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Somehow, bean counters that run the companies wouldn't agree with you. Do you seriously think Chrysler is enjoying leading the pack selling cars to rental companies as opposed to individual buyers? Why would GM sell Chevrolet Classic exclusively to rental and "protect" Malibu name? (although that hasn't worked either). Ford is desperately trying to move away from fleet sales, don't tell me that company isn't.
We don't need the Japanese to teach us how to build high mileage cars.
I hope so, if Aveo could be used as an example.
I just don't understand the stigma. I looked for an Accord to rent years ago when I was interested in buying one. When I did not see any for rent I figured it was because they were not reliable.
I can honestly tell you I have never seen an Aveo. If I did it did not register.
Think for a minute here. The Camry is the number one selling car. Do you know how big that car is? It is bigger than my wife's LS400 Lexus. People don't want no stinking little cars in the US of America. The number two Corolla is bigger than the Camry was just a few years ago. PEOPLE WANT BIG POWERFUL CARS. Hopefully they get decent mileage.
Absolutely not. I applaud you for trying to save fuel. That is not the issue. We are stuck buying foreign oil NO WAY AROUND THAT FACT. I would love to save on fuel by using diesel. The powers that be are not interested in saving fuel. They do most everything they can to keep the status quo(taxes flowing).
I am trying my best to keep what little money I have circulating in this country. I try to buy local grown produce and meat. I don't buy anymore processed food than is necessary. I will probably not buy any more new cars as I hate the looks of most of them. I will probably buy used to keep them from rusting on a lot somewhere. Every new car built represents a significant amount of pollution. The real culprits are those people that buy a new car every three years. That is whether it is American, Japanese or made in Bangladesh.
I just don't understand the stigma. I looked for an Accord to rent years ago when I was interested in buying one. When I did not see any for rent I figured it was because they were not reliable.
You may not, but the rest of the world certainly seems to but less so than the bean counters who work towards cutting down fleet sales, not adding to them. When was the last time you heard a top exec brag about ruling fleet sales? Why did GM decide to differentiate between "Classic" (the "rental fleet special") and Malibu (when the new version was launched)? I doubt it was for the fact that they figured the new Malibu wasn't as reliable as the "Classic", is it?
When Ford launched Focus, Escort was relegated to fleet duties. Think Ford wants to push Fusion into rental fleets, to replace the Taurus?
"Detroit-based General Motors Corp., which saw its fleet sales drop for the month as it works to cut low-profit sales to rental car companies... Ford Motor Co.'s sales of 263,684 light vehicles included 174,200 trucks, down 5.9 percent from the same month a year ago, and 89,484 cars, down 14.6 percent. The drop comes as Dearborn-based Ford also works to reduce fleet sales."
PS
I have never had a conversation with a top executive from an automaker. Only the oil companies.
A bit off-topic, but an interesting take on California's energy efforts at the BBC today.
As for the rental companies that buy these cars for you, they actually consider Corolla to be an upgrade over, say, a Focus or Cobalt. So, it seems they know which cars people prefer to rent. Would it be the one that commands a premium?
You can't honestly believe that can you? If you actually do then your world view is more warped then I thought. Honda does not sell cars to rental agencies in mass. I used to run a shop that had a contract with a local independent rental agency. Randomly they would get a Honda but not very often because Honda discouraged sales to rental companies. Honda knows that this is not a profitable practice and they don't need to prop up the sales numbers of unpopular products by forcing them into rental fleets.
That rental company had a great mix of cars. The big cars they had were normaly Lincoln Town cars and Kia Amantis. Their midsized cars were a stranger mix. You had Nissan Maximas rarely but mostly Nissan Altimas and Taruses. Their flagship office was right next to a Chevy dealer but they never had GM products.
Their small cars were mostly little Kias but sometimes they had Neons or Mazda Protege sedans and five doors. The Proteges were by far the best small car they had. Most of their sporty cars were Miatas or RX-8s but sometimes they got a 350Z.
I guess your view is warped from renting cars all that time but rental SALES ARE BAD. They don't make profit which is what really matters. Who cars how many cars you are selling if thirty, forty or fifty percent go to fleet/rental sales where there is almost no profit.
Do the research on the VALUE of the product to YOU the buyer, and if the product meets your needs and budget, BUY IT regardless of where it came from.
Expending a lot of energy worrying about into whose pocket the money lands is far less important than getting good value for YOUR hard-earned money.
My view may be warped. I think that people that rent cars on a regular basis are more interested in a reliable car than you may think. I have had great luck with GM cars over the years. When Hertz could no longer get the Ford T-Bird I switched car rental agencies. I mostly rent from Alamo which carry the very reliable GM products.
Honda lost a sale in 1986 by not having any available for my 3 week rental. I even tried the Honda dealers here in San Diego to rent one. After my experience with the 1978 Accord I sure was not going to buy another Honda without a few weeks test drive.
