U.S. Auto Market News and Reviews

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On that basis, looking strictly at the trend lines, Daimler and BMW, along with GM and Ford, have more or less consistently reduced their warranty costs as a percentage of sales since 2002. They're the cost-cutters. Meanwhile, VW, PSA and Honda have remained about the same over the past 12 years, and Fiat and Toyota are recovering from warranty costs that were rising until recently.

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Edmunds team sets cross-country electric record in Tesla
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/07/21/edmunds-tesla-electric-record-distance/12967241/

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The Recall Crown Returns Home!

GM recalls 718,000 more vehicles

GM has now recalled nearly 30 million vehicles since the start of the year, by far a record for any automaker and more than half the vehicles recalled by the industry as a whole.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/23/autos/gm-recall/index.html?iid=HP_LN

tlong

And the hits just keep on coming!

_"DETROIT (AP) — General Motors issued six more recalls on Wednesday, bringing its annual total to 60 recalls covering almost 30 million vehicles."

"The latest recalls cover nearly 823,000 cars, trucks and SUVs mostly in North America but including a small number of exports. The largest is for faulty seats in just over 475,000 cars and small SUVs. Other problems include incomplete welds on seat brackets, turn signal failures, power steering failures, loose suspension bolts and faulty roof rack bolts."___

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They need to build "Recall Factories" to send the new cars off the production line to fix the quality of the builds!

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Hyundai, Porsche top J.D. Power APEAL study

2014 APEAL Rankings Highlights

Porsche is the highest-ranked nameplate in APEAL for the 10th consecutive year. Hyundai ranks highest among non-premium brands in the study. Hyundai is also the highest-ranked non-premium brand in the J.D. Power 2014 Initial Quality StudySM (IQS), marking the first time a nameplate has ranked highest among non-premium brands in both APEAL and IQS in the same year.

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/07/23/hyundai-porsche-top-jd-power-apeal-study/

IQS ranks HyunKia high also!

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Let me add: Kia is better than Caddy, GMC AND Buick!

laurasdada

Well, looky here. Jag numero two. Somewhere, the Prince of Darkness is weeping... No, not Ozzy...

dieselone

Well at least Ram is basically average;) I'm about to roll 20k miles on my '14 Ram Laramie and the only issue so far is a drivers LED map light that is flickering.

We did add a Toyota to our fleet. Bought my daughter an '09 Corolla XRS 5 speed with 9k miles on it. I think she's the only kid in her school that can now drive a manual. It's a fun and peppy little car. I will say, like all Toyota's I've driven, the steering feel plain sucks. My Ram feels like the tie rods are in my hand in comparison;)

A lot of that could be due to the Corolla having an early version of electric PS. One neat feature is if the engine stalls the power steering still works. I wonder if all vehicles with power steering work that way. If you turn the key off, the PS is off immediately, but not if you stall it. Which with teaching my daughter how to drive, happened quite a bit;)

stever

@dieselone said:
she's the only kid in her school that can now drive a manual

Including the teachers.

Very cool, and she won't have to worry about friends wanting to borrow (or steal) it.

dieselone

Yes, friends not being able to drive it is a plus!

I think driving a manual makes you more in tune with the car. She may never own another car with a manual and that's fine. But it won't be due to her never learning to drive one. Long live the manual trans! Lol

henryn

@dieselone
A lot of that could be due to the Corolla having an early version of electric PS. One neat feature is if the engine stalls the power steering still works. I wonder if all vehicles with power steering work that way. If you turn the key off, the PS is off immediately, but not if you stall it. Which with teaching my daughter how to drive, happened quite a bit;)

My 2013 Ford F150 has electric PS, and yes, it works when the engine dies. I had a wiring harness come apart while driving down the freeway at 70 mph. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I still had power steering to help me coast off of the freeway and get into a parking spot.

dieselone

Well that's one major advantage of electric PS. Now that all of the vehicles in our house have electric PS, I've gotten used to the somewhat artificial (IMO) feel.

Mr_Shiftright

It's nice to see that Fiat is holding up the family tradition.

tlong

Apparently GM has issued a bunch of additional recalls today. It's hardly even news any more.

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http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/08/news/companies/gm-death-claims/index.html?iid=HP_LN

63 death claims filed so far by GM victims & families

berri

Well, Mark Field's off to a "no change' start. Saw the new Transit already has two significant recall's. Ford can't seem to get a smooth launch anymore.

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Weekly Recap: Auto execs face life in prison for recall delays under proposed legislation

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill threw down the gauntlet this week, proposing a bill that could send auto executives to prison for life if they were found to have delayed a recall. She also wants to eliminate the limit for fines for auto safety violations, which are currently capped at $35 million.

