The MSRP prices for smaller vehicles are indeed subsidized a by the much higher profit margins on larger cars and trucks. You would be surprise to know just how little more it costs a vehicle manufacture to build a vehicle that sells for 35K, over one that sells for 20K
When Ford introduced the FWD Escort, it cost nearly twice as much to manufacture as the RWD vehicle it replaced.. The Escort was sold to dealers at a loss of several hundred dollars for several years before economies of scale succeed in greatly reducing the build cost. Why was it sold at a loss? Because it was needed to meet the CAFE.
The Taurus, which came to market six years later, was also much more expensive to build than the RWD car it replaced, as well. The selling rate for the Taurus the first year, at over 400K, as well as the higher profit MSRP, made for a quicker cost recovery
Before you ask my source, I worked at Ford on the Escort and Taurus design teams at the time.
You, as you are prone to, are free to believe whatever you chose. ;)
Any ENGINE damaged as a result of a failing gasket, was the OWNERS fault, so says a Federal court settlement. The fact that any manufacture fixed any car, after the warranty expired, was a PR effort on their part since no manufacturer warrants problems caused by neglect. GM,Ford, and Honda did a much better job of extending warranties on vehicles with gasket problems than did Toyota and Chrysler however
Toyota, GM, Ford, Honda, Chrysler etc all had the gasket problems after the feds banned asbestos, without allowing enough time for the gasket manufacturers to develop a suitable replacement material. The result was a black eye for ALL manufactures not only GM.
The problem for the vehicle manufactures was, depending on which material the gasket supplier used to replace the asbestos, the problem may not occur until years after the vehicles were sold. For others, material failure occurred sooner while still under warranty. Toyota for instance had failures occurring at around 20K, Ford and GM at around 80K, in and out of warranty.
When Ford sued the gasket manufactures, over the failing new non asbestos gaskets required by the feds, the gasket manufactures agreed they were responsible for the gasket failures but not any resulting engines failures. The reasoning was any coolant leaking should have been discoverer long before any damage occurred to the engine IF the vehicle was properly maintained. Leaking should have been detected by the owner and the gasket should have been replaced prior to any engine damage.
The court settlement agreed, since the gasket failure was never catastrophic but actually occurred over time the leak and the resulting coolant loss should have been discovered by the owner. As a result the gasket manufactures were ordered to pay only 80% of the average loss, not 100%. The court settlement with Ford applied to all other manufactures that built engines in the US up to a certain date
I think even the manufacture do not agree with your assessment of their cars in the sixties. Back then the warranty was 90 days or 4,000 miles WOF. Today 5, or even 10 years, or 100K is not unusual. How many of the cars we bought back then could go 100K or more without needing rings? ;)
Correct. The Yugo, a car of the 90s, was definitely not more reliable.
Nonetheless, most new cars (say, since the mid-90s) are more reliable than cars of the 60s and 70s.
Actually, newer vehicles have much closer tolerances.
Car makers have been studying how bearings work, different alloys wear, how different coatings can help protect bearings, etc. They did the same thing for chaings, pistons, rings, valves, valveguides, other valve-train parts.
All of the differences I had mentioned are external, but I didn't say there were not internal differences.
The plastics are not wear materials. And you can buy more expensive cars with less pastics. And why do cars not rust as much as they used to?
The painting process has been improved in recent decades.
US car makers were making a profit on cars a few years ago. Not much of profit, however. Now, they can only make a profit on the highly-marked up trucks.
I do know how much more profit the big 3 make from a truck than a car. Trucks don't cost that much more to make. But they do cost a lot more to buy. This difference is mostly difference in profit.
It's certainly true that Ford and the other big 3 used cars to meet the CAFE. So you are correct that the truck sales did subsidize the cars. Thanks for reminding me of that.
Yet companies like Toyota, Honda, VW, Hyundai, and Nissan are able to make cars in North America at a profit. (Hyundai builds cars in Mexicon, IIRC).
In addition, car makers invest many millions or even billions of dollars to develop cars. So they will often lose money during the first few years. One example is the small car that DiamlerChrysler designed (I think it is called the Smart). It is a really cool little car. And it really smarts. Smarts, as in hurts. DiamlerChrysler has yet to turn a profit from the project.