You left out one important factor. If the Big 3 are tied to Union contracts that pay people whether they are sitting in a rubber room or building cars. I would think the latter would be preferable even if they have to sell the cars at a very low margin of profit to a rental.
I have a question for all you folks that think this is a situation unique to the USA. What cars get dumped into the rental fleet in Japan & the EU? I would bet it is not GM cars in Japan.
That is precisely what I try to do. Over the last 43 years of buying new cars Ford and GM have given me very reliable service. While Toyota, Honda, Subaru and Nissan have NOT. For me buying American name quality paid off. Trying to save money with cheap Japanese imports, cost me more than I saved.
That's a completely outdated phrase. Just as the fact that "Japanese cars are inferior to American cars" has become an outdated phrase.
Oh, as all we old-timers know, there WAS a time when Japanese imports were crappy cars.
But those days have LONG been gone.
There is no linear relationship between geography and quality.
Any car from any country can turn out to be the best or worst car you have ever owned.
Honda is not worried about losing a handful of sales a year to people who won't buy a car if they can't rent it. They will not make en mass sales to rental companies. Some Toyota dealerships rent out their cars and I bet some Honda dealers do the same.
You left out one important factor. If the Big 3 are tied to Union contracts that pay people whether they are sitting in a rubber room or building cars. I would think the latter would be preferable even if they have to sell the cars at a very low margin of profit to a rental.
That is exactly why they did it because they needed to keep the factories moving. The problem was that all those cars going to rental fleets crushed resale value and reliability ratings. Cars coming off of rental service are sometimes abused so when someone buys an ex-rental used it can sometimes be a problem car. The rental agency I worked with took good care of their cars. They did an oil change every 3,750 miles and rotated cars out of service around 15,000-18,000 miles. Not every rental company does that though.
Better off for GM, Ford and Chrysler to build good cars actually retail customers want to buy so that they don't have to sell so many to fleets but keep production numbers up. Let the Koreans take over the majority of the rental market.
I have a question for all you folks that think this is a situation unique to the USA. What cars get dumped into the rental fleet in Japan & the EU? I would bet it is not GM cars in Japan.
I don't think there is much of a rental market in Japan. When my roommate was over there with his brother a few years ago driving was incredibly expensive. They were just trying to go from Tokyo to another city about 60 miles to the north and it cost them over 50 dollars IN TOLLS alone. I don't remember how much he said gas was then but it was a couple bucks a liter.
In the EU you can rent pretty much any car you want. I know people that have rented various VWs in germany and Vauxhaulls in the UK. I know both Mercedes and BMW make down market cars with cloth interiors, roll up windows and such for their domestic markets that are used as rental vehicles and police vehicles. I can't find any rental numbers like for the US in Europe though.
http://www.gmeurope.com/social_media/2007/news_070109.html
There is another article on GM reducing fleet sales in Europe.
The Focus is likely to have more horsepower than many of your old trucks (I know it has more horsepower than my 205/6 Nova and my 305/V8 Caprice did). I understand you are from a different time and place than most consumers today, I think my grandparents were like that too.
The dumping wasn't so much a problem in those days. What happened was the domestics signed sweetheart contracts with the UAW, then woke up one day in the '90s and realized they were stuck building more cars than their dealers could sell. So, the excess production was shunted into the fleet business.
Rental agencies being cheap SOBs, lowballed the bids and bought the absolutely cheapest cars they could get, then disgorged them on the used market. This destroyed the resale value for people who bought new, and cheapened the image of the cars in general since most of the rental cars were bottom-barrel strippers. It also clobbered the domestics' finances since they were losing money on the rental sales to avoid losing even more money on the UAW contracts.
LOL...
Indeed. Gagrice needs to join the 21st century.
Well, that motivation is driving people to buy Honda and Toyota products.
I think they have a good shot at longevity with the ones built in the 1990s. Not so sure about the more recent models. Too many sensors, computer modules & gadgets to die. The replacement costs are very high.
So, are Honda and Toyota the only ones offerings more sensors, computer modules and gadgets? Or should we assume that Model T was more reliable than these modern techno-laden cars from Honda and Toyota?
As far as rentals go, the market is far bigger than just you. So rental companies look for the cheapest bidder to meet their needs for a variety of customers.
They will get some "premium" models too, to satisfy those who are willing to pay more for an upgrade. This happened to me while picking up a car from Alamo last year. I had a Fusion ("or similar") booked for a road trip. At the desk, I was offered to upgrade to Accord for an additional $10/day. I declined the offer since I already drive an Accord and was looking to experience something new. But it was a surprise to me, since this was the first time ever I personally had a chance to rent an Accord (I had stories, never experienced it).
Some cars have been darling of the rental car world. Lately, Impala is one of them. Whatever the reason, I see no reason GM would be proud to move more than half of its production via fleet sales when they are desperately trying a reduction.
