Import owners are to blame for the recession

You are right.

That is what customers do they buy cars that have the best track
record and best quality and they do not want to be taken in the behind
by GM forever

 

The Japanese started just after WWII ended. Ford was one of the
companies that spurned his ideas back then and for decades. They were
30 years behind the Japanese, joining a program that only pays off
long term. (But way ahead of GM, who still doesn't get it).

I think you are may be the key point. TQM pays off long term through
customer loyalty developed through quality products. Because of
quality issues like the one you mentioned, Ford still has some ways to
go before they develop that quality based loyalty (regardless of what
they produce today). It's not like you hear people saying "GM and
Chrysler are producing junk, but Fords are top shelf!". Until you
mature into that position, you lose against the Japanese as they
already sit in that spot in people's minds.

 

This is exactly why they are dead today.
Took amazingly long time but it is good fun to see them fall now
because of their stupid arrogance

 

I guess it depends on what you mean by major. I ran into an issue when
I picked up a new Honda Accord in 1990 (November, so it was a new
model.) I couldn't get the gas to go in except at a very low rate no
matter what I did so I took it back to the dealer after a few weeks
because it was taking at least 10 minutes to do a fill up.

They had the car for about a month as they had to send the gas tank
and the associated hoses back to Japan and get a new one for me. What
had happened is that there is a hose that goes from the gas cap to the
gas tank to carry the gas, along with an outer flexible housing to
protect the gas hose. The problem is that somehow the inner hose has
collapsed so that gas was barely able to enter the gas tank. The
dealer said that they had never seen such a thing before which is why
the factory wanted to see it.

The problem didn't stop me from using the car but having to go without
my new car for a few weeks was very annoying.

 

There was a time when Jap was synonymous with crap. My dad almost didn't
buy our first Toyota. We were so poor that we had to buy used, and in the
market we were in, it came down to a choice between a used Carina and a
Dodge 225 slant 6 that had been in a wreck. But he grew up in the era where
Jap was synonoumous with crap. So Mom and him checked the Carina out pretty
thouroughly and they were very impressed with the quality. Americans have
got used to the Detroit 3 thinking short-sightedly. They're still wary that
even though the initial quailty looks better than it used to, that it's not
going to last.

And what's worse, walking into most American dealerships, most buyers feel
like they ought to be wearing a full body condom anyway. Dealers are going
to steer them to packages they don't really want. I had a dealer try to
steer me from the 4 cylinder manual up to the V6 on the S-10 I bouight. I
could just barely afford the 10 grand for the 4. The way he was 'stacking'
options, it would have cost me 20 grand..

Sir Charles the Curmudgeon

 

General Motors Corp. had its stock reduced to “underperform” by Credit
Suisse Group AG on concern that concessions to win a U.S. bailout will
mean the “complete or near-complete elimination” of existing GM
equity.

The 12-month price target on GM, the largest U.S. automaker, was cut
in half to $1 today by Christopher Ceraso, a Credit Suisse analyst in
New York. Ceraso previously rated GM shares “neutral.”

Ceraso’s report comes three days after President George W. Bush’s
announcement that Detroit-based GM and Chrysler LLC will get $13.4
billion in emergency loans in exchange for substantially restructuring
their businesses.

“Over the next two months, as bondholders, union representatives and
company management meet to hammer out concessions, we think it will
become increasingly clear that the enormous sacrifice of value on the
part of the union and bondholders will require the complete or near-
complete elimination of the existing GM equity,” Ceraso wrote.

Additionally, the U.S. government will claim as much as 20 percent of
GM’s equity value, Ceraso said.

Itay Michaeli, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc., widened
his full-year loss estimate for GM to $29.09 a share from $28.92. GM
will post losses of $26.46 a share next year and probably go bancrupt,
Michaeli said in a note to clients.

GM fell 50 cents, or 11 percent, to $3.99 at 9:50 a.m. in New York
Stock Exchange composite trading. Before today, the stock lost 82
percent this year.

 

DUH You are WRONG, again Why do you keep talking so stupid? Ford did
not take federal loans and Toyota sales have been dropping at a greater rate
than Ford sales. F150 sales are up and Tundra sales are in the dumper
LOL

This is exactly why they are dead today.
Took amazingly long time but it is good fun to see them fall now
because of their stupid arrogance

 

Bullshit. He can't "steer" you to anything you aren't showing interest in.
You're just pissed because you couldn't afford what you really wanted.

 

Bullshit. The dealer wasn't smart enough to present something above the 10
grand I was willing to spend. The only option between the 10 and 20 was 11
grand, which means I would have gotten an automatic with the 4 cylinder
engine, is all. I guess he thought he could hook me for 20 grand. He
thought wrong. There was nothing inbetween. If you got the short cab, you
got it with the 4. If you wanted a V-6, you had to buy the extended cab,
and a bunch of other options. I might have been interested in a V-6 if the
upgrade hadn't been such a big jump. Frankly the V-6 options on the S-10
weren't that good that year anyway. The smallest V-6 was twice the size of
the 4 and there was no 'intermediate' size engine choice. The 'twice as
big' V-6 only had a little more horsepower than the 4, too.

And I remembered something about the S-10 that I forgot. If you left the
dome light on for 8 hours, your battery was dead, especially in winter. I
had to get it jumped once because of that feature.

Sir Charles the Curmudgeon
Never again an American piece of crap.

 

So what is it? He tried to steer you where you didn't want to go, or he
wasn't smart enough to present something above the 10 grand you were
willing to spend?

