Buying American Cars What Does It Mean?

lemko

Well, what about the folks in states like Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ohio who once had well-paying automotive jobs who are now working for minimum wage, that is if they're lucky enough to be employed?

circlew

Well, what about the folks...

When you work for a failed model, guess what? Time to embrace change.

Your life as a worker in any industry should not be tied to one company or Union.

Move to where the jobs are. Stop complaining and start acting.

That's what.

Regards,
OW

jimbres

I don't get your objection. Are you saying that the old-line UAW workers are in some way entitled to their jobs? Is the guy employed in an Alabama Hyundai plant somehow less American & thus less deserving of his job?

And I thought socialism was dead. How naive of me.

sweendogy

its called the free market--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

circlew

Is the guy employed in an Alabama Hyundai plant somehow less American & thus less deserving of his job?

No ,that guys knows how to move forward.

Here's the rule: Don't complain and don't explain.



Regards,
OW

andres3

It really doesn't matter how popular the Neon or their minivans were, the fact is they lost all those customers due to the ownership experience of those owners. That came from poor reliability, dependability, and horrific quality. It takes time, but the effects do come back to haunt a company.

As to the other guy saying there was nothing wrong with the Neon/PT CRUISER Neon / CAliber Neon:

http://autos.msn.com/research/userreviews/reviewlist.aspx?modelid=815

Over 200 reviews most of which tell the real tale of the Neon in a manner more consistent with my view than Carstryke's recollection.

fintail

Sadly, the *real thing* dollops on the bland by the metric ton:



And the front is an exercise in KDM blah

Still can't see why anyone would buy this over a late model big German.

And the talk of free markets is amusing, come on guys, this is a disguised oligarchy at best. And socialism being dead? It's as alive now as much as ever, it just goes backwards sometimes.

jimbres

And socialism being dead? It's as alive now as much as ever, it just goes backwards sometimes.

That's good news for Lemko, who probably went into mourning when the USSR collapsed.

Sure, the Zaporozhet was a lousy car & yeah, you had to wait 11 years for the privilege of buying one, but the workers who made these "cars" had jobs for life. That's much more important than customer satisfaction.

No filthy foreign competition in the good ol' USSR! (That's why a portrait of Leonid Brezhnev hangs over Lemko's fireplace.)

sweendogy

someone who wants to buy new and pay 60% of what the germans are charging for new. better WARRANTY, free maintence for 5 yrs plus they come to you.. v8 rwd..dont make fun of the front as its better then the 7 series- stolen from lexus maybe but why bash this car?? i mean VW tried to compete with the A8 (same fam) and the 740 but it had the same price-- this one is under 60k but has the same bells.

Free market making a comeback.

andre1969

That is a widely held perception...that Daimler further screwed up Chrysler but in their typically German way of doing things, couldn't possibly admit to any of that.

Chrysler's quality control was pretty horrible in the early 1990's, when some of the new designs came out. The Neon (which came out around Feb/March of 1994, but as a 1995 model) seemed like an awesome car at the time, but would soon prove to be horrible. I believe air conditioning and head gaskets were the biggest culprits.

When the 5.2/5.9 Magnum came out, they were much more powerful than the older 318/360 variants, and really kicked off the truck/SUV horsepower wars, but they weren't nearly as rugged. And Mopar 4-speed automatics, whether it was the unit in the FWD cars or the RWD trucks, weren't so hot

The LH cars, which debuted for 1993, were also pretty bad. automatic transmission woes, a/c problems, water pumps on the 3.5, plastic front fenders that warped, etc. The old 3.3 pushrod V-6, which made its debut in the Dynasty/New Yorker, was a good, rugged engine, though.

I don't think the "cloud cars" (Breeze, Stratus, Cirrus) were too bad though. They became increasingly mediocre as time went by and the competition improved, but I don't think the early versions were ever as troubleprone as the Neon or Intrepid/Concorde.