The stiff punishments are part of broader transportation legislation, but clearly McCaskill has automakers in her sights. "Painful recent examples at Toyota and GM have shown us we also must make it easier to hold accountable those who jeopardize consumers' safety," she said in a statement announcing the bill.

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/08/09/weekly-recap-auto-execs-life-prison-cadillac-lts-gm-trucks-bentley-suv/

rockylee

All those connected to GM, that knew about the defects should be tried in a court of law and tossed in the slammer. That said I am happy to see GM, take corrective action but sincerely believe they would have less defects if more of the parts were made here in the U.S.

tlong

@rockylee said:
All those connected to GM, that knew about the defects should be tried in a court of law and tossed in the slammer. That said I am happy to see GM, take corrective action but sincerely believe they would have less defects if more of the parts were made here in the U.S.

I'd be looking to try Wagoner for taking $10-20 million per year while claiming GM was doing fine as it approached its inevitable meltdown.

rockylee

@tlong said:
I'd be looking to try Wagoner for taking $10-20 million per year while claiming GM was doing fine as it approached its inevitable meltdown.

Wagoner needs to be thrown in jail with the rest of the bunch that knew there was a problem and did nothing. I can not believe how sick some of these people are. They are as horrible as any murderer in my book.

dieselone

Hey Rock, nice to see you around again. I don't know if more US content would improve quality or not, the bottom line is GM is responsible for allowing parts to be used that didn't meet spec.

Hopefully GM has learned valuable lessons.

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GM must face suit claiming it covered up ignition-switch defect

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors Co has lost its bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the automaker of concealing critical evidence about a faulty ignition switch linked to the death of a Georgia woman in 2010.

During a hearing on Saturday, Cobb County State Court Judge Kathryn Tanksley denied GM's motion to dismiss the new lawsuit filed in May by the family of Brooke Melton, according to a statement from the company.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gm-must-face-suit-claiming-174153809.html

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As General Motors continues is push for safety as a top priority, a fresh report suggests the board of directors in recent years paid little attention to defects -- even as the ignition-switch debacle began to unfold in February.

Safety issues received such little concern that chairman, Theodore Solso, barely remembers any details about the ignition-switch recall when it was first brought to the board for review, according to a The New York Times investigation.

Solso suggests the board assumed GM executives and managers had been properly addressing any safety issues, leaving him 'shocked' when he read the internal inquiry drafted by Anton Valukas.

"Yes, we should have known earlier," Solso admitted. "The way I look at it, GM has not been well run for a long period of time."

Echoing the defense argument proposed by other GM executives, Solso blames lower-level employees for failing to communicate issues "up the ladder" to the upper ranks.

As one outside law firm worked with GM executives to determine what went wrong and who to blame, the board hired a separate law firm to take a closer look at the executives. The board initially had the same doubts about the seemingly short list of ousted staffers, however Solso suggests the board now fully supports CEO Mary Barra -- also a board member -- and controversial general counsel Michael Millikin.

Read more: http://www.leftlanenews.com/after-ignoring-safety-gm-board-was-shocked-by-recall-debacle.html#ixzz3CrOr8JFI

berri

Probably way past Statute of Limitations for those clowns to be prosecuted successfully.

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They never will be but that some defend the company while it is crystal clear of the dysfunction is in the same category, after all.

They made inferior products and it showed.

andres3

Mr_Shiftright said:

There have been plenty of "unpopular" decisions that turned out to be very good ideas. (and yes, some that didn't).

With all due respect, I don't think the average citizen randomly polled in the middle of dinner is necessarily equipped to make sound judgments on complex economic issues, nor does he have the option of seeing how the alternative panned out in his crystal ball.

It's an opinion. And they change like the wind. I may wake up and decide it wasn't a good idea. But at the time I thought it was better than the alternative.

Actually the opinion of America being against the bailouts has always been about 6 to 7 out of 10. It was 60-70% pre-bailouts, 60--70% during the bailouts, and still 60-70% post-bailouts.

What this means is 60-70% of Americans are absolutely positively certain that the bailouts were a bad idea. A consistent position that doesn't change with the wind it seems.

andres3

rockylee said:

@tlong said:
I'd be looking to try Wagoner for taking $10-20 million per year while claiming GM was doing fine as it approached its inevitable meltdown.

Wagoner needs to be thrown in jail with the rest of the bunch that knew there was a problem and did nothing. I can not believe how sick some of these people are. They are as horrible as any murderer in my book.

