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Comments
I'm with you note metered change intervals. Yes, they may be scientifically sound, but the added costs of a few extra oil changes doesn't come anywhere close to the cost of a rebuilt engine. Just call it "cheap" insurance.
I know Lexus also sponsors golf, and must have some program cars too. Those for any maker are insignificant in comparison to total sales.
CLA will be a relatively cheap car, not cheap with options (watch it sail into the 40s), and will probably be relatively cheap to build. Is FWD and 30K any less of a real MB than it is for the similar Lexus CT? FWIW, there have been cheaper FWD MBs in Europe for ages. The market will decide, and there's a good chance it will accept, based on style alone. That seems to be a stumbling block for some makes.
Agreed.
I keep seeing the '$30k' CLA mentioned in comparisons with things like the ILX and Verano, high-end GLI, etc. It will be a $30k car the same way the X1 is a $30k car. In a stripped version that no one wants or can find. The real cars on a dealer lot will be $36-38K plus. And that's okay, it looks nice. I just wish people would stop thinking of it as a competitor to those cars above; they're different things.
25 NX 450h+ / 24 Sienna Plat AWD / 23 Civic Type-R / 21 Boxster GTS 4.0
UOAs from Blackstone Labs have shown that the following oil change intervals are more than adequate:
X3 2.5: 10,000 miles on Rotella T5 5W-40
318ti- 9,000 miles on Mobil 1 0W-40
Mazdaspeed 3- 8,000 mile on Mobil 1 5W-30
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I fixed a dozen problems and spent very little. I got some oil for $2 a qt so the oil chg was under $15. Got some coolant and mixed it up 50/50 and put some in the overflow tank. Had a new serp belt and turn signal bulb sitting around for years and put them in. Old vac tube and wire fixed the windshield washer sprayer and the rattling from the exhaust. Some distilled water in the battery and cleaned the terminals. That's it for the 161k mile checkup. Had not done anything but an oil chg since 144k mi, when I also did the only brake job, replaced a brake line, and patched a rust area.
Last week I spent $33 on a new belt tensioner and had to solder a wire on the alternator for the other '98 I have. 146k out of the orig Astro tensioner is OK though the one on the Riv is approaching 200k. I couldn't get the spare belt I had lying around put on the Astro. The belt was about a tenth of an inch too short and I probably need someone to help me.
The 17 yr old Riv has been to a shop twice, for a brake line and a water pump in the 9 years and 103k miles I put on it. Starts instantly 17 yrs running and 9 yrs on the battery this month.
I've heard otherwise, some 20% of cars are fleet when you include those. This was a story in AN but it was in the German market. It's a hidden way to discount cars when the market goes soft.
My van has an oil light but I think it's just every 5k miles, not a true monitor. I do like that the changes come at nice, round numbers. 5, 10, 15, ...
Subaru's 7.5k results in odd stops, like 22,500 miles.
Only the 5W-40 T6 is synthetic; the other grades are either dino or synthetic blends. Good stuff, and relatively inexpensive.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I'm not even a truck guy, but I want one of those! :shades:
to some degree. They build higher-end stuff, but not necessarily reliably or durably.
My latest high end receiver just died after 6.5 years of use, I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about that longevity, I think I'm neutral (built in China). My old Onkyo lasted at least 10 years before I sold it many years ago, and it's probably still kicking and it was built in Japan way back when. I think 10 years is a good life that would make me happy, 6.5 years leaves me a bit cold.
Looking at Crutchfield, all the Denon receivers are complete junk, except the 4311 that's several years old and outdated, or the new 4520 that is guess what, built in Japan! All the lower line models are built in China!
Why is their best model made in Japan if China is so great?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm into high end audio/home theater/electronics, and I've been into it for a long time. Not one of my components built in Japan has EVER needed a single warranty visit, or suffered a single breakdown, no matter how long I keep it. Not all, but certainly a substantial amount of my built in China stuff has needed warranty work or suffered a life that ended before I could sell it.
China is like the US manufacturer that sold Toyota truck frames in the US. You ask them for a lot, and they appear to deliver it, but time always shows it is inferior.
That's how I feel about stuff I've bought in electronics that was made in China; they have yet to prove me wrong; see post above.
That's just one example, but there are others.
Do you have your receipt? Take it back.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
http://windhaming.com/american-made-audio-list/
http://www.magnoliaav.com/brands/McIntosh
Most products made in China and sold in the US are "price sensitive". There's a reason why so much stuff in Walmart is manufactured in China.
When I was a kid, the only stuff we saw made in Japan was crap. It wasn't that Japan couldn't build decent stuff, it was driven by $$$.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Chinese products are equal or superior to those made elsewhere. All I'm saying is its a mistake to think the Chinese can't build things with exceptional quality just because it isn't available here.
That was a big problem in 1941, when everyone in the US thought the Japanese couldn't build decent planes. As we know now, that opinion was incorrect.
