Re: GM to cut 30,000 Jobs & Close several NA Plants

Talk about using figured to lie

Try looking at over all sales.

Toyota sells just over 10% of the vehicles sold in the US, Honda even less In total vehicle sales GM sells three times as many in the US as Toyota. Ford sells more than twice as many and Chrysler sell nearly half again as many as Toyota. Both GM and Ford sell more light trucks, including SUVs, than Toyota sells cars and trucks combined. In 2005 GM, Ford and Chrysler sold around 55% of all the vehicles sold in the US. ALL of the numerous others from Japan, Europe and Korea sold around 45% combined. Do a search and educate yourself before you post again on a subject of which you have little or no knowledge, WBMA.

mike hunt

That's strange. I buy a new vehicle every year and find the opposite to be true

mike

There is a good point, when an imported vehicle needs something like a fuel pump or alternator or starter replaced at less than 100k its considered a "maintenance item". When I had to replace the fuel pump on my s10 after 12 years and 150,000 miles I was told how unreliable it was and I only had to replace it because off roading dented the bottom of the tank and years later it rusted through and the pump started sucking up rust.

Worried about reliability?

:))))))))) )))))))) )))))))

MN

I yield, you will cherry pick your facts to prove your points.

Why?

Rick

Right now Toyota in number two behind GM in auto sales and closing the gap (they just passed Ford and Chrysler is a distant 4th). They have not been at 10% for a long time

Because I run two or three cars, A luxury car, a sporty convertible and one for my wife. besides I want to, and I can ;)

I think you have completely ruined your credibility to argue for domestic car quality, at least for the longer-term aspect of quality.

As you claimed to buy a new vehicle every year, and own three cars, that means that on average you keep your car for only 3 years! Assuming average driving milage, you just sell your vehicles whithin GM/FORD/Chrysler typical warranty period, or shortly after it expires.

And this within warranty period experience of yours is supossed to be the basis of your argument that domestic manufacturers quality is equal to imports?

I think with these experiences you're just unqualified to argue this topic, and definetely not to Subaru owners (and other import owners) who frequently tend to keep their cars for many many years, and view quality in both the short-term perspective and long-term perspective (100k + miles).

For you quality does not matter after only 3 years of ownership!

MN

Off hand I would think you would care. When I worked production in a similar business I figured out there were 2 overhead folks for every actual producing worker. Most of them were paid more as managers, engineers and sales people. Then I learned about he outside the plant peripheral effects. For instance I used to read Backpacker religiously but I dropped it 10 years ago because I could not afford it. Folks like you seem to forget that the high standard of living we had was because of the low end workers getting it so everyone else did. Now the mantra is that they don't deserve it. Soon no one will deserve it as no one left working will be worthy of benefits.

Just open any issue of Consumer Report's Auto edition or their Buying Guide and look over the reliability section. It's really easy to tell when you are in a GM/Ford/Chrysler section since all you see are the black dots for poor reliability. Conversely, in when you see all red dots (high reliability) you are always in Toyota, or Honda. These ratings come from the driving public and are updated every year. There IS a pattern here!

You are obviously new to this group.

Hi,

I wouldn't say unqualified, instead I'd say his comments are very qualified! They're qualified by the time period he keeps his cars, and HIS expectations of what quality is, a very subjective issue at best.

For example, IF he EXPECTS trouble within the three years he's likely to keep a vehicle (which, sadly, so many of my GM owner friends DO), and NOTHING goes wrong, the vehicle is of high quality. To him. OTOH, unless he drives these cars literally 24/7, I seriously doubt he can add any worthwhile data points at 150k, 200k, 250k, even 300k miles and beyond. Nor can many GM owners I know relative to the number of Toyota, Honda and Subie owners who can. To those of us who have cars with that kind of mileage, quality takes on a completely different face: what's the cost, in money and down time, of keeping a car on the road that long? To me, overall dollar cost/mile is a strong indicator of "quality." For others, it's a moot point. The leather, the fantastic sound system, the "prestige" (whatever that means to them) are, for their purposes, definitive of "quality." What's the ol' saying, "One man's junk is another man's treasure."

