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The Current State of the US Auto Market
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Comments
I'm not Toyota fan, but the headlines sure seem a bit overblown. Reading the article, I read nothing about a fire potential from electrical or mechanical problems, but of fabric backing that doesn't meet fire resistance code during a Korean safety test. Big difference IMO.
Now, it is a big deal for Toyota since they are halting sales of US made vehicles, but if I owned one of the affected vehicles, I wouldn't be worried. Also, more negative press for Toyota to navigate through. I imagine some supplier heads are going to roll while Toyota tries to figure out how substandard material made it into the end product.
Some of that is Chrysler's fault. Had a similar issue with my Ram, I bought a '14 model in Sept. and the dealer had very little info on the 14 model. It took several days of talking to various people at Chrysler corporate to give me an answer on tow ratings as they released the '14 model before the new ratings were available. Also, at the time, Ram didin't have any '14 1500 series info on their website either. So for a salesman to have any useful info, they'd have to be following many online sources, and that's a lot to ask. The manufacture should have the info available for sales people before the product is out, but that's not always the case.
Same with GM too. A buddy of mine has sold Chevy trucks for 20 years and he's good at it. When the new trucks came out last year, there were a lot of questions he couldn't answer for me. The new trucks were on the lot for a few months before he received any formal GM training and product update materials. So he also had a hard time answering questions regarding options, payload, and tow ratings too. And he works for a huge dealer chain, not a back woods small dealer.
The irony is that the fabric was likely woven on a Toyota loom.
Just an insert of a small chuckle here. Now I personally know that fintail would not do anything like this of the sort, but I am laughing. Someone sent me this. I'll assume it's in Europe somewhere because of the license plate:
http://blog.petflow.com/this-rich-jerk-was-so-mean-to-this-elderly-lady-but-what-she-did-next-left-me-speechless/
I'll say that it might be set up; seems like that's too little effort to set off the...well, you'll see.
It's an Ikea commercial.
I had seen that Ikea used it, I hadn't seen that they set it up originally as a commercial.
Looking further, I see people were discussing this commercial online in 2006! Fake or not, you gotta root for the lady! LOL What possibly could IKEA be selling with that commercial?
That's the question that always comes up, but you hear that with lots of car commercials too. The origins of the commercial are disputed - one comment said the woman was a real actress and IKEA gave her around $150 for her performance in the ad. Skeptic that I am, I think it was all staged. The ad does make me want to run out and buy an new cushion set for the POÄNG, as I'm it does for most other people.
I watched zero of the game, but I just saw Bob Dylan's Chrysler commercial. No matter what you think of Chrysler....I loved the commercial! I also can't believe Bob Dylan did a commercial. Wouldn't have happened in the old days. Still, too cool IMHO.
GM had a bit of a misstep when incentive reports on new trucks got messed up. The slow sales start to the new year has lots of the manufacturers getting a bit worried about inventory stacking up.
GM truck discounts whip up an overdone fuss (usatoday.com)
GM had a bit of a misstep when incentive reports on new trucks got messed up. The slow sales start to the new year has lots of the manufacturers getting a bit worried about inventory stacking up.
Meanwhile, GM is improving on dependability....
Dependability is determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles, with lower scores indicating higher quality. Feedback was gathered between October and December 2013.
Domestics continue to steadily close the dependability gap that foreign brands have built.
This year, domestics scored 138 compared with 130 for foreign brands. In prior years, the gap was 10 in 2013, 13 in 2012 and 18 in 2011 and 2010.
GM is seeing the benefits from cutting the number of vehicles it engineers -- going from seven brands in 2009 to four, said Dave Sargent, J.D. Power's vice president of global automotive. Sargent said it's easier to focus on a smaller number of vehicles.
Domestic automakers are "obsessed with quality and dependability right now. One of the things holding them back is this perception that their quality isn't as good as the imports. To overcome that, first of all, they have to fix the quality and, secondly, they have to fix the perception, which is even harder," Sargent said in an interview. "They know to be a winner, they've got to get this right."
Well I don't know that having most of your brands about double that of Lexus is something to celebrate, but at least this list shows that when I've castigated MINI as being 'built by blind men", I wasn't just being a crank now was I?
Some surprises there. Is this the 3 year study?
1 - Lexus level of lead over the others is impressive;
2 - Congrats to both Caddy and MB, two brands I didn't expect to see so high on the list;
3 - Hyundai and Kia are not looking so good;
4 - The rest of the bottom dwellers aren't a surprise
Yeah but think of it like a golf game. The leader shoots 68, and 2nd place is 104
@tlong, yeah, this is the three year survey.
