OT Why isn't anyone griping about Chinese goods ?

"mack" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

You need to relax a little, take a deep breath and get ALL of the facts. To tell the truth not that much is profit on the goods themselves, especially automobiles. For example, the real profit in cars in not the sale itself but on financing, servicing, insuring, and all of the after-sale stuff that takes place. A salesman makes a commission as does his boss, etc., on up the line. The mechanics in the service departmet get paid for taking care of all the things that autos need after the sale. Insurance agents get paid for their work and their company makes a profit while all of the people working at that company get paid for their work/services. That guy at Discount Tire gets paid when you need a new set of tires, as does his boss and the guy in the mounting bay. The people working at Pep Boys, etc., get paid when you go in to buy an extra set of floor mats. People are required to man even self-serve gas stations, they get paid as does their boss and everyone else up that managment line. All of those illegal aliens get paid at the car wash, as does their illegal boss, etc. As you can see this goes a long way down the line when American workers are considered. Who do you think builds those big Wal-Mart structures? Who do you think gets paid when you hit the check stand? Who gets paid to stripe the parking lot? Who gets paid as a greeter? When you slide your credit card at Kohl's who do you think gets paid to process that purchase? Believe me the price of a purchased item manufactured overseas does a lot for the American economy. Remember, we were the kingpins of auto production for a long time and we shipped a lot of vehicles overseas for a long time. We just move onto newer products, new technology, etc. But there are a lot of things which cannot be done overseas but must be done here in the good ole USA! I could go on but I hope you get the bigger picture.

Not much anymore. The Toy dealership I was working for did away with commissions and paid the salespeople $600 a week plus between $1-300 per car. They still had a real high turnover.

And the salespeople were PISSED! Most of them quit after the dealership changed hands. Because the guys who were there before were making $150 a week, plus $600-1100 per car!

I didn't think they started making them in the US yet... Thanks.

I could be wrong. Wouldn't be a first.

Jeff

Yaris and all Scions have no domestic content.

Are you sure? The domestic content label on the 2007 Prius I looked at listed the domestic content for the Prius car line as "0%". If they were being made in Indiana, surely the average would have been above zero.

Ed

Oopsie. I believe that the Subaru plant in Indian will be used to make the Prius, but production hasn't started yet. Doing a pretty quick search showed only one or two references to Prii being built in the future in Indiana. They may have been wrong or the plans changed, too.

Here is where all the vehicles sold in the US were built, probably accurate a few months ago.

If you go here:

click on Frequently Asked Questions, and type in assemebly, one of the first links should tell you where all the cars are being made (or more accurately, were being made a few weeks or months ago). Jeff

Well with the possible exception of Mike Hunter, we all make mistakes.

Thanks for the link.

will take you right to the proper FAQ. That list is consistent with the Domestic Content Labels I looked at. It would be interesting to know what percentage of Camrys and Corollas actually come from Japan. If you knew that, I would think you could get a better idea of the domestic content of US built Camrys and Corollas. I'm guessing it must be over 85% in the average Camry, including Japanese Camrys, have an 80% domestic content.

I am surprised that the Domestic Content label for Tacomas showed such a high domestic content. It would seem to me that having complete Tacomas and Tacoma beds made in Mexico would have lowered the domestic content below 65%. I guess the Tacomas sold in the US must all come from California and Tacomas built in Baja must all be sold in Mexico.

Ed

I would think that the beds would be about 10% of the truck's value. If I am not mistaken, it is a metal box with a hinge, some lights and electrical stuff and that's about it. Plus they are probably painted in the US. It's bulky, but not very complicated.

I noticed the lack of the Tacomas built in Mexico in the list as well as no mention of the Tundra plant. The webpage is obviously a few months behing the times.

Some Japanese-build Toyotae have American parts (cats made in California are exported to Japan).

According to published reports about 48% of the content of Toyotae sold in the US comes from the US or Canada. About 46% of the Toyotae sold come from Japan. The domestic content must be pretty high in the domestically-built cars, probably about 80-85% (48%/54% = 88%, but some of the Japanese-built cars have US content, so it is probably lower than this). The Toyota Sienna is rated as one of the cars with the highest US content, approx. 85%.

Jeff

The exterior is metal, the interior is plastic (well composite).

Since production of Tundras in Texas has jsut started, I dhoubt they make up a significant portion of the volume.

Are you sure? The only Japanese built Toyotas that showed any domestic content were Highlanders, and it was only 5%. I suppose that might be the catalytic converters, but why would Japanese built RAV4 have no domestic content and Japanese built Camrys have significant domestic content? Since RAV4s and Camrys share drive trains, I would have thought they used the same catalytic converters. I suppose they might ship some US unique components to Japan for installation, but this seems counter to the usual Toyota practice.

The domestic content label for the Sienna said 80%.

Ed

It would make sense for this measurement to be by value, rather than by part-count or part weight. The idea would be to indicate jobs and economic value in the sourcing, yes?

If the bed, for instance, is just a simple stamping, it probably costs way less than the engine, transmission or controls and maybe less than the seats.

The last time I saw Toyota figures (within 6 months), I recall thinking the Japanese fraction of the Camry total was on the order of 20%. That was conventional drivetrain only, I don't recall where the hybrids are built.

I also recall reading a later note that said, due to high demand, they'd probably end up importing more Camrys from Japan than originally planned. I think that was after seeing the original figures.

For purposes of discussion, I think you could safely say 20-25% of the vehicles come from Japan. Unless your sole criteria in buying a car is domestic content, the few percent difference this makes overall won't be all that important.