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Well, thanks to the administration's handling of the ball Bush punted to them, GM still exists at all!
That ball started with the Clinton push to give a mortgages to anyone breathing and accelerated with the mishandling of financial matters by the 2006 congress passed to Bush. So we can trace it back to Reno threatening loan institutions. :grin. That's for another forum.
But the end result is that the current ball holder gave the Unions a gift of free money from GM rather than proper pay for proper work. That's an albatross toyota and Honda have escaped in their plants here. Although Honda [here in Ohio] has had some unhappy people over the handling of various things because the workers had no rights under labor contracts.
If GM is going to have to compete with other companies without union contracts who employ temps and shed workers who age or deteriorate and replace them with younger workers, GM should have been given a level playing field by the head guy carrying the ball.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
"Road to Redemption" 2003
Apologies again in 2008
I don't think you have taken the Japanese philosophy of life into account. When they first established auto factories in the USA, they were shocked at our lack of commitment to the company. So it is more cultural. Our problem is the Unions were allowed to go too far and it made labor more important than product and the customer. There is a happy medium. That does not forgive the slave labor tactics used by most corporations today. I would imagine GM uses slave labor in other parts of the World. I know Apple was blasted in the press recently for their use of slave labor in China. That does not forgive Toyota for their abuses. I think we have hashed them over now about 1000 times in the last couple years. None of the reports are new that I have seen. How much of your newest Cadillac was produced by under paid labor? We know it is not 100% USA made.
I think you will see more and more factories like Nexteer sold off to foreign corporations. The UAW buckled under to their demands, bringing labor costs to a more realistic level. Consequently jobs in Saginaw were saved. If you think it is tough for GM, F & C to compete here with Honda and Toyota, what happens when GM starts shipping Buicks back from China? GM sold 2 million buicks last year in China. How many did Buick sell here 100k units? Not even enough to justify a factory in the USA. That is what the UAW is facing when the Democrats are no longer in power to protect and subsidize them.
Most American companies are non-union shops that employ temps when it makes economic sense to do so. This is the way that business is done in the real world.
Back in the 80s, some Western European countries of a socialist bent tried to restrict temporary employment by making it much harder for companies to hire temps. Then everyone wondered why unemployment shot through the roof in those countries. The reason was simple: if companies couldn't hire temps, they didn't hire at all. Instead, they forced existing staff to work overtime.
Here's a newsflash: temp jobs are a hundred times better than no jobs.
The Japanese transplants gave people in rural areas of the U.S. a shot at earning wages far in excess of what had been prevailing rates in those places. So what if some of those jobs are temporary?
"If Toyota is targeted, the company "will just continue to do what we do, which is treat our team members well," said Toyota spokesman Mike Goss. "We will continue to provide good wages and benefits ... and ultimately, it is up to those team members to decide."
UAW eyes Asian, German plants (Detroit News)
Here's a newsflash: temp jobs are a hundred times better than no jobs.
The Japanese transplants gave people in rural areas of the U.S. a shot at earning wages far in excess of what had been prevailing rates in those places. So what if some of those jobs are temporary?
Even Union companies are using more temps. I visited with a 34 year employee of at&t at Kaiser the other day. He said they were offering very good packages to the older guys to retire. Then they hire a 3 year temp to take their place. He was 59 and not quite ready to take the golden parachute. The temp would not get near the top CWA scale of $34 per hour.
My friend that lost his $100k job at HP is working 3 temp jobs to survive. As you said a temp job beats no job. A neighbor of my daughter in Indiana works at the Princeton Toyota plant and likes his job. So much of the talk of unhappy employees could be UAW talk.
These UAW people will not be happy until all the cars come from China and India. They have had a great ride and it is over. Why is it so hard to see that? There is no way that my kids would have a job like I had without a college education. That is the reality of life in this ever smaller globe we share. The guy in a hut in Africa with a satellite dish says, I can make a widget for less than that. And you either beat his price or lose.
:shades:
Absolutely agree. This whole issue of an "unlevel playing field" is going to go by the wayside here in the next few years as GM moves most of its production to Korea and China, and Ford moves most of its production to Mexico. Then when only the Japanese and the Germans are still building cars in the U.S., in non-unionized plants, the whole issue will look very different I think.
In a world that was increasingly globalizing since 1980, the UAW bore a large part of the blame for the troubles of the domestic Big 3, and I think it just took (and continues to take) a very unrealistic view of the labor market in the auto industry worldwide.
