Big 3 blows it again, Japs eating their lunch

The Japanese manufacturers now build a lot of cars for the U.S. market on U.S. soil. They don't have to contend with the labor problems that the big three do. It's going to be hard for the "big 3" to beat them. I read in Time magazine that it cost G.M. over 1 billion to shut down Oldsmobile, because of the agreement that they had with U.A.W regarding plant closures.

I know many people that have bought Camrys for the past 20 plus years. They are hard to beat for reliability.

-KM

...meaning they predatorily take advantage of weak, unenforce labor laws in the US to their own advantage...and the disadvantage of US workers. How nice.

Shutting down the Olds marque was another stupid move by GM. Rather than take the lead of a fine first attempt to reinvigorate the brand with the Aurora, they followed up with some typically badge engineered crap like the Intrigue and Alero, and lost even more sales.

Don't blame labor for GM management's screw ups. And yes, if we had a government that was responsive to needs of the US middle class, Jap cars built in the US would disappear overnight. But that won't happen, since the idiots who run GM and did run Ford wouldn't know what to do to fill the market. The new Boeing guy running Ford MAY be their salvation...too soon to tell. One thing's for sure...the board MUST disconnect the Ford family from corporate operations, or all is lost.

For around 90-100K miles, yes...then, you simply throw them away.

Ah, no. You replace the timing belt and water pump (and an occasional evap canister) and run 'em another 100K.

Bob, you gotta be kidding about that statement above. I appreciated your knowledge on transmissions but you really don't know much about Japanese cars or your thinking is fanciful.

I've never known Camrys to NOT go 150,000 with 200K being the usual. Hondas and Nissans are the same. Why do you think they enjoy such a rock solid reputation for durability? One can always quote occasional misteps they've had in one or two models but overall their reputataion for LONG TERM reliability is bulletproof. And so the American consumer has responded.

My old '87 Honda Accord, while showing some rust (I keep it as a backup car) has an engine that runs like a watch at 180,000 miles. A friend's Camry is similar as are most that I know.

I hope my 2002 Caravan does as well...

Doug

most

Not just the USA, within NAFDA- the USA, Canada and Mexico.

True. Only idiot management signs a contract paying almost full wages for many years after a lay off. Surely they must have realized this was only a short term gain and it would catch up with them or did they really think they would grow production volumes enough to use all the workers?

My b.s. detector just went off.

No, TrollBobSquarepants - it means that they don't do suicidal things like GM did years ago like sign agreements with unions that say that if a supplier or someone within GM comes up with an idea on a subassembly that will save GM money by eliminating a warm body on GM's existing production line, the idea could *not* be implemented, whereas a competitor could realize those cost savings on their line if similar types of efficiency improvements were identified. Search my past posts on GM's PICOS program which I had first-hand experience with.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

(laughter..) trollboobshitpants, that's too funny !! BWAHAHAHAHAHA !!

Bill- heads up- BOOB was a union worker who got AXED by Bell Telephone, he was a "phone guy" who's job was OUTSOURCED- so he dreamed up some lame-assed excuse to go on DISABILITY, and is collecting SSI checks- he can't afford to fuel an American car, and he still drives a 1978 HONDA shitbox some relative gave to him.

all of a sudden, it's all the big 3's fault, that he can't afford gas, and is a financial failure in life...

I'd tell him, drive a Honda, get hurt, lose your prestige, don't come crying to me !

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!

The UAW agreements were based on an ever-growing industry and world domination of same, both of which are turning out be false. Mismanagement at the Big 3, notably at GM and Ford, and non-existant trade barriers to predatory foreign invaders is finishing them off. You can blame NAFTA for part of GM's woes, too...they've been assembling Chevies in Mexico for many years, and the poor quality assembly and high failure rate on Mexican built product has been one of GM's big headaches since doing so. Poor "maquiladora" quality assembly also bit Borg-Warner in the ass, as well, and drove them out of the automotive guage business in the '80s and '90s.

