GM, Ford, Chrysler vs. Toyota, Nissan, Honda production

Extended periods? How many times did they fire your ass for sleeping or trashing equipment? I just don't understand how you ever got rehired.

--Vic

Reply to
Victor Smith
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production of

Maybe not where you are, but they now produce many budget vehicles and in Europe, where their cars are often taxi's, their commercial vehicles and budget cars compete on equal terms with Toyota, Nissan, Ford and GM. Only the sad give credence to the badge or their perceived image of the product. IMHO the A Class and the early new-model C plus the V are, or were, truly dire products. The M, while being a reasonably well engineered product, also has barely acceptable build quality and fit-and-finish. Were it not for the badge and a fair driving experience then these products would bomb in big style.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

Victor Smith wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

@post.usenet.com:

1) I am not an employee of one of the Big 3 2) I wasn't working for the UAW 3) From what I've personally witnessed, and been told by several members of management of one of the big 3, it is virtually impossible to fire a UAW employee.
Reply to
Anthony

I have experience with a different union & different industry than autos.

American industry is between a rock and a hard place. The union situation (can't be fired) adds to it but it's not the only problem. Our relatively lavish lifestyles in the US-- and the union salaries that enable it*-- that can't be sustained by the planet is the biggest problem. Everyone in the US wants more -- expects more -- demands more -- but in the big picture it isn't affordable, at least not the way we're doing it now. This breeds corruption, dishonesty, etc., in the big picture as well as in the small picture. The small picture, at the local factory, is union employees who slow down, break things, etc., to make sure overtime continues even in the face of declining production schedules and product pricing pressure. Gotta pay for that new boat, motorcycle, 2500 sq.ft. house, big SUV, etc. If they could be fired, the problem would be less frequent. Because it's nearly impossible to fire anyone, the problem only becomes a further push to move production to or outsource from low-cost countries.

Personally, I am repulsed by these people, who expect the very best in material goods, believe they have a right to have these goods as they please, and aren't even willing to turn in a good day's work, to give their best in return. But I need a job too so I keep going back there.

I don't begrudge anyone a decent salary. I am grateful for mine, and I work hard for it in return. We should all be so fortunate. We will NEVER get there by taking the money and in return needlessly causing trouble, wrecking equipment, making scrap. We will NEVER get there by simply using up the planet faster, either. The small picture and the big both need changing.

*(Not to excuse overpaid management, and other rich folks helping themselves to huge tax breaks while, for example, poor folks can't afford to buy a doctor's appointment to help with easily treatable medical problems, while the future viability of the dollar and world banking system is put at risk by gargantuan budget and trade deficits, etc.)

--

Reply to
Pete

Ok, after that vent I feel better and can reconsider. Productivity is improving some, thanks to strong effort by management to measure people's output, and to the response from better workers to monitor themselves and put out a fair or even a hard day's work. And, a very few, the very laziest and careless people have been fired. This has helped a great deal in the place I work. I stand by the rest -- We're still using up the planet faster than we fix or create as individuals and as a people, and this fact is partly at the root of the present debate.

Reply to
Pete

My Dad's got a 92 Dakota (5.2 v8). 198,000 miles on the original trans. Never even changed the fluid and filter (yeah, that's abuse but its not my truck). I helped him replace the steering rack a few weeks ago, and the darn thing drives and runs like new. Its durable as a cockroach, as far as I can tell.

Replacing mutliple trannies in a Dodge truck is a sign of an incompetent dealer. That tranny is the A-518, which is the venerable old A-727 with an overdrive tacked on. About the only problem they ever had was that up through mid-year '92, a torrington bearing in the O/D could fail under heavy loads.

Reply to
Steve

I don't agree, even not living in the UK. The A-class starts at L13000, while the Golf, at L10000. The C and E-class may be used as cabs, but they're still more expensive than similarly sized and appointed cars by other manufacturers.

Granted, a L13000-car is a 1st for MB, but all its models are significantly more expensive than the competition, even when not offering anything that justify commanding the premium, other than infantile snob.

It's always been like that. Since the early 80's, thus before the "cheap" 190 and A-class, the S-class was plagued by electrical problems, for instance. Let's just face it: high prices don't automatically equate to high quality.

Reply to
Neo

I worked at a Union grocery store while I went through college. Parents didn't have enough income to support me fully so I had to pay my own rent and such. I couldn't get the income based grants though because my parents inhereted 50 acres of land in WV. The .gov said sell your land for the money. Well land in WV doesn't sell very easy even if they wanted to. Anyway, I was part time and had to work around ym school schedule, I worked there because the store was open 24/7 and was big so there was always work to be done. All the union people started "bumping" my hours because they had senority over me. They would let me know it too, I would reply my schedule can't be changed because I have school, I can't have an overlap of the two, but they would try anyway and sit down with the union steward and whine about it. Sometimes they would actually change my schedule to hours that I was in school so of course I would get repremanded for coming in late. The other part was I didn't want to be in the union, didn't need to be in the union and didn't care or even disagreed with the unions political views. I wasn't going to work there forever, just through school so I didn't care about senority or benefits and stuff like that. They took my money and gave it to organizations like the Bill Clinton electrion fund, stonewall union (gay rights), abortion clinics, etc I promise myself I won't ever work for a union shop again.