I also think that most of the negative labor practices and other issues that the UAW was established to protect workers from are now prevented by state and federal law, and it may be that in the auto industry the time for unions has passed....especially if they are now so obstructive as to drive the employers to bankruptcy or ultimately right out of business.....
I myself am glad that we are still making automobiles in the U.S., and I would like to see that continue. In that sense, I'm glad the Japanese and Germans build so many of their cars here now, but it doesn't provide the same level of assurance for our future economic well-being as would having cars built here by U.S.-owned companies.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Now of course, it has occurred to me lately that Ford is receiving all these accolades (and sales) because of this enormous rush of new product, but what will happen in 3 years when the lull comes? There's a danger to renewing too many models all at once (Fiesta, Focus, Taurus, Mustang, Explorer, Edge, introduction of Transit Connect). I guess they will still have the Fusion and Escape updates come along to keep things humming. We will see.
I also see GM's market share has "stabilized" at 19.3%. That's very close to what I predicted 2-3 years ago, so I'm patting myself on the back right now. :-P
If Toyota ever gets its act together again (or if Nissan and Hyundai continue their rise in the charts), I expect GM to lose another point or two.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
That would be one of my reasons as well if I ever was to shop a Gov. Motors vehicle... :shades:
My neighbor did that too. Let's not tell them about the 5.9 billion the feds loaned Ford to upgrade facilities to build fuel-efficient vehicles. (link) :shades:
Was reading an interesting article this week in R&T, which compared a Volt to the plug-in Prius Toyota is testing.
For people shopping based purely on dollar savings for gas, there is actually no difference between the two at $0.15/kwh, because they both cost about $6 in fuel to go 100 miles. Even the existing non-plug-in Prius will almost do that.
The plug-in Prius has a 13 mile electric-only range, although it is still two years from public sale, so that may change. The Volt, of course, is already here, and has a 35-mile electric-only range per the EPA. But the point is that regardless of how far your daily commute takes you, the operating cost between the two is almost the same, because the Volt's electric efficiency is almost the same in dollars (at $3/gallon for gas, $0.15/kwh for electricity) as the Prius's gas efficiency.
And the projected price for the Prius is about $29,000, although that is almost sure to rise, and it won't get the $7500 federal tax credit the Volt does.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
It's kinda like when we were kids, like 10yrs old going up and down the street saying someones Chevy sucked....we didn't even know what we were talking about, we just did it....
Chrysler and Jeep have been getting a lot of press lately, but besides a new engine (as yet unproven) the cars seem to be the same mechanically. Let's see, Mopar tends to bring up the rear in quality and reliability surveys like CR and JD Powers. I'm thinking Lipstick on a Pig! Consistently lousy quality, yet Uncle bails them out. Couldn't have anything to do with the politically connected private equity group Cerberus now could it? Basically gave it away to Fiat, but the companies quality may have some similarities.
I sold my Ford Mustang at 225k miles. The repairs on it were water pump, carburetor, clutch, and regular maintenance; all inexpensive repairs.
When I drive long distance, I count the broken cars on the side of the freeway to keep me not bored. Most of the time there are slightly more Japanese cars than Americans. I saw 2 mid-2000 Camrys today.
It makes sense if you drive around 30 miles a day.
I you drive 100, buy an Elantra and have 15k left over to cover the extra gas.
I've noticed that more and more the last year or so. This time on the trip to Nashville it was really clearly there statistically.
Your Ford experience matches my experience with GMs through the years. Very little in the way of maintenance/repair cost. Lemko has the same kin of experience, perhaps better.
A neighbor buys cars from individuals and cleans them up and resells. He has had toyotas with problems the owners dumped. He has had a 4-cyl Camry with the typical head gasket failure and a water pump or radiator problem. He has had a Corolla a few years old sitting by his garage for almost two months. It hasn't moved. I haven't been over to ask what is the problem with it. He's been busy working since the divorce.
But bias aside, it seems like many have admitted: the US built GM and Ford have improved since 2000 and the mass market foreign brands have slipped. If someone wants to tell me the 1998 Camry has a likelihood of better longevity with less actual cost for maintenance and repairs I might believe that. The 1998 Camry is the prettiest of the Camrys. I think the styling is clean and on target, exactly what the required art course back in undergrad said about how a product should be like what it needs to be to serve its purpose.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I guess that means that we just made it all up and GM products were super duper great for all that time! :P
In reality, the Prius that ALREADY EXISTS will cost the same to fuel as the Volt, even if both are only going 30 miles in a day, the Volt's best-case scenario (and once again based on $3/gal for gas, $0.15/kwh for electricity).