Don't get me wrong: my family was "all GM, all the time" for MANY years. But when they were starting to have trouble at 50k and beyond, while their neighbors with Toyotas, Hondas and such were going two and three times that long without trouble, they started scratching their heads and going, "Hmmm..." Today there's not a GM vehicle in the family. There have been Hondas, Nissans, Toyotas and Subies. Nissan's the only "didn't go back and probably won't" Japanese make so far. And I seriously doubt any of the family would ever buy another GM product.

But competition's good for the species: without the Japanese influence, we wouldn't have GM vehicles that can now at least make 100k miles with relatively little drama. GM's quality HAS improved some over the last decade or so. Still, as they say, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation but only minutes to lose it, and GM's screwed the pooch with too many former owners, so they won't come back. And IMHO they don't quite build a car that appeals to the guy who's looking at a Honda or Toyota, so there's another sale lost. Then we look in the paper to see rebates of up to several thousand dollars. Constantly. What's that tell us? I don't know about the rest of you, but to me a "rebate" is an out and out admission the product was seriously overpriced to start with. Doesn't matter what it is. With cars, it's even worse IMO, since car dealers and manufacturers have been suspect for years as it is--how many other products does one EXPECT to haggle over price on like we do cars?

So, while for MY purposes I think GM makes garbage, and perhaps many here share my thoughts, people like Mike keep 'em in business cuz they serve HIS needs and meet HIS expectations. Good for them! We just have to realize Mike speaks for himself, not the vast owner base of GM products, and remember NO car is perfect. So his comments ARE very qualified!

Rick

Yeah, you are right.

In addition to what you write below, there is also a group of people who change cars every 3-4 years 36k-50k miles, or so.

See, I have been living in the Western US., for so long, I totally forgot that some well-to-do folks in the rust belt, or pot-hole ridden places, like Chicago, change their cars frequently because of generally quicker deterioration due to bad roads and bad weather (bad roads are also weather related).

Many frequently park their cars in front of various city dwellings (high-rises etc.) where they sit exposed to the elements, get dented in crowded urban conditions, and are constantly driven on terrible inner city roads, and therefore deteriorate very fast no matter whether import or domestic.

Who wants to drive that 3year old dented Buick, or Lexus, whose suspension is shot, exterior lost its shine, and the body is beginning to show rust around the numerous scratches etc. I suspect it makes more sense under these conditions to buy a cheaper domestic car like for example a Crown Victoria, than to pay for the Avalon; both will do the job splendidly.

MN

Alas - a rational thought.

You hit the nail right on the head with that last line. In most cases, it's not at all a matter of if the car is holding up, or fit and finish, or any of the other attempts to justify preference for one brand over another, as much as it is the very subjective perspective of what quality is defined as. That subjective perspective distorts vision and it's what allows others to see GM cars as rust buckets with weekly trips to the dealer for repairs while seeing Toyota products as supreemly reliable, trouble free cars for life.

My perspective is that the GM line offers some extreemely high values for the dollar. I keep my cars for an average of 200,000 - 250,000 miles. That's typically 8-10 years. I live in the Northeast so rust is a concern for all cars - no matter what the brand. Anyone who believes a Subaru or a Toyota will not rust out as fast as a Buick in upstate NY is fooling themselves. The cars are their own testimony to what salt does and it affects them all. This is not to say they're rust buckets though. My cars look as good as any typical 4 year old car when I get rid of them. I wax them once or twice a year... or every two years - to say, I don't spend inordinant amounts of time on this stuff. The paint looks as good as any other car out there at the end of it's life. All of the manufacturers use the same paints and techniques, so it is really silly when some suggest a Subaru's paint looks better after 200,000 miles.

