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Comments
Where do you place Japan, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd world???
Would you have stopped me from buying Hondas simply because you don't like the Japanese???...
Are you aware that ANY improvements in Big 3 cars came about ONLY because of the quality of the Japanese cars in the 80s and 90s???...do you actually think that Big 3 would have improved their cars from the junk of the 70s on their own???...hell, no...they needed over a decade just to acknowledge that their competition was wiping them off the map in terms of quality and reliability...
rock, you need to open your eyes, the Big 3, while much better now, were dragged into improving their cars, kicking and screaming, by the Japanese...considering how their quality and reliability sank from the 60s thru the 70s/80s, don't think for a minute they did this on their own...they were intimidated into doing it by, thank Allah, the competition that you would have kept out...
We have a better product today because of the competition that you would have prevented from coming here...I would hate to see the 6 mpg behemoths GM would be making today if Honda and Toy had not come here...
The Z06 plan seemed dirty and greasy. People were wearing jeans and cutoff t-shirts and no one was smiling. Though the Z06 is a top level car, employees were hammering in windshields with their hands."
That says it all...Honda and Toy plants are supposed to be the same way...just their method of manufacture adds to the quality...
Considering that the average UAW worker cannot read beyond 3rd grade level (as Iaccoca stated in an interview) it is no wonder they work in a messy environment, as they think and act like children in the mud...
The UAW is on borrowed time...they need to file Ch 11, dump the UAW, and train new, motivated workers in a day or two, and simply make better cars by dumping the worthless that they employ now...that alone will jump quality by 50% overnight...
The evidence is out there, all one has to do is watch it...but UAW folks, like a child afraid of a dark closet, will NEVER look and see themselves critically, they just wander like that same child in Disneyland...if they took the time to look at themselves just for a minute, on one of those TV specials, they would be embarassed at what they have sold us for the last 30 years...
But, til the day the UAW dies, they have no clue, as children are incapable of looking at themselves, and so are the UAW workers...
And stop trying to convince me of the "skilled workers" that populate Michigan...mass production was designed to be able to replace one worker for another in about a day, and, also, they can even teach automaking to the "backhill hicks of the south" as rocky likes to say...the difference is that the "hicks" are making cars people will continue to buy...the same cannot be said about GM or Ford...
Sounds like the uAW :P .
But, to answer your question:
Nope. The workers have to buy in to the fact that they are part of making a quality, and reasonably priced product. Of course, engineering has to do their part too. But, no matter how well designed something is, unless it can be built with absolutely no "touch" labor (100% automated), then line workers can always undercut good engineering.
GM has been making Escalades and Aveos in Mexico for a few years now.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/20/yourmoney/mexcar.php
The job interview at the plant goes like this: "Are you a Mexican or a Mexican't?"
"Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Why?
They can build new modern plants along the Mexican border and hire Obama's illegals for minimum wage and start building some competitive cars again. In all seriousness Obama is going to have to find jobs for all those illegals. What better entry level job is there than working in a factory. That is the bottom of the heap job wise.
I watch Discovery & NatGeo and have seen that in most, if not all US based factories the workers are wearing clothes I would not call fit for a factory. To me it looks like the rag-tag armies of Africa where the soldiers can parade any way they like as long as they are parading :sick:
But according to Dallasdude and his article referencing ILO, Toyota's supply chain has a whole lot of unmotivated, unrecognized, and dissatisfied labor. So how come they make such excellent products?
Thanks.
Would you have stopped me from buying Hondas simply because you don't like the Japanese???...
I don't dislike the Japanese. I actually think their culture is interesting. They use to really care about there people something they gave up to make a buck like we haven been doing. The Japanese, use to make superior quality products but they have outsourced those products to China, because they can treat the Chinese, like slaves like us. The Chinese, will rise one day and there will be hell to pay!!!
Are you aware that ANY improvements in Big 3 cars came about ONLY because of the quality of the Japanese cars in the 80s and 90s???...do you actually think that Big 3 would have improved their cars from the junk of the 70s on their own???...hell, no...they needed over a decade just to acknowledge that their competition was wiping them off the map in terms of quality and reliability...
