Re: Consider buying American!

Once I met a GM dealership mechanic at a friend's house. Very articulate, he was able to explain things very well. At the time Pontiac was about to launch the G6. He said the car was junk.

I was looking for a commuting car at the time and he recommended Asian cars. "Stay away from GM", he said. He had two Buicks on his driveway and said "the only reason I bougth them was because of the price and the fact I know to keep them running". I ended up with a used Corolla,

42K miles (made in Canada, by the way). 27K miles later it has given me no problems whatsoever.

There is a completely different mentality. I heard that in Toyota's Japan factories a simple worker in an assembly line can stop the process if he spots something wrong.

I'm not saying I'm buying one, but I'm sure gonna test drive it. The price for the V8 GT s about ten grand more than a Camry, but the fun factor might be there. It may be too pricey for some to consider, but I am curious as to build quality.

We'll see.

They have also a lot of growing pains because they are getting so big.

Jeff

It's not just the factories in Japan but all of them. At one of its US plants, the workers halted the assembly line something like 1,600 times a month. Meanwhile the rate at a Chrysler factory was just a couple dozen stoppages a month, and Chrysler said it was trying to cut that in half.

Definitely a different mentality in risk management. Japanese auto makers focus on risk reduction while American's rely on risk tranfer. That means rolling out inferior goods from the production lines while promising warranties to those who buy and use their products and even expecting law suits from them. That's f*cking sick!!

Chrysler was trying to cut that in half by fixing problems before they appear on the assembly line.

Toyota builds far more models than Chrysler in far more plants. It is expected that they stop the assembly line more.

Jeff

How do you fix that many problems before they appear on the assembly line, and does Chrysler's solution really explain the 100:1 difference in assembly line stoppages?

Why? And why aren't most Chrysler plants as fast or as productive as Toyota plants?

Without knowing how things work on the assembly lines, Neither of us can answer that question. You would also have to know which assembly lines had more stoppages and why.

And it's more like 2500 times a shift in Toyota's KY plant.

So what exactly defines a stoppage, and how do Chrysler and Toyota do it differently?

Because Toyota employees have more opportunities to mess up.

Show us that Chrysler plants aren't as productive or fast as Toyota plants.

Jeff

Correct. We negotiated the extended warranty on our new '05, and our '02 came with it already.

Neither have needed any repairs except for the '02's battery, but that's hardly a major issue.

no kidding. it used to be "famous" that when a gm car wouldn't start at the end of the line to drive onto the truck, they'd just push it on.