Rank the Big 4 Ford, GM, Toyota, Chrysler. Best? Worst?

kdhspyder

Hyundai is doing what Honda and Toyota did 30 years ago - stealing market share from GM and Ford's lower to middle end of the market. But now Honda and Toyota, along with their Acura and Lexus counterparts, are killing the Big Three in the upper middle to upper end of the market.

I see this every day. While Toyota and Honda have the high profile and are beginning to take shots as they ( Toyota ) overtake the Detroit 3 one by one, The real loss of volume by the US makers is to Hyundai.

Honda and Toyota buyers have already been convinced and each very often only buy Toyota/Honda or Honda/Toyota.

Sienna/Odyssey
CamCord is now one word
Civic/Corolla
CR-V/RAV

But as you say someone looking to move into a feature-rich extremely affordable ( likely reliable ) foreign nameplate will look first at Hyundai simply on price. Getting HonYota buyers out of their comfort zone will take a series of massive errors in quality.

kdhspyder

That pretty much sums up GM's failure in the marketplace. A little too much laziness thinking their "loyalist buyers" wouldn't wake up and smell the coffee. It would appear that several million of them have, and they've become more prudent and less loyal to the Big 3 as a result.

I'll have to disagree here.

I don't think GM has failed so much as they have just made a conscious and very astute business decision about which it is very very politcally incorrect for them to announce their real intentions.

I believe that they have already abandonded the US auto ( meaning cars ) market in favor of expanding overseas. This excludes Cadillac but all the other auto names are on life support - no matter what they say in the press.

Question which new completely redesigned GM auto has any of the sizzle of say the Fusion. Niche vehicles, yes possibly, Retro's to keep the reamining loyalists in house in the spirit of the 70's, yes. But new high volume names to grab America's attention. Nope.

It's trucks, SUV's and Caddy's.

I will give R Wagoner very high marks in analyzing his current predicament and doing what is best for his shareholders.... get out of the US auto market. Don't waste anymore shareholder money here.

kdhspyder

Double digit increases in sales for 5 years may prove a bit of a challenger for a company that says its already running at capacity

Toyota cannot grow rapidly because they have a shortage of engines. In addition to the new plant that MI is trying to get and the one going into the TX plant they still need 2 or 3 additional engine plants just to meet current demand.

brightness04

GM is currently the leader in China, in terms of vehicle sold, manufactured, total revenue and 5-yr growth rate. Buick is a great American success story there. Some of the GM/Buick models made in China will probably be imported into the US in the near future (I think some engines already are). Frankly, I wouldn't mind buying/leasing one for my business if they are; the story I read in the GM blob is that every single employee on the Buick production line in Shanghai has a college degree . . .

drfill

But I predict Ford, GM, Chrysler, and Toyota will all be between 15-20% in 2010.

Toyota is just under 15% now, GM is just over 25% now.

Ford and Chrysler are in the high teens, and will stay there.

DrFill

nippononly

There is no way GM still has 25% market share in the future, even if you are thinking they will gradually slow the decline and then reverse direction.

The decline of the last 10-20 years (pick your time scale) has been remarkably consistent at GM in terms of rate over time. At the the end of the latest-announced contraction plan (forecast for 2012), GM's market share will be at or below 20%, mark my words.

This year, Toyota is very confident it will hit the 2 million mark in the U.S., up from 1.8 million last year. I can't remember the last time they missed their own overall sales target. They expect to see an 80,000/year initial boost from the '07 Tundra in its first full year (the current model sold 120,000 last year) and 50,000 sales each from the FJ and the Yaris, plus another 50-60,000 sales a year from the redesigned RAV4, and whatever the redesign of the Camry will do to boost sales.

Expecting GM and Ford to stop losing sales this year because their CEOs or VP's say so is pretty optimistic. I will bet that if I checked, I would find similar hoo-rah speeches in many of the years past.

rockylee

They are building it in Benton Harbor Mi. according to the Detroit Free Press.

