Outsourcing. Where have we heard that before? Oh, Chevy's "American" trucks built in Mexico-from parts made who knows where. Chevy, an "American" tradition.
formatting link
The one exception is the Prius, which has very good ratings in all > categories except collision damage loss, and even there is very good > compared to other small cars. The Corolla is pretty good too (but not > great). If you are worried about bodily injury, you probably should > stay away from a Suzuki samall car. Usually the small VWs do really > well, but they aren't showing any injury data for those - I assume > becasue of a lack of data.>
My wife were driving home from Oklahoma a few years ago in her
1998 Buick LeSabre when the water cooled idler pulley committed suicide. The serpentine belt did not break but it wound around the engine and we had systems failures including power steering.
I am a relatively strong man, but it was all I could do to slow the car and exit the turnpike. My wife could not have done it - ever.
Maybe these power steering assist failures are less dramatic than those older systems. If not, they are definitely dangerous.
The one exception is the Prius, which has very good ratings in all > categories except collision damage loss, and even there is very good > compared to other small cars. The Corolla is pretty good too (but not > great). If you are worried about bodily injury, you probably should stay > away from a Suzuki samall car. Usually the small VWs do really well, but > they aren't showing any injury data for those - I assume becasue of a lack > of data.
Outsourcing is nothing new. All companies purchase parts from component suppliers. There was a time when GM, and to a lesser extent Ford, built a lot of stuff in factories that they owned, but for the last 20 years GM and Ford have been relentlessly selling off the component buisness. I assume this was mostly done so that they could dump Union employees and use competitive pressure to force down the price of components.
This is not a new trend in the auto industry. When Ford first started building Model T's, virtually everything was sourced from outside suppliers. Ford just handled the final assembly. Over time, Ford brought more and more of the componet production in house, until at the end, Model T's were largely built from Ford in-house parts. Henry Ford even tried to set up a rubber planation in Brazil with the idea of providing rubber for tires.
These days instead of fighting with the management of internal parts operations it is much easier to play external component suppliers off against each other to drive component prices down.
You need to remember that Toyota suspended sales of many models for several days at the beginning of the month. They lost 5 days of sales for many of their most popular models at the begining of February (that is about 20% of the sales days for February). That had to be part of the reason for the monthly decrease. From what I have read, Toyota sales, on a per day basis adjusted for the days sales were suspended, were up as well.
I suspect that for March Toyota sales will bounce back. Toyota is running a lot of incentive programs and they are advertising like crazy on the local stations.
I do think some of the dealers are making a mistake by running "we are sorry" ads. And at least one dealer was running the "Toyota is no worse than GM ads" that I hate. After years of convincing some people that Toyota were super special extra good vehciles, it is stupid to now try to excuse problems by saying they are no worse than GM's.
Oh yeah, and while I am commenting on Toyota commericals, has anyone seen the silly Toyota Camry commercials where they try to promote the Camry as a "sexy" car. What a hoot. They make about as much sense as if Revlon hired Barabara Bush to do cosmetic commercials. Camrys may be a lot of thing, but they aren't exciting or sexy. Mundame, dull, reliable, sensible, comfortable, etc might describe a Camry, but not sexy. Camrys have all the appeal of a well designed dishwasher, and at this point, a relatively old design as well. In fact, unless Toyota spiffs up the design, Camry sales are bound to go down. All of the competitors, and most importantly Hyundai, have newer and in, most cases, more interesting designs in the Camry's class.
I don't think the tensioner is actually water-cooled. My kid replaced the tensioner on his Bonneville, and as I recall from looking at it, going through the tensioner was just a way to get a coolant flow from one side of it to the other. Looked like stupid design to me, given the added coolant leak points. One of elbows was leaking on his, but since he had to pull the tensioner off to replace it, and he felt a bind point in tensioner arm movement, he replaced the entire tensioner too.
On this one the tensioner could not be replaced separately from the water bypass. This unit gave no hint of problems until it cratered. It was an expensive repair.
The corporate Toyota ads say that. They are well produced. It is just the locally produced ads that are whinning about Toyota being no worse than GM. One dealer actually referred you to a web site where they posted wildly inaccurate statistics that "proved" Toyota was better than GM. I suppose you can pick and choose statistic to say almost anything, but their numbers bordered on outright lies. I can't see this as being helpful. Unfortunately, it is the same dealer family members have purchased five Toyotas from in the last 3 years. They dropped down a couple of rungs on the trust ladder in my book after running that piece of misleading trash. I've always distrusted Toyota's claims (well actually, I try to follow Regean's advice - Trust, but verify), but this was a new low and it came from a dealer I thought was a notch above the usual Toyota hype machine. Oh well, Moving Forward, Oh What a feeling, is it Toyotathon time again?
I haven't had a really bad car from any manufacturer in at least 20 years. I guess among the cars built in the last decade the Saturn Vue I owned (a 2003 Model) was the worst, but it wasn't terrible. Well, at least until my Son decided to treat it like a military Humvee. It was not built for that. I eat dinner with a couple of older buddies once a week. One of them has Buicks (two of them). He has been unhappy with one of them recently. Apparently his power windows keep failing (I understand this is very common for certian Buicks). However, the car is almost 10 years old, and except for the power window thing, it has been dead reliable. The other older guy has an old Civic and a new Avalon. We can't help but poke fun at him about the Toyota recall (if you knew the guy, you'd know why). He seems mostly happy with the Avalon (but he finally agrees with me, he would have been better off with a Camry). He hasn't even taken it in for the "fix" yet. And he isn't really worried. On the other hand, the guy with the Buick doesn't like the Avalon (he rides in it occasionally, I never have). According to him, the seats are uncomfortable and the console is in the way. It should be noted, he hates consoles in all cars. He hasn't bought a new car to replace the Buick becasue he can't find one he likes without a console.
Our Avalon is perhaps the best road car we have ever owned. It is smooth and quiet and gets good gas mileage. It does have a console but so did our LeSabre, IIRC. The Avalon may have slightly more room inside than the last Buick had. As far as the seats, I see (rather, feel) no substantial difference.
Mine does not have a consol on the '01 Limited but it may have been available at some point. I know the Lucerne has one but you can order without. I prefer having one.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.