GM vs Toyota

I know two people who have Toyota's and they have had good luck with them.

One friend has a 89 Camry, she brought it here ( to IL ) from California. Its looks great and has about 79,000 miles. Very little was done to it.

The other friend ( The Jewish Lawyer ) has a 01 Corolla with almost

100,000. Just routine maintennacne & wear items replaced. His 92 Corolla, he run up to 253,000 miles.The transmission died on a trip east to Allentown, PA. ( thats when he got the 01 ) He has the trans oil changed every 25,000 miles. He drives 30,000 miles a year.

In the 70's he had a Toyota Corona.

A guy I to bowled with, bought a ( new ) 1970 Bonneville 455 . It was the worst GM car he ever owned. Nothing but problems with it. He's had GM cars his whole life, and continues to buy GM.

A problematic 70's Skylark turned off a Math Teacher I know from buying from GM ever again. Yet the bowler friend had a 71 Skylark 2 door till

1994 and it was his favorite & best car he ever owned.

There's good & bad in all car brands

========= Harryface =========

1991 Pontiac Bonneville LE 3800 V6 ( C ), Black/Slate Grey _~_~_~297,188 miles_~_~_

~_~_~_~_U.S.A._~_~_~_~_~_

~~~The Former Fleet ~~~

89 Cavalier Z 24 convertible 78 Holiday 88 coupe 68 LeSabre convertible 73 Impala sedan

Yes but there are a couple things that are a problem here.

First, if the percentage of market share for GM had maintained the same, then GM would be selling quadruple more vehicles than back then, not just double.

Second, market share is extremely important to a manufacturer because it has a direct effect on pricing. The higher the manufacturer's market share the less pricing pressure they have on them and the higher they can price their stuff. And this works right down the line because not only do they make more money, they make more money for less work which means salaries for everyone in the company can be higher and everyone in the company doesen't have to work so hard.

This has a benefit on our economy as well because the workers of the company who are getting paid more now have extra money that they pump into the economy which has a secondary beneficial effect.

Today with a smaller and smaller market share, even though they are selling more cars, it is a lot more work for them and they are paying their workers less - many of whom in fact have been replaced by robots - which means those workers have less money to inject into the US economy to generate secondary economic activity.

Melvin you make a common mistake which is to assume that what is best for a company is always what is best for our countries economy. What your missing is that a well-managed company can be run in such a way that it's going to turn a profit no matter what the conditions are - but if the major investors of that company aren't in the US those profits have less chance of being spent here, and if the workers of that company have been cut to the bone then there's less disposable money that is going to be spent here.

For many years US Business was run in a manner that was extremely exploitive of the rest of the world - we regularly came into countries and put the country to work for peanuts, and extracted all the value out of the countries citizens for ourselves. Sure, they were all working but for peanuts. That was -very good- for the US and gave most citizens here a hugely higher standard of living for very little effort.

Today, the rest of the world has mostly figured out this trick and they are now doing to us what we were doing to them, and most of the citizens in the country now are several generations after our heyday, and lots of them don't even have grandparents now who were alive before the era of US exploitation. So they don't even remember now how to really work hard to create value for themselves and their communities.

So - what we have left is a workforce that mostly puts their energy into working low paying jobs for national chains who are busy sending whatever value they create right out of their communities. As a result their communities are strapped for money and are falling apart as a result. The workforce of course doesen't understand why their children have less buying power than they did and they react by knee-jerks such as cutting taxes which merely hasten the decline of their local communities all that faster. And in between doing that the workforce is busy buying every last scrap of consumer goods they can from foreign suppliers - and bitching that there's no decent jobs left here.

So yeah, I do think there is a problem with GM losing market share. It's symptomatic of the economic malaise in the United States. And until the workforce here starts buying locally and quits pumping money into foreign goods, we are going to be chronically short decent jobs. Sure as shootin with the current trade deficit that the rest of the world isn't that interested in spending their money here.

Ted

Yep, intake manifold gasket leaks have been an epidemic on that series of engines for many years now.

It sure looks like the US auto industry is following the path first blazed by the UK auto industry.

John

Not for much longer. GM and Ford have both been steadily loosing market share for almost 30 years now. That trend has only one logical conclusion and there has been no sign of either company really turning it around. GM is doing some things better than they used to, but they still are not getting ahead of the curve and market share continues to dive.

