Why are American Car Makers Hurting???

M

Mickmeister

Registered Senior Member
They are hurting partly because their service SUCKS! One of our vehicles is a Chevy Z-71. The truck is still pretty new, yet we've had so many problems already with little resolutions because GM, like all American car companies, cares only about the bottom line, profit. Foreign makers, I have owned both Mercedes-Benz and Infiniti cars, will address your issues appropriately with no more questions asked. Both cars had their fair share of problems, but at least their makers stand behind their warranties. Quality is another thing. I went back to American only because my wife likes to support American products... I bought her a new Pontiac. It has already had problems before the first 2400 miles. Hell, we even noticed a few weeks later where they had done shitty work in molding the side door panel. There were jags all down it when you looked at it from afar. As I told her tonight, I will never ever buy American made ever again. My next car will be either another Mercedes or an Infiniti. German and Japanese beat them by a mile. It will definitely be a good thing if the one analysts prediction comes true in the future that GM or Ford will have to sell out to a foreign maker such as Toyota. Then, maybe we can get quality control and get rid of the damn UAW that has caused so much of this.
 
They build shitty cars. They are forced to pass on the ridiculous expense of lavish retirement benefits of past workers on to current consumers. Foreign auto manufacturers don't suffer from the same handicap and are, therefore, able to (a) pass the savings on to the buyer and (b) invest a nice portion of those savings in R&D and quality control-- something that the "Big Three" haven't done significantly since the 1950's.

The "Big Three" can't fire bad and unproductive workers easily-- union rules stop them. My dad's a member of the UTU and, though he's a purebred union guy, he also hates how the union has lowered the bar of productivity and raised the bar for corporations who want to deal with that productivity in an effective manner. Union corporations cannot reward hard work and ingenuity by offering specific bonuses and productivity raises to specific individuals and/or groups-- the union demands equal pay for all workers. The Japanese owners of American based plants have no compunction about terminating a late, unproductive or negative employee because they aren't hobbled by cumbersome union contracts (and yet, in independent survey after independent survey showes that workers in Japanese owned auto plants are some of the best paid and happy workers in the USA-- odd, and all that without union protection-- though the Japanese have a serious passion for taking care of their employees that few American corporations have demonstrated without the formation of strong unions). Japanese manufacturers in the US are able to offer targeted bonuses for quality control and creativity to EXACT teams and individuals who deliver exceptional results. Other quality control measures that are of paramount importance is the right & obligation of any employee on the production line in a Japanese corporation to "stop" the process in the event of any flaw-- no matter how small-- in order to fix it. US corporations are obsessed with producing as many cars as possible (because of the large number of plants that have to be closed to save money-- which makes the workers work mandatory overtime in order to keep up with the demand). At present, the only American corporations that give the workers the right and obligation to hold up production for quality control is Saturn and a few luxury divisions.

Then there are the design bureaus of the "Big Three" which haven't had the foresight to see the oncoming fuel crisis-- which the Japanese & Korean manufacturers did.

All this has added up to, sadly, an anemic American auto industry.

~String
 
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I've had a Thunderbird, 1992 Supercoupe, for over 10 years and it gave me no serious problems and neither did my service department at the dealership. I then bought a 2002 Mercury Grand Marquis and it hasn't given me any problems since I've bought it either. I guess that goes to show that Ford, Lincoln Mercury are doing a much better job in trying to make a better product than GM and give better service as well.
 
cosmictraveler said:
I've had a Thunderbird, 1992 Supercoupe, for over 10 years and it gave me no serious problems and neither did my service department at the dealership. I then bought a 2002 Mercury Grand Marquis and it hasn't given me any problems since I've bought it either. I guess that goes to show that Ford, Lincoln Mercury are doing a much better job in trying to make a better product than GM and give better service as well.
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The problem is not quality, it's quality at a low cost. The Japanese, using lower labor costs, can produce better cars than the Americans who use higher labor costs. It's really as simple as that.