Oh.. I can believe it. I can easily believe it. The kind of people that would sell crap cars are exactly the kind of people that would be willing to do just about anything an unethical person can do. There's a reason most people that lose trust in one area, lose it in all areas.

berri

Jail time, and I mean real jail, not some low security country club, is a much more effective deterrent to crooked senior executives and the like than fines. They tend to be wealthy. But that's exactly why it will never happen - they are also often large campaign donators to legislators and their companies or organizations can be fund contributors to PAC's.

Mr_Shiftright

Well that's kind of my point. What the public "thinks" doesn't necessarily mean they were right about anything, because the American public doesn't get very good information upon which to base their opinions (or they are too lazy to dig it out, which takes a fair amount of effort).

Short Answer: A poll is not a fact.

andres3 said:

Mr_Shiftright said:

There have been plenty of "unpopular" decisions that turned out to be very good ideas. (and yes, some that didn't).

With all due respect, I don't think the average citizen randomly polled in the middle of dinner is necessarily equipped to make sound judgments on complex economic issues, nor does he have the option of seeing how the alternative panned out in his crystal ball.

It's an opinion. And they change like the wind. I may wake up and decide it wasn't a good idea. But at the time I thought it was better than the alternative.

Actually the opinion of America being against the bailouts has always been about 6 to 7 out of 10. It was 60-70% pre-bailouts, 60--70% during the bailouts, and still 60-70% post-bailouts.

What this means is 60-70% of Americans are absolutely positively certain that the bailouts were a bad idea. A consistent position that doesn't change with the wind it seems.

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C7 Problems??

http://www.leftlanenews.com/long-term-corvette-test-car-blows-engine-after-just-6k-miles.html

According to Car and Driver, the engine in their long-term Stingray went kaput after just 6,000 miles. General Motors is still investigating the matter, but has initially concluded that the engine failure was the result of a faulty oil filter that let loose metal debris into the engine. The metal flakes worked their way through the system, ultimately damaging a connecting-rod bearing and the entire bottom end of the LT1 engine.

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It doesn't seem that long ago that General Motors was far and away the largest automaker in the world. In fact it was for the better part of a century. But that was before Toyota started to encroach and a series of damning events began to unfold to drive GM into bankruptcy. Now it's slid down to fourth place.

With the financial statements in for the first half of 2014, GM dropped to the fourth place with gross revenues of $39 billion. That puts the General behind Volkswagen (which reported $68 billion in revenue), Toyota (at $62 billion) and a surprise upsurge from Daimler, which nudged past at $42 billion. GM did, however, just beat out the Renault-Nissan Alliance by $100 million, and came in well ahead of Ford ($37B), Hyundai ($33B), Fiat-Chrysler ($31B), Honda ($29B) and BMW ($26B).

Those numbers, of course, relate to revenues – multiplying sales volume by how much each automaker charges for each vehicle sold. When it comes to the volume of cars produced, GM ranks in third place with 4.92 million units sold in the first six months of 2014, behind Toyota's 5.1 million and VW's 4.97.

Mr_Shiftright

When a company has no vision for its future, it becomes reactive to change rather than initiating it. That's GM in a nutshell in my opinion.

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And when a company falls asleep on that vision, here is some of the fallout:

Greater scrutiny to GM's handling of vehicle issues led to a stream of recalls; the company has issued 65 this year for a total of nearly 30 million vehicles.

Attorney Ken Feinberg will announce Monday how many deaths and injuries he has so far tied to General Motors' ignition switch flaw, his office said Sunday.

Mr_Shiftright

Corporate culture is quite fascinating in that way. Each individual in the corporation can be the most decent and likable of people, but somehow you put them into a board room and they will occasionally manifest the most morally questionable behavior. It's as if some malign power enters the room and compels them to do things they wouldn't dare do at home or in their community. Is this a matter of "save the corporation at all costs?".

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The answer is a resounding "YES!"

