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

Is that a Toyota car I see as #1 car and Honda as #2!

Most Toyotas and Hondas are not imports.

Many "foreign" vehicles built in the USA are exported around the world. See BMW in Greenvile, SC and Mercedes in the next state south.

GM has started selling Korean built cars. Cars from China next. I won't be a buyer as I'll try to buy a NAFTA built car, which includes most Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW, etc.

Of course the dealer experience is related to the dealerships sales attitude. Here one BIG company owner owns several car dealerships. He started with GM Chev and is now into "foreign" makes. From my horrible experiences of a few visits to his Chev dealerships I will not enter a dealership he owns. These dealerships won't even stock the deal car packages GM occasionally advertises. The last time I went there they immediately tried to push me into a more upscale and expensive car than I wanted. I left and eventually bought Chrysler, then reported my experience to GM. However I'm sure this very powerful dealer chain is still practicing the same customer imitation practices.

I've dealt with a few of our Chrysler dealerships over the years, only one which is now out of business has not been enjoyable.

I see why your are confused by advertising and semantics. Yes, Toyota sells more individual brand cars, but over half the vehicles sold in the US are light trucks and SUVs. GM and Ford sell more trucks than Toyota and Honda sell cars AND trucks combined. In fact GM and Ford sell more light TRUCKS ALONE than Toyota and Honda sell cars AND trucks combined . GM sells more trucks and CARS than any other brand except Ford. While both GM and Ford sell more trucks and CARS than Toyota or Honda, Toyota and Honda sell more cars under ONE label than GM or Ford. The best selling vehicle of one brand in the US is the Ford F Series, but GM actually sells more trucks with its several brands. If one went by advertising one might think Toyota offers the most vehicles with the best fuel economy. The fact is GM sells over 19 vehicles that get thirty MPG or better, Toyota only offers nine and Honda even less GM even has V6 equipped vehicles that can match some of the 4cy vehicles of some import brands. ;)

mike

"Spam Hater" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@news.telus.net...

Not when you get the drive home price or add in the Hemi ;)

Sure they'll be working, in Toyota, Honda, etc. plants; while GM is busy making corporate profits importing Korean, Chinese, etc. cars. Can't you see it? GM is the traitor to employment here by not upgrading their vehicles. GM is selling on price, not function and quality.

While we speak Toyota is building a second large plant in Ontario and will be shipping the vehicles built there around the world. The first vehicle they plan to build in this new plant has previously only been built in Japan. Of course Toyota will be sourcing parts in NAFTA where possible.

I forget to point out I also own five cars that I have owned since new. A

41, 64, 71, 72, and an 83. All are in pristine condition, with anywhere from 100K to 300K on the clock. Most of the cars I have owned over the years were sold to relatives and friends who ran them for many years. As I said before I haven't had any vehicle, foreign or domestic that proved to be problematic, in many years. Every manufacture is building good dependable vehicles today that are capable of being run to 200K or more if given the proper preventive maintance. The only real difference among them is style and price, period

mike

Toyota is also building plants in China and Mexico to ship cars and trucks to the US ;0

mike hunt

Honda does indeed build many of the cars it sells in the US of American parts but not Toyota. Most of what Toyota sells in the US are imported or merely assemble in the US of mostly imported parts except for those built in the GM/Toyota plant in California. The UAW contract for that plaint requires 75% American parts. .

mike hunt

That's kind of a silly statement, car dealerships are local operations.

I've been treated at both ends of the scale by Toyota dealerships, crappy at a Subaru dealer, and both ends of the scale by Jeep dealerships. In fact, the crappy Jeep dealer also sells Mazda, GMC, Ford, Cadillac, Buick, Lincoln, Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Pontiac and Nissan at his other dealerships on the same street.

The evil Subaru dealer and the awesome Toyota dealer are both family (different ones ) operations. I got completely taken advantage of at

18 years old, by yet another family-owned Toyota dealer.

The awesome Toyota operation is by far the best dealership I have ever dealt with, from the sale, to parts & service, to a warranty issue. My local Chevy dealer, a smaller operation, has a stellar reputation with lots of folks who's opinions I trust.

You own a 1941 car you bought brand new? WOW!!! What is it, and will you be selling it soon?

I figure you must have been born in the 1920s to be old enough to drive/own a 1941 beauty.

I was born in 1926. The 41 Continental convertible is the only one of my old cars that I did not buy new. In fact I did not buy it at all, it was willed to me by a friend and fellow collector in the seventies who bough it new ;)

mike hunt

AFAIK the foreign owned plants are non union and low benefit. A major cost problem for the big 3 is pensions that the newer producers do not have because they offer 401K's instead of defined benefit plans and have not been around long enough to have a huge load of pensioners. Add it the location factor in that the old plants are often in high tax areas where they are beaten up with local taxes much higher than the low tax states have. There are some real issues there to deal with. In the US medical benefits alone are reputed to cost GM $1500/vehicle. That is part of why they do most of their assembly in Canada.

Ford was the first company to show me about imported cars - they imported Angila's int he 1960's then dropped service when they were 7 years old. Not pretty at the time. GM is no better. They were another pioneer in moving out of the country. I now live around Rochester NY. The old Delco (Delphi) is in trouble and the old Rochester products is being phased out by the french company that bought them. Major hits on the local workforce.

FWIW I make a point of not buying imported products that are sold by US major manufacturers whenever possible. I would much rather have my Hyundai with it's 100,000 mile warranty than any Korean import GM or Ford try to foist off as theirs. Somehow I think the oney should go to honest management. ;-) Chrysler is now an example of bad German engineering.

Does any other company have the riduculous layoff support for over 4 yrs that GM has?

In CDA the GM plants are in the same regions as other vehicle plants; southern Ontario.

Most GM cars are built in CDA? Don't believe it. Actually the shutdowns in CDA are very significant and I understand one involves GM's most efficient assembly plant.

That wasn't a great problem as most of those terrible Angila's were trash by then. I was in school at the time and we couldn't understand anyone buying such a car. Imagine that car less school kids not wanting a car.

Well I'd call it management politics to drop costs as low as possible. Ref: RWD and stupid cruise control in Chrysler models; Chrysler Hemi V8 in Mercedes models.

Politics is the reason. Most of us here think we will end up with car plant#1 expanding instead, once it is retooled for flex manufacturing (both car plants share the same building and the lines run side-by-side). GM Canada started backing away from the plant closure within a day of the announcement. There will be job losses, but not as severe as predicted. They may even reinstate the 3rd shift that we are losing in 2006. We've already lost a lot of jobs over the years...through outsourcing and productivity gains. When I started in Oshawa in '82, GM employed 18 000 people. We are now down to about 10 000, and nobody noticed.

Jane

That's 18 000 people in Oshawa alone, BTW.