Rocky

boaz47

I see the same thing. Nissan has no identity of its own and has for years tried to tie themselves to the other Asian companies. Alas it is not Toyota or Honda and now that it is controlled by Renault it will be far more like Chrysler than ever before. But remember I happen to like Chrysler. Nissan like Chrysler was about to go under because they simply couldn't manage their own company. They have some good products but they also produce some flops. If the Altima wouldn't have hit a positive note with the car buying public we more than likely would have seen Nissans with folding cloth tops that folded back like window shades by now. The Truck would have been called the LeTruck.

imidazol97

Best part of the article:

"Toyota, for instance, installs many of the same parts, from seats to door handles, in models as diverse as the inexpensive Corolla and the luxury Lexus."

This confirms my opinion of the company and their Toyota Lexus which comes across as a wunderdivision, but is really a line of cars made from Toyo parts. And the Avalon owners get real upset when you point out it's on a stretched Camry base.

nippononly

Yes, but which is a better approach, Toyota trying to cut costs by sharing more parts across a broader range of models, or GM insisting blindly on reduced supplier prices, to the point where said suppliers either cheapen the part too much (resulting in more failures) or just plain go out of business entirely?

1990 marked a high water mark in car quality, I am afraid. Since then, all the Big 6 have been galloping down the road of rampant cost-cutting. It is evidenced in all the vehicles in every line from those manfacturers.

Toyota has reinvested the savings in R&D, new models, and the like. GM has had to spend the savings on legacy costs. Ford is in a similar boat to GM.

socala4

This confirms my opinion of the company and their Toyota Lexus which comes across as a wunderdivision, but is really a line of cars made from Toyo parts.

That doesn't matter. The cars are still superior to the vast majority of what GM produces, and consumers like them. Sharing a door handle is not a problem if the car to which it is attached works well, and the door handle is of good quality. You can attempt to bash Toyota all you like, but the American retail buying public is not on your side, and is increasingly less so.

dpat

Just remember: When toyota shares parts between models, it's smart business, but when GM does it, it's "badge engineering" and is a horrible business practice.

socala4

When toyota shares parts between models, it's smart business, but when GM does it, it's "badge engineering" and is a horrible business practice.

Sharing parts and platforms, and "badge engineering" are different concepts. Using one turn signal indicator is efficient and reasonable -- sticking on different logos to otherwise identical cars usually makes no sense.

Toyota succeeds and GM doesn't. Do you blame Toyota for GM's inability to execute?

wilcox

for "whose the favorite".

NASCAR may have some say so too.

andre1969

GM has gotten over their fetish for badge-engineering cars. And truth be told, they never did it as badly as Ford or Chrysler. GM did badge-engineering with the Chevette/T-1000, the Vega, Monza, and their clones, the Nova et. al, and the J-cars. But with the bigger cars, there were always more substantial differences. They'd at least change the sheetmetal and interiors so that one car wasn't a clone of the others.

For example, if you look at a 1985 Impala and a 1985 Caddy Brougham, there really isn't a whole lot that's shared. At least, not what's visible to the eye. The windshield, A-pillars, B-pillars, and front door glass, and that's it. The rear doors and C-pillars are different, the interiors are different, all the sheetmetal, trim, etc.

Now contrast that to a 1985 Plymouth Gran Fury and a 1985 5th Avenue. Only the easy-change stuff has been swapped out. Externally, they put the license plate on the bumper, and a piece of trim over the fuel filler to give the illusion of full-width taillights. Then they stick a fiberglass piece onto the back of the roof to make it look more formal, along with putting vinyl over the quarter windows in the rear doors. Then up front they give it a more pretentious grille and put the turn signals over the headlights, to serve as inspiration for the Bangled BMW's decades later. Oh, and inside they gave it nicer, plusher seats, richer carpeting, more voluptuous trim inserts on the door panels, and some felt over the hard plastic around the roof pillar trim. But if your Gran Fury got wrecked and you found a 5th Ave in the junkyard, just about anything would easily swap over to it.