If the best thing you can say for GM is that they are big .......

John

Hardly GM and Ford together outsell all of the other manufactures combined.

mike hunt

John Horner wrote:

John Horner wrote:

You information is not correct. GM's 'share' of the market is down, as a percentage of the ever growing market, but GM's total sales are UP. GM sells more vehicles today then when it had 50% of the US market in the fifties because the total number of vehicles sold was less than half of what it is today. Do some research before you post on a subject of which you apparently have little or no knowledge, WBMA

mike hunt

John Horner wrote:

I think when he's referring to "share" he's referring to what percentage of the total market GM holds. regardless of the # of unit's sold.

but I could be misinterpreting his point....

What??????? You don't think that Austin/Rover/MG is going to take over the world auto industry?

Say it ain't so ! I thought they were selling more units than ever......

I guess by 2007 even in total # vehicles sold, GM will be second to Toyota. Here is the story link:

Last year, Toyota zoomed past America's Ford to become the world's second largest car-marker by unit sales. Now it is chasing General Motors, the largest group. On Tuesday Toyota forecast that its sales will rise 7 per cent next year, to 8.03m units. It also pledged to sell

8.5m units in 2006 - or the same as GM.

Moreover, in the metrics that truly matter to investors, Toyota is already way ahead. In the first nine months of this year, its profits were almost as high as the "Big Three" US carmakers combined. Meanwhile margins were about twice as big - not least because Toyota, unlike the Big Three, has not offered hefty sales incentives in the US, where it now holds a 12 per cent market share.

That is what a *trend* will do over time. This isn't a surprise to some of us. What is surprising is that GM management doesn't seem to know what to do to turn things around (or isn't trying).

Wish I can! but I am too busy fixing this chevy and cruising the forums on the net looking for mechanical solutions for this damn car.

Visited my folks this Christmas holiday and my dad dropped GM from his short list of vehicles to consider after listening to our story. Hist short list now consists of Honda Accord and Subaru. Looked at his issue of Consumer Reports magazine on vehicle reliability reports (direct from owners) and WOW! I was blown away by the differential in the ratings between the manufacturers. Check it out!

I worked for an AMerican computer company that went "belly-up".

In the preceeding years, management alternated between; Reducing our benefits Increasing the work-load Fattening up executive bonus/pension packages.

GM sales are up for 2004, and they sell far more than any other manufacture. They must be doing something right. What is with the comparison with Toyota? Even Ford sells more that twice as many vehicles as Toyota ;)

mike hunt

"James C. Reeves" wrote:

He will be even more blown away when he sees how much more the drive home price is for a comparable size Honda and Subaru LOL

mike hunt

Trout Fisherman wrote:

Go ahead Mike, drink the coolaid. GM is doing a terrific job and manages the best run automobile company on the planet. Everything is going great. Nothing to worry about. Silence the critics. Everything is fine, everything is fine, every ....thing ...... is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So that's the Christmas Cheer! :-)

When one buys a used car there is no way to know how it was used or abused or if it was maintained properly or not. When I bought used cars I had problems with them as well. Since I started buying new vehicles, domestic or foreign made, I have never had a bad one. Perhaps your dad would be better served if he saved some money bought a new vehicle?

mike hunt

Travis K>

That's the problem, he couldn't afford to get a new vehicle no matter what he tried to save up because if he tried to save up, he'd have to use the money for something else. (Typically for other parts that would go out.) If you get the impression, we're on the lower end of the money spectrum. He bought the van used and most of its time before Dad got it was on the highway. That's why he felt somewhat safe getting it even with high miles. He probably put about 12k on it a year. We've had it for 7 years. He could barely afford it and it's a Dodge... Dad used to be an auto mechanic, but he's not up to snuff with the newer vehicles. His '96 Blazer cost him a little under $5000 and it had 116k when he bought it and it's up to 117k now. He needed an SUV or a van that had a 6 cylinder engine because he has a boat. He went to all sorts of places looking for an SUV that was $5000 or less. He was trying to get a '97 Blazer with 97k, but he couldn't get the price brought down far enough. All of the other Blazers for the same price as his '96 elsewhere had higher mileage for the same price. (Typically 140k for the same price.) (Believe it or not, his van was used for pulling a boat during the Summer, as well as transportation from work and back. His work is a half hour away.) Of course, now that it's Winter, he won't be doing that, but when late spring comes, it will be happening. Oh well, it's only a bass boat anyway. Oh, and his van was farely reliable up until about

200k, then you couldn't go a month without a problem. His transmission was replaced BEFORE it go that high in mileage. wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com...