If the Volt has to actually use its gas engine to make electricity, its "mpg" drops to 37, at which point it will start to use 1/3 MORE gas than the Prius. This is because its electric motor is so large, relatively speaking.
By contrast, the Prius' and Leaf's electric motors are 1/2-1/3 the size.
So the Volt makes sense if you are devoted to using almost no gas and you have a daily commute of less than 40 miles or so. It never makes sense from a dollars and cents POV, regardless of its purchase price. But like Prius, it is a great way to show off your green credentials and the latest technology in a very obvious way.
By the way, where you say "If you drive 100, buy an Elantra and have 15k left over to cover the extra gas.", you have made a bad assumption. You won't need the 15K to cover extra gas, the cost for the gas and the electricity that the Volt will use in such a commute is HIGHER than the Elantra's cost for gas alone. You will, in fact, save about $15K outright, with which you can buy something fun. :-)
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
But the problem is, if you do too many new models within a short time, there will come a time when there is a LULL for the next few years without or very few new models. And sales can easily stall or even fall then. Shareholders I believe prefer growth every year, not volatile earnings that rise and fall like a yoyo.
I remember someone at Nissan said to prevent this, they will try to spread out the launches of new cars more evenly. Because developing new models is expensive and few car makers can churn out many new models every year consecutively without burning a hole in their pocket.
Like I said before, if you drive more, buy something cheap that gets good fuel mileage.
Of course businesses all are profit oriented, but hey, the others have much more scruples and decency than toyota. Why do you think Jim Press agreed to work with Nissan ? If Nissan, Honda, Hyundai etc. is similar to toyota in their business ways, Jim will be stupid to leave his high rank, high paying job. Why jump ship to another with a similarly brutal captain ? Whats the difference ?
But of course Jim is not stupid. He has worked for a long time in the automotive industry. I believe he knew quite a lot abt how things are done at other automakers. That culminates in his leaving toyota. He KNEW toyota is headed in the wrong direction. Enough is enough. The only thing delaying his departure is the fact that he has reached a high rank and paid well. Mind you, its not a small thing to leave when you are already a top gun in toyota USA.
The point that all of us should bear in mind is this folks : Saying the others are similar to toyota is like saying most mutual fund managers are similar to Madoff. Gosh ! Of course thats NOT true !!!
Fro example, Warren Buffett, though he has his critics, is a far cry from Madoff ! After all, he has a legendary reputation for decades, he makes a lot of money for his fellow shareholders, he paid his fair share of taxes, he and Bill Gates have given away lots of money for charity,
And how many super rich people you know said " Raise my taxes ! If the government needs more money, it makes more sense to get it from people like me rather than from the waiter who served you today ! "
Find me just a few stories that show Nissan, Honda, Hyundai etc behaved similarly to toyota. I really want to know if they are really similar.....
Your old toyota may be well built, but the newer ones are an entirely different species.
Remember, top guns at corporations change. The guys in charge of toyota when they make your corolla may already be retired and now hurting when they see how the new generation of toyota top guns ruining the company they once worked for because of greed.
Once more, remember, AIG. Remember Lehman Brothers, the former toyotas of the finance industry.
The only constant in todays world is CHANGE. There is absolutely no guarantee that a company that makes good products for you yesterday will keep doing that for you tomorrow....Especially when there is a change of guard.
Katsuaki Watanabe was in power not too long ago. But he has made so much money for toyota that even today, after many people criticized him, no one at toyota dared to remove him from power. Even akio toyoda still have to reckon with his power.
You don't go to such troubles if you don't admire the company. And have Berkshire Hathaway ever got the same kind of bad publicity as toyota got recently ? Of course not !
How about Hyundai, Nissan, Honda ? These 3 combined are bigger than toyota mind you. It might be easier to bash these 3 instead of toyota alone to give the domestics a chance....But you don't do that because those 3 did nothing wrong.
And I knew some much smaller companies in other industries that behave like morons, but I won't discuss it here.
The fact is, most people will bash the bad guys, regardless of their size. After all, size is not an indication of the integrity and decency of any guy / business.
I think basically Americans have the brainpower to make good gadgets. I find it hard to believe that Americans can build such good airplanes like Boeings, yet not able to build good simpler things like CARS ???
Is there a Boeing equivalent in Japan ? Is there a Joeing ?
