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But I thought the most interesting part of the XG350 review was at the end:
"There's a sense of deja vu about this car--solidly constructed, fairly priced, and fully equipped--at an as-tested price of $24,572 with no options. Japanese cars built their reputations that way, remember?"
I think GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler should be more worried about this test than embarrassed.
Backy, I would purchase XG350 before a any Big 3 offering. I'm being "dead nut" honest. Hyundai, is getting credit all the time, for there vastly improved vehicles. I'm not convinced that KIA or Daewoo is able to build tight reliable cars, yet. However, Hyundai has converted me. I'm very concerned about their resale value. That would hold me back. But, if I had to choose between domestic and Hyundai,... Hyundai wins.
Nah, not a Sprint or Metro. It's so cool. You'll never guess. I was pretty sure what vehicle I was getting, however I needed to see if they could upgrade me for free. No go, soooo I drove my wife, son and myself from Ft. Lauderdale to Key West, round trip in a _________________?
-Larry
I once went for the "economy special" rental and got a Chevy Sprint 2-door with a 5-speed to drive between Houston and Austin. In July. At least it had A/C; the speed decreased about 5 mph when it kicked in. My wife was not impressed by my frugality. I made it up to her (sort of) last March on a trip to San Francisco; got a Lincoln LS (company-paid fortunately!). It was fine for cruising California 1, but I'd rather have a small car for daily use.
-Larry
(BTW Pat, how many Koreans-vs.-the-World topics are there, under different names, on Edmunds now anyway?)
Meade
P.S. Larry, you think that Rio was a small car, you shoulda seen ME (you know how big I am) in a 3-cylinder Geo Metro while my truck was in the shop in '99 ... all that thing needed was a cutting deck and a rear bagger!
Happy eatin's,
Meade
"Grills, Kias, and Other Appliances that Generate Heat and Go Nowhere Fast."
;-)
Seriously, I think we should at least drop the European from the title as has been suggestion by another. And I would make one change to my serious title suggestion. It should be Low End Cars Under $15,000:.... Some people might not understand the lesser than sign from my original suggestion and changing it to the word under makes the meaning clear for everyone.
-larry
I would never buy a vehicle that small, so it's hard for me to compare it to other similar vehicles. The KIA RIO had some good qualities. Overall, after 600 miles of travel, I wouldn't recommened this car to others.
-Larry
Meade
-Larry
I didn't make any additional comment because I think it can be taken one of two ways. It can be complementary to Hyundai that it did better than the American makes and followed right after the Japanese. However, the writer did say it was embarrassing that the Hyundai outranked those American makes. The corollary to that would be that Hyundais don't have a reputation for being a good car. I just left it free for interpretation.
FWIW, the Rio's engine is very noisy when you push it to the limit, imo. I have experienced the noise first hand.
What I do know is that I was cleaning my Echo and there didn't seem to be much sound dampening material in it.
What I also know is that the noise of the engine under exertion in a Rio is more than the noise of the engine under exertion of my Echo.
Now thats my opinion. I'm not attacking anyone it's just that I belive that a good used car is better than a cost effective new car.
http://beta.cars.com/carsapp/national/?srv=parser&act=display&tf= /advice/shopping/newused/newusedindex.tmpl
Sorry It wouldn't let me post the link in full. the link has a space in the middle.
At least that is my opinion.
To be continued-
-Larry
Anyway, don't you think that some of the price difference is attributable to non parts cost, i.e., labor and currency exchange rate?
The labor in Korea is cheaper than in Japan and the won is not as strong as the Yen against the dollar.
Let us say that two makers want to get one thousand units of their own currency for the product they sell over here.
Let us further say that maker A's (Toyota) home currency is worth fifty cents in American money while maker B's (Kia) home currency is worth twenty-five cents in American money.
This means that maker B can sell his product for half the price (in American dollars) that maker A does and by these prices both would reach their target of getting one thousand units of their own currency after the exchange of dollars into their own currency.
I don't have a subscription to Alldata so I can't get the complete story on the TSBs.
FWIW, none of these TSBs are on the NHTSA site. In fact, there are no TSBs listed for the 2001 Echo on the NHTSA site. Does anyone know why this is?
BTW, I also checked out the TSBs for the 2001 Sephia and they were pretty stupid too. I also checked out the TSBs for the 1995 Sephia and I found myself with a question. Alldata says that one of the TSBs covering the 2001 Sephia has a release date of November of 1999 and one of the TSBs for the 1995 model year was supposedly released in 1987. Just how long is the production run on a Korean car, anyway? : )
Seriously though, this little error seems to throw doubt on the validity of Alldata's reporting. And I am not talking just for what they report on the Echo, but what they report for ANY vehicle.
In regards to what happened at Consumer Reports, perhaps the TSBs do not affect every Echo out there and perhaps some of the issues the TSBs address had not shown up at the time of the survey.
In other words, these TSBs do not necessarily make the results of the Consumer Reports survey invalid.
FWIW, I seem to have escaped some of the problems that the TSBs for the Echo seem to indicate.
Enjoy your Sephia.
I went back and did a new search for TSBs on the Echo. First I specified equipment which brought up two TSBs. I then did a search on the vehicle and specified the year 1900. Yes, I know that the Echo was not built in 1900, but this is evidently a way to tell the computer to bring up all the TSBs on a given vehicle. Ten TSBs came up, but these ten and the two I found by specifying equipment were for the 2000 model year and none affected the entire production run of that model year.
Thus my explanation as to why Consumer Reports' survey results can still be valid looks to be quite probable.
-Tom
Sorry, my bad. It was an 2001 Kia Rio.
-Larry
Here's another interesting fact, I think. I searched for labor stats for Japan, Korea, and Mexico and found some (but not for Mexico) on
http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/surveymost?in.