Had the Big 3 responded properly to the Japanese threat in the '70s, there would be no discussion about the UAW agreements now. They made their own bed in the muck, and now they're wallowing in it. However, since top management always has the bully pulpit, they blame all their miscues on labor...it's easy to do, and since they control the media through huge advertising campaigns, the other side of the story is rarely heard. That's also a reason why the Japanese, especially Toyota, have been able to "program" clueless US buyers...massive, hyped media campaigns. Now, with multi billion dollar losses a reality, Ford and GM can't even keep up with the Japanese's ad campaigns. Ford's has been a complete disaster, focusing on unwanted SUVs, especially from the L-M division. Only recently have they begun selling their Focus line, as unprofitable as it is, in TV ads, and the ads aren't what you'd call "convincing." Ditto the roll-out campaigns for the now-floundering 500 and Fusion. Meanwhile, every cable channel flogs Toyota this and that seemingly every 10 minutes! There are even more Subaru and Mazda ads on TV than Big 3 ads!

Don't blame the worker...he's just getting what he can get to survive, and GM and Ford's management were delusional enough to go along. The guys at the top are the ones responsible, just like Bush Bird is responsible for the Iraq disaster and the new "phony" economy. Unemployment figures too high? Just delete those guys who haven't been working for 90 days...that'll fix it! New jobs? Oh yeah, lots of new jobs...at minimum wage and no benefits! People who believe Bush would tend to believe Toyota's ad campaigns..."sheeple."

And just remember this: If it weren't for the UAW and Doug Fraser sitting on Chrysler's board, there wouldn't be a Chrysler ANYTHING today. The bankers, Wall Streeters and Republipedoes in Washington all wanted Chrysler to go into bankruptcy and liquidatation...or don't you remember that part?

89 Honda Accord here, daily driver with 238,000 miles and no sign of stopping any time soon.

I've had lots of Caravans that went well over 200,000 miles.

I think that this is just another case of brand loyalty and the natural but irrational human desire to be better than the other guy. History is full of good cars, bad cars, and in between cars. I don't think any company or nation has a monopoly on good or bad cars. I wouldn't take a Neon if you gave it to me because it's a piece of crap. But I like the Caravan. So is Chrysler a bad car maker or a good one?

I think that people just like to complain.

It would be hard to determine whether unuin labor or stupid management is the bigger problem in the American automotive industry. I worked for a short time in a union shop about 15 years ago. They were the laziest bunch of worthless idiots I've ever met. Incidentally, we were not auto workers, we were aircraft mechanics represented by the Teamsters union, believe it or not. What a joke. I don't trust union leadership as far as I can throw them. The hardest work they ever did was in their effort to make sure nobody ever did any real work, and they stood in the way of anything that was good for the company or the aircraft. In one case, management fired an incompetent mechanic three times and the Teamsters had him reinstated, until management finally gave up. Guess what, the company went out of business and we all lost our jobs. Yay union! Of course, management at that company was not without blame. They used to throw man-hours at a job thinking that they could get it done faster with more mechanics. They would regularly assign 6 mechanics on one shift to put panels in the baggage bin of a 737, even though only two men could fit in there and get any work done. That's like asking 9 women to have a baby in one month. As far as I can tell, the worst offender was the union, which actively encouraged everybody to do only 2 hours of work in an 8 hour shift.

Who says we needed to keep Chrysler around? Did you ever wonder what happened to the real American dream? That's the one where if you don't like the way things are you take the initiative to build a better company and a better product yourself. Why is it that laborers would prefer to make rules that say somebody else has to pay them a fortune, rather than build their own car factory and do it the way they think it should be done? We would be better off with 20 car manufacturers rather than just the Big 3. Figure out why it is that that doesn't happen, and I think you'll be closer to what the real problem is in this country. You'll likely find that it has been made impossible to get started in heavy industry because of collusion between existing companies and various government agencies. We would be better served by addressing this issue rather than concerning ourselves with the ridiculous labor agreements, management decisions, and business precedents in existing heavy industries.

I agree. The Camry and Accord owners that I referred to in an eariler post, got fed up with the quality problems of the American cars back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, so they switched to Japanese and have never given American vehicles another chance. I still see a lot of Chrysler minivans on the road from the begining models through the mid-1990's.

I bought a Dodge Stratus over a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry because the price was better.

-KM

Exactly. It's a maxim of marketing that a pissed off customer requires about nine times more expenditure in advertising and "give backs" to win back after being treated shabbily or being sold junk than a "new" customer. AT&T learned that the hard way, and it was their downfall.

Seen yesterday while shopping: An original T115 Caravan, still plodding along. Clear coat was almost all gone, but it was still soldiering on and seemed to be running just fine. I see those a lot, see K-cars much less often, and rarely see an F-body...but I see them now and then, too.