"GM very clearly made some incredibly poor decisions when it came to their culture," Friedman said in an interview Monday. "They were more worried about us (NHTSA) getting information about problems than they were about actually fixing problems."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-u-safety-chief-raps-221448517.html

tlong

Apparently Cadillac is moving its HQ to New York City!

detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2014/09/23/gms-cadillac-brand-open-headquarters-new-york/16084371/

berri

I dunno. I'm thinking southern California makes more sense if you want to read the sense of well to do car people than NYC? Maybe out on Long Island or something, but the immediate NYC area seems more cabs and chauffer's. Cadillac's real market might be the wealthy in the Midwest and South. The coasts always seem more import territory to me. Not sure what Cadillac will really bring to the table for the lux buyers on the coasts?

stever

Sounds like tax breaks may be a factor.

berri

So Cadillac is going to name their upcoming premier vehicle the CT6. Just what they need, some lame Lincoln like product line name for their status and image car. Moving these Cadillac employees to NYC isn't going to offset product marketing moves like this. It seems kind of like Detroit luxury vehicle group think whether GM or Ford. A change in scenery isn't the answer here is it?

tlong

I see the issues with Caddy similar to the issues with Microsoft. They have areas of brilliance but can't get it all together. Take the ATS - it got rave reviews for handling and chassis - but then inconsistent interior quality and the CUE system is a disaster. If Caddy could have addressed CUE really fast (say within one year) - polish that car and get ALL of the details right, rather than yet another model. The inconsistency is why the reputation of the brand doesn't rebound. And no, NYC won't help that. In fact, why would you want a car in NYC anyway? I agree with a previous post that they should have moved to So Cal, a much more auto-oriented area (and one that buys largely foreign in the luxury space). Find out why that is and get close to those customers to figure out what you need to do to improve Caddy.

stever

Please take our survey:

What safety technologies do you want in your next car?

Michaell

stever said:

Please take our survey:

What safety technologies do you want in your next car?

Done!

stever

Good man - you're one up on me, lol.

tlong

"The 2015 Corvette has a Valet Mode that records audio and video when someone other than the owner is driving the car. Activating the Valet Mode allows you to record front-facing video as well as capture audio from within the car so you can help keep your Corvette safe when it's in the hands of others. Well, it turns out that recording audio from within the car may be considered a felony in some states that require notice and consent to individuals that they are being recorded. Now GM is sending notices out to dealerships and customers alerting them to this fact as well as promising a future update to the PDR system."

Mr_Shiftright

I wish Cadillac would hire me to knock some sense into them. Even if it were an centipede, there aren't many feet left to accidentally shoot.

Either Cadillac has to ramp it up, or just surrender and try to survive as another form of Hyundai.

tlong

Mr_Shiftright said:

I wish Cadillac would hire me to knock some sense into them. Even if it were an centipede, there aren't many feet left to accidentally shoot.

Either Cadillac has to ramp it up, or just surrender and try to survive as another form of Hyundai.

There's a good interview with Mary Barra in the latest CU magazine(!). She says all the right things and says she is highly focused on Caddy. We will see how well it goes. Even if she means well, can she transform the GM culture and products enough?

circlew

Here's a nice tid-bit regarding Caddy...the ELR. Like I keep saying, GM knows not how to price it's products. UNTIL you are world-class, suck it up!

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/09/29/2014-cadillac-elr-review/

Before we go any further, let's get back to that elephant in the room: price. There's no way to be kind here – General Motors has saddled its 2014 Cadillac ELR with a scarcely believable bottom line: $75,000. Even arithmophobes like us can work out that that means it costs as much as a base ATS Coupe and a Chevrolet Volt combined. That, in our book, is unforgivably bad math – the sort of computation logic understood only by buyers of the Aston Martin Cygnet, or perhaps those who signed off on the Allante's assembly process back in the '80s, an arrangement that involved flying uncompleted cars over the Atlantic in custom-outfitted Boeing 747s. Twice.

laurasdada

Hey, OW!

Yes, the Allante, XLR, ELR; all arrogantly priced. And, paid the price for being perceived by press and public alike as not being worth said price of admission. Caddy should take a page from the Lexus/Infiniti book of the late '80s: Build a competitive (superior?), product and price it less then the competition! Build brand reputation and loyalty. Slowly walk the price up. But, this is GM, believing in the old Earl Weaver way of doing things: just go for the three run homer! Although, it worked OK for Earl (as he also had the pitching on hand).

Michaell

laurasdada said:

Hey, OW!

Yes, the Allante, XLR, ELR; all arrogantly priced. And, paid the price for being perceived by press and public alike as not being worth said price of admission. Caddy should take a page from the Lexus/Infiniti book of the late '80s: Build a competitive (superior?), product and price it less then the competition! Build brand reputation and loyalty. Slowly walk the price up. But, this is GM, believing in the old Earl Weaver way of doing things: just go for the three run homer! Although, it worked OK for Earl (as he also had the pitching on hand).

One thing to remember - when Lexus and Infiniti were first introduced, they had the advantage of a favorable currency conversion. Yen value was held in check by the Japanese government, while the Deutchmark was at a much higher level and made MB and BMW more expensive here in the states.