Arguably the best tablet made today is the iPad made in China. We engineered it and several countries contributed. But what you get in the box came from China. Closest competition comes from Korea IMO. I don't think the USA has ever been competitive in mid to low cost electronics. When you start pricing high end audio gear made in USA better have a fat wallet. Only for those that want the very best and are willing to pay for it.
I don't believe you have a real handle on what goes on in a Foxconn factory. They have 1000s of college educated engineers. Probably educated in our universities. 200,000 craftsmen assembling a lot of very small delicate parts to make an iPhone. I don't think our manufacturing workers are capable of doing as good of a job as the Chinese. They would have a hard time sitting at a station four hours without a smoke break. Face it we are NOT competitive when it comes to consumer electronics. Anyone that thinks we are, are only kidding themselves and need to re-evaluate the situation.
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.
In China, it took 15 days.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2012/01/no-foxconn-city-in-us-not-because-we.html-
When I see technological innovation being born and bred in China - not copied (like cars and consumer electronics) or purchased (like cars and trains), then maybe.
Would you put your wife or dependent children in a Chinese car or even on Chinese tires, and feel good about it? I didn't think so. Quicker to set up a factory there, as money can get any permits granted, and it doesn't matter what goes into the air or water, or how anyone is treated.
Some comments on that link to think about:
"We don't want to make workers live in dorms, work 16 hr/day and get paid $1.30/hr. Surely there's a better way."
"workers whose hands were pretty much useless from all the hexane they'd been exposed to while cleaning the screens. I've been getting solvents on me every day for ten years, but those workers are ruined in six months because they get little to no PPE. And when they can't work anymore they're fired and blacklisted if they complain. Behold, the "free market.""
"If there was anything we learned from the labor movement and the Great Depression. The "Something is better than nothing" attitude will leave you less and less of "something" as the days and years go on. Why should we settle for crapping all over labor because working 12 hour days in poverty is better than not working at all.
The fact is we didn't, and the U.S. and perhaps the world was much better for two, maybe three generations, of U.S. prosperity by creating a wealthier middle/consumer class."
Funny way of looking at "competitive". For the slimy class of execs and the "free-market" adoring drones who think they are just one step from becoming tycoons, "competitive" means replicating the conditions found in a Dickens novel.
Quicker to set up a factory there, as money can get any permits granted, and it doesn't matter what goes into the air or water, or how anyone is treated.
Look no further than our Federal government that allows products into our country made without the same environmental controls we have here. I don't blame the corporations in the least. It is our corrupt government clear and simple. If the Feds were doing their job not a single Chinese iPod, iPhone or iPad would be sold in the USA. Time to quit blaming it on Kissinger and Nixon. Carter, Reagan, Bush sr, Clinton, Bush jr or Obama could have stopped it. They all have benefited from Chinese cheap crap being sold in the USA.
But it's just so EASY to bring up things from 40 years ago, you know? :P
China Poised to Lead World in Patent Filings (NY Times story from 2010).
I"t is clear that China really is growing more innovative." (Economist)
And this is good - who's stealing what? Chinese company sues Apple for patent infringement with Siri (appleinsider.com)
I do understand where Fin is coming from. I was an idealist that lamented our TV and electronics manufacturing being wiped out by the Japanese in the 1960s and 70s. I would guess that consumer electronics is a far bigger business than vehicles. I think Apple made more net profit last year than all the automakers in the World combined. And Samsung had almost twice the sales of Apple.
Buying American is not what it once was maybe 60 years ago. No vehicle is 100% USA made. The highest US content vehicles are a few of the trucks and SUVs. Toyota Avalon has the highest US content of any car. My how things change.
You're right, it's actually beer breaks.
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/07/14/chrysler-employees-caught-drinking-smoking-du- ring-lunch-break/
Took them until Nov/Dec to finally fire them. Union protection? Red tape? Who knows.
Kind of like ours, LOL.
You're 100% about the feds letting it happen. Corporations control government, not vice versa. This is a market oligarchy, not some kind of republic or egalitarian meritocracy. Those who worked so hard to open this Pandora's Box should be tried in absentia for what they have wrought. The cheap junk distracts the masses from their own ever-declining lot.
I didn't bring up the smoke breaks ideal, that was China-lover.
The Supremes are hearing a case on that very thing now...
Like you stated, its not the number of patents, but the quality of those patents...
Response to Fox News Story Regarding Jefferson North Assembly Workers
by Scott Garberding
December 10, 2012 2:58 PM
We’ve seen a fair bit of social media discussion regarding the return to work of 13 Chrysler Group LLC employees who were dismissed from their jobs at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. We took that action after a September 2010 local news report exposed the workers’ off-duty conduct.
The workers followed the grievance procedure process outlined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between Chrysler and the United Auto Workers. The Company denied all of the grievances, leading us to arbitrate the matter. After more than two years, an arbitrator decided in the workers’ favor, citing insufficient conclusive evidence to uphold the dismissals. This was a decision that Chrysler Group does not agree with.
http://blog.chryslerllc.com/blog.do?p=entry&id=1986
It is lame indeed to go back endless centuries to look for supposed innovation. What have you done for me lately?
Did you read that article?
