US car owners happier with imports

prizrak said:
They have a huge outstanding debt from failing to acquire VAG. So I dunno.....
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GM sneers at such petty "problems"... :p

Anyway, as far as I know there is enough money within Porsche to cover that debt, the quarrel has been over how Porsche wanted to do it, and who's going to pay the bill. Porsche wanted to buy so much of VW that they could use their cash reserves to pay for the whole thing, but due to the financial crisis they didn't gain enough stock to be able to do so. The net result will be that Porsche might have to pay from their own profits for the whole deal themselves if the merger doesn't work out. If it works then the debt will be absorbed by the newly born giant. There is also however a possibility for Porsche to sell their holding of VW stock down to status quo to get rid of the debt (VW stocks are still high in demand), but that will be a net loss for the whole thing.
 
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In other news, Russia turns out to actually be pretty big.


Start selling Euro Fords stateside already dammit! If just so I can drive a Fiesta rental when I'm there!
 
Crazyjeeper said:
My F150 is also fine and Ford isn't going anywhere :p
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+1.

On the other hand, my parent's 2007 Accord just had to be towed to the dealer. Seems the battery is already flat on it. It also has had the navigation unit fail in the first year. They also complain of an exceptional amount of road noise.

They miss their 2001 Accord terribly.
 
My Mercury is fine and...oh...well...umm...Ford isn't going anywhere.
 
marcos_eirik said:
Porsche wanted to buy so much of VW that they could use their cash reserves to pay for the whole thing, but due to the financial crisis they didn't gain enough stock to be able to do so.
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Nope, Porsche's whole idea of taking over VW only started when the crisis was in full swing and VW stock dropped. The problem is that when the state of Lower-Saxony, who owned VW until 1960, sold it off, they passed a law that states that no matter how many shares a single party owns, this party's vote will be limited to 20%, the same the state of Lower-Saxony has. With the State of Lower Saxony having the same voting power as any given third party, they, together with the worker's council, can block any descision, like, for example, granting Porsche acess to VW's cash reserve.
Porsche's CEO now gambled that a EU court would overthrow this law, thus giving them control of the already-bought company. Sadly, he underestimated the creativity of Lower-Saxony's ruling conservative party: Using a loophole in german stock coropration law, they changed the majority of votes needed in the shareholder's meeting from the standard 75% to 80%, which gives them, holding 20.2% of stock the same rights as before without violating EU rules. Thus, Porsche is fucked for now.
The EU already has taken germany to court over the new law as it obviously serves the sole purpose of circumventing a prior court ruling, but until that's decided, VW most likely bought Porsche themselves.
 
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Donington said:
Start selling Euro Fords stateside already dammit! If just so I can drive a Fiesta rental when I'm there!
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In the world of Obama Motors, that may not be allowed. GM is being forbidden from bringing Opels over to the US (of course this is a bouquet from Obama to the Unions to create protectionist jobs building crappy small cars here). When Ford succumbs to government strongarming, look for more of the same.
 
janstett said:
GM is being forbidden from bringing Opels over to the US.
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Hate-mongering removed, all that stays is one wrong fact.
GM (or Obama Motors in your world) is forbidding Magna, who bought most of Opel from GM, from bringing Opels to the US. That's noting new or Obama-esque, it's just the status quo of the last 50+ years continuted: GM never brought Opel cars to the U.S., with one or two exceptions?(the GT and maybe one other model which i've forgotten about), but built identical or closesly related cars (the Chevette was a Kadett with a different bodykit and U.S. engine, for example) locally. As they seem to keep the rights to use all Opel technology developed until the sale (and still own a minority of Opel's stock), of course they want to keep this principle upheld for the current product cycle. This does not have to do with U.S. government strongarming, but with good negotiation on (pre-chapter 11) GM's side when selling Magna: They sold off a loss-making subsidiary and still got a gurantee that this won't compete with them for the time being.

There is more than enough to critizise in Obama's handling of the crisis (and the nationalisation of car companys) without creating conspiracy theories.
 
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Um.... one *little* problem with that assertion.

Opels used to be sold in the US, and within the last 50 years. We got the Manta and early Kadett as well as the GT.
 
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Spectre said:
Um.... one *little* problem with that assertion.

Opels used to be sold in the US, and within the last 50 years. We got the Manta and early Kadett as well as the GT.
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I mentioned the GT. From Wiki:
The Manta A was one of only a few Opel models sold in the U.S. Market. Opels were imported by GM and sold through Buick dealerships and not their own dealership network, so they were limited in what makes and models they could sell here. Other Opel models sold in the U.S. market were the 1956?61 the Rekord P1 and Rekord P2, the Kadett A (1964?66), Kadett B (1967?71), GT (1969?73), Manta / Ascona A (1971?75). The last year GM imported European made Opels into the United States, under their marquee, was 1975.
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If you change my 50+ years to 35+ years, my point of this part of the GM-Magna deal only manifesting the status quo still stands.
As far as one can see from the press, current deals between GM Europe and GM North America are not automatically terminated by the Magna deal, so the rebadging of the Astra as a Saturn for the U.S. market will not end with the Magna deal (more likely with the killing of Saturn by GM) - on the contrary, the idea is that GM-sold re-badged Opels and Magna-sold Opel-badged Opels don't sell in the same marketplace, i think.
 