 

If you're stupid enough to leave the lights on (any of them) when you leave
the vehicle, you get what you deserve. And, in this case, you deserve a dead
battery. Thank God no ricer EVER had a battery die from the lights being
left on. The Japanese economy would be in the boat with us. Oh wait, it
pretty much is. . .

 

Yes, to both. He tried to steer me to the 20 grand truck, and when I
wouldn't go for it, he didn't try to hook me for anything over the 10 grand
truck I eventually got. He did try to hook me for a prior year S-10 he
had stuck on the lot, but the color was definitely off-putting. It was what
our family refers to as "pussy purple". In order to drive it, I would have
needed wide white wall tires, a loud purple suit to match and a 'pimping'
hat. Either that or I would have had to drive it in drag all the time.

It's bad enough my current (purchased used) Corolla is a combination of blue
and lavender, mostly blue. But almost no one else notices. And in the
used car market, beggars can't be choosers. Right now I can't really afford
a brand new car.

Sir Charles the Curmudgeon

 

The 4.3 V6 was NOT a great upgrade over the Iron Duke based 4 (2.5
litre at that point, I believe)

 

In 1995 there were 3 engine choices.

2.2 litre (134 ci, not even as big as the old Iron Duke 4 in the old Chevy
II's and the panel vans in the 60's) 122 hp.

4.3 litre V6 (262 ci) 154 hp

4.3 liter Vortech 192? hp



It only got a little more than 40 more horsepower and between the
horsepower, the gearing and the extra weight, it got poorer gas mileage and
I don't see where it would perform any better. So if I'd have spent the
$10,000 more, what would I have got for my money?

A longer cab.
A nicer trim package (big deal)
An automatic transmission (I really wanted a manual anyway.)

I can't see where it would have been worth my while in 1994 to spend that
kind of money to get that poor of a return. That is part of the reason GM
expecially is in such deep doo-doo. Despite the fact they build Toyota
Corollas at the GM Freemont plant right alongside Geo Prisms (now Chevy
Prisms, I think) a lot of that knowledge didn't percolate up to the levels
that make a long-term difference in a company.

Fazda had a good 4 cylinder extended cab for 13,6 that year. (It said Mazda
on the outside, but the dealers always had to look up the parts in the Ford
catalogue for some reason, so we refered to it as a Fazda.) I know a guy
that bought the 4000 'Ranger' that year, and between the reving and the
gearing, it actually got as good a mileage, driven conservatively as the
2300 driven with a heavy foot. And I think even the 4000 sold for under
20,000 unless you really loaded it up. I was avoiding Fazda that year
because of the parts problem. Some of the dealers used the wrong parts or
didn't bother to check that they were using the catologue for that month
(i.e. up thru the previous month of the model year, different parts were
used.)

Sir Charles the Curmudgeon

 

The market cap of Ford and GM is about $8 billion, *combined*. The
market cap of Toyota is over $90 billion.

What does that tell you?

Jeff

 

Mike, you are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to
your own facts.

"Sales of the F-150 pickup trucks, including the F-Series Super Duty
trucks made at Kentucky Truck Plant, also continued to slide in
November.

Ford sold 37,911 units, down 18.6 percent from November 2007, when it
sold 46,568 units. That is an 18.6 percent decline. Ford combines
F-150 truck sales with Super Duty sales for reporting purposes."

http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2008/12/01/daily22.html

Maybe Toyota will buy the pickup business from Ford and Jeep from
Chrysler. I can't even think of anything GM owns that Toyota or Honda
would want. The rest of the US auto industry is worth less than the
inventory rotting on dealer lots.

 

What I'm telling you is one third of Toyotas worldwide sales are in the US
and the greatest portion of its income is generated in the US. Toyota sales
are off more than Ford although Toyota will likely outsell GM worldwide, by
a few hundred thousand vehicles, when 2008 totals are released.

The Japanese economy is in far worse shape than the US or even Europe for
that matter. The Japanese government can no long keep the Yen under valued
and it will rise rapidly against the dollar. The interest rate in Japan is
at ZERO and has been for years. The only answer for their government is to
cut costs The Japanese government will no longer be able to continue to
subsides their industries and Toyota will begin to operate at a loss.

I'll bet it will start in the first quarter of '09 and you will see Toyota
laying off full time employees not only the hundreds of 'contract' employees
they have been laying off. I also believe the Tundra plant will be closed
or converted to build hybrids. The Tundra was Toyotas biggest mistake

The market cap of Ford and GM is about $8 billion, *combined*. The
market cap of Toyota is over $90 billion.

What does that tell you?

Jeff

 

Wow, what an awful feature. Who would've thought that leaving the interior
lights on for several hours would kill the battery? I think I found the
problem. Chuck, you are a fucking idiot. Please keep your Toyota. I feel
better driving a GM knowing you aren't.

 

Dear 80 Kni-got

I have left my dome light on for a full 8 hours several times including
during the winter, with my various Toyotas and haven't come close to killing
the battery. Haven't done it often, but I did it for the first time in 3
years the other day. I used to do it much more on my S-10 because of the
way the seatbelt retracted. I would leave the vehicle in a hurry and the
door would be blocked from closing all the way. If I was in a hurry to
catch a train, which I usually was in those days, I wouldn't have time to
check it, because I'd be running for the train.

80 Kni-got, you are the idiot, buying second-rate American goods. By the
way, your mother was a hamster and your father reeked of elderberries.

Now go away, or I will taunt you a second time. You son of a silly person.
I fart in your general direction.

Sir Charles the Curmudgeon.

 

Leaving the dome light on *SHOULD NOT* prevent the car from starting,
unless there was a problem with the battery itself. Since batteries
aren't manufactured by carmakers, GM is not to blame.