GM celebrates high scores in J.D. Power vehicle dependability study (Detroit Free Press)
It's the usual story though:
"J.D. Power considers a problem anything that either breaks or works less well than the owner desires. A poorly placed cupholder or rough-shifting transmission, for instance, can constitute problems even though neither broke."
Although as a measure of "quality", things that don't work well mean less customer satisfaction. So it is still meaningful, since the better scoring brands must have a combination of fewer problems and fewer items that the owners feel don't work well.
Maybe I'm dreaming but didn't we used to hear more about a longer term survey from JD Power? 5 years iirc. And it was more focused on reliability.
Kind of a non-starter nowadays, since it seems models get refreshed in one year and changed out in three.
Out of 22 vehicle categories in JD power's 2014 Vehicle Dependability Study measuring 3 year old examples over the last 12 months GM, Toyota and Honda dominated with GM winning 8 categories, Toy-Scion-Lex with 7, and Honda-Acura wining 6 categories. Mini won 1.
http://autos.jdpower.com/ratings/dependability.htm
I am most surprised about Jag, and congrats to Lincoln.
How can that be accurate if the average age of cars on the road is like, 11 years?
I know that I always drive my cars well over 100K.
Mine are well over average.
When you drive them forever, a three year reliability study is better than nothing, but even then, a three year old car is just barely broken in.
Yeah, three years is just getting going. In my mind ANY car should be able to stay reliable for 3 years. I have a perception that certain brands start "decaying" more rapidly than others in the 4-8 year time frame, which is why there is a perception of varying reliability in some makes. My suspicion is that a lot of that is in the high mileage areas where the differences really come out.
@circlew, where are you? Guess I'll have to do the honors.
GM recalling nearly 780,000 compact cars (Detroit Free Press)
This is a pretty bad one. Six fatalities over the years. Good argument for keyless ignitions.
Uplanderguy had better get his Cobalts into the dealer!
What? How'd I miss THAT???
Here's some depth to the J.D. Power 3-year dependability:
The industry's 2011-model cars, introduced in 2010, the year after sector sales hit a 28-year low during the recession, saw a nearly 6 percent decline in quality to 133 problems per 100 vehicles from 126 last year, according to the J.D. Power U.S. vehicle dependability survey released on Wednesday. It was the first increase in the average number of problems since 1998.
The biggest complaints among the more than 41,000 owners surveyed were about engine hesitation, rough transmission shifts and lack of power, but David Sargent, vice president of global automotive at J.D. Power, said a lot of that was due to lack of consumer familiarity with the smaller, less powerful 4-cylinder engines many buy now.
"The manufacturers are starting to recalibrate the engine and transmission to squeeze every last point-one mpg (miles per gallon) out of the vehicle to help them hit CAFE regulations," he said of the rising federal fuel efficiency standards.
"Some of the manufacturers accept that by doing that there's a compromise," Sargent added. "The consumers complain that the engine and transmission are not responding the way they want."
Engine and transmission problems rose by nearly six per 100 vehicles, accounting for most of the industry's overall increase, and the decline was particularly sharp with 4-cylinder engines, where the number of problems for every 100 vehicles rose by nearly 10, J.D. Power said.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-auto-industry-quality-slips-first-time-16-150600348--sector.html
Tlong, mine are '08's and '09's--neither is in the recall.
Funny, for years I've heard stories of keys of various cars getting stuck because of too much crap hanging on the key rings (girls mostly). I've preached this to my wife and daughters for years, but not with much luck.
I predict the recall will extend to later year Cobalts eventually. I got a letter over a year ago telling me they were warrantying that part for 10 years. In my '08 I had it replaced even though it wasn't doing anything bad, and on my '09, my dealer could tell that that part had already been replaced by the previous owner.
I'm still very enamored of my Cobalts, particularly at the price and considering it's virtually a local product to where I've lived most all of my life. My daughter's has cheapo Firestone tires on it which are noisy, but I replaced mine with the same Goodyears that were part of the original XFE package, and they are as quiet with 36K miles on them as new. Car sits out all the time and we've had many sub-zero days. It always cranks right over....original battery. Six years old in May.
I guess I can start reiterating recalls from Japanese, German, and Korean-owned companies again here.
Oh wait, that becomes exhausting to readers here. 
Toyota still leads GM - 2.1 million recalls vs the 780,000 Cobalt ones.
That's just for this month.
