Auto sales plunge in face of $4 gas

It only takes a short time for a company to loose a reputation and many years to build one. Ford in the UK did not have a great rep and it is only in the last few years that this is turning around - Focus is the best selling car here, and for good reason. Right product, right packaging, right quality and price. It stimulates the competition, ASTRA has improved out of all recognition in the last iteration, so the French respond - C4 for instance etc. Its a virtuous circle. One thing though very few British manufacturers are left and the best are Japanese owned. Hopefully Jaguar can pull it around under new management but only time will tell.

One thing about our old trade unions - many of their leaders were motivated by a desire to bring down the capitalist system, so that is not a good start.
 
Do they even offer 4 cylinder trucks anymore?

I mean i wouldnt mind having a truck, but the problem is now they all carry giant engines, i would like a one row, bench seat small truck with a Sub-3L I4, and a 4 speed gearbox. Is that so much to ask?

Even the ford ranger is gigantic these days.

Ranger,Colorado and Tacoma's are all sold with 4's. The ranger a 2.3L and the Chevy and Toyota with a 2.7's. They actually appear bigger than they really are,at least I think.
 
Really.

So, now you change your tune.

I change NOTHING. Life is more complex than you binary brain can process.


Now, to the one question that you think has some merit, but in reality, your "gotcha moment" is the stuff of mindless hate radio

I asked this before, and like all questions I've put to you, you have deflected, evaded, or just refused to answer. What the hell does the fact that the cars fall apart due to shitty assembly have to do with "engines that were designed to get only 10mpg"???

SUVs were huge sellers that kept GM/FORD afloat in the 1990s and early 2000s. People were buying them as fast as they left the line, so your ridiculous assertion that people didn't buy SUVs due to build quality doesn't stand up. You need a new Republican talking point from your masters.

Management decided to keep making large displacement engines, you know, those engines that the knuckledraggers keep mooing on about "no replacement for displacement" about, instead of making a decision, like Toyota did, to invest in hybrid technology as well as more efficient designs.

People are not turning away from American vehicles now because of crappy build quality, because there has in fact been great improvement, but rather due to inefficient engines in a time of $4/gal gas.


Interesting that you're automatically assuming that management and CEOs are corrupt and incompetent.

There is no assumption. I have history on my side. Management decided that Buick should be what it is, the Chrysler would be the bitch to Daimler's pimp, and that Ford would keep their European products from these shores while banking their company on the Explorer. Please show me proof of a tunafish sandwich eating lineman in a Detroit factory that forced the company to make all those revenue deficient decisions.

So please, stop the Republican talking points and actually leave the herd to go find proof that the UAW makes the decisions at the Big Three from the quality of the metal to be used, the quality of paint to be used, the type of engine that each model will have, etc...etc. Shareholders will dying for this information because they'll want to stop paying the management at these companies their current salaries because some anonymous linemen in Detroit factories are the real leaders of GM, Ford, Chrysler.:rolleyes:
 
I change NOTHING. Life is more complex than you binary brain can process.


Now, to the one question that you think has some merit, but in reality, your "gotcha moment" is the stuff of mindless hate radio



SUVs were huge sellers that kept GM/FORD afloat in the 1990s and early 2000s. People were buying them as fast as they left the line, so your ridiculous assertion that people didn't buy SUVs due to build quality doesn't stand up. You need a new Republican talking point from your masters.

Management decided to keep making large displacement engines, you know, those engines that the knuckledraggers keep mooing on about "no replacement for displacement" about, instead of making a decision, like Toyota did, to invest in hybrid technology as well as more efficient designs.

People are not turning away from American vehicles now because of crappy build quality, because there has in fact been great improvement, but rather due to inefficient engines in a time of $4/gal gas.




There is no assumption. I have history on my side. Management decided that Buick should be what it is, the Chrysler would be the bitch to Daimler's pimp, and that Ford would keep their European products from these shores while banking their company on the Explorer. Please show me proof of a tunafish sandwich eating lineman in a Detroit factory that forced the company to make all those revenue deficient decisions.

So please, stop the Republican talking points and actually leave the herd to go find proof that the UAW makes the decisions at the Big Three from the quality of the metal to be used, the quality of paint to be used, the type of engine that each model will have, etc...etc. Shareholders will dying for this information because they'll want to stop paying the management at these companies their current salaries because some anonymous linemen in Detroit factories are the real leaders of GM, Ford, Chrysler.:rolleyes:

Oh man...personal attacks, spewing a manifesto instead of actual, I dunno, debate, do I sense a banhammer coming soon? https://pic.armedcats.net/l/la/labcoatguy/2008/06/11/popcorn.gif
 
Torrent Rider, are you talking about the current crisis for the Big Three on Bizarro World?

Seriously. The biggest reasons European models have been kept here is the cost to build some of them, and worse that the UAW opposes it. GM had to negotiate with the UAW to bring the Monaro from Australia as the GTO, and similarly for the G8 I am sure.
 