Hey you and I agree Marsha7!!! However that doesn't mean we give our foreigners all the advantages to put ourselves out of business. Did Toyota, Nissan, Honda, help make domestic cars better??? You betchya!!! That doesn't mean we allow them to manipulate their currency, use tax dollars to build them new plants, and dump on our markets like we are now allowing China, to do. The people with jobs could buy trinkets on the cheap but the consequence of allowing it to go to the far extreme like we have is killing my country. :sick:
rock, you need to open your eyes, the Big 3, while much better now, were dragged into improving their cars, kicking and screaming, by the Japanese...considering how their quality and reliability sank from the 60s thru the 70s/80s, don't think for a minute they did this on their own...they were intimidated into doing it by, thank Allah, the competition that you would have kept out...
Agree-See above as this ties into my response!!!
We have a better product today because of the competition that you would have prevented from coming here...I would hate to see the 6 mpg behemoths GM would be making today if Honda and Toy had not come here...
I agree as long as the playing field is even. Our government can level the playing field and if the Japanese still but the Big 3 out of business then hey that is the free market working. I can live with that!!! I can't live with not giving our companies a fair chance to fight!!!
-Rocky
-Rocky
-Rocky
Why not indeed! Other companies have had their employers take salary cuts when times were tough.
Even in the high tech field that has happened. If memory serves me right, Intel (the microprocessor manufacturer) had it's employees take a 10% (or might have 20%) pay cut 20 or 25 years ago. This is back when they were still battling Motorola and AMD for the microprocessor market. And they were fighting to get their next generation uP to market.
In general, it's just another way of reducing costs, and, depending on the workforce, may be more palatable than layoffs.
'Course with the UAW's contract, I'm sure it's layoff policy is inversely proportional to seniority - last hired (lowest cost), first fired. So why would the more senior workers agree to such a thing?
-Rocky
-Rocky
-Rocky
-Rocky
-Rocky
Who is more likely to have good food: a clean or dirty restaurant. What dealer do you think will give better service: one with salesman dressed like bums or in suits?
Anyways, Jaguars are no longer manufactured in Coventry. If you like to know where they are currently manufactured, you can find that out yourself. :P
By the way, do not underestimate the TATA group
"Tata, India’s largest conglomerate comprises of 96 companies in seven business sectors. It exports products and services to 140 countries."
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071021/spectrum/book5.htm
Also remember that when the founder of TATA thought about getting into the business of making railroad tracks in 1911, All for an idea so daring that it provoked the Chief Commissioner for Indian Railways, Frederick Upcott, to say: "Do you mean to say that Tatas propose to make steel rails to British specifications? Why, I will undertake to eat every pound of steel rail they succeed in making."
Eat he did.....
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,891398,00.html
It is like spots on your teeth. They are indication of trouble underneath :P
Whether I like the spots or not is not relevant.
Getting dirty is not a problem. Not keeping it clean certainly is.
How often do you do your dishes Rocky? I do them right away after each meal, be it lunch, dinner or snack. I do not like dirty dishes stinking up the kitchen. Does it mean I make the best food? Never said that. But it certainly won't be made in an unwashed pan using unwashed meat and vegetables.
NOT the Workers with any seniority. They did not give up squat. I think the UAW needs to give up at least 25% for ALL WORKERS, not just the new hires that will be laid off in a few months anyway. It is all a moot point as the Feds cannot afford UAW wages into perpetuity and that is what would be required to keep GM afloat. They are not going to make money EVER!!!!!
There IS a certain pride in working in a clean shop...rocky, you spend more time than any human justifying every single rotten habit of the UAW, simply because you are blinded to their faults...if you ran your house the way UAW makes cars, I am quite sure Beth would be gone, unless she just loves people with no self pride...
When I was in Detroit, it was amazing just how many UAW folks (and I knew many) hated their jobs and hated their employer and hated their work...it was a wonder their cars ran as well as they did, because if anyone ever did a psych evaluation of the workers, they ALL would have been fired for the worst known attitudes ever...
While this only happened once, I remember a UAW person coming into my office, laughing his head off...I asked him what was so funny...he was laughing because he had enn drinking canned beer, on the job (naturally), and the empty beer cans were placed in chassis or body channels that would cause a permenent rattle, but could never be fixed because no one would ever disassemble the car to find them, so it could never be fixed under warranty...HE WAS PROUD OF THE FACT THAT HE GOT BACK AT "THE MAN"...
