The Big 3 Continue to Fall

A local car dealer was in a couple weeks ago to cut commericals (Caddy and Jag). They are selling Escalades for $2-thousand under COST and giving away gas cards on top of it....still can't move em

 

Maybe the congressional gifts to the oil companies could retool the auto industry instead - once and for all. Like it should have done for itself over the past 20 years.

 

So, the big unions have nothing to do with the imminent failure of the Big 3?

Really?

 

Chrysler is in the worst shape of the three, by far. Ford and GM aren't exactly doing well, but there are signs of life -- both companies have been changing how they do business, and the fruits of that labor is starting to show up on the showroom floor. Chrysler is not only in a bad financial situation but is also making some hugely uncompetitive vehicles.

Another group that deserves some blame is the American buying public. It's worth noting that the Big Three were making all of those gas-guzzling trucks, SUVs, etc., and ignoring smaller, more efficient vehicles because they were selling what people were buying, and at huge profit margins.

 

Sorry 3-B. Back when those Big 3 were rolling in dough, the union wages couldn't be further from their mind. Sadly, a good product was also further from their mind.

GM is there, but the European cars still take in the money. VW was there first, sort of.

Chrysler tried to be first in the Chinese market. They spent money. They setup factories. Then China booted them out when VW came in with a better offer. It is a very interesting story on the Chinese market and how Chrysler was completely fucked over.

The problems began decades ago. The engineers were given major salaries despite having smaller degrees. If you check the qualifications of the engineers for the auto industry versus that of aerospace you see quite a start difference. It also wasn't a matter of pay, since the auto industry was paying quite well.

 

There are several pieces of the FAIL! pie to go around when it comes to the Big 3.

Unions certainly played a role, not as much as a lack of innovation or the reliance on cheap oil or poor executive leadership. But they get a slice of the pie.

 

I don't hate my Escape, but I've had too many problems to recommend it to anyone else.

And as much as anything, the Big 3 are getting hammered by health care costs.

 

I don't disagree. The unions definitely contributed but they didn't start the ball rolling.

Remember, the Big 3 needed to be bailed out in the early '80s. High tariffs on imports were put in place to protect them. This gave them over 10-years to innovate, create and come up with a truly competitive product.

The best they could come up with was renewing the Mustang and Charger while putting out behemoths like the H2. This is some serious laziness.

 

Can someone explain to me why the MPG of a Cadillac Deville hasn't improved in 14 years. I had a 94 Deville eight years ago that got 17-25. I looked online and the new DTS gets 17-24. WTF? You've gone through three incarnations of the Northstar engine in this big bitch and not once addressed fuel economy?

 

You can't exactly work on a farm with a Prius. A lot of people still need trucks, whether you like their commercials or not.

 

The vehicles I've owned, in order:
Ford. Engine gave up.
LeMans. Axle cracked.
Pinto: Engine caught fire.
Nissan: Ran until I sold it to a family member who needed a car, and I bought up.
Toyota: Still running fine, no problems.

They'll pry Japanese steering wheels from my cold, dead fingers unless I see absolute convincing proof that, with apologies to the Chevy I never owned, they can outperform the Japanese versions.

 

I'll get your back on the Chevy, ScribeP.

First car I ever owned: '79 Ford Mustang. Describing this as a piece of shit is an insult to everyone's excretory system.

Put a heavy-bodied car with a 2.3-liter, 4 cyl engine -- meaning that Fred Flintstone's car had better pick-up than this -- add a penchant to blow out starters and other assorted maladies and you have one of the worst cars ever to emerge from a Detroit line.

Second car: Nissan 200-SX. Great car that I only had to replace one starter, the brakes and the tires. Drove it until I totaled it when someone turned on a red light in front of me.

Third car: my wife's old Chevy Cavalier Z-24. With my wife four months pregnant, this car caught on fire one day on the 5 Freeway, 50 miles from home. Why? Who the hell knows?

On top of that, it had electrical issues that the dealer couldn't fix. I would be driving down the road and all of a sudden, the car would sputter and die. This happened, oh, about 6-7 times, enough to burn up my AAA towing allotment for the year twice over.

And nobody could ever figure out why.

On top of this, my wife had a Chevy Lumina that needed an entire new ENGINE inside of 60,000 miles.

Fourth car: Nissan Altima. Drove that for five years and 209,000 miles. Except for a catalytic converter issue and alignment problems that forced me to go through tires quicker than normal, this car ran like a dream.

Fifth car: Nissan Murano. Best car I've ever owned. Easy to drive and reliable.

I'll be buying Nissans for the rest of my life.