Even though that UAW seems to be a huge pain in the butt, I still believe that whenever there are demotivated workers who don't give a damn about what they're doing as long as the money flows, it is always at least partially a management problem.

From what I read so far, it still is unclear to me what could drive workers to do such acts of sabotage and - even more unclear - what keeps the management from stopping it in the homeland of lawsuits.

I'm sure there is no contract anywhere that says that workers have a right to do their work badly. So the management should have ways and methods to deal with such excesses, but obviously there is not only a lack of motivation but also a lack of creativity and of power of leadership.
 
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MacGuffin, you dont understand how powerful the unions are here in parts of the US. Another good example - I have an uncle that sells/installs fire protection systems (think sprinklers, alarms) for buildings in a large city here in the US. Between mandatory breaks, lunches, etc - he gets about 5.5 hours a day work out of them, tops. The union even requires him to pay someone to safely operate an elevator for jobsites that have one - yes, they pay someone $25/hour to push elevator buttons.

The alternative is to have no workers at all, because if you are a skilled tradesman, you have to belong to a union, or you get blackballed from working anywhere that is unionized.

When I was coming back from San Francisco last year, we were riding the train to the airport, and this guy saw our luggage and kept asking all these questions about where we are from (Dallas area). He asked what the typical wage is for a painter here, and I told him I didnt know, it probably varies by the company/job/experience. Somehow we got on the subject of wages of other things, and I mentioned that a cashier at a grocery store might make in the $8/10 hour range here. He was incredulous - how could the union agree to that? I told him they arent unionized, and he flipped. Then he asked, "So, what does an apartment cost there, $500 a month?" and I said, sure, you can find rent for that much if you look, no problem. I might as well have been from another world - guaranteed wages and a ridiculous real estate market was all he has ever known. It was great.

(Sorry for the ramble, but it was funny.) :)
 
Well, this whole thing surely does not help to enhance trust in the U.S. economy...
 
Even though that UAW seems to be a huge pain in the butt, I still believe that whenever there are demotivated workers who don't give a damn about what they're doing as long as the money flows, it is always at least partially a management problem.

From what I read so far, it still is unclear to me what could drive workers to do such acts of sabotage and - even more unclear - what keeps the management from stopping it in the homeland of lawsuits.

I'm sure there is no contract anywhere that says that workers have a right to do their work badly. So the management should have ways and methods to deal with such excesses, but obviously there is not only a lack of motivation but also a lack of creativity and of power of leadership.

Easy solution to the problem of this is to hire quality assurance (QA) inspectors to check each vehicle over. If the vehicle is built improperly, then you fire the ones responsible. With the UAW, this isn't possible because:

1) The QA inspectors are UAW members, and therefor aren't going to rat out their fellow employees.

2) GM in particular are not allowed, by contract, to actually fire anyone. They have to petition the UAW, in which time, the worst they can do is move the offender into a room, and still end up paying the guy full wages for doing nothing. Then the UAW rejects the petition to fire the guy, so now GM has a completely useless worker who they still have to pay $100k+ a year for.
 
Well, if it is going on like that the problem will solve itself eventually - but in away neither the UAW, nor the management will like.
 
Easy solution to the problem of this is to hire quality assurance (QA) inspectors to check each vehicle over. If the vehicle is built improperly, then you fire the ones responsible. With the UAW, this isn't possible because:

1) The QA inspectors are UAW members, and therefor aren't going to rat out their fellow employees.

2) GM in particular are not allowed, by contract, to actually fire anyone. They have to petition the UAW, in which time, the worst they can do is move the offender into a room, and still end up paying the guy full wages for doing nothing. Then the UAW rejects the petition to fire the guy, so now GM has a completely useless worker who they still have to pay $100k+ a year for.

And this is all managements fault. Obviously when they signed those contracts they weren't exactly thinking ahead.
 
And this is all managements fault. Obviously when they signed those contracts they weren't exactly thinking ahead.

I doubt they were thinking at all. Obviously it was at a time when the Japanese weren't taken serious, Volkswagen only made the Beetle, Audi didn't exist and BMW and Mercedes were exotics.

They did not think, they felt invincible. Always a mistake...
 
So... the same people from 25-odd years ago are still building UAW cars, right? Then see this:

http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/dodge_wildcat.html Warning - *heavy* socialist content.

Idle workers laid back and laughed as maintenance men and supervisors tore open a gearbox for the line driving motor and dug out a power steering pump that belonged about 75 feet further down the line. When the same incident happened at the same time on Saturday, even management was convinced that it was not an accident, but there was little they could do but fix it and curse.

Most people call it sabotage and hold varied opinions about it. A typical executive would demand to know, ?Why would these workers destroy the very means of their livelihood, it just shows what lazy, stupid, irresponsible people they are.?

A union rep might say, ?If something is wrong they should go through the proper channels of the grievance procedure, otherwise it destroys the authority of their elected representatives.?