By 1996 or so, though, Chrysler was starting to get most of the kinks worked out of their quality control. And when the 1998 Intrepid/Concorde was launched, it was relatively trouble-free. The biggest shortcoming with the 2nd-gen LH was that the standard 2.7 tended to sludge up if you didn't take care of it (similar to a Toyota 3.0 V-6 and some VW models, and, well, I'm sure everybody has been accused of sludge at one time or another). And unfortunately, the 2.7 was a VERY expensive engine to replace. Fortunately, the one in my 2000 Intrepid never gave me any problems in the 150,000 miles I owned it, but they were so expensive to replace that it was actually cheaper to modify the car to accept a 3.2 or 3.5, which was a totally different block.

When the 300/Magnum/Charger came out, IIRC, reliability did drop a bit. And I think some of the early Pacificas were troubleprone.

I think the worst thing that the Benz takeover did to Mopar was delay new model offerings. The Intrepid and its brethren were originally supposed to be replaced around the 2002 model year, but the Benz takeover pushed that back to early 2004, with the 2005 300 and Magnum. And they screwed up by not offering a Dodge sedan right off the bat. The Charger wouldn't debut until around May of 2005, as a 2006 model. The final 2004 Intrepid had rolled off the assembly line in September 2003.

tlong

Well, what about the folks in states like Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ohio who once had well-paying automotive jobs who are now working for minimum wage, that is if they're lucky enough to be employed?

How is that any different than the steel industry that lost a lot of jobs. Pittsburgh is a much cleaner and better city now that it is more diversified in its industries. And what about all the farmers put out of business my efficient mechanization? I don't really want to go back to those days of manual labor.

Times change. Some people get it and face the future, even though scary. Others try to deny change and spend their entire lives whimpering about how unfair it all is.

fintail

Buying new is overrated and often wasteful. Better front than a 7er? That's subjective and I can't say many will agree. Why bash it? Look at it, styling is outdated already, it competes in nothing but price.

Bells and whistles don't translate to driving ability. See Genesis sedan compared to what it emulates.

Free market? you do know the Korean government has coddled HyunKia for eons, right?

Oh yeah, free markets only apply for us, not the subsidies given by others. Free market, what a pile...

fintail

I'd say lemko is far from a USSR style socialist.

The US gives masked socialism to many entities. Look at the military-industrial complex, just another brand of socialism. Look at the devolution of the socio-economic spectrum, the many funding the good of the few. Socialism, American style.

jimbres

I wouldn't say that you're entirely wrong - in fact, I'd agree with you about the military & I'd point to farm subsidies as another example - but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.

I'm certainly not about to go along with some here who insist that we all buy domestic, whether or not we like the products, just to save some union jobs. I have a feeling that you'd have pretty much the same reaction if you were asked to replace your German iron with, say, a Buick or a Lincoln.

fintail

Of course I don't mandate buying domestic - although personally I will try to buy first world as much as I can. I also have no connection to union jobs. I just find it funny when people rail about socialism and free markets.

My German iron was also made by unionized workers in places so socialist that the thought of living there would drive American casino capitalists to jump out of tall buildings :shades:

uplanderguy

Over 200 reviews most of which tell the real tale of the Neon in a manner more consistent with my view than Carstryke's recollection.

You must remember, the sheer numbers of Neons sold and over how many model years, and that complainers generally are the ones who post to things likes that.

Based on your point, no one should ever buy a Honda Odyssey because of the over 1,700 complaints about automatic transmission problems, on models right up until the current iteration, on the Edmunds site.

uplanderguy

I, too, have no connection to union jobs and never have. I prefer to buy American because I think it's the best thing to do...buy a car assembled in America, by an American-based company, with a good North American parts content. It isn't impossible. And dredging up union stuff from twenty years ago doesn't help anything. I've used this argument before...if somebody told us they wouldn't buy a new '65 Mustang because they didn't like their '49 Ford, we'd have laughed. Now that kind of talk is the norm!