Americans could build far better cars than anyone on Earth, but due to the high labor costs, no one could afford to buy them!

Baron Max
 
You all are exactly right. The thing that really makes me mad also is the cost of American cars. It's not like it used to be when if you had a BMW or Mercedes that it was way above an American car. The price tags of American cars are almost in line with BMW, Infiniti, Mercedes, and etc. My truck only cost $2,000 less than the Mercedes did. People still have the mentality that if you own one of those cars, you're rich. It's just not true anymore with the jacked up prices that American vehicles. With that in mind, an American car gives 3/36,000 mile warranty. My Mercedes has a 4/50,000 and the Infiniti had a 5/60,000 mile. Their service was impeccable. I took my car into either dealer and I got a loaner. GM doesn't give you crap. Even when my warranties neared expiration, both Mercedes and Infiniti asked me of any problems, even the smallest, and they would fix it before the warranty ran out. GM never said anything like that to me on the Camaro I had 10 years ago. Why do they give such great service for vehicles, yet the American companies still lag far behind?
 
Baron Max said:
The problem is not quality, it's quality at a low cost. The Japanese, using lower labor costs, can produce better cars than the Americans who use higher labor costs. It's really as simple as that.

Americans could build far better cars than anyone on Earth, but due to the high labor costs, no one could afford to buy them!

Baron Max
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Really? How come Japanese cars made in the US can compete?
 
Mickmeister said:
Because they are not falling under the UAW and they set higher standards than American companies do.
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Actually if you would have read some analysis it is mostly because the Japanese invest in the technology of manufacturing cars.

I read an analysis on it about 1,5 years ago in one of these rightwing financial newspapers of US origin. Doubt anything has changed since then.
 
Baron Max said:
The problem is not quality, it's quality at a low cost. The Japanese, using lower labor costs, can produce better cars than the Americans who use higher labor costs. It's really as simple as that.

Americans could build far better cars than anyone on Earth, but due to the high labor costs, no one could afford to buy them!

Baron Max
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I'm sorry to tell you that the Ford cost about 17,000.00 and the Grand Marques was about 22,000.00 both fully loaded and came with 60,000 mile warranties covering everything. So now can you still make that type of comment now that you know more about the cars?
 
spuriousmonkey said:
Actually if you would have read some analysis it is mostly because the Japanese invest in the technology of manufacturing cars.

I read an analysis on it about 1,5 years ago in one of these rightwing financial newspapers of US origin. Doubt anything has changed since then.
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His post does not negate what you said, in fact, it supports it. The "Big Three" have less dollars to invest in R&D than Japanese do, because of rising labor costs and cumbersome union contracts-- we have a Ford Plant here in Cleveland that the corporation has been trying to close for the better part of a decade, but because the union contract prohibits them from closing the plant (otherwise there would be NO Ford plants in Cleveland) they are forced to keep a 40 year old factory open and pay the workers $27 per hour, AND because they can't build a new, more efficient plant, they have to run this rickety old thing day and night, putting out poor quality F-150s. Moreover, and this is just the stubbornness of the "Big Three", they failed to forsee any of the global developments which Honda, Toyota & Nissan (the three big innovators of Japanese corporations) did.

The "Big Three" aren't total iditiots: Currently Ford is the largets auto investor in South America and South Asia, and GM is the largest Russian & Chinese auto investor-- they see the demise of the American plant because of their inability to make them profitable. I don't know how much creedence to pay to this, but I've heard that at the current rate of factory closures, they'll be completely exited from the US market by 2025.

~String
 
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I don't know if they have less dollars to invest.

They have chosen to invest in silly things such as bringing out trucks that looks like cars (SUV).

While japanese manufacturers have kept their eye on the far future.

Of course that led to the demise of the American car manufacturers in the long run since their market is just to small for the modern global market. Sure the american market is the biggest individual market in the world, but the world is a big place.

I'm not disagreeing as such with you, I'm just going to point the finger to the short term future attitude.