That is one of my major reasons for not owning a small car. If I was in the EU where the bulk of the vehicles were smaller, no problem. I tell you that about every 5th vehicle around here is a lifted PU or SUV. I don't consider them safe either. I feel rather small in my little 1/2 ton PU truck. I fear for my life in a small car. I refuse to start the ball rolling. The younger generation is going to have that responsibility. From what I see they are the ones in the big SUVs and lifted PU trucks with the 22" wheels. A Hummer2 is like a mid sized vehicle in the Suburbs of CA.
I'll take an Audi A3 head on with a Hyundai Azera anyday.
Lets do a head on crash at 40 MPH each and the one with less injuries (or the one that survives) get's all the other person's money and assets
Any takers?
And speaking of trucks, Dallas area generally sees couple of icy stretches during winter. It doesn't surprise me to see 80% of vehicles off the road (probably the only time they see off road action) or bottoms up on the side are trucks.
That said, it is always nice to pull up to a gas pump and see someone ahead of me having shelled out $92.51 for a fill up. It helps me feel better about having to spend only $40.
Series I Land Rover Discovery VS a Renault Espace.
The Disco has a lot more weight, a fully boxed frame and aluminium body panels vs the Espace's light weight unibody, plastic body panels and more advanced chassis.
You would think the Discos fully boxed frame and several hundred additonal pounds of mass would shred the lighter unibody of the Renault.
Watch the video and see.
Disco VS Renault
Another satisfied GM customer! I love GM - just can't afford to trade one in when I want something newer.
GM has finally discovered that you can't cover all your union benefits by MASS producing your cars just to get the $ cost per Unit down to compete with Toyota (option for option).
But your are right on about Chryslers.
Coming up, we are taking a trip that will require seating for 7. We are planning to rent a minivan for the trip, since we don't need that much capacity very often (aside from my teasing her), and we like the fuel economy and easy of piloting a smaller vehicle.
One of our vehicles is currently due for replacement and the Focus, Mazda3 and Mazda6 (likely used vehicles) are currently front runners (although I would really like the Subaru Impreza WRX, but that vehicle is too $$$ right now).
Back to "buying American."
Can anyone tell me why "buying American" is important at all in the vehicle market?
I can see how it USED to be important - 35 years ago. But now? Why DOES it matter at all?
In fact, I have seen GM boards where people WANT Buick to import some models from China. I guess it is perfectly fine to import a completely "alien" model as long as it wears a badge representing an office in Detroit.
gagrice, those days are long gone when Japanese automakers competed by being inexpensive. The sides have been exchanged. It is Ford, Chrysler and GM who look up to Honda and Toyota and try to benchmark those two, not only in design, but blatantly in their advertisements.
After rental car experiences, I often come back wondering... "who in the world pays $25K for these cars?"
Why buy cars that are mostly USA content?
To protect our lifestyle in the USA. For every job lost, those that are working will be forced to chip in a bit more to cover the cost of our welfare state. For every dollar of gas tax lost we have to find money to fix the roads elsewhere.
That should be enough reasons not to buy an imported car. It is bad enough you cannot find a pair of shoes and a shirt made in the USA.
A- To protect our lifestyle in the USA.
Does that lifestyle include settling for an inferior product? Something that holds less value to you than what your hard earned money should command? Something that you're forced to buy as opposed to being free to spend money at the best commodity available out there.
That said, do you consider people who actually build these cars to be a part of the content? Or, do they not matter at all, and we might as well buy American branded stuff imported from Mexico and China?
How do you define "content"? 60% of sales weighted content in an average Honda/Acura is "domestic".
Wouldn't it be interesting to note that a 2003 Saturn Vue without Honda V6 is less "domestic" than the 2004 Saturn Vue with the Honda engine in it? Thats because Honda's V6 is "domestic", made right here in the USA, not the case with the GM engine it replaced.
Isn't it rather interesting to say that Honda Civic is 75% domestic compared to 60% for Chrysler PT Cruiser? But not, "buy American" is about chasing badges, not necessarily the reality.
I can do you one better.
I read an article in the late 1970s. A town insisted they only buy vehicles that were 100% USA made. It turned out the only vehicles that passed the 100% test were VW Rabbit PU trucks.
I do understand there is a lot of parts made elsewhere. For me, I look and try to determine if I am helping or hurting my fellow American when I buy any product. Some times you have no choice. I hear a lot of anti Middle East oil rhetoric. Most of those men and women in middle east oil production are American citizens working and paying US taxes. The same cannot be said for the auto workers in Japan, Germany and Korea.
PS
Every cargo ship in our harbors is spewing tons of pollution.
But then, "buy American" crowd seems to prefer to keep them off American soil. Then perhaps GM, Chrysler and Ford will start opening those dried up jobs here? Is that something you're envisioning?