I think GM has actually gotten pretty good at platform sharing, at least with cars. For example, while the LaCrosse and Grand Prix have a strong similarity in their proportioning, there's very little that's a direct swap between the two. And the Impala and Monte Carlo look nothing like them. Although I did see a Monte parked at the curb behind a '97-03 Grand Prix sedan once, and I swear they looked like they had the same windshield.

Still, a much better job of making the cars look different than, say, a Taurus/Sable, 500/Montego, or Fusion/Milan. Or Stratus/Sebring, or even a Charger/300.

Ditto the DTS and the Lucerne. Those two cars look nothing alike. Same for the Malibu/Maxx, G-6, and Saab 9-3.

wilcox

Agree. I compared a new Fusion to a 3 yr old Mazda 6 that were both parked side by side. Amazing similarities. Amazing.

ubbermotor

You can attempt to bash Toyota all you like, but the American retail buying public is not on your side, and is increasingly less so.

Increasing less so perhaps, but GM still sells twice as many cars in the US as Toyota.

nippononly

and the minivans............?

Just kidding. :-)

If you use a part of Lexus quality on a Toyota, that would be a good thing, wouldn't it? Perhaps it would make the Lexus owners feel they were getting a "wunderkind Toyota" (or whatever term was used above), but if it were better than the same part on a competing model, it would still be a good thing.

ubber: GM doesn't make anything CLOSE to twice the retail sales of Toyota in the U.S. It does, however, make a significant percentage more.

socala4

Increasing less so perhaps, but GM still sells twice as many cars in the US as Toyota.

The shift in market share is obviously in Toyota's favor. And if you calculate the number of cars sold at retail, you'll find that the sales gap between Toyota and GM's domestic nameplates is perhaps 125,000 units. At this pace, Toyota may overtake GM in retail market share within the next 2-3 years.

andre1969

actually, I have to admit that I thought Ford did a pretty good job of the Fusion, compared to the Mazda6. The Fusion and its clones are derived from the 6 architecture, aren't they? I wouldn't have known that it was, except that I've heard it mentioned before. So I guess Ford did have me fooled there, at least at one point!

imidazol97

>Toyota trying to cut costs by sharing more parts across a broader range of models, or GM insisting blindly on reduced supplier prices, to the point where said suppliers either cheapen the part too much

Are you trying to say Toyo is cheapening the parts when they put them in the Toyota Lexus instead of the Toyota Camry and Corolla??? :confuse:

ubbermotor

Are you saying that GM had over 2 million in non-retail sales? I'd like to know where you get your numbers. And what were Toyotas non-retail figures like?

And why do only retail sales count? Rental companies use Toyotas. Cops, Taxis, and coach builder don't usually, but thats only becuase Toyota doesn't really make a product suitable for those applications.

If its a profits issue, well, thats a different story. By that standard the Prius is failure.

Years ago I had a friend that just purchased his 16th Cadillac (He had to have a fishing car he said). When asked why he didn't by a more mainstream car he replied, "I'll buy a Honda when they make one that would be suitable as a hurse, in other words, one where my feet wont be hanging out the back."

Again, to each his own, but Toyota can brag about being number one, when it actually is.

anythngbutgm

Cops, Taxis, and coach builder don't usually, but thats only becuase Toyota doesn't really make a product suitable for those applications.

Actually the streets of NYC are littered with Toyota Sienna vans for Taxi duty...

socala4

I'll provide you with what I posted on another thread.

-In 2005, GM sold 1,784,825 vehicles in the US. TMC sold 1,289,356 vehicles. Difference: GM sold approximately 459,000 (36%) more vehicles.

-Apply estimated figures of 25% fleet sales for GM (a typical year), versus 8% to Toyota (again, a typical year), and you end up with an estimated difference of about 125,000 retail customers for the year.