As far as parts to build, this is my unscientific observiation. Most import cars were/are smaller, yes they are closing the gap, but you can still set two mid size class cars side by side and the Ameircan car will be slightly larger, which means there will be more sheets of metal welded together, more seperate interrior plastc, etc. Also the import car engines seem to have a lot of "modules". Go stand in line at an auto parts store, American car owners will buy $5-$15 sensors like the map sensor, cam sensor, crank sensor, etc. Import car owners always seem to by needing $300 modules. From what I have seen, they combine several functions into one 'module' which makes assembly faster since there are fewer seperate sensors to bolt in and plug up the wires, but they cost more when one of those sensors fail. And the myth of the imports being more relaible doesn't seem to hold up in line at the parts store counter, there seem to be as many import owners needing parts.

"Huw" wrote in message news:3f4fd611 snipped-for-privacy@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...

Reply to
Me

And so is your stereotypical *story*. So ridiculous, in fact, as to be completely unbelievable.

So...you "just happened" to be there, and in a position to see these things happening "every day". Nobody "just happens" to be in a UAW plant or any other plant with any type of security. As far as your *story* is concerned, at my UAW plant, when something breaks that could or does cause a line stoppage, whichever trades are necessary are sent to the site and NONE of them leave until the problem is rectified. Also their supervisor is right there with them in case he is needed. Line stoppages are a big deal and even incompetant managers won't allow a 20 minute job to take 10 hours. If you are going to lie to us, at least make it believable.

Dave

Reply to
Dave Brower

Dave Brower wrote:

I am not anti-Union, but I do think some Union work rules are counter-productive. Many years ago I worked for a big company in Michigan. I decided I wanted my filing cabinet moved, so I did it. A few minutes later, my manager called me into his office. He bluntly told me to never move furniture again. He said I was lucky that the shop steward did not see me move the cabinet. If I had been seen, he assured me he would have filed a grievance against me. To me this seem like total BS. That is until we needed to have a phone added. I saw an amazing demonstration of union power. Step one, the phone man comes. He determines we need to move a desk to install the phone. Phone man sits down, movers are called. Movers come (2 guys and a desk caddy), move desk, phone man swings into action. Movers sit down and wait. Phone man determines we need an electrician for something (a box maybe or the need to supply power?). Phone man sits, movers are still sitting. Electrician is called in. Electrician arrives and does his thing. Electrician leaves. Phone man installs some wires. Apparently a co-worker was down in the phone room somewhere else. They communicate, phone is working. Phone man leaves. Movers reposition desk. Movers leave. BTW, since it was my desk they were moving, I had to sit in the corner out of the construction zone and read. I think it took something like 2 man days to install this one phone. At one point there were four people sitting around watching the electrician (including me). Hopefully the rules have changed in th last 25 years.

Regards,

Ed White

Reply to
C. E. White

VW have to compete here in the same class as Ford and GM. Golf and Focus diesels sell for about the same money for equivelent specifications. The A Class is probably more of a Focus/Golf alternative than a Fiesta/Polo alternative. The A is certainly more than competitive on passenger space with those others.

Mercedes reliability is good. Maybe not the best but still very good.

a mere 2-year warranty in

3 year warranty in the UK. Service intervals around 15000 miles apart. High resale value for most models. Depreciation is by far the highest cost of car ownwership apart from fuel. Mercedes has superb residual value generally, [though the V is a bit iffy] and therefore, along with its low servicing cost, it is not an expensive car to own.

Averaged out over milage, the cost of repair should be not much more than any other car. Once over 5 years and over 70 to 80 tousand miles these cars are typically not serviced by a main dealer and, in common with all cars, common wearing parts [fast movers] can be bought relitively cheaply through motor factors.

Then again, if one's leasing for a couple of

Companies lease and they lease on cost. Cost is vastly influenced by the service and residual costs. More and more companies lease prestige marques. Private buyers are most likely to buy prestige and least likely to buy Mondeo/Vectra because they do not have sufficient discount to make these cars competitive against C or 3 series in running cost.

I get the impession that Mercedes and BMW are rare where you are. Believe me when I say that they are trully mass market in Europe. At least they are below S and 7.

Does anyone buy those?