Obviously, the MSRP is based in large part on the competition. Unfortuantely, the big 3 can't make a car as cheaply as others can. Hopefully, with its new chairman, Ford will learn to fly on this.
Yes, I am prone to believe things that have evidence to back them up ;-)
Funny thing is we agree pretty much on everything here. We put different emphasis on things. We both agree that Ford made these cars at a loss at first and later made a profit. I just wonder if the same it true of the
500/Taurus/Sable (that they will start to turn a profit).
Hooey. I don't remember what years, but I do remember that some (Chrysler, for one) had 3/36k and 5/50k warranties prior to 1970.
Every SINGLE one that went through my family (I can account for about
10), mostly Chrysler products but there were a few fords and a '62 Oldsmobile. But even back then, we were pretty fanatical about oil, filters, and oil changes.
The outstanding ones I remember were:
A '63 Valiant wagon (slant-6) that was sold at about 240,000 miles. It needed rings by then, but it sure didn't at a mere 100k.
The '66 Polara I drive daily right now kept its original 383 until
270,000 miles (now has a 1972 440 with a very modern rebuild- hypereutectic pistons, etc.).
A '68 Ford 302 was still running great (not burning oil at all) when its oil pump hex drive shaft got "rounded" at 180,000 miles in about 1977. I sold it and I think the next owner drove it for many more years.
And of course my '73 that went 191k, broke a timing chain in August of '82, and is still going now at 440,000 miles.
Heck, my grandfather's 49 Plymouth (flathead six, partial-flow oil filter and all) had well over 100,000 when it got an engine rebuild in
1964. I have the receipts from that rebuild in my file on the car. If I clear out all the projects ahead of it, it'll get a full restoration some day.
Actually... they don't. I already posted a comparison of factory service manual data that refutes that oft-repeated bogus claim.
But the most common type is still tri-metal (babbit/copper/steel) or aluminum. That had settled out by the mid 60s, though some lower-performance engines continued to use steel-backed babbit to this day.
Again, it had pretty well settled out to the current state of the art by the mid 60s, and there was virtually NO change between, say, '65 and about '98. Since the mid 90s, there's been some renewed effort in internal engine design with things like more use of die-casting processes, powdered metal fabrication processes (connecting rods being a good example, IIRC the Ford Modular v8 was one of the first to use that process). And as I said, the switch to roller cams in the 80s was pretty big in terms of gaining efficiency and reducing the demands placed on the engine oil.
I don't deny that there was a lot of progress in peripheral areas like intake manifold design, valve port design, combustion chamber design, and (especially!) electronic engine managment, all of which boost efficiency, reduce fuel quality requirements, and lower emissions. But in terms of the design factors that affect brute durability, that's largely been at a standstill for 40 years. That's the way of most technologies- rapid changes until a plateau is reached, then incremental changes beyond that. Lubricants on the other hand (particularly the high-end synthetics) have had their period of most rapid improvement during the 80s-present time frame.
As you can see, there are changes in bearing materials. They are mostly slow, evolutionary changes, not rapid changes.
I don't deny that oils have improved over the last 40 years or so and continue to improve.
However, tight tolerance doesn't necessarily mean the spaces between engine components. It also means that the components are built more exactly to specifications. So, instead of the bore of a 4.00 cylinder being maybe 4
+/- 0.002", it is now 4 +/- 0.0005". They build and machine engines in better environments under more constant conditions, like humidity and temperature, use more accurate machinery and better materials.
I remember cars of the fifties were considered high mileage at 40-50,000, and worn out not far after that.
By the time the sixties were going good, that seemed to change, especially for Ford perhaps which modernized to better casting methods, giving truer and lighter blocks. The newer small block Ford didnt seem to crack and wear out like the older ones did.
A good engine today can easily hit 150-200,000 if you're lucky.
Talked to the Buick service manager about it a few months ago (during a bench racing and BS session) and he says the metals used in the blocks are harder, tougher now causing them not to wear as much. Dont know that there is any truth to it, but could be , I guess.
But just having a longer lasting engine does not make for a satisfactory and longer lived package. I think the electrics are more complicated now, and more prone to expensive failure. I will just say in general they are less satisfactory IMO.
Transmissions vary a lot from good to terrible. In the old days, we didnt use so many automatics and our three speed manuals lasted forever.