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gtrietsc said:
+1.

On the other hand, my parent's 2007 Accord just had to be towed to the dealer. Seems the battery is already flat on it. It also has had the navigation unit fail in the first year. They also complain of an exceptional amount of road noise.

They miss their 2001 Accord terribly.
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Accords are terrible cars. My mum's got one. As you say, there is an abundance of road noise and cheap, tacky plastics everywhere. It's like being in the toy aisle of Walmart.
 
I was terribly amused when I saw a video if the US plant announcing the export of the first Accord back to Japan, why I hear you ask?

It was a left hooker (no not that sort of hooker), all, I am sure, that is made at that plant is LHD - epic fail. It will probably have been exported on to another LHD country I suppose.
 
Vette Boss said:
Accords are terrible cars. My mum's got one. As you say, there is an abundance of road noise and cheap, tacky plastics everywhere. It's like being in the toy aisle of Walmart.
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The last accord I sat in I thought was rather nice, but then it was fully optioned and I don't recall much else beyond that.
 
Cobol74 said:
I was terribly amused when I saw a video if the US plant announcing the export of the first Accord back to Japan, why I hear you ask?

It was a left hooker (no not that sort of hooker), all, I am sure, that is made at that plant is LHD - epic fail. It will probably have been exported on to another LHD country I suppose.
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Honda America makes RHD Accords in the US as well.
 
thedguy said:
The last accord I sat in I thought was rather nice, but then it was fully optioned and I don't recall much else beyond that.
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Once you look beyond the gadgets, there's not much left. The EX mum has does very little to impress. I see very little reason to choose one over a used Audi or a new Passat.
 
Dr_Grip said:
Nope, Porsche's whole idea of taking over VW only started when the crisis was in full swing and VW stock dropped. The problem is that when the state of Lower-Saxony, who owned VW until 1960, sold it off, they passed a law that states that no matter how many shares a single party owns, this party's vote will be limited to 20%, the same the state of Lower-Saxony has. With the State of Lower Saxony having the same voting power as any given third party, they, together with the worker's council, can block any descision, like, for example, granting Porsche acess to VW's cash reserve.
Porsche's CEO now gambled that a EU court would overthrow this law, thus giving them control of the already-bought company. Sadly, he underestimated the creativity of Lower-Saxony's ruling conservative party: Using a loophole in german stock coropration law, they changed the majority of votes needed in the shareholder's meeting from the standard 75% to 80%, which gives them, holding 20.2% of stock the same rights as before without violating EU rules. Thus, Porsche is fucked for now.
The EU already has taken germany to court over the new law as it obviously serves the sole purpose of circumventing a prior court ruling, but until that's decided, VW most likely bought Porsche themselves.
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To be fair it has to be mentioned, that Porsche and its CEO Wendelin Wiedeking have acted with growing arrogance over the past years. Wiedeking for example was a regular guest in talk shows, always complaining how other companies used federal help and subventions, while Porsche didn't.

And now that the company is in serious trouble, guess who Wiedeking is turning to for help: Right, the state. He undoubtedly has saved Porsche from bankruptcy in the early 1990's but he wouldn't be the first CEO who first saved a company, only to drive it into a wall later.

Because as it turned out, Porsche's success was for a big part due to risky speculations on the international financial markets - that's where the huge profits came from - and now they are in trouble. Big trouble. In March they were literally minutes away from insolvency. Only a combined efford of VW, the state of Lower Saxony and the banks in an emergency meeting was able to save Porsche.

VW on the other hand cannot allow to lose Porsche to some foreign investor, because anyone who buys Porsche, also owns VW.

Currently the whole thing is stuck because Porsche doesn't play with open cards, refusing to open their books to the VW people to check for more hidden financial time bombs. That's why the talks stalled for the moment.

But a solution has to be found soon, because time is running out for Porsche due to some time bargains with future options, which could produce a couple billion Euros more debts.

Only one thing is for sure: Wendelin Wiedeking's career at Porsche is over. Ferdinand Piech will see to that. He despises Wiedeking's methods. Piech is an engineer and he doesn't have any respect for people who make profits with financial speculations and then try taking over a company that earns its money with building cars.
 
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MacGuffin said:
Only one thing is for sure: Wendelin Wiedeking's career at Porsche is over. Ferdinand Piech will see to that. He despises Wiedeking's methods. Piech is an engineer and he doesn't have any respect for people who make profits with financial speculations and then try taking over a company that earns its money with building cars.
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Which will probably be a big mistake on Piech's part. As I see it Porsche and Wiedeking is like Apple and Steve Jobs, and we all know what happened to Apple when Jobs was gone and what also happened when he came back.
 
marcos_eirik said:
Which will probably be a big mistake on Piech's part. As I see it Porsche and Wiedeking is like Apple and Steve Jobs, and we all know what happened to Apple when Jobs was gone and what also happened when he came back.
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Porsche did quite well without Wiedekind most of the time, unlike Steve he did not found Porsche.
 
Vette Boss said:
Once you look beyond the gadgets, there's not much left. The EX mum has does very little to impress. I see very little reason to choose one over a used Audi or a new Passat.
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Warranty?

I actually thought the quality of the materials wasn't bad in the car, but again, I didn't exactly spend a long time in it, or think much about it.
 
Price as well. Entry level Accords are over $7000 less than entry level Passats.
 
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