I like cars, obviously, but I don't buy a car as a status symbol...or I wouldn't have two Chevys.

Pro-foreign fans seem to only think there are domestic nameplates built in Canada or Mexico and foreign nameplates built in Ohio and Kentucky! As is usually the case, the truth lies in the middle.

One other thing I don't like about foreign nameplates, primarily Asian, is the styling...although that is being blurred in the past few years, with American nameplates as well.

anythngbutgm

LOL, you are responding to a post I wrote in 2006?

Too funny...

Thank you tho, you have single handedly proven that you "buy Murican hicksters have a racist agenda behind your words...

Sad really. Oh well. Welcome to America and I guess welcome to the internet. Hopefully after a few months here, you'll understand there is diversity outside of the trailer park...

Welcome to America. Enjoy your stay. :shades:

uplanderguy

Sad really. Oh well. Welcome to America and I guess welcome to the internet. Hopefully after a few months here, you'll understand there is diversity outside of the trailer park...

Nice trolling, anything....of course, veiled as superiority. This doesn't promote your agenda a bit.

anythngbutgm

My agenda? Nothing of the sort here bud. :sick:

Now if I were a mirror... :surprise:

cooterbfd

Correct. But again, it was the "old" and not "current" E class platform when it debuted. Camry buyers don't get last gen Lexus tech in their new Camry, because the platform is developed for both.

e_net_rider

For you PC idiots, go look it up in dictionary. [non-permissible content removed], short for Japanese.
It all depends upon how you use a word as to whether it is derogatory.

cooterbfd

Every newspaper headline in the '40's refered to them as "[non-permissible content removed]" or "Nips"

uplanderguy

For someone to say "buy 'merican is racist" is as looney as saying all people who buy foreign nameplates have 'Stockholm Syndrome' (if you're under 40, google it).

Although there is no doubt some truth in both examples, as is always the case, talking in total extremes doesn't forward the conversation in either direction.

e_net_rider

I recently saw the top union man telling the interviewer how important they were in building quality cars. That all employees had a company attitude about quality and work ethics.

BS in all caps. Having a 2011 Lacrosse CSX, there would be a bunch of heads rolling toward the exit door if I had my way. There would be a few from the final assembly line and they are certainly union. Add their shop steward to the list and up the line until I find where the buck stops.
Add a measure of engineers, likely union at GM, and up the line as well, maybe catching a few decision makers along the way.

The single best thing that could happen to Detroit is the unions disappear. But I fear they won't because of current government ambitions. To me it smells like the big union that is not called a union but took over ship building in WWII by blowing up facilities until the government negotiated with them.

As to complaints about the foreign not paying, bull. On what planet do you think a newbie with no experience should get $58/hour? A distant friend has worked for Nissan for 20 years or more. He had been a union electrician, IBEWU, prior to that. Work was broken with lots of periods of no jobs or he would have to pack bags and move away from home for weeks on end. Whether working or not, union dues and other costs continued.
After moving to Kentucky, working for Nissan, he claims this is the best job he has ever had. Regular work, benefits, and working inside comfortably.
For Detroit to compete, the idea of union tenure must change at least. And the idea of paying for yesterday's retirement with today's and tomorrow's dollars must also disappear. All Ponzi schemes fail eventually.

jimbres

I'd describe the German economy as an example of welfare capitalism, not socialism. For the most part, the government leaves business alone & does not try its hand at economic planning - the defining feature (along with outright state ownership of the "means of production") of classical socialism. Instead, it levies high (by American standards) taxes to fund generous (again, by our standards) social welfare benefits.

Even Sweden, so often referred to as an example of Western democratic socialism, is also a welfare capitalist state with an exceptionally generous welfare component.