He worked for Buick...
That is the type of worker you defend with your flimsy arguments, and I am sure they are no better today...
I don't know who's [non-permissible content removed] you have your head stuck up, but I ROUTINELY get 30+ mpg on the highway with my "gas guzzling Buick V-6" in the Ultra, which is much heavier than the Lacrosse
The same "variable cylender management control" GM pioneered 30 years ago???
Simple. The one with the better service. Looks aren't everything. When I go buy my 2010 Lacrosse, I'll go in sweatpants and a teeshirt. I'll guarantee you one thing, I'll STILL walk out with one.
Hi mcribb - haven't seen you around here before. Well don't you know that most future GM vehicles are going to be HOME RUNS? Past HOME RUN predictions were:
- Cobalt
- G6
- Aura
- Two-mode hybrid SUVs
- Solstice
- Sky
- Astra
- G8
Upcoming HOME RUNS are:
- Cruze
- LaCrosse
- Camaro
- Volt (mother of all HOME RUNS) :P
V8-6-4!
WIth fuel-injection, electronic-igniton and precise valve-timings, the modern V8-6-4 system actually works. Why do you think that the GMs V8 engines offer the VERY BEST MPG ON THE PLANET??
HOWEVER: I want a small pickup truck with manual xmission, 4X4 and 4cylinder DIESEL engine. I would buy one of these babies TODAY if they were offered in USA. (Just imagine over 40MPG on a pickup truck!)
"the car was discontinued after 1988 with a production run that year of only 6,454 units. The Cimarron's failure was part of a series of events that drove the division close to bankruptcy in the 1980s"
Solstice might look good, but Edmund's knocks em down with every review.
It is to bad Transformers had to be tarnished with the GM deal. :P
The engines in the cars built by GM are what they are. And the unskilled UAW worker has no real control over how refined they are. I do believe GM has improved in some areas. They still have to cut costs to pay for the retirees gold plated health care plan with viagra included. The consumer pays the price with downgrades somewhere in the car. GM will cut corners in different areas so it is not obvious what they are doing until you own the vehicle for a while. I know as an Ex GM fan and owner.
So GM, makes crap vehicles and has no engineering. Everyone is a million steps a head of them and the playing field is equal. The 3800 V6 is a gas guzzling hawg and doesn't last. GM, doesn't make vehicles that last, unreliable, ugly, they should like the rest of the Big 3 should go bye bye because Lexuses, have a higher resale value and pick up all the chicks on a friday night!!! GOT IT!!!
-Rocky
The factories are dirty and archaic and GM has not made a good handling, looking, safe, or reliable car since the '60s.
By going bankrupt GM can hire new management to get the on the right track. Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, and maybe GMC have to go.
Also why not change the name to Cheverolet Motors? You cannot buy a GM branded car.
It is the same everywhere. Look at the article today in the UK. Green adviser to the Prime minister says they need to get rid of 50% of the population. I say where do we start. Maybe with the poor and unemployed. :shades:
You know my problem with the entitlement mentality of the average UAW worker. Nothing is forever. Whether you are making condoms or cars. The Government you just elected is putting Americans out of work because they can buy condoms for THREE CENTS less made in China. How much can the Chinese build a Buick LaCrosse for? Maybe you will be able to afford one. Most American workers today cannot afford a fancy Buick. They are lucky to afford a stinking Camry stripped. Buicks are for UPPER MIDDLE CLASS. People you were raised with. Not the average middle class you like to denigrate because of the state they were born in.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/64577.html
Would you rather shop at a dirty grocery store or clean one? An airline with grungy planes or well kept ones.
If Buicks are such great cars why does the average dealer only sell three a month?
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/buick-and-the-detroit-zombies/
Actually the playing field is far from equal. GM has a huge cost disadvantage because of the gold plated UAW salaries and benes. Therefore they can't spend as much on refinement, development, and quality parts. They are bleeding money. If the UAW really cared about GM they would help level the playing field by making their costs more competitive like their import nameplates in the south that produce better vehicles at lower cost.
-Rocky
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/24/news/companies/automakers_bailout/index.htm?cnn=- yes
Why are Saturn dealerships still around?