European car manufacturers have high wage costs too. They do focus on quality. All of them. For a long time now.

The American manufacturers only have seen the light when they are about to be knocked down.

And despite that American cars have become cheap in Europe due to the dollar they still don't flood the European market, because american manufacturers are still producing mainly for the American market. That just doesn't fly in Europe. Japan is profiting from the European market, their own AND the American one by concentrating on building good cars.

The good car concept. That's the issue here. And long term focus.
 
Baron Max said:
The problem is not quality, it's quality at a low cost. The Japanese, using lower labor costs, can produce better cars than the Americans who use higher labor costs. It's really as simple as that.

Americans could build far better cars than anyone on Earth, but due to the high labor costs, no one could afford to buy them!

Baron Max
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posts like this make you it seem convincing you are a right-wing nutjob with it's head in the sand. it's disgusting and the world doesn't appreciate it.

Why is it americans would produce the best cars than anyone on EARTH?? Excuse me? Is there something special about 'american' workers? i don't think so. The bottomline is quality control, not who makes them.

My brother has an infiniti that has over 200 thousand miles. He bought it used at 80 thousand miles and he hasn't had to do anything to that car except change the oil and occasional upkeep. Fucking high quality makers, absolutely fuking excellent.
 
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peta9 said:
posts like this make you it seem convincing you are a right-wing nutjob with it's head in the sand. it's disgusting and the world doesn't appreciate it.
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Oh, I didn't realize you had been appointed the world's spokesperson concerning these issues. Good to know that the 'world' doesn't appreciate remarks like Baron's.
First off, peta, the United States could build the best cars on the planet. Unfortunately they don't.

Why is it americans would produce the best cars than anyone on EARTH?? Excuse me? Is there something special about 'american' workers? i don't think so. The bottomline is quality control, not who makes them.
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Secondly, it's not the workers, it's the unions. If you had taken the time to read the second paragraph of superstring's first post in this thread, you might have had a bit more insight before you made this post. In fact, I highly recommend reading it before you make any further posts in this thread.
 
spuriousmonkey said:
The unions are stronger in Europe. Doesn't stop them from competing.
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Does the unions in Europe prevent the auto manufacturers from dismissing a sub-par employee like they do here in the States too?

And in case you haven't noticed, Mercedes and VW's reliability has went down in the last few years.
 
spuriousmonkey said:
The unions are stronger in Europe. Doesn't stop them from competing.
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Yes it does. European cars haven't competed seriously in the US and Asia in over two decades. They still have quite a niche (and srinking) in the Luxury market and in the overall South American market-- but even that is being chipped away by Japanese manufacturers.

spuriousmonkey said:
No, didn't notice. Mercedes' quality went down at least ten years ago or more.
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It's sad-- they should have NEVER merged with Chrysler. It was good for Chrysler, but horrible for DaimlerBenz. They are smart to be exiting out of that alliance.

Though I have spent a lot of time bashing the American auto industry, I will say, that they are extremely intelligent for their investments in the Asian markets. Like Wal-Mart, GE and Motorola-- they outspend any other comparable corporation in their investment in that market. Ford and GM especially are investing in that market with full knowledge of what Wal-Mart, GE and Motorola know-- it will be China and India that decide who lives and dies in the global economic stage and not Europe and the USA. It's sad that outside Volkswagen, no other European auto manufacturer has realized that (though, from their recent teaming up with Japanese firms, that may be changing too).

~String
 
mikenostic said:
VW's reliability has went down in the last few years.
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I've noticed this as well, I have a 2005 VW "Jetta," it's very well built and very safe for crashes but lacks reliability in the engine. I've had it for two years, but already have had engine maintenance on it four times. My suggestion for the next car you buy, get a manual transmittion, it's better for the engine.
 
My 2002 Mercury Grand Marques hasn't had a bit of trouble in 6 years now. I've just had it in for regular servicing. I'm going to keep it 10 years or so and the way its going, no repairs, I'll be getting my monies worth out of it.
 
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