Postwar Great Britain under Clement Atlee's Labor government is the clearest example of socialism in a Western democracy. There, the state nationalized the coal mines, the railroads, utilities & steel. Most of that was later undone, & by the mid-1990s the Labor Party had dropped the nationalization plank from its platform.

jimbres

I prefer to buy American because I think it's the best thing to do...buy a car assembled in America, by an American-based company, with a good North American parts content.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but much earlier in this thread, when I asked if anyone had ever not bought a car that he very much liked because of where it was built, you failed to raise your hand. So you left me with the clear impression that it's more or less accidental that all of your purchases are domestic. You simply buy Chevys because Chevys scratch your personal itch, just as someone else might buy a Nissan or a BMW because that's what he liked.

So I'll ask the same question: have you ever refrained from buying a car that you really liked because it wasn't a domestic brand?

One other thing I don't like about foreign nameplates, primarily Asian, is the styling

Ah, now we're getting closer to the truth. Call me cynical, but I can't help suspecting that this is the real reason why you've stayed away from imports. I doubt that you really apply a nationality filter to prospective purchases.

maple2

dont let the guy who drives a chick sports car get to you.

anythngbutgm

Made in the USA Foundation says Gov't Motors is stripping 'Made in' labels from show models

The foundation has charged GM with violating the American Automobile Labeling Act (AALA), which requires all new cars in the retail market to include country-of-origin information.

The AALA requires a window sticker on new cars that includes information such as where the car was assembled, where the engine was made, and where the transmission was made.

According to the foundation, these labels are left off GM cars on display at auto shows.

Lack of pride? :shades:

tlong

Pro-foreign fans seem to only think there are domestic nameplates built in Canada or Mexico and foreign nameplates built in Ohio and Kentucky! As is usually the case, the truth lies in the middle.

Well, the Fusion is built in Mexico and the Camry is built in the U.S.! And I personally would buy the Fusion over the Camry. But I wonder what is the domestic content of each of those vehicles?

tlong

The single best thing that could happen to Detroit is the unions disappear. But I fear they won't because of current government ambitions.

Kind of funny in an ironic way. The unions helped build this country to greatness, and now they are breaking it down to second-class status.

fintail

If we're going to look at it that way, a real socialist state has never existed. Even the DDR had its forms of capitalism. The dumb Brits at their worst also had plenty of private enterprise, but a generous social service component at the same time. And at the same time, a true capitalist or communist state has never existed either. I don't know what kind of weird hybrid terms could describe the US or China, one could have a field day with it.

anythngbutgm

Toyota, not Detroit, tops American-Made vehicle index

Camry is the #1 in domestic content. Current numbers for the Fusion unknown but I've read in the 30% range.

fintail

The Camry and Lexus were also developed at the same time. The 300 and W211 were not. W211 isn't a gigantic leap structurally over a W210 anyway. Chrysler should feel lucky the Germans gave them that much. My line about WW2 revenge isn't entirely a joke.

fintail

I like nice interiors and solid styling. I like solid handling and nice engines. I also grew up in the 80s and 90s, and we all know who ruled the roost for those traits back then.

It's not cool to dredge up stuff from 20 years ago, but it is to dwell on WW2 issues?

I also don't care for the majority of Asian styling.

jimbres

I agree - there's never been a true socialist state. If you're looking for capitalism at its purest, I'd suggest that you consider England during the 2nd half of the 19th century or, better yet, the US just prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. The Fed was a big step back (IMO) from the 18th century classical liberalism of John Locke.

I'd describe the US as a welfare capitalist state with a much smaller welfare component than, say, Germany & a correspondingly oversized defense establishment.

China? That's tough. Right now, I'd call China an example of state capitalism. The government picks winners & in some cases takes ownership shares.

roadburner

My $0.02: I will buy "American" cars when the UAW starts supporting the same political candidates that I do.
Until then, the cars I purchase will come from Germany and my motorcycles will come from England.

fintail

If that's pure capitalism, I'll pass...I don't want to live in a Dickens novel. Today the poor have a lot more guns and drugs...combine that with the sweatshop lifestyle, and it won't be pretty.