I used the "Manufacturing Unit Labor Cost Index, U.S. Dollar Basis" because it was available for both countries. Note that this is for all manufacturing, not just cars. The latest indexes, for 2000, were 102.5 for Japan and 67 for Korea. This shows that at least as of last year, unit manufacturing costs are considerably lower in Korea than Japan. But here is the real interesting fact: in 1996, the index was 109.6 for Japan and 123.3 for Korea--meaning that unit labor costs were higher in Korea than in Japan five years ago! Then by 1998, the index had dropped into the 60s in Korea, but was still close to 100 in Japan. Now consider how this index is calculated: by dividing hourly compensation by productivity. So if the index goes down, either hourly wages are dropping or productivity is increasing, or both. I find it hard to believe that hourly compensation in Korea has been cut nearly in half since 1996, but I suppose it is possible--perhaps a poster who knows more about Korea could comment. I find it more likely that the plunge in unit cost index in Korea is due mainly to increases in productivity.
In case anyone wonders, the index for the U.S. was 93.5 in '96 and 89.9 for '00.
The difference in price between the 2 door Echo and the 4 door Echo can be explained by the 4 door having two more doors.
Or do you think that when the line sees they are building a 4 door Echo, they put in a different engine and more sound dampening material because hey, it is going to be more expensive than the 2 door?
It has to do with the amount of their home currency a company wants to see after converting from dollars to whatever their currency is. Remember I brought this up.
But see, Ford's home currency is not Pesos. Their home currency is dollars. There is no difference in currency rate that Ford can exploit when selling in the United States.
Also, who knows how much profit Ford (maker of the Focus) and Nissan (maker of the Sentra) want to see. Perhaps they want the extra profit generated by the lower labor cost to go to themselves and are unwilling to pass the savings on to the consumer.
You bring up a good point, but it does not necessarily invalidate mine.
BTW, that point was that SOME of the difference in price between a Rio and an Echo could be explained by the exchange rate and labor cost. This does not necessarily mean I think it is the major reason which is how you characterized my possible explanation.
Labor cost does not influence that much to prices of cars. If it did, almost every carmakers would have rushed to China.
Back in '60s labor cost means major factor, though.
Go visit modern automobile factory(I did several times)...like Toyota, Honda, or even Hyundai.
Robots(welding assembly or pincher attached to arms) and N/C controller do the MOST of the process(molding, carrying, assembling, painting, adjusting, you name it). In fact, there're very little room remained for real men.
Major, you are correct in the most part. Exchange rate is the keypoint. But I'd like to point out something else.
About Korean won - U.S. Dollar exchange rate, it moved from 1,370 to 1,600 Won against 1$ in 1998, and 1,250 to 1,300 in 2001, if I'm correctly recall. Hyundai HAD TO RAISE THE PRICE OF THEIR CAR by 15%-30% at laymen's calculation, but they didn't(they've kept the price low).
Neverthless, their net-profit/vehicle ratio soared by almost 150% in 3 years. It's profit/sales ratio is somewhere around 10% in 2001, which is phenominal in the industry(Big 3? I guess around 3% at best, or even below horizon in the last Q 2001_ due to desperate 0% financing, whatever).
To keep the balance with Big 3 or some Japanes carmakers, exchange rate should be worsened against Hyundai by 10% right now, and Hyundai should cut the price by 5% at the same time(It will break even).
But again, their productivity and efficiency have grown so rapidly, it might not break even in 2002.
So, I don't think Hyundai is just dumping their cars, and their ability to keep the price low is not mainly due to exchange rate.
I just envy that Hyundai earns lots and lots of money at the price level that we think it a great bargain.
I'll let you know something else.
Great amount of plastic parts(including gearshift knobs!), various sensor/controller, A/Cassembly, seat assembly, suspension assembly, even part assembly of powertranny used to make Japanes cars and Big3's, or even some European cars are made in Korea nowadays.
For example, Backy, you'd have noticed that the seats of Elantra felt more comfortable and supportable that competition. They(or same level quality and different design) are used to make $20,000+ cars in competition.
I laughed to death to read a message in this townhall, claiming that Hyundai does not produce all-aluminium engine, nor varriable intake system, etc, etc, and interior material is not up to Japanese "low-end" cars.
In fact, Hyundai designs & produces all-aluminium engine, adapting some advanced technology(compared to Chrysler, not quite Toyota's or Honda's level of technology, of course) and for interior materials, I bet they will definetly fail to distinguish Korean low-end(or even higher level) cars between any other low-end(or even higher level) cars on the planet if the cars were completely new to consumers and covered all over except interior by some materials.
How ridiculous.
-Spiritz-
Exactly! Therefore, when comparing the price of a 2-door ECHO to a 4-door Rio and stating that the difference is only $900, please remember to add in the cost to Kia of two more doors.
"Labor cost does not influence that much to prices of cars. If it did, almost every carmakers would have rushed to China."
I really can't see how that sentence makes much sense. Of course labor costs contribute to the costs of a car, just as much as any other industry. The reason why they are not all flocking to China is because China is a quasi-Communist nation where there are barriers to manufacturing there. Labor rates are not only contributed to assembling cars but also the price of each component manufactured for the car. One reason why Japanese Automakers started manufacturing their autos in the U.S. is because of lower labor costs associated with the favorable exchange rate. Labor is incredibly expensive in Japan. But remember, exchange rates fluctuate rapidily which would explain why Japanese cars were so cheap in the late 80's and early 90's and why the tides have changed since then. Also remember, foreign cars are subject to tariffs and quotas so relocating manufacturing plants to other countries also has its strategic advantages of getting cars in the country.