It's not the "defects" that discourage buyers. It's when they don't get fixed after numerous trips to the dealership. In that respect, GM does not look so pretty.
Not my experience in the slightest.
I've had good luck with GM cars, and wouldn't hesitate to buy another one.
I'm trying to look at stats not anecdotes, so we have a different view I guess, me not being a GM product owner. Let's frame it differently:
What automaker would trade his product's reputation for GM's? I don't think you'd have a lot of takers. Ford? surely not. Toyota--no way. Not even Mitsubishi.
Kia?---maybe. Land Rover, maybe.
GM has a ways to go before it sleeps--a ways to go. But perhaps we can agree that it's going UP, not down.
Actually I'm a GM booster since the bankruptcy, so don't cast me as a villain. I'm not at all.
Good to hear you aren't covered by the recall.
GM did well in the latest three-year survey posted here earlier. I love when conventional wisdom gets a hole punched in it. There are brands there that didn't do very well, that most people would've thought would have.
I still wish somebody did a 5 or 7-year survey. I'll be some brands would stay similar, and others would not. It would be good to prove or disprove once and for all what those results would be.
That would be Consumer Reports.
'17 Chevy Volt Premiere
Marry Barra knows how much it costs when crappy cars are released into the market. She wants no more of them. I applaud her determination! Toyota learned that lesson and it's costing them more than any other car maker.
In the end, it will benefit the consumer. Go GM!
Has anyone besides me noticed reliability data reported in CR has changed from month-to-month? Much-better-than-average to worse-than-average in the Dart is one that sticks in my mind. Talking up why the Cruze is a good buy in one month, then reported as worse-than-average the next month. This is between survey results always printed in April.
Generally happens with a new model. As they get more data they reflect changes. They used to not report on any car with insufficient data in April. They should go back to that practice.
'17 Chevy Volt Premiere
I guess what I meant to say is that I wish somebody did a longer survey that wasn't a group of magazine subscribers, to lend a bit of weight to the results. Many people don't like CU's methods. While I feel they are pretty meaningful results, a different approach might help the "legitimacy" issue.
There's True Delta but their site is a bit of a pain. And it's hard to say if they have enough numbers to draw meaningful conclusions. That's often the rap against CR. We used to have Identifix ratings here and that idea appealed to me - use the numbers you get from actual repairs to show common problems. The ideal of course, would be to get access to the manufacturer's warranty claims but the best you can do there is to read Warranty Week's reports they glean from reading financial statements and looking at warranty reserves. VW has been leading the charts there for years (and not in a good way).
I still think it's funny how something like audio system can be different from the 4-cyl. to 6-cyl. version of the car, when it's the same system. Sample error, plain and simple.
any links for your assertion?
I won't dispute the possibility of sample error, but I don't believe 4cyl and v6 models traditionally have had the same audio systems. Do you believe the average 4cyl impala Ls will have the same system as a v6 Ltz? I think there are 3 different levels of audio systems available in my Ram. I guarantee the average v6 express Ram doesn have the 9 speaker Alpine branded system in my V8 Laramie. Though with current models you are seeing higher trimmed 4 cyl models, so going forward, I'd expect to see less differences. It will likely more trim level specific than by powertrain.
My guess with audio systems, Cd Players are the problem. Every in dash factory cd changer I've had has failed between 3-5 years. Once again lower trim models usually don't have multi disk changers. Now they are going away. My ram doesn't have a CD player. Though it is an option.
I know on the Accord, for the audio there is a big difference between the 4 and 6, with the 6 having some kind of touch screen that is very problematic, and the 4 has a more normal system that just, you know, works!
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
4 cyl EX-L Accord has touch screen that works beautifully. I believe there were some problems early but software fixes have taken care of it. I love mine!
'17 Chevy Volt Premiere
Yes! From the CEO of the company---(she should know, right?)
http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/10/autos/mary-barra-gm-crappy-car/
I mean, can you picture the head of BMW saying this out loud?
The radios in GM models over the years are not different between four and six-cylinder versions of the same models. I've had, and seen, both a gazillion times over the years..
The head of BMW probably should have said that as well. Blasphemy in an enthusiast's forum, but read up on BMW reliability over the years, as reported, anyway. Nothing to write home about.
It's not the reliability we were talking about, it's the response to it that counts. Obviously, given the public statement from GM's CEO, she gets it. Certainly GM is not the only company that needs to improve.
Think of this not as an automaker, but some other provider. Everyone hates Comcast but loves Amazon. Why is that?
Customer service would be my answer. Products will always break, but customer service doesn't have to.