"The bureaucrats in Chinese patent offices are paid more if they approve more patents, say local lawyers. That must tempt them to say yes to ideas of dubious originality. And the generosity of China's incentives for patent-filing may make it worthwhile for companies and individuals to patent even worthless ideas. “Patents are easy to file,” says Tony Chen, a patent attorney with Jones Day in Shanghai, “but gems are hard to find in a mountain of junk.”
A cottage industry has sprung up to produce patents of suspect value."
Innovation, yeah.
And a quote from the last link:
" The iPhone wasn't even released in 2006 and Android and Windows Phone were nowhere to be seen at that point. How can this company claim they come to the market first? I also find the UI similarity kind of... odd. The Xiao iRobot and Siri has almost exact same GUI, the same level of similarity that led to the $1B verdict against Samsung. Those companies have no shame in China, and the legal system is more likely than not to back them up."
Innovation!
Siri has been around since at least 1966.
Yes I am. The elected representatives are there to represent the voters. If they decide to accept the corporate dollars, and the voters think it is ok and re-elect, that makes it the voters and Feds at fault. Not the corporations that are trying to stay competitive in a tough World of competition.
Those who worked so hard to open this Pandora's Box should be tried in absentia for what they have wrought.
That would go back more than 200 years, with allowing trade with any foreign country. Bending over backward to Japan & Germany did not help US manufacturers from what I can see. You are having a difficult time with reality. I at least try to buy American. My last 3 vehicles were mostly made in USA. The Samsung Note I just bought was made in Korea not China. If you can find products not made in China great. I don't see any purpose in crying over it. And if the younger generation in this country do not want to work in a sweat shop. Better get educated or live with the reality of life in the 21st century.
This is a fairly obvious statement, but amazingly IMHO, people use it as an excuse as well. It's very easy to read labeling on cars for not only parts content but point of assembly for the entire car, as well as point of assembly for the engine and transmission. Imports being built here is way superior to the old days, IMHO, but I still can't just completely ignore that, for example, Toyota is, and always has been, a Japanese company. If one looks, they can buy a domestic nameplate, built here, with a high parts content. I think a lot don't care to look that hard. And I'll agree that if you don't like the car, you shouldn't buy it for that reason. But, I haven't had that issue.
I can appreciate your opinion, but it isn't in line with the way corporations, both domestic AND foreign, are structured today. It's no longer about what any of us think is appropriate, or what we desire. But it is the way modern manufacturing (finance, etc., you name it) is today.
Still, I see nothing wrong with trying to buy a product that employs folks in the area one resides. I try to do that myself.
That may be true, but in China they'd probably let them "wing it" in a clean room and allow smoking (might explain the high warranty claim rates). By allowing smoking while they are working, it improves productivity at least. In the US they'd never let factory workers get away with smoking inside the building, unless it's Chrysler where anything goes.
The use of the word "competition" to describe a race to the bottom, is misleading at best.
All trade isn't equal simply because it is trade. Apples and oranges exist here, too. Who you trade with and how they behave speaks volumes. Bending over backward? How so?
Some dismissively state "get educated" while carrying their adult children, and having found success in a MUCH less competitive working world... funny. Reminds me of Daddy's Wallet talking about how to fund college - all the while the US continues to lack any kind of legitimate organized first world vocational/apprenticeship program.
The article did not say they were in those devices in 2006. It said they have used iRobot in 100 million devices since 2006.
Zhi Zhen Network Technology filed a Chinese patent application for its Xiao i Robot software in 2004, and that that patent was granted in 2006. Like Siri, Xiao i Robot features voice interactions, with the ability to answer questions and hold simple conversations.
Zhi Zhen has released versions of Xiao i Robot for the web, Android, Windows Phone, desktops, and Apple's iOS. The firm claims its technology has more than 100 million users in China, with companies such as China Mobile, China Telecom, and a number of major banks featuring Xiao i Robot.
The lawsuit is a result of Apple starting to sell devices with Siri type voice recognition that is claimed to be a patent infringement. I have no doubt the Chinese courts will lean toward a Chinese company just as the Silicon Valley courts favored Apple over Samsung.
Well some aren't racing to the bottom.
Clearly people who aren't very competent and who aren't making very good choices are heading downward, grant that.
Some complain about the status quo while doing quite well.
You don't have to look any further than those same corporate paid representatives. The Feds have managed to booger up the whole US education system just by getting involved in it. States have NO rights to properly educate. It all goes through the various agencies in the Federal government. It sure is not a lack of money. We in CA spend over double on education that Germany spends. With lousy results. I personally blame a lot of that on Public Employee unions. We spend TOO MUCH on government and not enough on getting things done.
Buy local?
Ford Explorer Marks Milestone With Kickoff of Production in Russia
There's no bad in any of that.
The Ford move makes sense - volume production for local consumption logically will exist there - cuts huge transport costs. Of course, knowing Russia, it would be interesting to see the net direction of the bribes involved.
The defined benefit pension scheme has to be brought to an end, anyway.
Reinstated, eh? Where's the face palm emotorcon?