VW a reliability benchmark? I don't think so! Reliability benchmark in the UK is Toyota and Honda. Maybe Nissan, but certainly not VW who I perceive to be not much better than average. The average must surely consist of Ford and Vauxhall/Opel who make up the majority of sales but since these have made huge improvements in recent years they are certainly as good as VW IMO.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

I don't know, it makes me puke... :-)

Hey, it fared 26th place in a long term reliability survey by JD Power!

It is over here...

Say, is it true that because taxes are so high in Europe many people drive company cars as part of their compensation to avoid taxes?

Nope, they're a dime a dozen. Well, not a dime, but it seems that they're like belly-buttons, especially the 3-series...

Plenty. In my trips to Europe I seldom see anything above a 4 cylinder Diesel, often under the skins of the likes of 3-series, A4, etc. Pityful...

That's the impression I get from reading European magazines (Quattroruote)...

OK

Reply to
Neo

Is that a long term study of mechanical reliability or a study of the assembly quality of new vehicles? Whichever it is, like all surveys of this kind, take it with a pinch of salt. In general, reliability is much of a muchness except for particular models within a range at a particular time [such as a new model with glitches in early production] and for a trend for a manufacturer to be particularly good or bad. All manufacturers products away from [say] the bottom and top

10% are very close together in reality.

prestige

I don't know about 'Europe' but here in the UK many take company cars because it is part of their salary package. There may or may not be a tax advantage according to circumstances but you can be assured that an employee is taxed on his company supplied car.

******************** trimmed line....see below

Plenty of four cylinder cars but you specifically mentioned four cylinder "Like a 4-cylinder 5-series? :-P" which you trimmed from above where I have inserted **** I can tell you that 5 series is common here but four cylinder versions are rare.

It wouldn't happen to be a German based magazine ;-)

average.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

Check it out for yourself: . No mere 10% difference. Funny enough, it's MB that drags down Damler-Chrysler. ;-)

Interesting. Thanks for the bit of information.

No, I mean 4-cylinder 5-series and others, like the E-series and the A6. Again, pityful. A big turn off seeing a sleek A6 clacking like a tractor...

Nope, an Italian one. How do brands rank in the perception of reliability there in the UK?

TIA

Reply to
Neo

Japanese engineering? Don't make me laugh. The Japanese build fine cars, but the number of inovations that are "Japanese" is tiny. The biggest advantage that Japaneese engineers have is a commitment from their production people to consuistently build parts to close tolerances.

Well I guess I can't argue with that.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

Oh yeah this is a valid survey ...... Buick ranked 3rd with 179 problem per 100 vehicles, Chevrolet was 17th with 272 problems per 100 vehicels, Oldsmobile was 19th with 283 problems per 100 vehicles, and Pontiac was

21st with 293 problems per 100 vehicles.....Doesn't this make you wonder?????? Buicks are not built in unique plants. For the most part, they are built by the same people on the same assembly lines that are building Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs. This survey is nothing more than people spitting back the ads run by the companies and the stuuff they read in newpapers.

Check out the local Lexus dealer sometimes - the lot at our local dealer's shop is packed with vehicles. I suppose they are there for routinne service....yeah right.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

This is prolly a circumstance that the Oshawa, Canada plant, which builds the Marque leading Regal, also builds the nearly forgotten Grand Prix. This plant has been advertised (in Canada, at least) as the plant with the least problems in the entire Western hemisphere.

Vuarra

Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur. (That which is said in Latin sounds profound.)

Reply to
Vuarra

In message , Huw writes

The latest "Which" magazine has slated just about all the German cars with MB fairing the worst.

Reply to
Clive

This is the issue with the sensational "German brands lose their shine" cover page? Not worth the paper it is written on! This sensationalism is based on an apparently very poor showing from the Audi TT and a deterioration in the just released E class compared to the well sorted prior model [surprise surprise]. In fact all car models from all makers seem to be very reliable but it is no surprise to find the Japanese vehicles all at the top end of a crowded reliability scale.

Huw

Reply to
Huw

You haven't been keeping up much, have you? Reports within the past year from both Consumer Reports and JD Power (as well as informal ones by Motor Trend and others) reveal that German quality has slipped to or below American levels. YEOWCH! Mercedes is the worst offender, with most of their cars getting black marks (1s and 2s out of 5) at CR. They've slipped below GM, which is on the rise. As is Hyundai. Mercedes has always been overrated, second-rate crap to BMW in every way anyway. Inferior engines, inferior suspensions (ride and handling), inferior steering feel, inferior styling, inferior pricing, inferior resale value. Across the board. And they try to compensate for all this by endowing their lineup with bigger engines. What an American solution. Now that Mercedes can't build their cars to Chevy Cavalier standards, their prestige will surely go down as it deserved to years ago.

Reply to
Crunchy Cookie

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