Another mistaken paradigm of American buyers is that Japanese makes cost less. They certainly do not, especially Hondas now. The Japanese know how this customer-supplier relationship works and know very well how customers are "programmed" (they should...we taught them how to do it) and are riding the high price wave as long as they can. Once Ford or GM starts to fight back in earnest, they'll engage in a price war similar to what GM and Ford got into in the early 1950s. It was that price war that almost killed off Chrysler then, almost killed off Packard, drove Nash and Hudson into a protective AMC, and woke Chrysler management up to the need for Virgil Exner's styling excesses and their superior V8s, and it kept them afloat long enough until they could really start to fight back in the '60s. With Toyota and Honda being cash-rich, I don't think the current Ford or GM has the cash on hand to win such a war of attrition without getting into serious debt, with the attendant "junk bond" status of their short term debt rating. GM's already there now, with Ford right behind them.

Another fly in the ointment in this type of war is the Koreans, who are underselling everybody with dubious, but cheap, vehicles. If the Chinese get into the act with the Chery sub-subcompact (and word is they will), it's all over for the low end of the market, and GM and Ford will be squeezed in the middle with no market.

Instead of concentrating on fighting this economic war front with the Asians, our dear dyslexic moron president and his administration preferred instead to go into Iraq to show Daddy that Junior can do whatever he wants!

Back to the Stratus, I have a neighbor with one. His previous car was a Honda Accord, and he couldn't justify the price of a new one over the Stratus. So far, 125K miles, a TCM flashing, and that's been all that he's had to do outside of normal maintenance. His Accord had, as he put it, "body integrity problems."

You know no more than the stupid mgnt of the Big 3.

DeserTBoB wrote:

Yeah I've heard of it. What about it? I think it's a great idea to run one's own business. I'm starting one now myself, because I think it would be stupid to wait for somebody else to get me where I want to go in life. Referring to "division of labor" as if it were some treasured way of life is stupid, in my opinion.

Here's an even more interesting take on the subject of stupidity and division of labor. You go on and on about how stupid everybody else is, which is an intriguing thing in itself. How did you get to be so much smarter than the rest of us? Was it nutrition, or superior genetics, or what? One way or another, you seem to think you're several times smarter than everybody else in America. But you just might be mistaken. What most hardheaded folks like you don't understand is that those who disagree with you are not actually stupid, they just don't agree. But back to the point at hand, regarding stupidity and the division of labor. A division of labor promotes ignorance. People who are so stupid that they don't know what a spark plug is are generally very good at something else, which is generally what they do for a living. In other words, they aren't really stupid. It is obvious to me that a nation of renaissance men and women would be much more healthy, wealthy and wise than a nation of drones who are all good at one thing each. Naturally, I have done my share of single specialty jobs, but I wouldn't want to stay with any of them for more than a few years. Division of labor and specializing has given rise to our current culture, wherein you are not supposed to question "experts". Hence, a silly bureaucrat at the DFS can take your children away from you based on their assessment of your parenting qualifications, many otherwise intelligent people are at the mercy of the car mechanic and his $60/hr shop rate, we're not supposed to question our expert "leaders" in the White House (funny how they used to be called public servants), and you're not supposed to be able to get a good job unless you cough up thousands of dollars to give to the expert intellectuals at the university for a diploma. Just do your job and don't ask any questions. That's what the division of labor is all about. Or would you rather people be better informed? Generally it doesn't tend to happen both ways at the same time.

Now I suppose it's your turn to quote some drivel about Iaccoca from his book, unless you have me in your killfile, in which case you'll have to wait until somebody replies to me, and then you can tell me how stupid I am.

GO ROBBIE!!

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

excellent reply Robbie- keep in mind, "DeserTBob" is an unemployed liberal democrat on SSI, after his job was axed, and outsourced by Bell Telephone. He was a loser "phone guy" you'd call, when you had no dial tone and your phone didn't work. So instead of paying his leech benefits and wages, they axed him. He deserved it, because in reality, HE'S stupid. But notice how he twists it to be the system's fault. the Boob has a degree from UCLA, in what we'll never know, perhaps in Gay Sex Technology- but there's not much call for that in the paying economy. So he sits and waits for his monthly checks, and trolls the net. Boob is the textbook idiot extraordinaire.

Aren't you in the kill-file, too?

Excellent post.

Best of luck on your new business venture.

These three BIG losers are for sale. Please someone relieve Ford of the bleeding here.

Soon to drop these two losers.

These two are rays of hope for Ford. Smart designers.