-Between 2004 and 2005, TMC's US sales increased by over 188,000 units (+17.1%). In contrast, GM's fell by almost 91,000 (-4.8%)

GM is hanging onto its US lead with retail customers by a thread. Since GM is supposedly making an effort to reduce its exposure to the low margin fleet market, expect these numbers to skew even more, as GM sales should fall more rapidly if the fleet deals are reduced. Add to the fact that Toyota has profits to feed the business while GM does not, and that adds up to serious problems for the General.

As for fleet sales, they harm resale value, squeeze margins and incentivize the maker to create a mediocre product that meets the needs of corporate customers that view the car as a commodity with a short shelf life. Residuals will also likely fall more rapidly. Not much incentive for a retail customer to purchase a product like that.

ubbermotor

Of which I have already replied to in that other thread.

nippononly

Eh? I am not sure I follow. If they use Lexus parts for the Corolla and Camry, that is a benefit to the Corolla and Camry owners, is it not?

The Lexus owners may be less than thrilled that their cars share parts with Toyotas, because of the snob factor, but I am quite sure Toyota would not put any part in a Lexus that did not belong there.

As for the ol' retail sales controversy, once GM reduces capacity by another 25%, it will begin to be able to NOT have to sell tons o' cars to fleets every year. At that time, they will need their loyal retail customer base to maintain profits. So the number of retail sales they make is very pertinent to their future success. Same with Toyota, and every other automaker, just to a lesser extent than Ford/GM.

Price (and size) is pretty much the only factor of importance for fleet buyers, whereas the number of retail buyers that buy on price alone is very low (they factor in other things like looks, safety, reliability, etc, none of which fleet buyers care about), so to some extent the number of retail sales is also the best measure of the "relevance" to the market of an automaker's products.

ron_m

If the Toyota and Lexus product lines are virtually identical as some folks say, I would like for someone to explain why Lexus has been ranked as the number one nameplate in initial build quality for nearly a decade now--while the Toyota nameplate hasn't? Wouldn't it be a two-way tie for first if they were that close to being identical products? Toyota Motor Company actually accepts less bad parts/100 from their suppliers for their Lexus line of products than they do for their Toyota line of products. I read an article about this practice a couple of years ago. Now I do know that they share plenty of parts across product lines, but there are most definitely enough differences to justify the Lexus product line vehicles as being luxury; or near-luxury for certain models.

Ron M.

nippononly

Toyota's plan going forward, which has some fancy letter/number designation which I forget, is to cost-cut by parts-sharing across the lines in the DESIGN stage, not just sub in parts from Toyotas in Lexi.

I don't think anyone was saying that Toyotas and Lexi were virtually identical, were they? They are still assembled in different locations (with most Lexus still assembled in Japan), with different tolerances for variances in assembly quality. They are ever improving, though. I remember Toyota making the very proud announcement in 2002 that the new Corolla was being manufactured to the same standards and tolerances as the 1990 Lexus LS was.

I would expect to see Lexus firmly ensconced in the number one sales position among luxury carmakers in ten years' time. Of course, it is quite another feat to convince everyone that a luxury carmaker is what they are! The new stretched LS (with a possible V-12, or V-8 hybrid, later on) will have been around a decade by then, along with the LF-A sports car/GT for most of those years. Perhaps that will go some way to elevating them to luxury status in the eyes of more people.

rockylee

You & imidazol97,

point out facts that the hoyota fans can't handle. Until GM falls to #2......Aren't they still #1......Obviously their are still a majority of people that like GM cars :P

Rocky

ron_m

The answer to your question below is at the end of this post; copied from someone else's previous post...

I don't think anyone was saying that Toyotas and Lexi were virtually identical, were they?