As for cost of ownership - I do all of my own repairs so I have an excellent handle on what lasts and what does not. GM's will cost you a wheel bearing every few years. They will cost you an alternator a couple of times over a

200,000 mile lifetime. They will cost you a fuel tank and a sender unit (this one is a sore spot to me) once within their lifetime. My expectation for a car is 250,000 miles. I expect the engine to hold up and perform in such a way as to feel almost new at that point in its life. I expect the interior trim to remain intact and only show some signs of use wear at that point. I expect suspensions to only suffer an occasional ball joint replacement, shock replacement or tie rod end at that point in it's life. I expect the transmission to hold up without a flaw and still shift positively at that point. Every Buick I've ever owned has met these expectations.

I do believe you are mistaken above though, with respect to GM owners and high mileage. Agreed that many, if not most owners of new GM's may not keep their cars to 100,000 miles, but those cars do recirculate in the economy. Look around again and see all of the 100,000 - 250,000 mile GM's that are on the road. I'm not saying there are more than other brands, I'm saying that the cars do run that long and they are there on the road right next to you.

There was a time... but I contend that that time is long past.

Ahhh - we converge. Agreed.

Don't know about your area, but where I live the imports play the same incentive games. It's a car dealer/manufacturer thing. 0% interest, rebates, free cases of beer for life...

Or because GM really does make a better car now than what your experiences in the past have caused you to believe they would make. Like you said - ruin a name and it's very hard to re-establish it. Is it possible that once you decided that GM had hit the bottom of the barrel in quality (and they did), that you never really saw the quality that is there today? I've owned Toyota, Subaru, Mazda and some others over the years. Most all were good cars in their own way. Some had some real design issues - not unlike the claims against GM products. The only point that tends to aggrivate me is when GM takes a hit from folks who sing the praises of Toyota or Honda or whatever, and they so conveniently overlook the cost of ownership in those cars. Many of the repair items I spoke of above reoccur within these brands just as frequently as they do within the GM family. Cost of repair is certainly no less for these brands, often more due to rates at the dealerships.

Well, I think Mike does probably speak for the vast majority of GM owners to some degree. Most GM owners are not first time GM buyers. They must like what they purchase or they would go somewhere else.

Today I own both import and GM. Unless they stop selling the style of car I want, I will probably continue to own GM. There are a lot of voices out there who decry GM and have never owned more than one car, yet they shout from the rooftops as if they were expert. Well - such is life, but it really pays to measure specifics when comparing vehicles and not rely totally on the subjective.

GM = crap. I had an '84 Chev and the damn thing went so far as to drop a control arm on the ground while my parents were driving it. ! Wtf?

My parents owned a Ford truck and the brakes just.. gave out.. one day. WTF!

My best friend owned a Cavalier and after a certain time iron filings started showing up in the oil: he was rabid about regular service and oil changes. It cost him $6k for an engine rebuild before he sold it to get rid of it.

My aunt bought a buick, took it up over a mountain pass in the interior or BC and the brakes gave out on a downhill. W..T..F..!

Every single experience I've had with a domestic vehicle, and every single experience people I know have had with a domestic vehicle, has been absolutely shitty. It's a wonder we're all still here. Half the time serious things have happened that have almost killed us.

I'll never buy a piece of domestic crap again, and while the Chev was good to me for a while, something as serious as dropping a control arm on the ground without any prior warning is *absolute bullshit.*

Why should I support a company that was more than happy to screw us over in the past? Let them die: a company that has had quality as its number one priority right from the start deserves trust more than GM ever did. The only reason they turned this leaf over is because they got their ass handed to them when foreign cars entered the market, and quite frankly I don't believe companies such as GM are doing anything but trying to survive: tacking on safety features as a last resort before simply choking and going bankrupt.

Let them die! As a public, N.A. company, if they were ever willing to put profit before human safety, they don't deserve to be allowed to continue.