share in half since the early 1960s while tripling the number of models? Probably because it had the mentality that lead to tripling the number of models.

"larry moe 'n curly" ...

Wickeddoll® wrote:

In addition to the higher labor rates, pension obligations, and health care costs mentioned by Ron Peterson and Bruce L. Bergman, GM needs more time to build each vehicle because their factories aren't as modern and maybe also their vehicles aren't designed as well for easy assembly. I don't know if the latter is still much of a factor, but when GM started building Saturns, they each needed a few hours more final assembly time than Japanese cars already in production

LMC

And we have to admit, the Japanese workers tend to be more goal-oriented. They are (perhaps too much so) perfectionists, and will slave away at something until it's right.

We should take a few lessons from them, IMO. (I think they get too stressed, though, going by what we've seen in the media)

Natalie

Get real! As usual you do not know the subject on which you have chosen to comment. GM sells more vehicle today than it did when they had nearly 50% of the market, because the market is more than twice as much, and there are many more manufacturers than there was in the early fifties. No manufacture has added more models than Toyota. Every Toyota model today is bigger and more powerful than the Toyotas of ten years ago. Toyota has followed the domestics market into bigger more powerful cars, trucks, luxury cars, SUVs trucks etc... GM did the same because that is where the market was heading.

If buyers today believed Toyotas vehicles were better than GM vehicles, for the price, Toyota would be out selling GM and they are not

You need not mention styling. If you are buying Toyota it is obvious that you do not care about styling LOL

"larry moe 'n curly" ...

I suppose there is some truth in that caroon, but to be fair, Toyota never let their US workers into the front seat of the car in the first place.

Ed

Unreliable? hardly. Uncomfortable? Not compared to my Pontiac Bonneville, which made my right leg feel numb after 75 miles. dangerous? Yeah, if you hit an object head on with your VW microbus, with only a piece of sheet metal between you and the object. Otherwise, they were reliable, easy to drive and park, economical, were simple enough to be fixed by the owner in most cases, and their paint jobs looked better after 12 years than the domestics looked after 3. You keep on driving your Detroit boat, and I'll remember to drive by the gas station where you drop $60 to fill up, or the dealer, where you go so often for repairs that you know the service writer by his first name. And when I want to take a trip, I'll get into my 12 year old Camry with 143,000 miles, and feel certain that I'll get home without resorting to a tow truck. I wouldn't drive a Detroit product with that much mileage out of my driveway. I'm beginning to believe that the main reason GM has Onstar on their cars is to help you call for service when you're stranded in one of their vehicles.

Not necessarily. They just may have a better ad agency. GM used to make nice cars when they made La Salles.

The fact is Toyota workers trained with taxpayer money, in the plants built by taxpayer money, receive lower wages, fewer benefits and only a 401k for a pension.

Still Toyotas cost 20% to 30% more than domestics of similar size and similarly equipped. In addition all of the profits earned in the US are returned to Japan as, US federal tax free, capital to be used to put more of our higher paying American worker out of work

Try posting that in a GM NG and you will discover there are hundred of owners of GM cars on the road with that kind of mileage and more that are running just fine LOL

If you think advertizing sells vehicles, you may noticed it has not worked for the Tundra LOL

By the way the La Salle lasted a relative few short years because of poor sales

"C. E. White" ...

And you know this how?

Natalie