This confirms my opinion of the company and their Toyota Lexus which comes across as a wunderdivision, but is really a line of cars made from Toyo parts. And the Avalon owners get real upset when you point out it's on a stretched Camry base.

dhamilton

think you can really count fleet sales which is a much bigger chunk of the sales pie for GM then Toyota. At ant rate my order {in the interest of remaining on topic} Is Chrysler and Ford is a tie for first. GM isn't third as much as last. Mostly because they seem to have their head up their backside.
GM is first until they're second. OK, lalalalalall {sound of fat lady warming up :P }

rockylee

:P

Rocky

grbeck

Using the standard definition of "majority," that would constitute at least 51 percent of the market. A majority of new car buyers don't like GM...or any other company selling vehicles in the United States.

tlong

Just remember: When toyota shares parts between models, it's smart business, but when GM does it, it's "badge engineering" and is a horrible business practice.

Sharing a door handle is not the same as sharing the *entire car*, minus tail lights and front grille. How many divisions does Toyota have, vs. GM?

Don't forget rule #9 of post #991 "How to Kill a Car Company":

9. Have a lot of divisions. Spend your money here. Don't waste it on new technologies or quality interiors. Use the same old hardware, put lots of different bodies and taillights on the same engines and frames. It's more efficient that way.

gogogodzilla

Well, of course they're similar.

The Fusion is based off the Mazda6 platform, after all.

:shades:

rockylee

Ok I'll reword that. At 26% GM has the largest portion of the pie of the automobile industry. :P

Rocky

mayberryguy

Ok I'll reword that. At 26% GM has the largest portion of the pie of the automobile industry.

Is that why they are losing billions per year? Oh no, I forgot that would be GW Bush, Management, stupid car buyers, global warming, winter solstice, currency manipulation, any ones fault except for the UAW...insert your favorite rant here. :P

rockylee

ok ok ok, lets blame the UAW for poor product, poor engineering, poor designs, and them making $26 an hour. :confuse: I guess they should kick out the UAW and hire illegal aliens to work. Hell I say lets hire illegal alliens to take your job at K-Mart. :P

Rocky

ubbermotor

poor product

Thats relative.

poor engineering

GM has always had many of the world best engineers.

poor designs

The designs are good before they go through commitee for approval for production.

making $26 an hour

The factory that was just "idled" in Ok has an average salary of $31. Yes I meant has, as they are still gettin paid.

aspesisteve

1.Toyota,
2.Honda (can't leave out Honda)
3.Ford
4.GM
5.Chrysler

rockylee

#1 GTH

#2 Ford

#3 Diamler Chrysler

#4 Geely

#5 Chery

#6 Hyundai/Kia

Rocky

aspesisteve

what's GTH?

rockylee

The merge of GM/Toyota/Honda :P

Rocky

anythngbutgm

Never, never, never... I'd be willing to bet on Yugo being the #1 Automaker in the world before that merger takes place.

rockylee

I'll take you up on that bet.

Rocky

anythngbutgm

If it does happen (which I HIGHLY doubt it will) GM for some reason takes ownership of Honda and Toyota, I will NEVER set foot in either dealership again.

Hello Subaru, Mazda, Volvo, FMC, DMC... Heck, Yugo's should be a pretty solid car so maybe I'll head over there!
The only reason to go to a GM owned stealership would be to pick up a few bottles of "Synchromesh" gearbox fluid.

I cannot stop chuckling about this... Way out there. :sick:

rockylee

Why do you hate GM so bad ? You show you like Ford and Chrysler.

Rocky

anythngbutgm

Lack of effort, innovation and technology. Should have been knocked out of the top spot 25 years ago. Don't like how they drive, handle or operate. Interior ergonomics materials and design are disappointing, have been for way too long.

I always equate GM to a pushrod motor:

"Effortless power from an effortless brand, just don't expect much beyond that"

Good luck to them.

rockylee

And what about Ford and Chrysler since they are in the same boat as GM with the pushrod engine. :P

Come-on let me hear this one pal.

Rocky

rockylee

Atleast GM has a few DOHC VVT engines. Does Ford ? Does Chrysler ?