And I have said it before, the Chinese are not stupid. They won't be buying so many American cars in China if they break down much more frequently than Japanese cars. There are a lot of rich people in China today, and they WON'T want to own and drive big expensive American cars if they are that lousy. Buick is a block buster in China !
And don't say its because they don't like the Japanese. Nissan is very big in China. Bigger than toyota and Honda. And having driven several Nissans for years, I understand how they got to be so big in China.
The way I see it, in the USA, toyota's quality is way overblown, overrated, Nissan's is underestimated, and Americans have read too many JD Power, CRs to say American cars are junk.
Remember, there is NO way to find out the honesty and accuracy of those JD Power / CR ratings.
There was definitely something there with GM and now Toyota has seem to caught a little bit of it!
Changing of the guard often results in drastic changes in a company, for better of worse. Nissan, remember, almost went into bankruptcy in 1999, but a total change of guard turns the company around. And today they are on the right track for more sustainable growth, and already scoring great points in China, the world's new biggest car market.
Give GM a chance. So long as they are doing the right thing now, its not fair to judge them because previous generations of GM top brass screwed up.
Same for toyota. They perhaps under previous generations of managers did a good job, but unfortunately, its obvious that today's toyota cannot be trusted.
To regain my trust even one tiny bit, at least Katsuaki Watanabe must, like Rick Wagoner, be " relieved of his command ". But unfortunately, even akio toyoda is scared of him and his fellow "pirates" as Jim Press puts it bluntly.
Great example is the 1st Gen CVT Nissan introduced. It has had a lot of problems and quirks with it, not surprising since any mass market new technology by a manufacturer is going to have them, but Nissan for many years would not admit their was a problem and people where getting $6-9k repair builds on Nissan models having their transmissions blowing between 30-100k miles on them. Nissan would not pay for the repairs and people were stuck out of pocket. It wasn't until the threat of massive widespread class action lawsuits that Nissan caved, admitted their was problems and agree to extend the warranty of the CVT and its components to 10yrs/120k. But they only admitted it after years of lies and deception.
They finally were forced to take responsibility and step up to the plate. But unfortunately, their are still people with 1G Murano's and 4G Altima's that had their 1G CVT blow before the warranty extensions and having a job getting Nissan to reimburse them the thousands of dollars they had to put out of pocket for CVT replacement. Luckily, the 2G CVT since 2009 has been much less problem littered and so far, mine has gone really smoothly. I still can't believe the mpg I get out of 290HP sometimes.
The old automatic transmission with Honda pre 2004 was a major issue that company had with not admitting their was a problem and stepping out and helping people with blown and problem filled transmissions. Luckily, since 2004, Honda has not had transmission problems. Hopefully their new 6spd auto that is slowly being introduced across the line-up will not be a repeat of history.
My point is, no manufacture is guilt free about hiding things from the public and widespread quality or reliability issues. BMW right now has had some decent issues with the new 5-Series for instance but it just doesn't get attention. Toyota, GM, and Ford get more press since their operations and sales are so much larger still than the other manufacturers.
Luckily for us, the Toyota fiasco a year ago, I think has really slapped the face of ALL the manufacturers that this stuff cannot happen. Everyone has gotten recall happy since and I always see recalls on the news now for the American, Japanese, German, and Korean makes. It is only good for us consumers with what happen to Toyota that from now on, safety concerns will be addressed quickly and efficiently with recall notices.
I want a car that can go high miles and long years. Some people with these 50-mile commutes one-way can rack up the miles pretty quickly. My commute is much shorter and I want the car to last a long, long time. I live in the city and 200K miles can take a long time and be pretty tough on a car.
Let me get this straight. You slept with the parts guys wife then ran over his dog with your Fifth Avenue trying to get away. :shades:
Have a wonderful Philadelphia Christmas. May the city of brotherly love be that to you and yours.
GM: Winning record at 10-0
Ford: 2-2
Chrysler: 1-0
Americans also make awesome firearms! I'm a big fan of Smith & Wesson revolvers. Henry Leland of Cadillac fame learned precision standardized parts making from America's firearms manufacturers in the early 20th Century.
Why couldn't they get that right?
I think you missed the point - the article was about Subaru Navi, not Toyota.
I'll let Gary fill you in on his Toyota OEM Nav woes...
Why do you care who runs out of gas? LOL
Call AAA for them. If you don't stop, you really have no idea what the problem was, much less if something broke.
http://businesscenter.jdpower.com/news/pressrelease.aspx?ID=2010221