I see the Fed as just a new version of 19th century robber barons. Disguised aristocracy pretending to be businessmen, maybe a form of crony capitalism.

I see China as kind of a state managed oligarchy - you won't get far there unless you are a line-towing party member or connected to one. That's not capitalism, maybe more crony capitalism. These fortunes being made in China aren't all about hard work and positive ethics.

There's a key defense between American and other welfare capitalism - the ordinary working person in the US benefits from it far less than in other places.

fintail

I don't get wound up about politics, as in my eyes both parties are owned by the same forces, the same clown in different suits. It's the product that makes me look.

jimbres

If that's pure capitalism, I'll pass...I don't want to live in a Dickens novel. Today the poor have a lot more guns and drugs...combine that with the sweatshop lifestyle, and it won't be pretty.

Don't you think that Dickens colored our perception of 19th century industrial life? Bad as factory work may have been, it paid better & promised more mobility than farm labor did. Most of the factory work force came from the farms. Few went back.

The Industrial Revolution created the modern middle class. Previously, wealth was tied to land ownership. The middle class was small & was limited to the clergy, a few lawyers & a sprinkling of shopkeepers. Industrialization created the need for an entirely new class of managers, accountants, sales reps, etc.

fintail

I don't believe any of it is inaccurate. Do you wish for a return to that kind of socio-economic spectrum? Do you want the social and environmental conditions as they existed then? I don't see a lot of nobility in working 60 hours a week in criminal conditions with virtually no rights or benefits. Your prosperity surely wouldn't exist as it does today if we stayed on that track. Not to mention the sweatshop era lasted more than a generation - decades of people were born into that world, no farms required.

FYI, your beloved casino capitalists are doing what they can do to away with that so-called "middle class". What is wealth really tied to today? Oh yeah, this is a meritocracy, it is all about work. Right.

cooterbfd

"..... Chrysler should feel lucky the Germans gave them that much."

Therein lies the entire joke of "merger of equals". I wonder if Fiat could look at the entire merger of them and have a case that Daimler purposely underminded the entire Chrysler unit, and sue them in court.

fintail

I look at "merger of equals" about as much as I do "hope and change" :shades:

If looting the cash reserves of a company and leaving it to flounder was a crime, there'd be a lot of suits in jail right now. I don't know if there'd be any legal precedent to help Fiat.

jimbres

I wonder if Fiat could look at the entire merger of them and have a case that Daimler purposely underminded the entire Chrysler unit, and sue them in court.

A suit of that sort would drag on for years, if not decades. Only the lawyers would benefit.

marsha7

"Kind of funny in an ironic way. The unions helped build this country to greatness, and now they are breaking it down to second-class status."

That is how I see it...in the 30s and 40s, unions were necessary, as working conditions were horrible, and for that improvement I give the union much credit, and much of that has been codified into law...but they outlived their usefulness, demanding more and more for labor that wasn't worth it and productivity rules that made it a miracle that the Big 3 made any money at all...they have performed their function, like a praying mantis mating with its mate...now the female must kill the male, pure and simple...the UAW must now die for any progress to be made in American automaking...

jimbres: "A suit of that sort would drag on for years, if not decades. Only the lawyers would benefit."...you almost sound critical of that...

marsha7

Equus come out???...luxury or utility car???...flagship above Genesis, or just below it???...this is the first I saw this Equus thing...

(Don't post anything about me living under a rock, either... :P ...)

circlew

Read this...it'll catch you up.

Hyundai reveals 2011 Equus details, range topper to come in two U.S. flavors

Regards,
OW

crkyolfrt

I appreciated your post, Rocky. I don't agree with it 100% mind you, but still, I appreciated the majority of its content.

tlong

Uh, replying to a post from 2006? :surprise:

marsha7

Thanks...pretty well sums it up...