Sabotage is a way of fife in any large industrial operation, especially in auto plants where the moving line dominates everything. The word itself comes from the French ?sabot? meaning a wooden shoe to be thrown into the machinery. That dates back to the earliest mass production.

What do all these varied means of resistance signify? An easier way to answer that question would be to discover what they do not signify. Workers were not searching for better representation from current authorities, management and/or the union, nor were they searching for new leaders to become new bosses ... and still go to work.

They were not looking for slight improvements in working conditions, after all it would have been easier to go out and buy their own gloves, or even drop out and live a cheap hippy life style rather than take action with such potentially tremendous social consequence.

The demands of the strike were not even formulated until the third day and even the issue of the firing of the four metal shop workers and union rep, was admitted by all to be only the spark for the uprising.

"Everything", offered one young exuberant worker when asked what he wanted during the peak of the strike action.

"I just don't want to work", moaned another during the first few depressed days of the return to work after the strike.

That's just one of many links I have about UAW and union sabotage, stupidity, and violence. These people are PROUD of the fact that they sabotage cars, production lines, whatever! They use thuggery and threats to keep people "in line" and cowed - up to and including *murder* as a tool. There are *many* sites on the web where UAW members crow about how they screwed "the man" and beat down people who disagreed with them.

And torrent_rider says we should trust them to build our cars???
 
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I couldnt read all that, Spectre. I got the gist of it though - but I would be pissed off if I read the whole thing.

I did like the whining about the American auto companies not having the capital to invest in better facilities or production methods though. Gee, I wonder why that is. Where could they be spending all that money? Hmm.
 
And this is all managements fault. Obviously when they signed those contracts they weren't exactly thinking ahead.


I see that this is not a place where people actually want to be taken seriously because they are actually aware of all of the facts instead choosing to moo out tired old cliches. In no way is it ALL management's fault because the UAW does protect useless workers who have done shoddy work. However, it is simply a fact of reality that people here are free to deny, (but never negate) is that management is in charge (that is why they are management) and they made poor decisions ranging from inefficient manafacturing in the 1970s to GMs billion dollar fiasco with FIAT.

What, no one going to come in here and try to blame the UAW for GM losing billions in the FIAT deal?:rolleyes:
 
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I see that this is not a place where people actually want to be taken seriously because they are actually aware of all of the facts instead choosing to moo out tired old cliches. In no way is it ALL management's fault because the UAW does protect useless workers who have done shoddy work. However, it is simply a fact of reality that people here are free to deny, (but never negate) is that management is in charge (that is why they are management) and they made poor decisions ranging from inefficient manafacturing in the 1970s to GMs billion dollar fiasco with FIAT.

What, no one going to come in here and try to blame the UAW for GM losing billions in the FIAT deal?:rolleyes:

The FIAT deal, while disastrous, has nothing to do with car quality.

If you are wondering why no one here is liking you it is because all you have done thus far is call everyone else names, refuse to acknowledge or respond to points brought up by others, and keep throwing in these straw man arguments. Act like an adult.
 
I always thought trucks were like the new age muscle cars. Front engine, rear drive, solid axles, lots of V8's, some supercharged, and a couple even came with V10's. And they're cheap.

And now it looks like another gas crisis will be the end of them.

You know I have been thinking the same thing for years. The big 3 refused to give us a RWD car with a v8 engine again, so some of us took to pick-ups and SUV's.

gtrietsc: Thanks for giving him an out. However, I do not accept that, as there is nothing management CAN do at this point to fix it within the confines of the union. So we'll still have to wait for his explanation. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.

Well it was managements fault for signing onto that deal in the first place, so arguably blame could be placed there. But why the UAW doesn't agree to let shitty workers go is beyond me... and their own fault.

As has been pointed out before, with the rise of much better designs from Detroit if they still go under and it's mostly a complaint about quality, then there is only one place left to blame.
 
You know I have been thinking the same thing for years. The big 3 refused to give us a RWD car with a v8 engine again, so some of us took to pick-ups and SUV's.

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You know I have been thinking the same thing for years. The big 3 refused to give us a RWD car with a v8 engine again, so some of us took to pick-ups and SUV's.

Well trucks were easier. It's hard to make a work truck that can haul large loads and have tremendous towing capacity, but still get 30mpg and be super ultra low emissions. The government knows that some businesses absolutely require a vehicle to perform those functions and they don't have massive piles of cash to buy one with, so Trucks were given an almost free pass on emissions and fuel economy standards. And the car companies were able to squeeze SUV's into the Truck category to get those low standards too.

Muscle cars were cheap as dirt back in the day. It's easy to build a big V8 for very little money. It's harder to build one thats clean and efficient. That's why you see the LSX V8's in GM's cars, but the Vortec V8's in the Trucks and SUVs.
 
The Impala SS and Grand Prix GTP has a 5.3L Vortec V8.
 
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