Ford and GM had to spend bullions to change several of their assembly plants from building less expensive RWDs to start building FWD vehicles. The 500 was not comparably expensive to bring to market since it was built in the new FWD plants, off a previous Ford chassis on which it build Volvos.
No import builds or assembles small car in the US, they are all imported or assembled in Canada of imported parts. Honda, Nissan and Toyota builds MIDSIZE cars in the US and Nissan builds trucks. In the case of Toyota, with the exception of those built in the GM/Toyota plant, only assembles them of mostly imported parts, which greatly reduces the build costs Honda does not really build trucks, they make their trucks on car chassis and are more like crossovers than real trucks
The longer Chrysler warranty came later. It was either or the 2/24 bumper to bumper or the 5/50 drive train only, not both and not transferable. The warranty on that '49 was 1,000 miles or thirty days, WOF The biggest problem with Chrysler was they would start to misfire when they got damp.. They would begin to stumble if the weather forecast on the radio in the car even PREDICTED rain the next day, it seemed ;)
Engines 50 years age had a lot more tongue. Modern engines, particularly todays Jap engines run at much higher RPMs than engines back them Remember all the 4cy Jap engines of those days, they used hollow cast cranks and machined the aluminum block as the main bearings, like a motorcycle or a lawn mower engine? When a bearing failed you had to junk the engine That is one of the reasons you never see any Jap cars form the seventies at an old cars show LOL
I have to disagree. Today you go out turn the key the car starts and keeps running. 100k miles later, if you do the necessary preventive maintenance every 15K, it still does the same thing. Back after the war we changed oil every 1000 miles, the points, plugs, exhaust system, shock and tires every
Actually, Civics are produced in Ohio and of domestic and globally sourced parts. Corollas are built in the US.
.honda.com/news/2005/4051122.html
I think that you are missing the point that Toyota and other imports use a lot parts made in the US. Whether or not it is more than half differs on model and manufacturer. Toyota spends something like $28,000,000,000 on parts and supplies in the US. Toyota has two US design facilities, one near Detroit and the other in California. Car makers want to make their vehicles with mostly local parts near where they sell their vehicles. For example, VW was making the old Beetle for years (going into the 90s, I think) in Mexico and Brasil. Likewise, Ford makes a lot of vehicles for sale in Latin America in Brasil and Mexico. And it builds cars for Europe mostly in Europe. And Ford and GM are getting into make cars in India and other parts of Asia. And, when they do that, that want to get parts made locally, if possible. It builds goodwill. And it is cheaper than shipping completed parts overseas, in most cases.
Most of the parts that Toyota uses for their cars and trucks in the US come from American and Canadian plants. When they first starting building cars in the US, they used mostly important parts, but most of the parts they use in US-built cars and trucks are domestic, now. (Nearly 1/2 of all Toyota parts on its new cars and trucks come from the US; very few Toyota parts come from the US on cars built outside the US; so that means that most of the parts on its US-built cars have to come from the US.)
Overall, domestic brands have a higher proportion of their parts built domestically, though, around 75-80% for US makes vs. 50% to 66% Toyota (different source give different numbers).
(Do not tell me anything about VINs and domestic content unless you are able to back your claims with real evidence.)
Yet they get the job done in a manner that suits their buyers. Just because you don't think that the construction is the best construction technique doesn't mean they're not trucks. They get the job done. And in the case of Toyotas, they get to stop on ramps, right in the middle of the Superbowl. And, Toyotas will run in a few weeks at Daytona! You don't get more American than that, except, of course, for Ford and GM.
If you don't like the way they are built, buy a different truck.
Luckily, I was aware that this problem existed with the series two engines.
When the dealership finished the car, they replaced coolant as well, and told me there was no water in the oil. I changed the oil anyway. There were a few drops of water in the drain oil, but the innards were not exposed to it for long.
Toyota has only around 5% of the full size truck market, Nissan around 3%.. Honda does not even offer a full size truck. Ford has more than 35% and GM has nearly 30%, Dodge nearly 20%. Corollas are assembled in Canada of mostly imported parts
Naturally you are free to believe whatever you wish but even Toyota does not agree with you. Their ads say assembled in the US of world sourced parts. ;)
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